This weekend, nationally-renowned groundhog Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and predicted six more weeks of winter. Chained and shackled with a fixed head, he did not realize the shadow he saw was created from unseen puppeteers behind him, illuminated by the glow of bonfire.
“Sorry guys,” grunted Punxsutawney Phil, clearly a misguided phenomenological epistemologist. “Looks like there’s going to be more winter!” Concerning his opinions on the Arendtian interpretation of Platonic allegory, he made an affirmative rodential sound.
This is not the first time that a lovable animal mascot has committed a philosophical faux-paw. Notoriously in a leaked 2014 interview, Oski the Bear discussed his views as a mereological nihilist: “I mean, what do you mean everything is composite? That’s stupid.” Oski has since been lambasted by the philosophy community and released an apology.
Commenting on his rationalist approach to the derivation of higher order thinking, Punxsutawney Phil said, “I like eating vegetables and small fruits,” his prudential hedonism an affront to all self-respecting philosophers.
The question of whether or not there actually will be six more weeks of winter is left indecisive, given the way superpositions govern modern day schools of philosophical thought on free will and the nature of determinism. When asked for comment, Punxsutawney Phil chittered, “I can live up to 14 years in captivity.” What a fucking idiot.
