Word: absurdum
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...fact that people who have a vivid memory of the horrors of World War II are able to laugh heartily and without uneasiness at this character is a curious phenomenon. If he were obviously a caracature, an unbelievable reductio ad absurdum of certain germanic traits, it would be easier to understand. But Werfel's Colonel, while perhaps exaggerated, is nevertheless real; and the qualities we all find so amusing were terrorizing the world for six years...
...against it--belief which, is, in short, "absurd." The claim to have gotten "beyond" rational thought is a form of what Russell regards as the arch-vice, intellectual dishonesty. He would probably say that it is patently impossible to argue with someone who insists on Tertullian's Credo quia absurdum est. Such a case needs a psychiatrist, not syllogisms...
...proposed Congressional inquiry of the regulatory commissions "to find out whether commissions are actually carrying out the laws under their jurisdiction or are distoring legislative intent." I am afraid that you are in for another disappointment--there have already been many. This investigation is surely the reductio as absurdum of the investigatory device. The Communications Commission has been persistently investigated for the last ten years and the investigators find themselves weary and empty-handed. The Intertate Commerce Commission has been investigated in one way or another for the last decade and the prospects for an effective and comprehensible criticism...
...call Sigmund Freud a philosopher, in the true sense of the word, is a gross misnomer. A philosopher is one who examines the ultimate causes, principles, and reasons for man's existence. To construct a philosophy on Freudian principles would lead to a reductio ad absurdum to end all reductios...
...great philosophers is a quick way to get out of the movie business, but this time the borrower is René Clair (Sous les Toits de Paris, Le Million), a man as skillful with pictures as Pascal was with ideas. The result is a wonderfully natty little reductio ad absurdum-"all bird," as one observer put it, "and no stuffing...