The aphorisms of Yogi BERRA

Delightful insights from Paul Larendau's An inquiry into a sample of vernacular philosophy: the aphorisms of Yogi BERRA

" ... An important amount of the reflection contained in BERRAISMS is about the inner contradictions of knowledge, more precisely, of understanding in the sense of classical rationalist philosophy:

YOU CAN OBSERVE A LOT JUST BY WATCHING

YOU CAN SEE A LOT BY OBSERVING

The logia fluctuates here, but in that case, both versions provide the same level of philosophical dept. Strongly influenced by scholarly thought, the doctrine of knowledge of modern culture tends to value the virtues of practical experimentation over simple contemplative observation. That orientation in the tradition is rooted in DESCARTES and the Cartesian continuation. But in 18 th century, DIDEROT and a series of materialist philosophers called the naturalist materialists tried to demonstrate that strict observation, if performed with no prejudice. could supersede experimentation, specially if that one is biased by a priori conceptualizations and prejudices, of the type of the one DESCARTES and his disciples had a tendency to entertain. Furthermore, in certain sciences, for example astronomy, observation was the only procedure of apprehension available. Here, fundamentally in the debate between DESCARTES and DIDEROT on the activity of knowledge, Yogi opts for the ideas put forward by DIDEROT, the naturalist materialist, who analyzed in detail the virtues of simple observation with the senses. This is solidly in objection with the Cartesianist position that lionizes the virtues of experimentation over mere observation. The conscience of objecting to a dominant idea is present in the tone of the aphorism. Yogi speaks here, knowing that he is not saying something everybody will spontaneously agree with. But as a good catcher always knows, the virtues of simple observation of every corners of the field are to be reconsidered in modern culture. The tremendous capacity of millions of fans, gathered since almost a century in stadiums big as canyons, to focus their attention and cognitive activity on the arabesques of a flying object of the size of a fist tends to support such an opinion!

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ITS TOUGH TO MAKE PREDICTIONS, SPECIALLY ABOUT THE FUTURE

Here comes dialectics. Stop to laugh and face the flat logical consequences of that aphorism: predictions can be done about something other than the future . Let try to understand that contradiction. First, prediction can be done about the past quite simply, as in Here he comes! I predict you that he will have forgotten to phone Mary . One may not think about it immediately, busy as one are laughing, but it is quite straightforward... and the easiest to do, according to Yogi. Now what about predictions about the present ? So contradictory! Well, let us try to understand the fact (painful for our common sense, but scientifically demonstrated by Einstein) that time varies when speed varies. The subjectivity of Yogi BERRA, as the one of any baseball player, lives the most intense peeks of its mental activity in an endless reiteration of brief instants . Between the moment the pitcher pitches and the moment you strike or catch, there is a short, so short distance that no, you cannot call that the future. And it is on that infinitesimal hiatus between two moments that the most intensive activity of prediction of a baseball batter or catcher is doomed to flourish. You eventually end up knowing for a flat objective fact, when your praxis develops itself in such a universe, that the present has absolutely no stability whatsoever, and that, contrarily to what common sense believes, prediction applies to it as well, because speed alterates time . Other than Einstein, only the antique Greek dialectician HERACLITUS expressed such a sharp consciousness of the fluency of the time process. Then, since that fundamentally fugitive present moment is already difficult to predict about, just imagine what the future, distant, tangled and complex as it appears from the home base, can be... "

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