How I Met Your Mother and Philosophy (35 page)

Gramey claps his hands: “Very well put, Georgy! I just wish you'd been that clear in your bro code! Trying to understand what is going on there is like playing laser tag in a labyrinth! But I tried to do that and I tried to make things clear in another book I wrote, titled
Beyond the Limits of Thought
. Don't worry, Barney, this is not a commercial. I just wanted to say that in that book I show what happens when thought overcomes what are supposed to be its standard limits. Surprisingly, thought does not get lost, but as shown by Georgy's example of the finite, thought ends up discovering new dimensions of itself, new horizons to look at, and a new path to walk through.

“So, every time you say “Challenge accepted!” you focus on a limit you face in the way you are. This limit traces a line between what is possible and what is impossible. If you endorse a classical conception of the limit and you refuse to think and live in a world containing true contradictions, the limit turns out to be something which definitely separates you from the impossible, and the impossible itself remains something that you will never reach. If instead you endorse an “awesome” dynamical conception of the limit and accept the challenge of thinking and living in a world containing true contradictions, the limit becomes something that connects you and the impossible, which turns into a task to be accomplished, or, a goal to be reached, or, a challenge to be won. The limit is the place where the possible and the impossible meet to precisely become the possimpible. The limit is the possimpible itself. True story!”

How to Be Really Awesome

Barney grabs Gramey's and Georgy's hands and says: “Thank you guys, you really are my philosophy wingmen and I really
think I get you now. Now I have all I need to show Toga Guy and Creepy Monk Guy why what I said about the possimpible was not nonsensical, but something that everyone should take as a mantra—or maybe even as the new rule number one for legendary philosophy bros.

Living in a possimpible world is like living on an edge that always needs to be overcome in order for everyone to reach the dimension of awesomeness. When Barney asks people and himself to be awesome, he is not asking to be something which is completely out of our hands. He is just encouraging people to live life as if it was not set inside certain limits which cannot be crossed, that is to say, we should not take life as something that has already been planned by someone else, or, we should not feel like we have to wear a suit which someone else chose for us. Life needs to be taken as an ever changing life where every single moment is a chance to overcome ourselves, our limits and all the fears and prejudices that prevent us from becoming what we would like to be, that is what we inherently are. And the overcoming of a limit, as we have seen in our story, always involves the challenge to think and live a contradiction, which is the challenge to think and live the possimpible.

This is exactly what Barney did when he was a lame hippie crying his eyes out because of abandonment by his girlfriend Shannon. When he realized how lame he was, a complete change occurred in him and Barney became an awesome suited-up guy. Are the lame hippie guy and the awesome suited up guy the same guy? Actually, they are, since they both are Barney Stinson. And if we pay attention to the passage between the two, we can see the possimpible taking place. We can see the lame hippie guy becoming someone that he was not, we can see the dimension of lameness turning into the dimension of awesomeness, we can see the possible meeting the impossible, we can see the possimpible: the two opposites becoming one.

How did it happen? How can the impossible turn into the possible? The lame hippie guy managed to focus on his limits and had the courage to overcome them, by trying to realize himself, that is, his identity, by completely changing this very identity and by becoming someone else.

To fully accomplish his true nature and make him become the awesome person he is, Barney lives his identity as an identity
that necessarily involves difference in itself. Barney's barneytude
⁴
is always the same, but it can be the barneytude it is only by being an ever-changing barneytude, by becoming always something new and making him touch new dimensions of awesomeness.

Nevertheless, by being built on a process of self-differentiation, this identity, that is to say, Barney's barneytude, is an inherently contradictory identity. Thus, the only way for Barney—but also for us—to be really what he is, that is, to express and realize his own nature, his awesomeness, is to be able to make room for the possimpible and for the contradictions it will imply in both his and our thought, world, and life. Only if we learn to think and live the contradiction of the possimpible, will we follow the same path that Barney is walking—the legendary path that will lead us to be like him: awesome!
⁵

¹
“The most certain of all basic principles is that contradictory propositions are not true simultaneously” (
Metaphysics
, lines 1011b13–14).

²
“No one can believe that the same thing can (at the same time) be and not be” (1005b23–24).

³
“It is impossible that the same thing belong and not belong to the same thing at the same time and in the same respect” (1005b19–20).

⁴
The essence, or, the true nature of Barney.

⁵
I thank Elena Tripaldi for her suggestions and helpful remarks. A special thank to Luca Illetterati. I owe him everything I know about limits and their overcoming.

About the Authors

T
HOMAS
A
INSWORTH
read Classics at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he also completed the BPhil in philosophy. He then jumped ship to Corpus Christi College, and is about to be examined for his doctorate, which is entitled “The Grounds of Unity: Substantial and Sub-substantial Being in Aristotle.” Adopting a peripatetic attitude to Oxford colleges, he has held lectureships at St. Anne's College, and Lady Margaret Hall. His philosophical interests are not confined to ancient metaphysics, and he has taught courses on logic, epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of language, as well as diverse periods from the history of philosophy. When he isn't serenely contemplating the nature of being, in a tailor-made Italian suit of course, he enjoys playing laser tag and performing magic tricks.

M
ARYAM
B
ABUR
received her Hon. BSc with a Major in Biochemistry and Major in Philosophy from the University of Western Ontario and in 2012, graduated
cum laude
from the University of Amsterdam with a Research Master's in Philosophy. Because she's a Muslim, politically correct folks feel obliged to tolerate her dirty jokes and otherwise ridiculous sense of humor. This form of affirmative action doesn't seem to bother her, as she knows there's no shame in being bro-tastic. (As the eldest and only daughter, it's always been her four bro-some bros before hoes, so she's always had her priorities straight.) Like most self-styled intellectuals, she always lists ‘reading' as a hobby—'cause c'mon let's face it, sometimes you just wanna lay there . . . and read philosophy. She loves street hockey, field hockey, publicly humiliating others in a friendly way (slap bet anyone?), tea, coffee, really all forms of caffeine, cake, foam, Tetris, humming Super Mario tunes on repeat, and kung fu.

B
ART VAN
B
EEK
is a Lecturer in Philosophy of Language and Logic at the Radboud University Nijmegen. He's interested in the semantics of proper names, the role of beliefs and desires in theories of language, and vagueness, but is unlikely to publish in any of these areas as he is currently setting up shop as a philosophical counselor and all-round wise guy.

M
ICHELA
B
ORDIGNON
got her PhD in Philosophy at Padua University. She was reading Hegel's
Science of Logic
for six years and then fortunately her friends pushed her into a rehab center. Now she works at Punky Reggae Pub (San Zenone degli Ezzelini) and at Fattoria Sociale La Conca d'Oro (Bassano del Grappa). She is highly qualified in washing dishes and in making a special kind of panini called
panino onto
. Nevertheless, she continues to collaborate with the Padua Research Group on German Idealism.

K
RIS
G
OFFIN
is a young Belgian philosopher of emotion. He has studied philosophy at the University of Antwerp and at the University of Leuven. He's now completing a PhD on music and emotion at Ghent University. In his search for emotional meaning Kris is breaking down the boundaries between psychology and philosophy, which is awesome. He also teaches two awesome seminars: one on contemporary philosophy and one on contemporary art. Barney Stinson is his personal hero and intellectual father.

T
OBIAS
H
AINZ
is a philosopher specializing in applied ethics, with a focus on future technologies in general and human enhancement in particular. He has recently completed a PhD thesis on the ethical evaluation of life extension technologies. Although he loathed math in high school, he frequently uses pseudo-mathematical methods in order to support his philosophical reasoning. When he is not engaging in philosophizing, he tries to convince his friends and colleagues that he is not a mixture of Marshall Eriksen and Sheldon Cooper (from
The Big Bang Theory
), but his arguments are usually regarded as unsound.

C
ARTER
H
ARDY
is a philosophy graduate student, working towards his PhD, and specializing in phenomenology of mind and emotion. You can think of him as a philosopher version of Marshall. Just replace Lily with his significant other, whom he has also been with his entire adult life. Replace Marshall's son Marvin with two destructive ferrets. And replace being a kind-hearted giant with being a pretty nice, normal-sized guy, and there you have him. To sum him up in a word, it would have to be “philososome.” Part philosopher, part awesome. Barney would be proud.

F
RANK
G. K
ARIORIS
is a latecomer to
How I Met Your Mother
, but has been known to suit up from time to time—though more of a blazer guy really. He lived in England for two years, doing a master's, where he also learned about the Bro Code from his bros Dan and Ron. He's currently working on a PhD at Central European University in Budapest. From Milwaukee, and having gone to university at Marquette, he's a big fan of beer and is thoroughly intrigued to try Randy's prize-winning Hazelnut Pilsner.

M
ANOLO
M
ARTÍNEZ
worked putting ice cream in boxes and selling yogurt for more years than he cares to remember. Then he started doing philosophy, which he's been at for quite some time too (but he's fine with that). He was a lecturer at the University of Barcelona and is now enjoying a Beatriu de Pinós post-doctoral research grant at The Graduate Center of CUNY, New York. He spends an inordinate amount of time chasing his three-year-old son through some Brooklyn playground or other.

L
ORENZO VON
M
ATTERHORN
has been, under a pseudonym, serving as Professor of Philosophy and BOF Research Professor at the University of Antwerp and Senior Research Associate at Peterhouse, Cambridge University. He's the author, still under a pseudonym, of
Between Perception and Action
and
Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception
.

E
LIZE DE
M
UL
gets violently competitive when playing Zitch Dog. She holds a BA in Film and Television studies, an MA in New Media and Digital Culture, and another one in Philosophy. Surprisingly, this combination resulted in her current position as a PhD candidate at the Leiden Law Faculty in the Netherlands. She once spent an adventurous night with Abraham Lincoln when visiting New York (it was really him, he showed her his Facebook page), and he assured her he would call her. Sadly, he never did.

B
ENCE
N
ANAY
normally watches ‘angsty, existentialist Italian black and white movies', like the one we see in “Romeward Bound” (Season Eight). So
How I Met Your Mother
is a bit of a change of pace. He also likes to publish and edit books, under pseudonyms of a certain “reclusive billionaire who likes to take balloon flights to the North Pole as a feat of pure daring and imagination.”

J
ORDAN
P
ASCOE
is a philosopher and retired Canadian pop star who has almost certainly never been in Zamboni-themed porn. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two awesome step-kids, and a very well-behaved
goat. She was seen at the Stone Road Mall Tim Horton's eating a double chocolate glazed.