What the heck is a "cerpicio"?
Way back when I was taking college classes (okay, only about 10 years ago, but it seems much longer), I took an Intro to Philosphy class. The professor asked us find the definition for the word "cerpicio" as homework. No one found the answer.
The next day we talked about Descartes and his "Evil Genious". This Evil Genious was trying to convince a man that the world around him was fake, an illusion, as if made of paper. Only the E.G. could tell the difference because he had an extra sense, he could "cerpicio" the difference. He went on to talk about "thick" illusions (I'm not much of a philosopher so I won't go into more detail).
But I thought "cerpicio" was a neat word. Later on, when creating a character for an online Role Playing Game (RPG), I decided to use the name Cerpicio. After all, it would just be a virtual character living in a virtual world. All illusions. I thought it was a clever fit.
And I've used the name ever since.
But when I search for "cerpicio" now I have trouble finding it under Descartes' work. Usually I find old posts of mine. I did find one page on O.K. Bouwsma's discussion of the Evil Genious though.
Anyway, this is my first post in my first blog. I should stop now before I start to babble.
More later.
-- C.
The next day we talked about Descartes and his "Evil Genious". This Evil Genious was trying to convince a man that the world around him was fake, an illusion, as if made of paper. Only the E.G. could tell the difference because he had an extra sense, he could "cerpicio" the difference. He went on to talk about "thick" illusions (I'm not much of a philosopher so I won't go into more detail).
But I thought "cerpicio" was a neat word. Later on, when creating a character for an online Role Playing Game (RPG), I decided to use the name Cerpicio. After all, it would just be a virtual character living in a virtual world. All illusions. I thought it was a clever fit.
And I've used the name ever since.
But when I search for "cerpicio" now I have trouble finding it under Descartes' work. Usually I find old posts of mine. I did find one page on O.K. Bouwsma's discussion of the Evil Genious though.
Anyway, this is my first post in my first blog. I should stop now before I start to babble.
More later.
-- C.
posted by Cerpicio at 10:36 AM
15 Comments:
Here I thought you just loved the TV show
After reading O.K. Bouwsma's paper, "Descartes' Evil Genius", I was interested in the roots of the word 'Cerpicio'. Although I find no working derivitives (as of yet) I have come to believe that Bouwsma has created this word to make a point. For the most part you are correct in your understanding of the word, and to elaborate I will include a piece of text from Bouswma's paper:
Tom, the decieved human, is speaking with the Evil Genius, and after hearing that the flowers before him are illusions, he responds, "...that this added sense of yours has done wickedly with our language. You do not mean by illusion what we mean, and neither do you mean by flowers what we mean. As for cerpicio I wouldn't be surprised if you'd made up that word just to puzzle us. In any case what you destroyed is what, according to you, you used to cerpicio, So there is nothing to cerpicio anymore. But there still are what we mean by flowers. If your intention wa to decieve, you must learn the language of those you are to decieve."
That is just if you are interested.
Cool, thanks for the extra info. I really should get back into philosphy some more.
"Cerpicio" is from "percipio": I perceive.
Interesting - I am currently writing a paper on O. K. Bouwsma's "Descartes' Evil Genius" for an Intro to Philosophy course and in searching for 'cerpicio' came across this blog!
hahaha, I am reading the paper for an intro to philosophy course and came across this blog searching for cerpicio because I don't like not knowing what words mean.
Just reading O.K. Bouwsma's paper for PHIL 250 and wanted to find out the meaning of cerpicio as well haha
Holy crap, I think I'm in the same 250 class. This blog really helped me understand that cerpicio is some kinda sixth(seventh?) Sense that let's the evil deceiver know that the world is an illusion, but is irrelevant to human beings
Yup, I ran aground on this shore because I'm reading Bouwsma's paper too!
haha. im also currently doing an essay for PHl131 on O.K. Bouwsma's paper with Descartes problem of knowledge. love reading this blog and comments (even if it turns out none of these exist) :p
yup philosophy131 also -.- i think we all semi know, i'm just going to interpret it from the context i'm given around it..
but actually reading this again i agree it must mean the super demon 7th sense thing- the true one as opposed to humans limited senses because the demon explains to tom that he couldn't cerpicio his flowers, even though he and tom were smelling and touching and looking at it in the same body earlier
here's a little bit from bauwsma's evil genius too if it helps :)
"But if I cannot also cerpicio what I see, smell, touch, etc., what I have then seen is not anything real. Esse est cerpici. I just now tried to cerpicio your flowers, but there was nothing there. Man is after all a four- or five- or six-sense creature and you cannot expect much from so little."
Read again and now i'm thinking it might mean the act of creating illusions from what the demon deems as real (from his 7th sense)... this section got me
Tom rubbed his eyes and his ears tingled with an eighteenth-
century disturbance. Then he stared at the flowers. "I see," he said,
"that this added sense of yours has done wickedly with our language.
+
You do not mean by illusion what we mean, and neither do you mean by flowers what we mean. As for cerpicio I wouldn't be surprised if you'd made up that word just to puzzle us. In any case what you destroyed is what, according to you, you used to cerpicio. So there is nothing for you to cerpicio any more. But there still are what we mean by flowers. If your intention was to deceive, you must learn the lan- guage of those you are to deceive. I should say that you are like the doctor who prescribes for his patients what is so bad for himself and is then surprised at the health of his patients." And he pinned a flower near their nose.
Just thought I would throw out, one of the issues with defining cerpicio is that it is not used in Descartes' original work. In fact, the whole idea of the demon is only briefly mentioned
So funny that I, in the year 2021, stumbled upon a blog called about "Cerpecio" while I was trying to find its definition after just reading the Bousma paper for a philosophy class too! Hahaha wow, guess there was no real meaning after all, just a made-up word LOL
In the year 2022, I am too looking for the definition of the Cerpecio after realizing its not translating well in any translation software online. Just read Bouwsma's work for my philosophy intro class too! Thank you all for the insightful responses :)
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