Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

* Thinking and argumentation are not closed on propositional- or predicate-logic. They are closed on natural language. So confusing good arguments with their logical form will filter away a lot of philosophy that seems logically wild while still containing insightful content. Likewise presuming that no purely rhetorical devices can be employed to make a truthful point will restrict your ability to engage with texts.

Nietszche comes to mind as a case where a philosopher was highly influential, but did not use strictly logic to make points. Yet the contents of his ideas are insightful if not sound.

* Identifying the relative strength of arguments is a taste that one picks up by reading, closely and attentively, prior arguments widely considered to be good or insightful; particularly the primary sources, for they are direct examples of how philosophy is done. You'll soon pick up that nuances of language, and opening up what actually counts as evidence for an argument, are what matter in assessing an argument's points.

* It is easy to fool yourself into not holding your understanding up to a high standard. Philosophy is an ur-discipline, it ponders ideas which lack prior codification, and does so with a strong commitment to both veracity and self-honesty. This lack of codification means that philosophers struggle with the meaning and significance of terms in a way which must be holistic and involved, since original philosophical ideas by definition lack prior context. Particularly if you're aiming for a "personal philosophy", you will be put in a position where you will create your own context for certain ideas, and, for good or bad, you will only have your own reference points to characterize their truth, requiring care.

* The three banes of those sympathetic to the Enlightenment tradition (and its spinoffs), are: Pancriticalism, Postmodernism and Pragmatism. Know these three positions. They are the among the primary problems modern analytic philosophy struggles with, as they on the surface appear to eliminate the possibility of being objective and doing philosophy at all. This quite frankly isn't true, but they make intellectual honesty in the analytic tradition that much harder. Macintyre is the go-to for how one may claw one's way out of these three problems, but they are worth struggling with on your own.

* Over the last year or so I've had the "luck" of engaging with people highly critical of my thinking and ideas. It was to the point where the discussions were frankly impolite and belligerent. But they were arguments that I was losing because their criticisms did not seem prima facie wrong, or because my own counter-arguments were obviously weak. So I took it as a trial by fire to learn how to properly argue (and I did get better and it did help). You might benefit from doing the same, and if you ever get in the shit arguing with people I would stick with them in case you still have something to learn.

* In the long-run I've begun to care a lot less about philosophy because I've begun to understand its costs. Philosophy is an easy thing to do poorly; worse, when you do it poorly it's basically indistinguishable from being a pseudointellectual, a clever silly, or an idiot. Think about what "having a personal philosophy" actually means to you. Think about what it takes, what the work really is, to become an informed and thoughtful individual. And then if you must, do that work.

Psychology, sociology, biology, physics, astronomy, and mathematics offer knowledge that can help you understand the world and your place in it. Philosophy simply does not offer that kind of knowledge, as much as it does try.

Philosophy touches on topics beyond those bound by axioms, which is its beauty. It lets one wonder beyond the realm of what is knowable.

What do math and science study? What is the proper subject of chemistry or physics? That question such questions are not something math or science can answer.

When you've got some knowledge (say from science), what do you do with it? That question, again, is not something science can answer.

Which course of action is right or wrong? Again, science can not do otherwise than to be silent here.

Mathematics is widely considered to be the foundation of and one of the most useful tools that science has, yet it itself is based largely (if not completely) on logic. Logic is part of philosophy. The foundation of mathematics (as distinct from logic) is also a branch of philosophy.

If you look at the deepest, most critical questions that science tries to answer, at the core of them is often a philosophical question that at least up to now has been intractable to scientific study. I'm talking about things such as the nature of consciousness or the mind, deep questions in physics also blend almost seamlessly in to philosophy -- things such as the nature of time and causality.

Now, it may be the case that at some point in the future science will have some convincing answers and explanations to these questions, but the belief that it will is a form of faith in science that is often termed scientism -- something which is distinct from science itself, and is not subject to scientific inquiry.

Also, when you say that "If you want wisdom, look to math and science", do you know what you mean by the word "wisdom"? Are math and science sources of wisdom or merely of knowledge, and what's the difference? All philosophical questions.

How about whether science helps us to get closer to truth? And what is truth anyway? Again, all philosophical questions which science can not answer.

I would argue that the most important questions for most people are not scientific or mathematical questions, but philosophical ones -- such as:

- "what should I do with my life?"

- "what is the purpose of my life or of the world?"

- "should I help someone in need or help myself?"

- "what subject (including mathematical or scientific subject) should I study or work on?"

- "who should live or die, be punished or rewarded?"

- "how should we structure our society?"

- "how should we as a society or as individuals spend our money?"

Science can offer no tools to help us answer any of these most pressing and practical of questions. At best it can give us some indication of what has happened or would happen if we chose a certain course of action, but is silent on what we actually should do or what the purpose or meaning of anything is.

Even the question of how science itself should be conducted is not open to scientific inquiry.

Usually people answer these questions for themselves in some ad-hoc way, usually without recognizing that they are philosophical questions, and usually unconsciously adopting some many-hundred-year-old philosophical position which has be passed down to them through the culture around them by osmosis. If they studied, read and thought about these questions, they might actually make more informed decisions.