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If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It Really Is

nytimes.com

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Re: If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It Really Is

#51

Post by danharaj »

tokai wrote: post #29
whatshisface wrote: post #9

It feels like the author has missed the point of philosophy entirely. If some Chinese philosophical paper is very good, it should be evaluated on its merits and folded in to an appropriate course for that topic. Philosophers believe at least, that they are doing work more along the lines of mathematics than underwater dance (that is, searching for truth). Nobody would ever dream of arguing against eurocentrism in num…

"Nobody would ever dream of arguing against eurocentrism in number theory" You underestimate postmodernist literary theorists.

Quote one that argues the eurocentrism of number theory.

Or are postmodernists just a bogeyman?

Re: If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It Really Is

#53

Post by Avshalom »

kolbe wrote: post #38
whack wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author addresses your exact point in the article. "Others might argue against renaming on the grounds that it is unfair to single out philosophy: We do not have departments of Euro-American Mathematics or Physics. This is nothing but shabby sophistry. Non-European philosophical traditions offer distinctive solutions to problems discussed within European and American philosophy, raise or frame problems not address…

No, the authors acknowledge this counterargument, but they do not offer a substantial refutation of it. They try to confuse their readers by equating a historical examination of philosophy with philosophy itself. id=whatshisface is correctly addressing how this argument applies to philosophy.

Whathisface is arguing from unsupported assertion as much as TFA is.

Re: If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It Really Is

#54

Post by sageikosa »

tokai wrote: post #29
whatshisface wrote: post #9

It feels like the author has missed the point of philosophy entirely. If some Chinese philosophical paper is very good, it should be evaluated on its merits and folded in to an appropriate course for that topic. Philosophers believe at least, that they are doing work more along the lines of mathematics than underwater dance (that is, searching for truth). Nobody would ever dream of arguing against eurocentrism in num…

"Nobody would ever dream of arguing against eurocentrism in number theory" You underestimate postmodernist literary theorists.

Too much obsession on 1, not enough on 0.

Re: If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It Really Is

#55

Post by danharaj »

laretluval wrote: post #43
applecore wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wholeheartedly support the noble desire to give things their proper names. It's ironic that the Rectification of Names is central to the philosophy of Confucius. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectification_of_names

This is commonly misunderstood. The Confucian Rectification of Names is not about altering the names we use to better conform with reality, but rather about altering reality to better conform to the names we use. A very different approach than Western linguistic and political philosophy.

And it should be considered in the context of how other competing philosophies of the day treated names, like the Daoist, Mohist, and Legalist positions.

Re: If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It Really Is

#56

Post by dwaxe »

whack wrote: post #26
whatshisface wrote: post #9

It feels like the author has missed the point of philosophy entirely. If some Chinese philosophical paper is very good, it should be evaluated on its merits and folded in to an appropriate course for that topic. Philosophers believe at least, that they are doing work more along the lines of mathematics than underwater dance (that is, searching for truth). Nobody would ever dream of arguing against eurocentrism in num…

The author addresses your exact point in the article. "Others might argue against renaming on the grounds that it is unfair to single out philosophy: We do not have departments of Euro-American Mathematics or Physics. This is nothing but shabby sophistry. Non-European philosophical traditions offer distinctive solutions to problems discussed within European and American philosophy, raise or frame problems not address…

The article's point is very well-made. During my two-year-long stint as a philosophy major at Berkeley, at least two courses spent absurd lengths of time on the vagary specificities of Descartes' cogito which, while important, could have easily been a place to at least peer into other traditions' basic arguments over the existence of a soul, like Avicenna's Flying Man or the concepts of Gautama Buddha. The fact that these myriad connections between genetically unrelated traditions are never drawn is the real travesty. American philosophy would be much more creative if it wove non-European traditions into its historical tapestry.

Re: If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It Really Is

#57

Post by keiferski »

The underlying problem (which wasn't mentioned at all in this essay) is that contemporary philosophical education is a confusing mix of two things:

1. Ideas on particular "universal" topics, like politics, ethics, metaphysics, and so on. We can call this "philosophy."

2. What certain people thought about said ideas. We can call this "history of thought."

Should there be a wider variety of cultures in #2? Of course. But it's also very important to realize that philosophy, that is, the activity of ruminating on ideas, is largely a process that happens within specific culture in reaction and in conversation to other members of a culture. So while Confucian thought on the family is no doubt very robust and worth exploring, it is simply out-of-place and lacking context when placed next to 20th-century Anglo-American philosophy, for example. Wittgenstein was writing in response to western philosophers that came before him. One cannot really understand W. without understanding the centuries of western thought that led to him.

Personally, I'd like to see more of a clear distinction between "philosophy" and "history of thought". This would allow for more inclusion of non-western thought while also recognizing that viewpoints on certain subjects are not equally as valid simply because they are from a different culture.

Source: philosophy-degree-holder currently working on a philosophy startup.

Re: If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It Really Is

#59

Post by timwaagh »

is it really that weird if a philosophy department located in say, belgium, emphasizes belgian philosophers and philosophers from surrounding areas (like france and germany). philosophy is not really a science and is subjective. thus, a comparison to math (or physics) does not make sense. given the tribal nature of humanity, it just makes sense that departments emphasize those famous philosophers from their tribes. if you look at russian and chinese institutions, no doubt one would see a different picture. The whole argument of 'evaluation on merit' is not a good argument because 'merit' is subjective. it would be roughly equivalent to 'what the people in the department like'. the argument against their idea of renaming to a 'philosophy of america and europe department' would be that a certain amount of (regional)bias is implicit in the discipline of philosophy. we could consider anyone who denies this to be 'dumb' and hence it does not need naming to make it explicit. on the contrary, this kind of 'self naming & shaming' could damage the brand of 'philosophy' as a whole.

Re: If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It Really Is

#60

Post by bnegreve »

hyperpape wrote: post #41
bnegreve wrote: post #8

I'm not sure this logic makes any sense. Science is also very euro-centric, yet most of us here would argue that science is among the most objective disciplines out there.

It's addressed in the article. They specifically address this point, and argue that philosophy is different, because there are distinctive traditions and approaches in non-western philosophy that nonetheless are recognizably doing philosophy in the same sense as European and American philosophers. In contract, there are Chinese physicists and Chinese mathematicians, but they're doing math and physics the same way tha…

You're right, here's the quote:

Others might argue against renaming on the grounds that it is unfair to single out philosophy: We do not have departments of Euro-American Mathematics or Physics. This is nothing but shabby sophistry. Non-European philosophical traditions offer distinctive solutions to problems discussed within European and American philosophy, raise or frame problems not addressed in the American and European tradition, or emphasize and discuss more deeply philosophical problems that are marginalized in Anglo-European philosophy. There are no comparable differences in how mathematics or physics are practiced in other contemporary cultures.

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