Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

171–180 of 208 posts

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

#171
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…

But no examples of this :-/

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

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Liebniz notation didn't win because someone argued that anglos were biased and diversity was needed, it won because mathematical arguments demonstrated it was better. > Unfortunately the authors of this piece don't actually make that latter argument. Is this to imply there is a more-correct philosophy? I have no formal training in philosophy but I feel that to claim one philosophy is objectively better than another…

Yes, there is. Modern philosophy is judged by it's intellectual consistency, the simplicity and intuitiveness of it's underlying principles, and how those underlying principles lead to conclusions that make sense. Many philosophical traditions simply don't measure up. That's not a crack at non-western traditions, most western traditions have also been discarded due to being nonsense. Quite a few more probably should…

>Yes, there is. Modern philosophy is judged by it's intellectual consistency, the simplicity and intuitiveness of it's underlying principles, and how those underlying principles lead to conclusions that make sense.

It is also judged by outcome matters, which is why the west still teaches Foucault and Dedirra, even though they are by far way less consistent than analytical philosophers (who are also taught)

One of the reasons that happened if that some correctly constructed Analytical Philosophical thought gets very non-intuitive results that seem to create exceptions, such as ethics of genocide, whereas classic continental philosophy, because of its room to breath, doesn't.

Hence why philosophy still has problems to solve to this day

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

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, it wasn't "clearly inferior" historically. Liebniz' arguments why it was valid were heavily based on infinitesimals and monadology, which were not known at the time to be valid. (In fact, many of Liebniz' arguments weren't valid, although the conclusions turned out to be.) Secondly, if biases exist, one need not argue for diversity in order to achieve it. Liebniz notation didn't win because someone argu…

> Liebniz notation didn't win because someone argued that anglos were biased and diversity was needed, it won because mathematical arguments demonstrated it was better. > Unfortunately the authors of this piece don't actually make that latter argument. Is this to imply there is a more-correct philosophy? I have no formal training in philosophy but I feel that to claim one philosophy is objectively better than another…

>Is this to imply there is a more-correct philosophy? I have no formal training in philosophy but I feel that to claim one philosophy is objectively better than another is a bit much.

Quality of thought as better. Internal consistency is but one measure of quality, given that you also want non-intuitive results (EG: Can't justify genocide accidentally with the way ethics is set up, even if all of the pieces of the argument are internally consistent.)

This topic overall reminds me I should write to an old friend with a phd in Philosophy and the son of a phd in Philosophy, a great mathematician (pity he didn't go for the phd in that) and a really excellent talmudist when he feels like it... he probably has thoughts on what they are saying.

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

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that is the case, then why are Aristotle and Plato taught in modern philosophy classes? Why waste time with the ancients when you could go straight to the ideas of more modern, more correct thinkers like Santayana and Kirkegaard? The thing about philosophy is that each philosopher is an individual; philosophy is additive (in the sense that any philosopher is building on, or replying to their predecessors) but not…

For the same reason that David Ricardo comes up in modern economics classes and Panini comes up in modern linguistics classes -- because those are considered significant in the history of the now dominant paradigms.

Hum... I'm not sure those are equivalent.

Economists do not start with David Ricardo and add up from it. They start at the modern mainstream, and then, in a tangent, go back to Ricardo.

It's a different situation. I just don't know if different enough to be important.

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

#175

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…

I clicked around to see which topics were actually taught to undergraduates in the first philosophy program Google showed me (happened to be Yale): http://philosophy.yale.edu/undergraduate-program/undergradua... The first five: * An examination of major figures in the history of Western philosophy * An examination of attempts to reconcile the evils of this world with the existence of a perfectly good God, with specia…

Neat. I checked UT Austin and found Dan Bonevac was teaching one session of intro. (Bonevac is the once and future chair of the department and a very good teacher.)

The textbook (which he co-wrote) looks very good. This is the TOC for th first section, Ethics

Ethics

1 Ethics in the Philosophical Traditions of India

1.1 Karma and dharma in Hindu thought 1.1.1 From The Bhagavad Gita

1.2 The Bhakti Movement 1.2.1 Akka Mahadevi 1.2.2 Janabai 1.2.3 Lalla 1.2.4 Mirabai

1.3 Early Buddhism 1.3.1 The Buddha, from The First Sermon 1.3.2 From The Dhammapada

1.4 Songs of the Buddhist Nuns 1.4.1 From Psalms of the Sisters

1.5 Buddhist Virtues 1.5.1 From The Lankavatara Sutra

1.6 Jainism 1.6.1 From the Acaranga Sutra

1.7 The Skepticism and Materialism of Charvaka 1.7.1 From Sarva-Darsana-Samgraha

2 Chinese Ethics

2.1 The Virtue Ethics of Confucius 2.1.1 Confucius, from The Analects

2.2 The Intuitionism of Mencius 2.2.1 From Mencius

2.3 Xunzi’s Pessimistic View of Human Nature 2.3.1 Xunzi, from “That the Nature is Evil”

2.4 Confucian and Neo-Confucian Women Writers 2.4.1 Ban Zhao, from Precepts for My Daughters 2.4.2 Ban Zhao, “Traveling Eastward” 2.4.3 Li Qingzhao, from Hou hsu 2.4.4 Li Qingzhao, from Complete Poems

2.5 The Virtue Ethics of Daoism 2.5.1 Laozi, from Dao-de-Jing

2.6 Daoist Women Writers 2.6.1 Yu Xuanji, from Poems 2.6.2 Sun Bu-er, from Poems

3 Ancient Greek Ethics

3.1 Socrates on Virtue 3.1.1 Plato, from Laches

3.2 Plato’s Conception of Virtue 3.2.1 Plato, from the Republic

3.3 Aristotle on Virtue 3.3.1 Aristotle, from Nicomachean Ethics

4 Medieval Christian, Jewish, and Islamic Ethics

4.1 The Ethics of the Fathers 4.1.1 From the Babylonian Talmud

4.2 Augustine on Weakness of Will 4.2.1 Augustine, from Confessions 4.2.2 Augustine, from On the Trinity

4.3 Al-Farabi on Happiness 4.3.1 Al-Farabi, from The Attainment of Happiness

4.4 Maimonides on Happiness and Virtue 4.4.1 Moses Maimonides, from Guide of the Perplexed

4.5 Aquinas on Law and Virtue 4.5.1 St. Thomas Aquinas, from Summa Theologica

4.6 St. Catherine of Siena on the Paradoxes of Wisdom 4.6.1 Letter to Monna Alessa Dei Saracini 4.6.2 Letter to the venerable religious brother Antonio of Nizza, of the Order of the Hermit Brothers of St. Augustine at the wood of the lake

4.7 Christine de Pizan’s Feminism 4.7.1 Christine de Pizan, from The Treasury of the City of Ladies

4.8 Virtue in St. Teresa of Avila 4.8.1 St. Teresa of Avila, from The Ways of Perfection

5 Ethics in Modern Philosophy

5.1 Princess Elizabeth’s Critique of Reason in Ethics 5.1.1 Elizabeth to Descartes—The Hague, August 16, 1645 5.1.2 Elizabeth to Descartes—The Hague, September 13, 1645 5.1.3 Elizabeth to Descartes—Riswyck, September 30, 1645 5.1.4 Elizabeth to Descartes—The Hague, April 25, 1646

5.2 Hume’s Empiricist Ethics: From Is to Ought 5.2.1 David Hume, from A Treatise of Human Nature

5.3 Kant’s Deontology 5.3.1 Immanuel Kant, from Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals

5.4 Madame de Stael on the Passions 5.4.1 Madame de Stael, from Influence of the Passions upon the Happiness of Individuals and of Nations

5.5 Utilitarianism 5.5.1 John Stuart Mill, from Utilitarianism

6 African Ethics

6.1 The Ethiopian Enlightenment 6.1.1 Zera Yacob, from The Treatise of Zera Yacob

6.2 The Communitarian Utilitarianism of the Akan 6.2.1 Kwame Gyekye, from An Essay in African Philosophy: The Akan Conceptual Scheme

6.3 East African Islamic Ethics 6.3.1 Kai Kresse, from Philosophizing in Mombasa

http://bonevac.info/301/Introduction_to_Philosophy/Descripti...

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

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it make more sense to either standardise the notation, or translate papers into both notations? I feel this is a poor analogy to cultural cross pollination: notation is not the same kind of 'idea' as those found in philosophical paper.

The fundamental dispute was not over the notation, but over whether the notation was misleading. I.e., is df/dx = (df/dz)(dz/dx) a real description of what is happening, and a valid calculus, or just a coincidence that sometimes won't work? Newton had a variety of arguments in favor of why his calculus worked, only some based on infinitesimals. Liebniz just asserted without proof that infinitesimals were fine, used t…

Variations of those arguments exist to this day unresolved in the form of Platonic Realism vs Nominalism. Resolving that argument in some ways is really important to our understanding of physics and certain parts of biology, especially evolution.

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

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally object to this deliberately obscure style of academic writing. Having to re-read a sentence five times to decipher it doesn't make the author sound intelligent, it makes me suspect the author has nothing substantial to say. I'm working on my PhD now, and deliberately avoid citing papers with this style. I haven't got the time or energy to wade through pages of bullshit obscurity searching for nuggets of ins…

Obviously, not all academics write like this. Not by far. It's the hallmark of various followers of postmodernists like Derrida and Lacan. Particularly favored by far-left academics in departments of gender studies, multicultural studies, women's studies, etc. Multiculturalism is a wonderful thing, but not the brand that these frauds sell. You can read a pretty devastating critique of these pseudo-scholars in the boo…

The leftist thing seems to be an attempt to ad academic legitimacy, borrowing the tradition of philosophy, while also making use of / abusing the tradition of ambiguity. The political advantage of this is never having to commit to saying anything concrete - a boon for practitioners of 'Motte and Bailey' rhetoric - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/03/all-in-all-another-bric... .

That said, I find this is more the case with lit crit, than philosophy. Perhaps in Academic Feminism?

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

#178
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I agree. The history of philosophy is an important part of philosophy, not all of philosophy. I studied the subject nearly 30 years ago and can only recall the history courses as having a decisive Western bias (though not a monopoly). I believe all the courses were correctly labeled, and I can remember at least one embarrassed explanation that other traditions could not be included. I am curious how the bias mig…

There are many huge biases at the core of all western philosophy. 'Self' as a meaningful separate unit is one of them. To take a slightly different take on a famous quote. 'It is presumed that I exist and I think, therefore I exist.' Even logic stems from a way of thinking, A and !A could both be true if you step out of the mindset of Truth with a T. The problem with looking at world philosophy is you find 'western'…

I'm very confused as to why this is voted down.

There is truth to this statement. Nothing wrong with saying that binary systems of logical proofs, based on things like "Self" is important to the history of philosophy in the west

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

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I clicked around to see which topics were actually taught to undergraduates in the first philosophy program Google showed me (happened to be Yale): http://philosophy.yale.edu/undergraduate-program/undergradua... The first five: * An examination of major figures in the history of Western philosophy * An examination of attempts to reconcile the evils of this world with the existence of a perfectly good God, with specia…

Neat. I checked UT Austin and found Dan Bonevac was teaching one session of intro. (Bonevac is the once and future chair of the department and a very good teacher.) The textbook (which he co-wrote) looks very good. This is the TOC for th first section, Ethics Ethics 1 Ethics in the Philosophical Traditions of India 1.1 Karma and dharma in Hindu thought 1.1.1 From The Bhagavad Gita 1.2 The Bhakti Movement 1.2.1 Akka M…

>Neat. I checked UT Austin and found Dan Bonevac was teaching one session of intro. (Bonevac is the once and future chair of the department and a very good teacher.)

I have to know if he is a friend of the philosophy ring bearer out to destroy philosophy sauron too.

(sorry, that line was funny)

I kinda want to take that course. And now I want the book. Where do I get the book for cheap?

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

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History of philosophy is a major part of all philosophy programs, and the list of topics that are discussed in the non-history topics are those that were discussed by the old European philosophers.

> History of philosophy is a major part of all philosophy programs Right or wrong, modern philosophers at top universities would claim that they teach history of philosophy for the same modest reason that physicists learn about Newton: so they can get some context about how various ideas developed and the reason for conventions. Analytical philosophers generally resist about having to teach history of philosophy. > t…

> "Analytical philosophers generally resist about having to teach history of philosophy."

I actually agree with you on this. It's fine to draw inspiration from historical theories, but I'd prefer if we could focus more on the ideas themselves, and less on the history behind those ideas. That said, this is orthogonal to what the article is about. Given that so much of philosophy classes revolves around "History of Philosophy," it makes sense to cover the full range of history, and not just one slice of it.

> "What topics discussed by non-European philosophers do you think are neglected? Yes it's hard to imagine there isn't bias in topic selection, but then this needs to be addressed by convincing modern researchers that whatever non-European ideas are better on their merits, not by studying modern non-European philosophy as a separate topic."

What you said is exactly what the author is arguing as well. He's expressly arguing against the segmentation of western/eastern philosophy into different topics, and in favor of integrating them into the mainstream of philosophy, based on their individual merits. He's also given specific examples of non-western philosophy that is unfairly neglected, and meriting integrated study. So far in this thread, numerous people have disagreed with the author, but I've yet to see any highly rated comment dispute the merit of the examples he's given.

Post reply on HN