If Philosophy Won’t Diversify, Let’s Call It What It Really Is • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by extra88 » Thu, May 12, 2016, 8:10 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #116

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…

Somehow I feel like if philosophy departments took Confucianism to heart, the NYT would start rolling around uncomfortably. On the other hand, how diversified are philosophy departments in Chongqing, or Beijing? Should we push them to match the NYTs expectations? We all start with seeing things from our own perspectives and understanding (as does the NYT itself) and when we get done with that if we have the desire we…

Don't ascribe to NYT all the opinions the paper publishes. These are the opinions of the two professors who authored this article, not the paper's Editorial Board.

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

#202

Post by jkobuthi » Thu, May 12, 2016, 8:59 PM UTC

Hello, I've just read the article above and I have a few thoughts concerning the same: Foremost, In as much as I do agree that the majority of philosophers are white male(s) who are fantastically -David Cameron has rubbed off- eurocentric, having more women and other minority races shall not solve the problem. Secondly, I do argue that universities must inculcate in their curricular, reads/ units stating what other scholars outside of the American- european tradition are philosophizing. Ie, a course on Philosophy in Africa should be introduced in American schools etc. This would not only provide for a rich diversity of ideas but also demistify the idea that only the species "male caucasian" can think and thus create room for non euro- American minds to partake of the delicacy that is Philosophy. P.S.( Im a grad student in Philosophy from the University of Nairobi)

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

#203

Post by hosh » Thu, May 12, 2016, 9:27 PM UTC

plaidturtle wrote: post #196

hosh wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. I've been reading an medieval Indian philosophy called non-dual Shaiva Tantra. The philosophy, or called the View, is only one part of it. The practice of philosophy and the way of life is not separated from the View, and yet it also addresses those fundamental questions that you are talking about with the Western philosophers. There is no dumbing down. A large part of it is that, in the non-dual…

I'm not familiar with medieval Indian philosophy but that sounds more like a set of principle derived from a religion than a philosophy, much like zen buddhism. Again, that's my observation solely based on your short description. That is to say that I could — most likely — be completely wrong. The point I was attempting to make was that philosophy is more about process than the verdict. A good analogy would be math.…

Alchemy as a pseudo-chemistry is a conventional, but superficial interpretation of it. The pseudo-chemistry narrative fits well with our current, normative narratives and so we don't really question it. However the alchemists were philosophers. The Philosopher's Stone is the embodiment of the Philosophy, and as such, the Philosopher is the Philosopher's Stone in it's final stage. Or put it in different terms, the Truth extracted from philosophical investigation is then used to transmute the philosopher until there is no distinction between the philosopher and Truth. It's this last stage that, I think, many modern students of philosophy fail to take their philosophy to. You might be able to google it under "philosophical alchemy".

There are strains of alchemy that does concern itself with elixirs and transmutations of substances, but a discussion of that requires gnosis. (These strains, though, are interesting in that they are wildly proliferated in both Eastern and Western cultures).

Math is not as fundamental as people like to think it is :-D

As for non-dual Shiava Tantra, I can see why you would think it is a set of principles derived from religion. The View derives from empirical methods, reproducible, if not objective. (There is no such thing as a privileged objective view in a non-dual philosophy). Those truths form the a priori in which the rest of the View descends from. It happens to appear to be religious, but it is not religious that most people think it is. Christopher Wallis's book, Tantra Illuminated has several chapters on just the philosophical view, including how Indian philosophers have different ideas on what constitutes validity and proof. There is a section there where Wallis speaks about the non-dual Tantric View in terms of Western Philosophy.

I get that your view of philosophy has a heavy Western bias. It's for that reason that the authors of the original article is trying to champion greater diversity. Check out Wallis's book sometime, maybe just the chapters on the View.

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

#204

Post by hosh » Thu, May 12, 2016, 9:36 PM UTC

plaidturtle wrote: post #196

hosh wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. I've been reading an medieval Indian philosophy called non-dual Shaiva Tantra. The philosophy, or called the View, is only one part of it. The practice of philosophy and the way of life is not separated from the View, and yet it also addresses those fundamental questions that you are talking about with the Western philosophers. There is no dumbing down. A large part of it is that, in the non-dual…

I'm not familiar with medieval Indian philosophy but that sounds more like a set of principle derived from a religion than a philosophy, much like zen buddhism. Again, that's my observation solely based on your short description. That is to say that I could — most likely — be completely wrong. The point I was attempting to make was that philosophy is more about process than the verdict. A good analogy would be math.…

By the way, I'm curious about your opinions on this: http://nautil.us/issue/35/boundaries/this-philosopher-helped...

I haven't thought through much of it, but it's interesting to me. Was this taught in the 3 semesters on philosophy? (What I'm really asking, was this something considered important enough to teach at an intro level to philosophy?)

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

#205

Post by shanacarp » Thu, May 12, 2016, 11:18 PM UTC

a_humean wrote: post #198

shanacarp wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which would you recommend for a beginner to read. looks interesting

I would check out Philosophy Bites, which is a podcast interviewing active research philosophers in 15-20 minutes about their topics. http://www.philosophybites.com/ Check out Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which is free and edited by active research philosophers on pretty much every major topic and figure. http://plato.stanford.edu/ Naming and Necessity by Kripke is about reference and the causal theory of ref…

Kuhn's been on my reading list for a while. I think my fiancé has a copy of Ayer around

Plato/stanford is just overwhelming.

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

#206

Post by henriquemaia » Fri, May 13, 2016, 4:47 AM UTC

By reading the comments, I had the feeling (maybe I am wrong, my apologies if I am) that most don't get the gist of the argument here.

If you are already in the mindset of the Western Philosophical tradition, I have to concur that this article seems silly, as many have already pointed out. However, for those of us that while studying philosophy don't live on Europe or North America (the Anglo-European Philosophical Studies perspective mentioned on the article) and who already feel like second class citizens of the philosophical world, the article is spot-on.

Living in South America and studying philosophy (I am a graduate student in Brazil), the whole notion that the only true philosophical tradition is the Eurocentric one has other and more profound meanings and implications (even though, as I believe, most are unintentional side-effects of history). It is as if the old view of 'we enlightened [Christian] Europeans' vs. 'you poor wretched uneducated savages' comes back to haunts us once again (this is just a rough sketch just to give an idea — things are far more complex than this, obviously). That being said, the authors' point, from this perspective, seems much more valid — and even liberating.

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

#207

Post by ced » Fri, May 13, 2016, 2:01 PM UTC

a_humean wrote: post #194

ced wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did any of these modern theories come from non-western parts of the world? "Causal theories of reference" looks interesting from an AI perspective. Do you know how it relates to the math discipline, causality (eg. Pearl)?

Does Australian count as non-western, in which case Armstrong's contributions debunk the entire article?! Joking aside, I don't really know of a lineage or pedigree for a major active research area that is non-western, but I am not and was not active in the history of philosophy. Philosophers working in metaphysics and especially causation are aware of Pearl, and the literature on causation in Philosophy is very larg…

Thank you for the links. It's nice to see cross-pollination. Deborah Mayo is active on Andrew Gelman's blog, and it's also an interesting "two worlds collide".

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

#208

Post by a_humean » Fri, May 13, 2016, 3:13 PM UTC

ced wrote: post #207

a_humean wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Australian count as non-western, in which case Armstrong's contributions debunk the entire article?! Joking aside, I don't really know of a lineage or pedigree for a major active research area that is non-western, but I am not and was not active in the history of philosophy. Philosophers working in metaphysics and especially causation are aware of Pearl, and the literature on causation in Philosophy is very larg…

Thank you for the links. It's nice to see cross-pollination. Deborah Mayo is active on Andrew Gelman's blog, and it's also an interesting "two worlds collide".

Thank you for the link to Gelman's blog; it looks interesting.