Live data from Hacker News

Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

mic.com

191–200 of 219 posts

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#191
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It says more about our society that the person who chooses to study philosophy. Making more money is valuable and not making much is looked down upon. But, how happy are we? What philosophy can do is expand your mind beyond what society has told you. Consider these questions in looking at your existence, What can I know? What must I do? What is man? What is God? They're not to be scoffed at, waved away with a dismiss…

You are conflating "philosophizing" with "the modern academic study of philosophy." To most people, the second has nothing to do with the first. Your grandparents, uncles, and aunts have better answers to those questions. Maybe a two semester survey of the history of philosophy and reading the great works to hear some different perspectives. Neither of these involve a full course of study in philosophy.

> You are conflating "philosophizing" with "the modern academic study of philosophy."

For me that's like having sex compared to studying porn, or like walking around the block instead of watching sports. You can belittle it while I enjoy its fruits.

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#192
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a big fan of analytic philosophy, quite the opposite. Continental philosophy is much more my speed (though there are plenty of parts of even that that I have big problems with). I consider analytic philosophy to be a blight upon philosophy in general. It started off dominating universities in mainly English speaking countries, but has moved on to gain control over many others. It's even started to co-opt phil…

You have lots of metaphors and how analytical thinking is "narrow", but I didn't found your argument why continental philosophy would be better to study than analytical tradition. I'm suddenly reminded of an acquaintance whole called me "narrow-minded" when I said chakras and horoscopes are maybe fun, but have not much to do with the observable scientific reality, so you should not be serious about them. I mean, I re…

I haven't made an argument for why I saw analytic philosphy as narrow or why I prefer Continental philosophy. And, really, it takes a lot more than a little post HN or a Wikipedia article to make that argument. It takes an education.

Also, as much as I love Wikipedia, and use it every day for all sorts of things, it's not very strong on philosophy. There are tons of misrepresentations, and possibly because it's primarily an English-language encyclopedia and Analytic philosophy utterly dominates English-speaking academia, you're rarely going to get a fair or informed view of Continental philosophy from it.

You really need to go to the primary sources, at the very least. And, if you're coming from the Analytic perspective, you'll probably also need guidance from a teacher who can break you out of the Analytic blinders that will tend to make you see all of philosophy from an Analytic perspective.

Neverthelsess, here's really quick summary of what I find problematic about analytic philosophy: I see it as mostly full of mere language games and really trite analysis of various puzzles analytics prefer to focus on. And whenever they do happen to deal with issues I consider important, they do so on a superficial level (sometimes an exhaustively enumerated level, but rarely getting to the heart of the problem or addressing it as more than a puzzle).

I have my own issues with Continental philosophy, and some of it (like Derrida, who, incidentally, most Analytics despise) have somewhat a similar language-game attitude towards philosophy. But Derrida doesn't play by the same rules as the analytics, so the latter usually opine that he's not doing philosophy at all.

But be that as it may, I find both of the language-game approaches to be narrow and blinkered in that they rarely admit that there are other valid ways of approaching philosophy. It's really this exclusivist, small minded approach that I object to most, whether it comes from Analytics or Continentals. It's just most grating from the Analytics, as they are by far the most dominant and therefore usually manage to steer the discourse by just outnumbering and dismissing other perspectives.

If Derridians ruled academia, I'd have many of the same objections against them. But at least most Continentals don't have assume the pretense of being "objective" or "scientific", which are sometimes used to justify the dominance of Analytic philosophy over other approaches.

But these days Analytics rarely bother to justify themselves at all, as there often isn't anyone to justify themselves to (except maybe people not trained in philosophy, who are sometimes still impressed by the veneer of science). In the English speaking world Analytics are almost all there are, so they rarely feel the need to justify their approach to other Analytics. They all feel their approach is self-evidently correct and the only real way to do philosophy. They're like fish who are blind to the existence of water or the possibility of walking on land. It's really annoying to try to communicate with them if you do happen to be one of the few land-dwelling creatures left, as they'll either ignore your existence or deny that walking on land is possible or proper.

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#193

After taking some in college, philosophy to me was more like a stepping stone in critical thinking to embracing the light of science. I've noticed on so many youtube forums for example, people postulate things without external verification in nature, "if this then that" where tautologies and vin diagrams and the like are held as absolute truths. It never was sold on that as there are more dimensions to reality than o…

> observing nature always trumps anything philosophy will ever invent on its own

You do realise that modern science (natural philosophy) rose out of philosophy?

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#194
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started a course in philosophy during my first year of university. I studied CS (in the UK, where you don't typically go far outside your major) but I'd always been curious about the humanities and thought it worthwhile to learn about all fields of knowledge. I'd also read about philosophy for laymen books as a teenager. In the first lecture, I remember being surprised at how rational and logical the lecturer was.…

Anyone interested in Objectivism should read Nietzsche: the philosopher that Ayn Rand did a very poor job of trying to copy. I kind of hesitate to mention them in the same sentence, however, as Nietzsche would have probably hated Rand and the Objectivists. Even Rand herself hated Objectivists. There are long rants from her about them in her interviews. But that still doesn't change the fact that Nietzsche was a big i…

It sounds like you're parroting things you've heard second-hand.

I was heavily into Nietzsche in my late teens and early 20s, before discovering Rand. He definitely influenced her in her early years, but by the time she came to write down her own ideas she'd rejected pretty much all of his ideas. She was an Aristotelian.

> Even Rand herself hated Objectivists.

This is not remotely true. In her later years, she concluded that the organised Objectivist movement had been a mistake, but she still hoped for an informal movement of intellectuals to follow her philosophy.

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#195
post #164

I like this. It's short, and covers how influential philosophy has been. And I have no problem with snark from someone who's interest has become the butt of cheap jokes. However, when it comes to the greater conversation, I'm less generous. I think an aspect of the supposed STEM vs Humanities divide is class, which seems like a bit of a stretch now that I write it down. I chose the most fascinating, lucrative, TRADE…

I'm out of my edit window, but I am aware Bourgeoisie is the class, I should have said I am a small minded Bourgeois.

Post-colonial vaporwave music production is an associates degree. My children can get degrees in post-colonial power electronics music composition. Also, to apologize for that snark, post colonial theory is interesting, music composition is very interesting.

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why is there an assumption that what you study at university has to be in any way related to the job market? Because, like it or not, the majority of people's education is the means to obtain a job in a related field. People don't go tens of thousands of dollars into debt for some l'art pour l'art interest development; they do it because they expect the benefit from the degree (i.e., as a ticket into the job market…

>Because, like it or not, the majority of people's education is the means to obtain a job in a related field. The community college system is more than enough for those who view postsecondary education as a mere vocational program and doesn't require going "tens of thousands of dollars into debt".

Yes. There are financial incentives to go to community college, but if people made their decisions based solely on these, then no one would attend universities.

I'm not arguing for the status quo, but let's be honest about the current state of higher education in America: a ton of people have too much debt because of the pressure to attend a 4 year university. This pressure is usually of the form, "good education => good job". Moreover, "good" is often conflated with "expensive" or "prestigious" with regards to education, and conflated with "high-paying" with regards to a job.

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#197
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone interested in Objectivism should read Nietzsche: the philosopher that Ayn Rand did a very poor job of trying to copy. I kind of hesitate to mention them in the same sentence, however, as Nietzsche would have probably hated Rand and the Objectivists. Even Rand herself hated Objectivists. There are long rants from her about them in her interviews. But that still doesn't change the fact that Nietzsche was a big i…

It sounds like you're parroting things you've heard second-hand. I was heavily into Nietzsche in my late teens and early 20s, before discovering Rand. He definitely influenced her in her early years, but by the time she came to write down her own ideas she'd rejected pretty much all of his ideas. She was an Aristotelian. > Even Rand herself hated Objectivists. This is not remotely true. In her later years, she conclu…

Ayn Rand definitely moved away from Nietzsche (as they are very different), but I think it's hard to deny his influence on her. Some parallels, particularly her idea of the ubermensch, are very Nietzschean (though again, the actual definition of the two differ markedly). To really understand where she's coming from, and where she's getting her ideas (which are often better and more deeply explored elsewhere) you have to read other philosophy. Nietzsche is one, perhaps Aristotle is another.

As for my allegation of Rand's hate for Objectivists, it looks like I misremembered. It was actually Libertarians who Rand despised, not Objectivists.[1]

[1] - http://aynrandlexicon.com/ayn-rand-ideas/ayn-rand-q-on-a-on-...

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add Derrida and other postmodernists to the list of those practicing "obscurantisme terroriste".

I can barely tolerate Foucault. And I've tried Derrida but I've always wind up giving up since he just makes no sense to me. Then there's Zizek. That's one person I just can't bother to listen to because I don't know what the hell he's on about half the time (I tried reading his essay on transgender politics and wound up giving up after the first paragraph).

It doesn't make sense to you probably because you haven't had enough education in philosophy. The thing is that philosophy rarely happens in a vacuum. Usually philosophers build on and respond to the ideas of other philosophers.

So to really understand and see where they're coming from, you have to understand their predecessors and the dialogue which has been going on for thousands of years.

To understand the trickier philosophers like Derrida or some other Continentals, you're probably also going to need the help of a talented teacher who understands these philosophers themselves -- someone you're unlikely to find in Analytic philosophy departments where contempt for Continentals reigns. At best, you're going to get a strongly distorted view of Derrida as Analytics see him. That will not do justice to his thought.

That said, I'm not a fan of Derrida myself. I much prefer Nietzsche and Heidegger. Foucault's cool too, though, for his attempts to address power, punishment, mental illness and marginalized portions of society -- all subjects that other philosophers ever touch. I should read more of him.

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#199
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say philosophers study philosophers... Not sure when that wasn't true? Aristotle being the most famous academic philosopher ... The thing that annoyed me was the number of philosophers that don't study anything else but proceed to talk about it. Stuff that hinges on politics or psychology for example where philosophers just assume that something is human or social nature . Or when we assume that justice is someho…

I would disagree and say philosophers study philosophy and I use study in a loose sense meaning "look into". I dont think you can read your way or study your way into philosophy. To me that is studying someone elses work not philosophy. Oddly enough I find aristotle a bore, he was too myopic and clinical when philosophy is no such thing. He was firmly rooted in the shadow cast on the wall and not what was casting the…

"I find aristotle a bore, he was too myopic and clinical when philosophy is no such thing. He was firmly rooted in the shadow cast on the wall and not what was casting the shadow for my taste."

So which philosopher, in your view, got at what was casting the shadow?

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#200
post #164

I like this. It's short, and covers how influential philosophy has been. And I have no problem with snark from someone who's interest has become the butt of cheap jokes. However, when it comes to the greater conversation, I'm less generous. I think an aspect of the supposed STEM vs Humanities divide is class, which seems like a bit of a stretch now that I write it down. I chose the most fascinating, lucrative, TRADE…

The Athens of Plato's time was a society built on slave labor. They were a strictly patriarchal society (women weren't allowed to leave the house much), and to be a citizen meant you didn't need to work for a living. In short: a degree and a kind of classism we have difficulty imagining.

None of this mitigates the lessons that Plato, Aristotle, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, etc., have left behind for us, and which await us at the local library (or liberal arts college).

You're right that access to higher education is not where it should be. This is well understood, protested, discussed, etc.

But the decision to pursue more or less lucrative paths is a free decision.

You may well be coerced by issues attending economic inequality. You may face great sacrifice in order to devote yourself to something like philosophy[1]. And certainly the decision is inextricable from (let's not forget) your family life (oh, you want kids? you want to live in a real house, not a tenement house? you want healthcare and a minimal retirement fund?).

But these are decisions about what kind of life you want to lead, and the examples above are about the comforts you may want in life. It is not a coincidence that philosophy's purview lies in asking the questions that help you understand why you value what you do, and base your decisions accordingly. And it may even turn out that, in the course of better understanding why you have found something meaningful in the past, that you no longer find it quite so meaningful. You may, in fact, have turn of heart, and start a new chapter in your life.

It would be great if we had social values that translated into an economy which enabled academic pursuits instead of hampered them. (If you think this is idealism run amok, take a look at Finland[2], with the best primary education system in the world, where getting a degree in education is as competitive and prestigious as becoming a doctor; not coincidentally, those careers garner similar salaries).

But we're not there yet. Maybe what's needed are more philosophy majors.

[1] http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/gifted-teachers-lif...

[2] https://www.google.com/#q=finland+education+system

Post reply on HN