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

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

#201

Post by pmoriarty »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #173
saintzozo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm well trained in mathematics. It's certainly healthy. However, I often find that outside of their professional work, mathematicians are more willing to part with rigueur than the philosophers across the hall. Notice how most mathematicians aren't particularly interested in foundations of mathematics, for example.

I'm a mathematician working in industry and I'm not at all interested in foundations. That's partly because I trust that all that stuff was worked out in the last century, and partly because there's so much more exciting stuff in math to be interested in instead.

Your belief that foundations were worked out in the last century is completely mistaken. Very serious and concerted efforts at foundations were made then, but they famously and dramatically failed when apparently unreconcilable contradictions were found at the core of these foundations. Then the foundational effort was largely abandoned and mathematicians moved on.

I suppose back around that time and up to a certain time after this happened, most mathematicians were aware of this history, but perhaps they aren't any more, if yours is a representative view.

So then it comes down to interest.

But many mathematicians were interested in foundations around the early part of the 20th Century. Now they're generally not.

This shift makes me wonder how much of mathematical foundations are actually "inherently interesting" (if there is such a thing) to mathematicians and how much has to do with fashion, and if it foundational projects among mathematicians will ever become fashionable (or "interesting") again.

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

#202

Post by gkya »

dragonwriter wrote: post #180
gkya wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who studies philosophy in school when graduates becomes a historian of philosophy, not a philosopher. Requirement of a diploma to philosophise contradicts philosophy itself. One can be a historian of philosophy and a philosopher at the same time, but the former does not require the latter and viceversa. Philosophy is not a job, it's a personal trait, like honesty, faith, generosity, aggressiveness, asocialness, timid…

> Who studies philosophy in school when graduates becomes a historian of philosophy, not a philosopher. No, when they graduate, they become a degree holder in philosophy. What they do afterwards determines if they become a historian of philosophy, a philosopher, or something else entirely (or some combination.) > Requirement of a diploma to philosophise contradicts philosophy itself. Perhaps (though I think its more…

>> Who studies philosophy in school when graduates becomes a historian of philosophy, not a philosopher.

> No, when they graduate, they become a degree holder in philosophy.

No, what they become is a historian of philosophy. Because what they learn is the eminent philosophers and schools from the past, and the philosophical methodology. This is like studying hittitology, they get to learn the hittite language, the hittitle literature, and they practice their writing on actual stone tablets, but at the end they become hittitologist, not hittites. What the education system in a given country considers a graduate from a philosophy course of a university is irrelevant, that's just a bureaucratic title.

>> Requirement of a diploma to philosophise contradicts philosophy itself.

> Similarly, formal education in philosophy can be useful to those wishing to do philosophy well.

My words agrees yours. I don't say a diploma is futile, just that it's not a requirement, and it cannot be one. Nor do I say that it's useless.

>> Philosophy is not a job, it's a personal trait [...]

> No, its not. "Philosophy" has at least two related senses, one of which is a thing one does (perhaps as a job, perhaps not), and the other of which is an a label for a class of belief systems, [...]

>> Philosophy is love of wisdom.

>The English word "philosophy" derives from Greek for the love of wisdom, but that's not what it means. Etymology is distinct from definition.

A personal trait is a group of things one does anyways. If one is timid, he does things that makes him timid. Philosophy is such, it includes thinking, doubting, searching, discussing and deciding.

You are mostly describing a western, originally-catholic, formal and academic sense of philosophy. I do not stay within that confining context, and think that the first and foremost task of a philosopher --and a task that continually shows up in whose life-- is to define what philosophy is, a task unachievable if one just opens some dictionary's P section and accepts whatever he finds there.

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

#203

Post by IsaacL »

pmoriarty wrote: post #197
IsaacL wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You are talking from ignorance. She doesn't have an "idea of the Ubermensch" - she esteems honest ordinary men highly, and condemns modern elites.

What is Nietzsche's solution to the problem of universals? What does he say about the is-ought problem? What does he say about capitalism and individual rights? All of these things are discussed in Rand, none are discussed in Nietzsche, who rejects reason, logic and universal truths.

Sure, read other philosophy, but to really really understand where she's coming from, you have to read her, and not confidently spout second-hand misinformation.

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

#205

Post by pmoriarty »

IsaacL wrote: post #203
pmoriarty wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You are talking from ignorance. She doesn't have an "idea of the Ubermensch" - she esteems honest ordinary men highly, and condemns modern elites. What is Nietzsche's solution to the problem of universals? What does he say about the is-ought problem? What does he say about capitalism and individual rights? All of these things are discussed in Rand, none are discussed in Nietzsche, who rejects reason, logic and univer…

Rand is most known for her "virtue of selfishness" idea and her high esteem if not worship of people who she considers to be superior due to their daring, individuality, flaunting of social conventions, and self-centeredness. This is a dumbed down or "mini me" version of Nietzsche's ubermensch concept.

Rand is not known for her view on any is-ought problem or her views on universals. She may have something to say about them, perhaps it's even original in some manner, but it's generally not what most Objectivists and Libertarians flock to her for. They flock to her to get some philosophical approval for their own self-centerdness. To those people I again recommend they read Nietzsche, to learn what one of the most influential philosophers of all time though on this subject that Rand tried to co-opt.

I never claimed and do not claim that everything Rand ever thought was thought first by Nietzsche, but the central idea that she's known for and that she championed she got (in a very distorted way) from him.

I also never suggested that Rand should not be read. It is a pity that she is ignored in academia. As a result, most of Rand's fans are often effectively isolated from the rest of the philosophical community and wallow in an intellectual backwater, with little awareness that there are other philosophers, what they thought, or how Rand's ideas relate to them. It would be much better if her work was read, taught, engaged, and challenged in academia, and her place in place in philosophical history was made more overt.

Finally, I have read Rand. Not nearly as much as her fans would have me read, I'm sure. But enough to say what I say from first-hand experience.

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

#206

Post by mbrock »

pmoriarty wrote: post #190
osullivj wrote: post #89

"Philosophy is the discipline whose adherents kick up a load of dust, then complain they can't see". Murray Gell-Mann. Mind you, I do have a degree in Philosophy from a faculty very firmly in the analytic school. Logic, metaphysics and ontology have been helpful in thinking about software problems. For instance, you can think of Russell's On Denoting ("the king of France is bald") as being about null pointers, or dan…

It's always made me sad when I come across people who's entire philosophical training makes them believe that philosophy is only about playing with puzzles like "the king of France is bald" or that someone like Quine's (or Russell's or Kirpke's) work is the epitome of philosophy. It reminds me of Schoppenhaur's maxim that "every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world." Dammit…

But philosophers do spend a lot of time on such formal, sober, lab coat style analysis of rational arguments and language and so on.

Just like how computer scientists spend a lot of time working on stuff like type theory (which of course has strong ties to 20th century philosophy, even to the positivists in some ways) which could be seen as anemic or formalistic or whatever.

I have sympathy for people who have burning life-and-death questions but to me it seems somewhat foolish to look for their answers in philosophy. Wearing my philosophy dabbler's hat, questions like that mostly seem like they have a feeling of urgency because they are confused and emotionally charged, and I (somewhat condescendingly, if you'll let it slide) suggest careful analysis of the premises and definitions involved, to maybe attain a less urgent and stressful state of mind.

Someone might find it extremely important to find the answer to the question of whether God is real. There are certainly philosophers who have written fervently about it, say Kierkegaard. But I think of the quiet kind of passion of someone like Spinoza, who in a way sidestepped that whole urgent question, and did it very carefully, analytically, and productively.

Mostly I think people will find their own allegiances and ways. Philosophy is very broad and diverse. If one school operates in a way you dislike, what's there to do but find another one? Or start one...

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

#207

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

pmoriarty wrote: post #201
GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a mathematician working in industry and I'm not at all interested in foundations. That's partly because I trust that all that stuff was worked out in the last century, and partly because there's so much more exciting stuff in math to be interested in instead.

Your belief that foundations were worked out in the last century is completely mistaken. Very serious and concerted efforts at foundations were made then, but they famously and dramatically failed when apparently unreconcilable contradictions were found at the core of these foundations. Then the foundational effort was largely abandoned and mathematicians moved on. I suppose back around that time and up to a certain…

Can you name three unreconcilable contradictions in ZFC?

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

#208

Post by dragonwriter »

gkya wrote: post #202
dragonwriter wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who studies philosophy in school when graduates becomes a historian of philosophy, not a philosopher. No, when they graduate, they become a degree holder in philosophy. What they do afterwards determines if they become a historian of philosophy, a philosopher, or something else entirely (or some combination.) > Requirement of a diploma to philosophise contradicts philosophy itself. Perhaps (though I think its more…

>> Who studies philosophy in school when graduates becomes a historian of philosophy, not a philosopher. > No, when they graduate, they become a degree holder in philosophy. No, what they become is a historian of philosophy. Because what they learn is the eminent philosophers and schools from the past, and the philosophical methodology. This is like studying hittitology, they get to learn the hittite language, the hi…

> No, what they become is a historian of philosophy.

No, they don't. If they go on to practice history of philosophy, sure, they become that, but many holders of philosophy degrees don't do that.

> Because what they learn is the eminent philosophers and schools from the past, and the philosophical methodology.

That's no more true than it is to say that what a person learns when taking a science degree is the eminent scientists of the past and their scientific results. Which is to say, that is a large and important part of what they learn, but hardly the whole thing, and there is utility in knowing what others have done in the space to doing new work in it. (Obviously, knowing the past of the field is also useful to people who wish to practice as a historian of the field, but its certainly not the only thing a degree is useful for. Holding a philosophy degree makes you neither a philosopher nor a historian of philosophy, both of those describe things you might do, with or without a degree, to which a degree might be useful.)

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

#209

Post by PirateDave »

pmoriarty wrote: post #186
RandomOpinion wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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".

Also, this depends on which country you're talking about. University education in some countries is free. It's also possible to get scholarships which subsidize some or even all of your tuition. Finally, there's often financial aid of various types, from need-based to aid to certain minorities, etc.

It looks like in Los Angeles this could become a reality soon. At least for a year: http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-edu-garcetti-co...

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

#210

Post by pmoriarty »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #207
pmoriarty wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your belief that foundations were worked out in the last century is completely mistaken. Very serious and concerted efforts at foundations were made then, but they famously and dramatically failed when apparently unreconcilable contradictions were found at the core of these foundations. Then the foundational effort was largely abandoned and mathematicians moved on. I suppose back around that time and up to a certain…

Can you name three unreconcilable contradictions in ZFC?

"The most comprehensive formal systems yet set up are, on the one hand, the system of Principia Mathematica and, on the other, the axiom system for set theory of Zermelo-Fraenkel (later extended by J. v. Neumann). These two systems are so extensive that all methods of proof used in mathematics today have been formalized in them, i.e. reduced to a few axioms and rules of inference. It may therefore be surmised that these axioms and rules of inference are also sufficient to decide all mathematical questions which can in any way at all be expressed formally in the systems concerned. It is shown below that this is not the case, and that in both the systems mentioned there are in fact relatively simple problems in the theory of ordinary whole numbers which cannot be decided from the axioms."

From "On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica And Related Systems" by Kurt Gödel, 1930

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Formally_Undecidable_Propos...

http://www.csee.wvu.edu/~xinl/library/papers/math/Godel.pdf

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