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Why read old philosophy?

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Re: Why read old philosophy?

#51

Post by jhbadger »

navait wrote: post #32
jhbadger wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it though? Has philosophy actually made any advances in understanding the "great questions" of the meaning of life and what not? Perhaps the reason that people find reading Plato and Aristotle worthwhile is that people are still beating their heads against the same unanswerable questions.

What about Analytic philosophy? It's come up with new ways to discuss and illuminate what we are trying to understand, and starts in the late 1800's.

That's a fairly broad field though -- there are some analytic philosophers who were/are practically mathematicians, and who certainly helped advance logic and related fields. On the other hand you have analytical people who are working on the "big questions" like ethics where the same questions from ancient times get asked over and over.

Re: Why read old philosophy?

#52

Post by nsomaru »

forapurpose wrote: post #23

Why read new philosophy? The old stuff has had the weak ideas weeded out and has a proven track record. "The Yale Report of 1828" -- an influential document written by Jeremiah Day (who was at the time president of Yale), one of his trustees, and a committee of faculty -- distinguished between "the discipline" and "the furniture" of the mind. Mastering a specific body of knowledge -- acquiring "the furniture" -- is o…

Schopenhauer contends that works of genius will scarcely be recognised by the creator's contemporaries simply because understanding genius takes significant intellect, with which the majority of 'living' humanity is not endowed. But over time enough people will exist who can understand a work to raise it to the stature it deserves. This makes time a good filter (but obviously not the only criterion).

I tend to agree with Schopenhauer.

Re: Why read old philosophy?

#53

Post by pyrale »

Matticus_Rex wrote: post #31
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you define "got anything out of it" for me? And what is a universal item that literally everyone will use in their life? We could probably stop general education after grade 3 if that was the goal of education.

>Could you define "got anything out of it" for me? Retained any information that gave them skills or enrichment. Skills we can measure as an increase in human capital. Enrichment is tougher, but for enrichment to take place the information has to be retained, and we have plenty of data on the abysmal state of retention. > And what is a universal item that literally everyone will use in their life? We could probably s…

Maybe you should read on the excesses and failures of Taylorism ?

It seems you're trying to apply these failures to education.

Re: Why read old philosophy?

#54

Post by nsomaru »

debt wrote: post #38

Philosophy presents a methodology for argument. The arguments made by Plato through Wittgenstein need not be objectively true, rather they serve as simply great arguments of history. Many teachers forget to instill the fact that when we as a species infuse reason and language to make persuasive arguments, we call that philosophy.

Are you referring to the earlier W. or the later W.?

Re: Why read old philosophy?

#55

Post by msla »

menexenus wrote: post #33

This post is misguided on so many levels. It never once occurs to the author that the reason we still study the ancients is because they were right . Like 90% of HN readers, the author tacitly assumes that old == wrong/outmoded/bygone/eclipsed. She thus concludes that the only possible reason to read the ancients is to study their methods (e.g., how Aristotle wrote) and not their actual ideas (e.g., what Aristotle wr…

Thinking there's anything wrong with relativism is perverse, and a disgrace to philosophy as a whole. Trying to discredit relativism means you think there's one, and only one, standard of right and wrong, and that our ethics can never improve based on philosophical thinking. It's anti-progress and, therefore, utterly anti-philosophy.

Re: Why read old philosophy?

#56

Post by whataretensors »

arca_vorago wrote: post #18

Because too many people these days are the "school is overrated, vocational schools are all we need" types who don't understand the basic value of going through the old philosophers... the title is case in point. To me it seems so obvious that there are numerous reasons that it just seems click-baity. You know what they teach at the elite schools (like Eton for example) that most others don't? The trivium and quadriv…

> More than that though, they are vital parts of having a well rounded education where knowledge at a base level in areas almost always elevates your ability to think well in others.

Is there any evidence of this? Liberal arts majors claim it but I haven't really seen any proof. The philosophy courses I took in college had professors with an air of smug self-righteousness and faux-enlightenment. It seems more likely that the people who study this stuff then backwards rationalize why it was important.

I also think "well rounded education" is a tactic to keep people under the misinformed idea that intelligence can be earned. Wisdom, maybe, but not intelligence. That's pretty well established to be locked in around 7.

Re: Why read old philosophy?

#57

Post by Matticus_Rex »

pyrale wrote: post #53
Matticus_Rex wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Could you define "got anything out of it" for me? Retained any information that gave them skills or enrichment. Skills we can measure as an increase in human capital. Enrichment is tougher, but for enrichment to take place the information has to be retained, and we have plenty of data on the abysmal state of retention. > And what is a universal item that literally everyone will use in their life? We could probably s…

Maybe you should read on the excesses and failures of Taylorism ? It seems you're trying to apply these failures to education.

I'm not suggesting anything excessive; I'm suggesting (based on a fairly large academic literature) that we know for a fact that a large amount of what is done in our education system does not provide any benefits that we can measure in any way (and not for lack of trying), and that for most of the knowledge that is taught for which we can't find tangible benefits, nearly none of it is retained (which invalidates arguments that it is providing intangible benefits). Most arguments for the educational status quo are based on hand-waving and appeals to magic. Suggesting that this is not an adequate way to justify the apparent waste of billions of hours of children's time is not reactionary Taylorism -- it's pointing out a glaring error that society is making due to the social desirability bias of a fantasy "education" that demonstrably makes people better with no opportunity costs or downsides.

Re: Why read old philosophy?

#58

Post by bobthechef »

msla wrote: post #55
menexenus wrote: post #33

This post is misguided on so many levels. It never once occurs to the author that the reason we still study the ancients is because they were right . Like 90% of HN readers, the author tacitly assumes that old == wrong/outmoded/bygone/eclipsed. She thus concludes that the only possible reason to read the ancients is to study their methods (e.g., how Aristotle wrote) and not their actual ideas (e.g., what Aristotle wr…

Thinking there's anything wrong with relativism is perverse, and a disgrace to philosophy as a whole. Trying to discredit relativism means you think there's one, and only one, standard of right and wrong, and that our ethics can never improve based on philosophical thinking. It's anti-progress and, therefore, utterly anti-philosophy.

http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-absolute-truth-a...

Re: Why read old philosophy?

#59

Post by AbrahamParangi »

weichi wrote: post #29

Most of the comments here are completely missing the point of the article. The article is not about whether the ideas espoused by old philosophers are worth learning about, or about whether old philosophers are worth reading. The article asks the question of why philosophers prefer to read the original works of old philosophers, instead of reading descriptions of these ideas by authors who have demonstrated competenc…

There are other fields where the former approach is taken over the latter— such as painting, sculpture, literature and other kinds of art.

Re: Why read old philosophy?

#60

Post by Matticus_Rex »

always_good wrote: post #45
Matticus_Rex wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Could you define "got anything out of it" for me? Retained any information that gave them skills or enrichment. Skills we can measure as an increase in human capital. Enrichment is tougher, but for enrichment to take place the information has to be retained, and we have plenty of data on the abysmal state of retention. > And what is a universal item that literally everyone will use in their life? We could probably s…

I procrastinated my core courses and took Philosophy my last semester of uni at 22. I'm so glad I took it that late. It was easily one of the best courses I ever took, of course with the professors to thank for that. What did I get out of it? It got me thinking about all sorts of concepts, especially concepts I never would've thought about on my own. How do you quantify that? Who knows? I still think about Callicles…

Congratulations, you're the 1% who got things out of it.

As a former teacher, I can assure you that (optimistically) 90% of what happens in school does not teach any problem-solving skills (and that's backed up by the literature). The 10% that does is in literacy and mathematics up to Algebra (not including Geometry, which almost no one remembers, nearly zero people use, has been demonstrated to make little or no difference in problem-solving skills, and yet is still somehow a required course almost everywhere).

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