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Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

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Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#271

Post by Viliam1234 »

Tainnor wrote: post #217
coldtea wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OP wants to "develop a personal philosophy." So they will want to learn the state of the art of philosophy. Starting with Plato to learn philosophy is like starting with Archimedes to learn physics. I'd suggest the opposite, do start from the Socratic dialogues if you are really interested in philosophy. On the other hand, if you want to be a tech guy with the common tech preconceptions about philosophy, feel free…

I agree that there is no such thing as a "state of the art" in a subject such as philosophy... but you can read a lot of stuff from e.g. Plato or Aristotle that is just refuted nowadays. For example, I studied linguistics and whenever I had to read Plato about language I was reminded that he really had no idea what he was talking about. I also personally don't like Plato (he always creates these absolute strawmen as…

But people who didn't study linguistics can still be impressed by Plato, and then quote him to impress others.

So, it's ultimately a question of why do you even want to study philosophy in first place. I suspect that for most usual purposes, Plato is perfectly okay.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#272

Post by disown »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #116
disown wrote: post #49

> Are there any books that are considered a must for someone new to the field of philosophy? > Mental models address a lot of 'practical' situations but I am realizing that they fall short when it comes to bigger questions of life. > What path did you follow to develop a personal philosophy? The "field of philosophy" is different from "spirituality/personal philosophy/meaning of life/etc". If you want an introduction…

It's hard to see how Plato doesn't address "life's bigger questions".

Where did I said he didn't?

My point was that it ( philosophy ) "... won't give you answers to "life's bigger questions". It'll give you tools to think about them and introduce you to what others think/believe/etc."

Philosophy can lead you to what plato/socrates believed, but it itself won't give you the answers. People who want answers to life's big questions are really seeking religion rather than philosophy. People who want to think about it/explore/etc seek philosophy. Hope that helped.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#274

Post by coldtea »

Tainnor wrote: post #217
coldtea wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OP wants to "develop a personal philosophy." So they will want to learn the state of the art of philosophy. Starting with Plato to learn philosophy is like starting with Archimedes to learn physics. I'd suggest the opposite, do start from the Socratic dialogues if you are really interested in philosophy. On the other hand, if you want to be a tech guy with the common tech preconceptions about philosophy, feel free…

I agree that there is no such thing as a "state of the art" in a subject such as philosophy... but you can read a lot of stuff from e.g. Plato or Aristotle that is just refuted nowadays. For example, I studied linguistics and whenever I had to read Plato about language I was reminded that he really had no idea what he was talking about. I also personally don't like Plato (he always creates these absolute strawmen as…

>For example, I studied linguistics and whenever I had to read Plato about language I was reminded that he really had no idea what he was talking about.

You don't read Plato for empirical science though (or Aristotle for that matter). You read him for the philosophical ideas.

Whether language is X or Y for example is still debated, and while a modern linguist might know X research results or new theories, Plato still sets off many questions that are still dividing sides and are under debate. E.g. from a Stanford website breakdown:

"The positions of Hermogenes and Cratylus have come to be known to modern scholarship as ‘conventionalism’ and ‘naturalism’ respectively. An extreme linguistic conventionalist like Hermogenes holds that nothing but local or national convention determines which words are used to designate which objects. The same names could have been attached to quite different objects, and the same objects given quite different names, so long as the users of the language were party to the convention. Cratylus, as an extreme linguistic naturalist, holds that names cannot be arbitrarily chosen in the way that conventionalism describes or advocates, because names belong naturally to their specific objects. If you try to speak of something with any name other than its natural name, you are simply failing to refer to it at all. For example, he has told Hermogenes to the latter’s intense annoyance, Hermogenes is not actually his name".

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#275

Post by coldtea »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #271
Tainnor wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that there is no such thing as a "state of the art" in a subject such as philosophy... but you can read a lot of stuff from e.g. Plato or Aristotle that is just refuted nowadays. For example, I studied linguistics and whenever I had to read Plato about language I was reminded that he really had no idea what he was talking about. I also personally don't like Plato (he always creates these absolute strawmen as…

But people who didn't study linguistics can still be impressed by Plato, and then quote him to impress others. So, it's ultimately a question of why do you even want to study philosophy in first place. I suspect that for most usual purposes, Plato is perfectly okay.

>But people who didn't study linguistics can still be impressed by Plato, and then quote him to impress others.

Same way people that studied science X (including linguistics and CS), but are philosophically naive, can have a coarsed-grained view of very nuanced situations, and adhere to naive assumptions...

As an American philosopher noted, "An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing".

This is true for a scientist with expertise in whatever X.

Philosophy and epistemology (along with history and art) are ways to not be a simpleton with a narrow field of view who can't put together two coherent sentences outside their field (and doesn't even understand the second and third order implications of what he studies, its possible societal impact, its relevance and so on), but to get a wider picture.

Whch is not the same as "impressing others", except in the sense that intelligence and education do impress others sometimes...

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#276

Post by coldtea »

istjohn wrote: post #220
coldtea wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OP wants to "develop a personal philosophy." So they will want to learn the state of the art of philosophy. Starting with Plato to learn philosophy is like starting with Archimedes to learn physics. I'd suggest the opposite, do start from the Socratic dialogues if you are really interested in philosophy. On the other hand, if you want to be a tech guy with the common tech preconceptions about philosophy, feel free…

> Science is a tool, we don't ask tools for their opinions or for our goals or for what to do with them. We use them to make things or to examine things, no to think about what we want to make, or to think about what is best to make. That's for philosophy. And yet philosophy is utterly incapable of telling us what to make or do. People often come to philosophy with the hope that studying philosophy will help them liv…

>And yet philosophy is utterly incapable of telling us what to make or do.

Actually it is perfectly capable.

In fact, nothing has been made or done without a philosophy guiding it.

It's just that for most people this is usually a self-made, uninformed, ad-hoc (and usually bad and unfit for the purpose) philosophy, or some low-tier second hand pop philosophy.

If you mean "philosophy can't tell what X exactly everybody should make or do" that's true. But that's also true for science and everything else. We are individuals, in different situations, different problems, and different goals.

Philosophy teaches us how to think about our problems, goals, etc, and how to put them in perspective, value them, examine them, etc.

It doesn't hand them out to us. Philosophy is not an oracle telling you what to do and absolving you from thinking (and that's true whether some philosophers treated theirs as such or not).

In its totality, philosophy is the exact opposite, a set of prior observations, discussions, hypotheses, thinking tools and approaches, to make you think better and to give you the benefit of the insight of others.

You get that insight on technical matters from science.

You get that insight on meta-matters (thinking about thinking, morals, etc) from philosophy.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#277

Post by Tainnor »

coldtea wrote: post #274
Tainnor wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that there is no such thing as a "state of the art" in a subject such as philosophy... but you can read a lot of stuff from e.g. Plato or Aristotle that is just refuted nowadays. For example, I studied linguistics and whenever I had to read Plato about language I was reminded that he really had no idea what he was talking about. I also personally don't like Plato (he always creates these absolute strawmen as…

> For example, I studied linguistics and whenever I had to read Plato about language I was reminded that he really had no idea what he was talking about. You don't read Plato for empirical science though (or Aristotle for that matter). You read him for the philosophical ideas. Whether language is X or Y for example is still debated, and while a modern linguist might know X research results or new theories, Plato stil…

But philosophy of language is a thing and IMHO, Plato is mostly useless there. What is described in the quoted excerpt as "naturalism" is... simply not a position that any modern linguist (at the very least since Saussure) would take, because it is plainly ridiculous and flies in the face of basically all evidence.

Generally, I don't think that philosophical ideas exist in a vacuum, they are informed by the real world and by science (hence why e.g. quantum mechanics plays such an important role). Plato bases his ideas off of specific premises (that's the whole point of the socratic dialogues), but I find the premises often very flawed. For example, how does Platonism and the idea that there is "an ideal horse" make sense in the context of evolution? It doesn't, IMHO, and cognitive science seems to give much better answers to such question as how we can recognise the concept of "horse".

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#278

Post by istjohn »

pmoriarty wrote: post #258
istjohn wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But is philosophy's function to find answers? You're moving the goal posts. Why did you just say that philosophy can help us address a long list of questions if you're willing to concede that maybe philosophy isn't for answering questions at all. OP wants answers. They want to develop a personal philosophy. They are not looking to "expand their horizons" or "question everything." > there's also arguably no way to "…

"You're moving the goal posts. Why did you just say that philosophy can help us address a long list of questions if you're willing to concede that maybe philosophy isn't for answering questions at all." Because I was answering people who insisted that philosophy was has to be useful. I'm not moving the goal posts so much as questioning their assumption that philosophy must have a use to be of value. "OP wants answers…

You've misunderstood me if you think I'm arguing philosophy has no value. I'm only arguing that studying it will not help someone develop a personal philosophy.

Re: Ask HN: Learning about philosophy

#280

Post by istjohn »

kondov wrote: post #243
istjohn wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Science is a tool, we don't ask tools for their opinions or for our goals or for what to do with them. We use them to make things or to examine things, no to think about what we want to make, or to think about what is best to make. That's for philosophy. And yet philosophy is utterly incapable of telling us what to make or do. People often come to philosophy with the hope that studying philosophy will help them liv…

I don't think that there's a universal truth about what you should be making or doing. It's up to each person to decide that for themselves. Philosophy exposes you to different ideas and ways of thinking, showing that there isn't a single correct answer to the questions people have in life. What you make of that is up to the person on the receiving end of those ideas.

I basically agree with this. My suggestion to OP would be to take this comment to heart. If they are looking to develop a personal philosophy, any amount of study of formal philosophy will not get them further than this.
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