Live data from Hacker News

Is Philosophy an Art?

nybooks.com

121–130 of 149 posts

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#121
post #3

I think of philosophy of the art of words and ideas, just like literature is generally the art of words and stories. But, for historical reasons, many people and most philosophers claim philosophy is much more than this. Spinoza was convinced he was "engaged in the pursuit of truth", as the article writes, and he probably thought he had built a logical proof of the existence of god. But his concepts are fuzzy, so his…

> there is no way to refute or evaluate philosophy. That is not true at all. Much philosophy throughout history has been shown to be incorrect by later science, for example.

Exactly; I can't see how someone can say you can't refute philosophy, as though it's not based on argumentation and premises that lead to a conclusion. When you demonstrate that a premise is wrong (e.g. philosophically, mathematically, empirically, etc.) then the philosophy (or rather, that argument for the philosophy) is 'refuted'.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its not trying to explain what they are its trying to ask the right questions.

Asking the right questions doesn't negate the fact that there's a category error here. Either way, "asking questions" is not what people classically think of when they talk about philosophy.

There is no category error. Again asking the right questions teaches you how to think about the world.

The fact that people have misconception of what philosophy is doesn't change anything.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#123

Woah, philosophy and art are two massive subjects. Historically, both have been treated as separate subjects for good reasons. However there is some overlap, such as something which is beautiful to the senses. But the distinction between the two is that philosophy is usually a set of distinct thought-experiment(s) and art is an observer's perspective into the mind of an artist(s). Largely, scientists scoff at philoso…

> Largely, scientists scoff at philosophy

the types that scoff usually are pseudo scientists who had gone through just enough academic brainwashing that makes them believe everything can be modeled as a system. it's the mindset that dominates Tech/STEM sadly. those who scream the loudest (usually those who read Sokal) are also the most clueless about what framework to use when. "A city is not a tree"[1], by Christopher Alexander is a fantastic example of how a "science above everything" mindset keeps us from having good things. Another example of fools (we have many) would be the idea that smart-contracts, blockchains can be used to model very complex social "systems of systems" (or anyone who peddles silver bullets).

[1] http://www.bp.ntu.edu.tw/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/06-Alexa...

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#124
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language vs. meta-language. I completely subscribe to parent's point of view: because concepts expressed in natural language are so massively overloaded, it's very hard to make precise statements. When disciplines acquire their own method and formal language, they tend to splinter off philosophy. Think about mathematics, physics, biology, economics...

> Language vs. meta-language. I do not understand what this is supposed to mean or demonstrate. > because concepts expressed in natural language are so massively overloaded, it's very hard to make precise statements. That's why philosophers clarify meanings and ask for clarification for terms when they think are vague. That something is "overloaded" (amphiboly) doesn't mean you can't determine which meaning is used o…

>> Stating "there is no way to refute or evaluate philosophy" while then going on to do the same seems incongruent.

>> Language vs. meta-language.

> I do not understand what this is supposed to mean or demonstrate.

I believe the intended meaning is that there is a difference between statements within philosophy and statements about philosophy.

Here's an example of a statement within philosophy:

A) Every beginning is in time, and every limit of extension in space.

Here's an example of a statement about philosophy:

B) Statement A, along with the rest of metaphysics, is meaningless.

On the surface, this critique looks promising if you're a scientifically-minded person who doesn't want a bunch of philosophical bullshit in their worldview.

But the problem is: if statement B isn't philosophy, then what exactly is it?

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#125
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Language vs. meta-language. I do not understand what this is supposed to mean or demonstrate. > because concepts expressed in natural language are so massively overloaded, it's very hard to make precise statements. That's why philosophers clarify meanings and ask for clarification for terms when they think are vague. That something is "overloaded" (amphiboly) doesn't mean you can't determine which meaning is used o…

> I do not understand what this is supposed to mean or demonstrate. Parent said 'Stating "there is no way to refute or evaluate philosophy" while then going on to do the same seems incongruent'. I was just refuting this. It's essentially the same argument as "everything is philosophy" or "everything is politics", technically true but only in a vacuous sense. > That something is "overloaded" (amphiboly) I don't mean t…

> It's essentially the same argument as "everything is philosophy" or "everything is politics", technically true but only in a vacuous sense.

I'm not convinced that we need to reach for the everything-is-philosophy hammer in order to make a reasonable case that we are doing philosophy when we argue that, for example:

> Words like 'truth', 'beauty', 'justice' are vague, imprecise meshes of meaning, so much that making precise statements about them is extremely problematic even conceptually.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#126

Working on some inforgraphics tackling gender bias a while back, I was'accused' of producing data visualization art. I defended the intellectual rigor of my work, yet lost the argument - my 'accuser' turned out to be the curator of data visualization art at the Tate Modern. He won the argument by pointing out that the work, though based on hard data, was designed to evoke an emotional rather than an intellectual resp…

Well, processing data correctly is a form of art. Raw data contain systemic biases and are not ethical. It takes an artist to cleanse data, and present them without bias in an ethical and moral way.

> Well, processing data correctly is a form of art. Raw data contain systemic biases and are not ethical. It takes an artist to cleanse data, and present them without bias in an ethical and moral way.

This is one of the most dystopian things I've read in recent memory. Raw data is bias but it's art to "cleanse" the data and make them "ethical and moral"? The system is bias, but the artist is without and can bring purity.

This is some truly Ministry of Truth level thinking and it's quite disturbing to know people genuinely believe this. No wonder we have a replication crisis.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#127

Woah, philosophy and art are two massive subjects. Historically, both have been treated as separate subjects for good reasons. However there is some overlap, such as something which is beautiful to the senses. But the distinction between the two is that philosophy is usually a set of distinct thought-experiment(s) and art is an observer's perspective into the mind of an artist(s). Largely, scientists scoff at philoso…

> Largely, scientists scoff at philosophy the types that scoff usually are pseudo scientists who had gone through just enough academic brainwashing that makes them believe everything can be modeled as a system. it's the mindset that dominates Tech/STEM sadly. those who scream the loudest (usually those who read Sokal) are also the most clueless about what framework to use when. "A city is not a tree" [1], by Christop…

I believe ya!

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#128

Woah, philosophy and art are two massive subjects. Historically, both have been treated as separate subjects for good reasons. However there is some overlap, such as something which is beautiful to the senses. But the distinction between the two is that philosophy is usually a set of distinct thought-experiment(s) and art is an observer's perspective into the mind of an artist(s). Largely, scientists scoff at philoso…

> Largely, scientists scoff at philosophy the types that scoff usually are pseudo scientists who had gone through just enough academic brainwashing that makes them believe everything can be modeled as a system. it's the mindset that dominates Tech/STEM sadly. those who scream the loudest (usually those who read Sokal) are also the most clueless about what framework to use when. "A city is not a tree" [1], by Christop…

I get deep satisfaction from modeling business processes into software and seeing the system up and running. And, the more I do this and the better I get at it, the gap between my models and the actual thing become ever more apparent. I think getting good at software can lead you down a couple of paths -- either coming to think that everything can truly be modeled in software given enough time and resources, or growing in humility and realizing the limits of software and the unbridgeable gap between models (however useful and impressive) and larger reality.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#129
I'd say no. But then when I think "philosophy", I think of a specific intellectual discipline, one that embraces two distinct modes of thought and exploration. But first, some history.

Once upon a time, the 3 pillars of philosophy were metaphysics, ethics, and epistemology. Starting with Kant and ending sometime in the late 19th or early 20th C, with the work of philosopher-mathematicians, if you will (Godel, Russell, etc.), metaphysics went by the wayside. While philosophy was once about exploring how the world might be and what might be beyond the material, prudent philosophers realized that science was now the realm of knowing the world and anything based not on science was basically religion, and not subject to knowability, sharability, falsifiability, etc.

Ethics was next: Lacking metaphysics, lacking a baseline of truth, what was the point in postulating ethics? It does sneak back in, though, more in a moment.

That leaves epistemology, the philosophy of knowledge and knowability.

Modern philosophers of science work rigorously with mathematicians and physicists, among others, to explore epistemological questions, especially those that arise from Godel's incomplete theorem, from various interpretations of quantum mechanics, and from computational complexity.

That's the first of modern philosophy's two areas of expertise: Embracing what is happening in other fields and exploring what those fields have to say about what we can usefully say about what is and is not knowable.

The second area is taking well founded ideas and exploring them fully. My favourite example is Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", which takes the basic notion of reproduction with variation to its logical and sometimes illogical extremes.

What about people who style themselves or are styled as philosophers and who write about art or sociology or religion? And explore those things in ways similar to what I describe above?

If they are doing philosophy, it is pre-20thC, maybe even pre-19thC philosophy, but I see it as critique, essayism, but not as philosophy, not in the modern sense. Occasionally, you'll encounter someone who writes with the same clarity and discipline as those modern philosophers who continue to work the hard problem (epistemology), but those writers are rare.

One of the last great ethics writers was one such: Mackey's Ethics explored the question of how to be ethical, what that meant, taken to its intellectual and living extreme, but he did not explore of the question of why: One's reason for being ethical is personal, metaphysical, subjective. Mackey provides tools and techniques for acting on a decision to live ethically, for exploring that decision.

(You could say that I fall in the old "analytic" camp, and I'd accept that. The "synthetic" camp, IMHO, was mostly emptied in the early 20th C and is now populated with people in love with their own words, with opacity and obscurity, and who have yet to admit that they really wish their science fiction and fantasy writing was taken more seriously or more popularly, or both.)

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#130
post #47
post #43

Personally, I do "formal philosophy" at least to some extent/in some papers, i.e., lots of logic, decision theory, a bit of applied mathematics. This kind of analytic philosophy superficially looks like science, at least to people who don't know much about the STEM fields. However, in my opinion it is clearly not science. IMHO, it's best to take philosophy as a discipline on its own. If I am pressed to decide between…

> Few would call mathematics an art, though, or would they? I'm not sure. Many would, precisely because it is not empirical, as indicated by the fact that mathematics departments are often in Arts faculties. As Sir Michael Atiyah put it: "The art in good mathematics, and mathematics is an art, is to identify and tackle problems that are both interesting and solvable." Mathematicians will often wax philosophical when…

Isn't induction empirical?
Post reply on HN