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Whither philosophy?

aeon.co

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Re: Whither philosophy?

#11

Post by hotnfresh »

ranprieur wrote: post #4

I have a BA in philosophy. Rather than learning the truth, I discovered that almost all philosophers were wrong about almost everything. But in tracing the history of wrongness, wrestling with all the fashions of thinking, you learn to think with precision. That skill continues to help me.

Ruins a person for much Internet discussion. Wrecking people's obnoxiously-confident pronouncements by leading them through the discussion of the definition of justice in Book I of Plato's Republic gets really boring after a while.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#12

Post by richardanaya »

galangalalgol wrote: post #9
richardanaya wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to know what precision means to claim you think with precision. Most philosophy believes the false idea that one can't know reality, thus generally ends up a waste of time.

You can use the definition of knowledge from "Meno". If belive something, and have at least some justification for that belief, amd lastly, it happens to be true, then you know it. You may never find out that you knew it vs just believed it, but it is an attractive definition.

> If belive something, and have at least some justification for that belief, amd lastly, it happens to be true

You've basically just said "I can make any thing to be true so long as it's justified to me". Think about the consequences of that statement.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#13

Post by richardanaya »

hotnfresh wrote: post #11
ranprieur wrote: post #4

I have a BA in philosophy. Rather than learning the truth, I discovered that almost all philosophers were wrong about almost everything. But in tracing the history of wrongness, wrestling with all the fashions of thinking, you learn to think with precision. That skill continues to help me.

Ruins a person for much Internet discussion. Wrecking people's obnoxiously-confident pronouncements by leading them through the discussion of the definition of justice in Book I of Plato's Republic gets really boring after a while.

[flagged]

Re: Whither philosophy?

#14

Post by simbolit »

richardanaya wrote: post #8

[flagged]

The idea that Ayn Rand is a philosopher in any meaningful sense is very debatable.

She was an author of fiction, like Terry Pratchett. Lots of people draw philosophical inspiration from Pratchett, but that doesn't make him a philosopher.

Sorry to burst some bubble here, but most of the philosophical content of her writings is just rehashed Nietzsche, sometimes near-verbatim. All the while she claimed, she never read any philosopher but Aristotle. For anyone who has read Nietzsche and then opens a Rand book, this is laughable.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#15

Post by richardanaya »

simbolit wrote: post #14
richardanaya wrote: post #8

[flagged]

The idea that Ayn Rand is a philosopher in any meaningful sense is very debatable. She was an author of fiction, like Terry Pratchett. Lots of people draw philosophical inspiration from Pratchett, but that doesn't make him a philosopher. Sorry to burst some bubble here, but most of the philosophical content of her writings is just rehashed Nietzsche, sometimes near-verbatim. All the while she claimed, she never read…

Are you even aware of the books and articles she wrote for decades? Check your premises.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#16

Post by simbolit »

richardanaya wrote: post #15
simbolit wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that Ayn Rand is a philosopher in any meaningful sense is very debatable. She was an author of fiction, like Terry Pratchett. Lots of people draw philosophical inspiration from Pratchett, but that doesn't make him a philosopher. Sorry to burst some bubble here, but most of the philosophical content of her writings is just rehashed Nietzsche, sometimes near-verbatim. All the while she claimed, she never read…

Are you even aware of the books and articles she wrote for decades? Check your premises.

Yes.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#17

Post by b450 »

richardanaya wrote: post #8

[flagged]

Setting aside the significance of Rand in the philosophical canon (which is minimal, though that almost certainly reflects a bias against her politics), the claim that Rand is the only realist philosopher is pretty outrageous.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#19

Post by hotnfresh »

richardanaya wrote: post #13
hotnfresh wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ruins a person for much Internet discussion. Wrecking people's obnoxiously-confident pronouncements by leading them through the discussion of the definition of justice in Book I of Plato's Republic gets really boring after a while.

[flagged]

They don't have to know it's Plato, and it doesn't depend on whether the rest of what he wrote is correct. Works for just about any case where someone thinks they've got a pat, simple definition of "justice" (often implicitly the case, if not explicitly) and have drawn some conclusions based on that. All it needs to demonstrate (and it does it rather successfully) is that simple "I've got the answer to this moral question!" solutions usually... aren't actually simple, and haven't solved much at all, once you start picking at them. They seem correct only as long as you avoid thinking about them too hard—and they don't fall apart in technical or fiddly ways, but in ways that make them clearly insufficient even to a layman or to someone who prefers to reject philosophy when it gets too up-its-own-ass. Most positions of this sort are just too bad and ill-considered to be interesting.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#20

Post by dragonwriter »

simbolit wrote: post #14
richardanaya wrote: post #8

[flagged]

The idea that Ayn Rand is a philosopher in any meaningful sense is very debatable. She was an author of fiction, like Terry Pratchett. Lots of people draw philosophical inspiration from Pratchett, but that doesn't make him a philosopher. Sorry to burst some bubble here, but most of the philosophical content of her writings is just rehashed Nietzsche, sometimes near-verbatim. All the while she claimed, she never read…

> The idea that Ayn Rand is a philosopher in any meaningful sense is very debatable.

Its not entirely unfair, though "polemicist" is more accurate than "philosopher"; moreso than to say that Ayn Rand is worth reading in any meaningful way, at least.

> She was an author of fiction, like Terry Pratchett.

In terms of the works that make this a reasonable statement, I would more say she was an author of religious (or, if you prefer, ideological) polemic packaged as long-form fiction, like Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.

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