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Whither philosophy?

aeon.co

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Re: Whither philosophy?

#31

Post by hotnfresh »

richardanaya wrote: post #27
hotnfresh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 que…

> it doesn't depend on whether the rest of what he wrote is correct Do you accept ideas out of context?

All the time, naturally.

Which context do you think re-frames that particular exchange such that it stops serving its purpose of deflating lazy certainty about "obvious" moral pronouncements?

Re: Whither philosophy?

#32

Post by richardanaya »

hotnfresh wrote: post #23
simbolit wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes.

How far'd you make it in The Virtue of Selfishness before throwing it across the room for yet another dubious premise that's presented as fact without justification, used to build a giant sandcastle of reasoning upon, and never revisited with an eye to addressing the obvious objections to it?

Your notion that any philosophers write books that have complete philosophical justifications from metaphysics to politics in a single book is a strange one. As I told the other person not familiar with her writings, she has an incredible amount of books and essays. The most important being her book on epistemology.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#33

Post by richardanaya »

dragonwriter wrote: post #20
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…

> 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…

Calling Ayn Rand religious, is a clear sign you know nothing about her. Her entire work is basically a claim that objective reality should paid attention to in our beliefs.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#34

Post by lo_zamoyski »

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.

> I have a BA in philosophy.

I'm not sure the creds help you here, as undergrad philosophy graduates do not have a reputation for mature insight or depth, perhaps especially those reared in the contemporary climate where curricula are poorly structured, resembling something of a chaotic, superficial buffet that can only produce an incoherent residue of skepticism and relativism. Note that the very claim that almost all philosophers were wrong about everything is itself a truth claim, and therefore subject to the very same criteria that the claims of philosophers are. You haven't escaped the philosophical predicament.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#35

Post by AnimalMuppet »

b450 wrote: post #7

The argument is sometimes made that philosophy is the mother of all other academic traditions - once a philosophical idea reaches a sufficient level of promise or maturity, it spins off into its own discipline, as in the speciation of "natural philosophy" into specialized hard sciences. One might even point to psychology (or even more contentiously and partially, computer science) as a 20th century offshoots of philo…

> The shoe certainly seems to fit most philosophical sub-disciplines, like metaphysics and ethics.

But everyone asks questions from metaphysics. "Who am I?" "What is reality?" Everyone asks those questions, and everyone develops answers. (If you're claiming that the conclusions of philosophy on the topic are part of the junk drawer, I'm not necessarily going to argue. But the field itself is really relevant.)

And (almost) everyone asks questions from ethics. "What is the right thing to do? How do I tell? What is moral, and what is immoral?" (I say "almost" because some sociopath types may not in fact ask such questions, or ask them only as a smokescreen to advance an agenda.) And if you look at the world, we could really use a clear consensus on what is moral and how to tell. Again, though, I'm not saying that philosophy's answers aren't stuck in the junk drawer.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#36

Post by richardanaya »

b450 wrote: post #28
richardanaya wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"realist" philosopher?

Maybe not the right term. My point is that many philosophers believe that reality (a) is basically as it seems, and/or (b) is basically knowable. It's very odd to say that those views are exclusive to Rand. edit: one nice example would be Thomas Reid.

I don't know how to tell you this, but you are wrong.

1. Plato believed with live in a degenerate physical world that was a reflection of an alternate dimension.

2. Christian philosophy believes god can change the rules of reality at any given moment.

3. Kant believed we cannot know the noumenal world (world beyond our preception)

4. Materialists believe we don't know anything and we're just atoms deterministically saying anything

And a ton of derivatives.

etc. etc.

Aristotle is the most notable exception who believed in hylomorphism, but it was very very early philosophy.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#37

Post by eikenberry »

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.

Wrong how? Philosophy is about tools for thought. Tools can have different use cases, pros/cons, and can be used wrong, but they are never really just wrong in a general sense. I might not agree with Kant's categorical imperative but it is still useful sometimes when thinking about ethics.

Also "learning the truth" in philosophy is more learning what "the truth" means and how it is applied. Personally I'm a fan of William James' pragmatism approach here but it is not commonly held.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#38

Post by richardanaya »

b450 wrote: post #28
richardanaya wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"realist" philosopher?

Maybe not the right term. My point is that many philosophers believe that reality (a) is basically as it seems, and/or (b) is basically knowable. It's very odd to say that those views are exclusive to Rand. edit: one nice example would be Thomas Reid.

I don't know Thomas Reid's work, but here's what ChatGPT says about him:

"Thomas Reid, a Scottish philosopher and a contemporary of David Hume, is known for his common-sense philosophy, which posits that common sense beliefs have a greater evidentiary value than philosophical or scientific evidence."

I'd be wary of your idea he is someone who cares about objective reality.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#39

Post by dale_glass »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #35
b450 wrote: post #7

The argument is sometimes made that philosophy is the mother of all other academic traditions - once a philosophical idea reaches a sufficient level of promise or maturity, it spins off into its own discipline, as in the speciation of "natural philosophy" into specialized hard sciences. One might even point to psychology (or even more contentiously and partially, computer science) as a 20th century offshoots of philo…

> The shoe certainly seems to fit most philosophical sub-disciplines, like metaphysics and ethics. But everyone asks questions from metaphysics. "Who am I?" "What is reality?" Everyone asks those questions, and everyone develops answers. (If you're claiming that the conclusions of philosophy on the topic are part of the junk drawer, I'm not necessarily going to argue. But the field itself is really relevant.) And (al…

> But everyone asks questions from metaphysics. "Who am I?"

What do people even mean by this question? Because I don't think I was ever very concerned about that.

> "What is reality?" Everyone asks those questions, and everyone develops answers.

I guess I'm a bit of an oddity, because I was never that interested in the "big questions", and over time I developed the view that the answer to the questions most people seem to ask isn't really important or useful, but the useful part can be found in a physics textbook.

Re: Whither philosophy?

#40

Post by keiferski »

There are many reasons for philosophy’s stagnation, though the dual influences of specialisation and commercialisation, in particular, have turned philosophy into something that scarcely resembles the discipline as it was practised by the likes of Aristotle, Spinoza or Nietzsche.

A bit weird to use Nietzsche as an example here, considering that he had zero formal education in the discipline called "philosophy" and spent most of his life as a hermit writer with nearly-zero readers.

In any case, there is a ton of excellent philosophical work being done and put online today – it's just not accessible to the layman. Bob Brandom, for example, has a YouTube channel with hundreds of hours of video. Unfortunately, most of it is basically impenetrable to the average person.

https://www.youtube.com/@BobBrandomPitt

As someone that enjoyed my BA in Philosophy but nonetheless decided to not continue on to a PhD, I'm of two minds on the topic of philosophy popularization. On the one hand, it's actually somewhat a relief that there is no charlatan figure like Jordan Peterson or Sam Harris out there ruining the perception of the field. When you interact with bona fide academic philosophers, there is a feeling of professionalism that washes over you. It's a reassuring feeling and one I almost never get when reading pop-philosophy books.

At the same time, this lack of interest in the public sphere also means that there is rarely any pushback to dumb arguments. Stuff like effective altruism grows and becomes popular not because it's a better argument than the alternatives, but mostly because the people most qualified to critique it...simply aren't paying attention.

The same thing can be said for most controversial issues like abortion, gun control, etc. – the people most qualified to answer these nuanced questions are basically uninterested in doing so in a public forum, or aren't given the time and attention for doing so.

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