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Creeped Out [pdf]

philpapers.org

1–10 of 41 posts

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#2
This paper is almost a parody of philosophical writing. It's pages and pages of telling you what it's not going to tell you, contrasting it with other things it could tell but chooses not to, mentioning other things others have told you (which will not be repeated here), disagreeing with the claims of other writers (without quite explaining the refutations), telling you what it intends to tell you, telling you in what form it will tell you what it intends to tell you, and then reminding that it told you.

I admit I was skimming a bit by the end, but I seemed to have overlooked the part where it actually said anything.

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#3

This paper is almost a parody of philosophical writing. It's pages and pages of telling you what it's not going to tell you, contrasting it with other things it could tell but chooses not to, mentioning other things others have told you (which will not be repeated here), disagreeing with the claims of other writers (without quite explaining the refutations), telling you what it intends to tell you, telling you in wha…

I see it as a small dog trying to pick up a big stick - he's making all the right motions but nothing's coming off the ground.

I have to believe it's written by a young person who knows what papers should look like, but doesn't have the life experience to get any leverage on the topic.

But yeah, difficult to read, my eyes glanced off like I was trying to read wallpaper.

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#4

This paper is almost a parody of philosophical writing. It's pages and pages of telling you what it's not going to tell you, contrasting it with other things it could tell but chooses not to, mentioning other things others have told you (which will not be repeated here), disagreeing with the claims of other writers (without quite explaining the refutations), telling you what it intends to tell you, telling you in wha…

Thanks for the heads up. I would give it a shot out of curiosity following your comments if it were html, but the pdf format is a little annoying.

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#7
post #3

This paper is almost a parody of philosophical writing. It's pages and pages of telling you what it's not going to tell you, contrasting it with other things it could tell but chooses not to, mentioning other things others have told you (which will not be repeated here), disagreeing with the claims of other writers (without quite explaining the refutations), telling you what it intends to tell you, telling you in wha…

I see it as a small dog trying to pick up a big stick - he's making all the right motions but nothing's coming off the ground. I have to believe it's written by a young person who knows what papers should look like, but doesn't have the life experience to get any leverage on the topic. But yeah, difficult to read, my eyes glanced off like I was trying to read wallpaper.

I see it as someone who wishes they were special.

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#8
I personally found it well-written, if a bit wordy; the first few sections are indeed refutations / literature review, but that’s, uh, that’s the point. The whole essay is about how we use the word loosely and existing definitions don’t fit well enough, so publishing a paper that didn’t cover all the (recently, semi-prominently) proposed definitions would be seen as lazy or incomplete. Personally, I think it’s a fun exercise to read through and update your own personal definition as you go. If you’re like me, all these papers start with a “oh well that word is simple and obvious” reaction that slowly disintegrates!

Materially; I couldn't c/p it, but I think their line about “indirect or diffuse danger” that gets right at the crux of the issue. So I’d say I’d find this analysis convincing

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#9

This paper is almost a parody of philosophical writing. It's pages and pages of telling you what it's not going to tell you, contrasting it with other things it could tell but chooses not to, mentioning other things others have told you (which will not be repeated here), disagreeing with the claims of other writers (without quite explaining the refutations), telling you what it intends to tell you, telling you in wha…

I was trying to see if there were any references to major works on discomfort from a philosophical perspective that I was familiar with, but I couldn't find any.

I think its constitutive: here we have a field of thought that has spent the last however many years attempting to understand the mind in a sort of isolated, atomized way, now having to grapple with the social reality of thinking, and having little to no resources to draw from, and presumably the author is some poor Master's or PhD student who is only familiar with the small segment of materials that their professors and advisors have to offer them.

The so-called field of "analytic philosophy," if such a distinction is even important anymore, has produced numerous studies on Heidegger[0], for instance, who takes the feelings of Anxiety (and boredom) as the ground of Being. Less frequently cited in Philosophy, but common in cognitive science, is Freud--specifically I'm thinking of his essay "The 'Uncanny'."[1] I can think of others who would be more controversial, since they, being, perhaps, too heavily influenced, made such feelings of discomfort and confusion constitutive in their writing, and so many criticize them as being "nonsensical" without realizing how facile such criticisms are...

In any case, just as I am familiar with Heidegger and Freud, simply because of who I've come into association with, there is always a universe of thought that I am excluded from in one way or another, so its good to see, regardless, other takes on these subjects. But I agree, this lacks the kind of depth you'd like to see out of research that addresses this topic.

[0]https://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/heid...

[1]https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/freud1.pdf

Re: Creeped Out [pdf]

#10
> Being creeped out is a feeling or reaction that is valuable for some other reasons as well. A shared sense of what is creepy can make for social bonding, either in the face of a joint threat or annoyance, or just to feel fellow feelings in shared reactions.

Being creeped out as a bonding circle jerk is all fun and games, until what the group is creeped out by are people from some ethnic group.

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