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A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

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Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#61

Post by qqq »

gruseom wrote: post #57
qqq wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post had no content. It made a bald assertion that ignored what had been said before. I would genuinely like it if you posted some actual content, and I hoped to indirectly encourage you in that direction. The tone is from a book I've been reading today (The Diamond Age).

Your post had no content. [...] I would genuinely like it if you posted some actual content, and I hoped to indirectly encourage you Heh. Something about this comment seemed very familiar to me, and after a while I figured out what it was: the distinctive sound of xlnt aka curi. Yay web history! While I have an enduring if inexplicable affection for you, and get that you weren't being sarcastic, the last thing I want…

ok. hey i don't seem to have written anything in my profile. how'd u figure that out?

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#62

Post by qqq »

agentcoops wrote: post #58
qqq wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's wonderful. Perhaps you, as a Wittgenstein buff, would be so kind as to explain how the Wittgenstein quote I gave above, which at first glance appears to be nonsense, is in fact respectable and worthwhile thinking? I don't get it; enlighten me.

"My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright." I think that's kinda the whole point of the Tractatus: much of philosophy (metaphysics and ethics, par…

OK looking them up. Kripke's wikipedia entry is full of stuff about logic. I don't really have a problem with logicians. I don't think they are in the primary philosophy tradition pg was criticizing (and which I don't like). If he learned something about logic from wittgenstein, then great i guess.

Anscombe wiki has:

For years, I would spend time, in cafés, for example, staring at objects saying to myself: "I see a packet. But what do I really see? How can I say that I see here anything more than a yellow expanse?"

I think that stuff is a dead end. We should solve problems we have, not question all traditions simultaneously for no particular reason.

By the way, I do think there are good philosophers, who made useful progress, but they are largely neglected. e.g. xenophanes, godwin, burke, feynman. (neglected as philosophers)

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#63

Post by Prrometheus »

agentcoops wrote: post #32
Prrometheus wrote: post #24

The author mentions several ways that philosophy, and especially philosophy of the mind, have contributed to Computer Science and AI in particular. If that is the case, then why don't we see CS teams collaborating with philosophers? He mentions that one particular philosopher of the mind generated some testable hypotheses about how the mind works. Why not, then, test them? Why don't we see many philosophers flitting…

You do. Have you read any of the literature on multi-agent systems design? Or the literature on belief-revision/database updating? There's a significant community of modern philosophers/logicians actively contributing to developments in CS. Also, check out the Philosophy department at CMU: they've got someone employed full-time to work on implementations of philosophically-inspired causal inference systems.

Thanks! I actually thought your essay was pretty interesting, but I didn't know how to include that nuance in my comment without making my comment less readable. Perhaps I am too much of a Grahamite!

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#64

Post by trominos »

cschwarm wrote: post #41

What a poor reply. Paul Graham's essay can easily be dismissed. Some examples: 1) Graham found philosophy not useful and didn't understand it. This is basically a sample size of 1. Is this a meaningful sample or just a confirmation bias (or suppressed evidence)? 2) Graham believes the early philosophers were encouraged by the progress in maths. But was there really much progress before Euclid's Elements, written arou…

1) I think you've confused logic with an experimental science.

2) I am having serious trouble figuring out how this dismisses PG's essay.

3) So this is the only item in your list that actually addresses Graham's central point at all. I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to say but I think you're circling around this idea: "Sure, pre-20th century philosophy got a lot wrong, but it was that wrongness that allowed certain modern philosophers to get stuff right. PG thinks he could've gotten through the wrongness quickly, but I think he's wrong about that."

Well, okay... but let me give some evidence against that: I independently came to the conclusion that most philosophy is bullshit before I encountered Paul Graham. I think I'm smart, but I'm also pretty sure that there have been a bunch of people in history who are just as smart as I am, and so I'm led to the conclusion that there have been people in history who realized that philosophy as it was being practiced was bullshit. Which implies that, yes, all those pre-modern philosophers were wasting their time, because we didn't need their "false starts" to get to the root of the wrongness with philosophy.

4) I admit that I don't know enough about the origins of various disciplines to talk about any of the things you brought up, but, to me, the fact that philosophy helped nurture "useful" disciplines and ideas doesn't automatically imply that philosophy itself is valid or useful. Every kind of thinking, even pretty dumb kinds, produces more thinking. And after more than two thousand years, it's statistically likely that some of a discipline's intellectual offspring will have merit, even if the discipline itself doesn't.

Also: "Anybody who's a little bit careful can find these examples easily. Graham, however, failed. What does this tell us about his essay?"

First: this is really incredibly obnoxious. Second: why do you think that attacking the construction or presentation of PG's argument is the same as dismissing the argument itself?

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#65

Post by smakz »

gambling8nt wrote: post #55
smakz wrote: post #54

I studied philosophy on the side of my computer science degree, and I have to say it's been immensely useful. Before studying philosophy I was a green idealist, but after studying philosophy I centered on a pragmatic philosophy. Also it enhanced my ability to argue immensely. If I have an argument with someone I can easily detect logical flaws and shady arguments in general. Also I like to think my study of multi-mod…

The study of mathematics is both more useful, and carries most of the same benefits (although it typically lacks the forced experience with communicative writing).

I think the statement that math is more useful then philosophy is debatable, especially at the university level.

Advanced calculus and "pure math" courses had precious few uses in the day to day grind of many jobs. Pure math might teach logic in some way, but philosophy tends to focus on argument itself, which lends itself to more obvious practical uses.

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#66

Post by ntoll »

evilneanderthal wrote: post #43
ntoll wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

prove it.. :-)

"Problematizing a purely syntagmatic critique of postmodern critical theory" Plus ten style points for irony. Minus a thousand for writing that sentence at all.

A single example of something you think is of poor quality does not mean everything within that field is poor. This is simply lazy (and prejudiced) thinking. :-(

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#67

Post by chill »

gambling8nt wrote: post #29

The argument in this essay relies heavily on, among other things, the idea that extraordinarily abstract mathematical discussions are similar to extraordinarily abstract discussions in philosophy or literary theory. This premise (among the others refuted throughout this post) is flawed; while some of mathematics is not yet related to any applied field, that is because applied fields develop by using the mathematics a…

And what is this substance of mathematics?

Calling mathematics "incontrovertibly true" and stating that abstractions used in mathematics can be explained concretely in simpler terms are philosophical positions and the justifications for and against these positions are debated outside mathematics in philosophy. You praise the rigor of mathematics while ignoring the rigor in which philosophy searches for the justifications of assumptions for all fields of human knowledge including mathematics and science.

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#68

Post by rms »

qqq wrote: post #60
rms wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky#Contributions_to_l...

Can't think of anything that sounds impressive and fits in 2 sentences?

Absolutely not. But linguistics seems like a legitimate enough field, and Chomsky is considered rather influential there.

His work seems to follow logically from Wittgenstein's point that a lot of philosophy comes down to the precise meanings of words.

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#69

Post by qqq »

rms wrote: post #68
qqq wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't think of anything that sounds impressive and fits in 2 sentences?

Absolutely not. But linguistics seems like a legitimate enough field, and Chomsky is considered rather influential there. His work seems to follow logically from Wittgenstein's point that a lot of philosophy comes down to the precise meanings of words.

So you're just going by his reputation? I have read about some of his ideas and formed the opinion that they are bad (apart from the one i mentioned).

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#70

Post by rms »

qqq wrote: post #61
gruseom wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post had no content. [...] I would genuinely like it if you posted some actual content, and I hoped to indirectly encourage you Heh. Something about this comment seemed very familiar to me, and after a while I figured out what it was: the distinctive sound of xlnt aka curi. Yay web history! While I have an enduring if inexplicable affection for you, and get that you weren't being sarcastic, the last thing I want…

ok. hey i don't seem to have written anything in my profile. how'd u figure that out?

you submitted entries from your blog
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