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The revenge of the philosophy majors

nytimes.com

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Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#131

Post by onraglanroad »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #101
dlcarrier wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of a survey that found that in the entire field of Social Psychology, there was something like eight people that indicated they would vote for Romney over Obama.

Well yeah rightwing people are not the kind of people to take up psychology. I also don’t think you will find many Marxists in corporate law .

I suppose that makes sense if you assume that people who aren't right wing must be Marxist.

I'm neither and am labelled left wing because I think everyone deserves some basic level of life and dignity.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#132

Post by vitorfblima »

Pamar wrote: post #122
taeric wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, it is hard not to immediately think of that meme. There are indeed dozens of them!

Half-dozens of them, apparently.

more than half a dozen, probably, so safe to say there could be as much as ten.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#133

Post by satellite2 »

b450 wrote: post #66

Philosophy students tend to be understandably insecure about the value and prestige of their field, and study often ends up indirectly training students to defend philosophy. Impressive-sounding pontificating, problematizing, cranking out arguments and fallacies and refutations, deploying jargon and historical references. There's a whole toolkit used to dazzle, bewilder, and cow the untrained. Not to mention outright…

You have a great build up for an argument but why this conclusion?

At some point who should be doing ethics? Lawyers? Computer scientists? (I'm not asking ironically, who really is well placed to make population level and extremely though questions like balancing the protection of the few against a global important health interest/gain?)

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#134

Post by cess11 »

Wissenschafter wrote: post #114

I have an undergrad in Philosophy. Our required math classes were formal logic, which we shared with the comp sci. majors. Those classes basically taught me how to program. I am now a senior engineer at a F500 and I just have a BA in Phil. It is a highly underrated degree, and going forward with knowledge specialization becoming unnecessary, and eventually unfeasible due to the triviality of AI making it not needed f…

"Philosophy was the first and will be the last academic subject."

Hard no. Theology was first, and will forever be.

Where was Plato's Akademia? In a chapel of Athena, goddess of wisdom. In Aristotle you'll often find that philosophy is actually a method of theology, it's a way to figure out the divine, and what is most or least divine.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#135

Post by dlcarrier »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #101
dlcarrier wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That reminds me of a survey that found that in the entire field of Social Psychology, there was something like eight people that indicated they would vote for Romney over Obama.

Well yeah rightwing people are not the kind of people to take up psychology. I also don’t think you will find many Marxists in corporate law .

Romney was even pretty centrist, to the point that Obamacare was based on Romney's plan. A similar analogy would be if only a half dozen employees in some field were willing to vote for Fetterman.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#136

Post by plastic-enjoyer »

b450 wrote: post #66

Philosophy students tend to be understandably insecure about the value and prestige of their field, and study often ends up indirectly training students to defend philosophy. Impressive-sounding pontificating, problematizing, cranking out arguments and fallacies and refutations, deploying jargon and historical references. There's a whole toolkit used to dazzle, bewilder, and cow the untrained. Not to mention outright…

This just reeks of Dunning-Kruger

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#137

Post by lapcat »

throw4847285 wrote: post #120
lapcat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." I'm not sure why you're quoting the quote that I just quoted. I was hoping for an analysis. > If you view the story of Wittgenstein and Rorty as primarily one of leaving academia, I believe you are telling on yourself. I said that they left academic philosophy. Rorty didn't leave academia entirely. But yes, I left academic ph…

I think the quote doesn't say what you think it says. Wittgenstein loved philosophy, and it's frustrating when people cherry pick his work to try and dunk on the entire field. And if you accept that you are telling on yourself, then don't you think it's awfully convenient that your perspective on philosophy as a discipline is a little skewed by personal hangups?

> I think the quote doesn't say what you think it says.

You still haven't said what you think it means!

> Wittgenstein loved philosophy

I think the phrase "loved philosophy" is way too vague to be informative.

> when people cherry pick his work

I picked some quotes for a Hacker News comment, necessarily brief. I also provided a link to the entire Philosophical Investigations, which I've course I've read more than once.

> dunk on the entire field.

The field of academic philosophy has a tendency to dunk on Wittgenstein. His previously biggest personal booster Bertrand Russell certainly did: "I have not found in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations anything that seemed to me interesting and I do not understand why a whole school finds important wisdom in its pages." Many analytic philosophers feel the same way, ironically finding the Tractatus, which Wittgenstein repudiated, more to their liking.

They're probably correct to feel threatened. My own view, as I've stated, is that Wittgenstein's later work is a broad-based critique of philosophy, not aimed only at logical positivism, for example.

> skewed by personal hangups

What personal hangups do you mean?

I said that I left academic philosophy. After many years. I didn't say why. Do you think Wittgenstein and Rorty left academic philosophy due to personal hangups?

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#138

Post by Wissenschafter »

cess11 wrote: post #134
Wissenschafter wrote: post #114

I have an undergrad in Philosophy. Our required math classes were formal logic, which we shared with the comp sci. majors. Those classes basically taught me how to program. I am now a senior engineer at a F500 and I just have a BA in Phil. It is a highly underrated degree, and going forward with knowledge specialization becoming unnecessary, and eventually unfeasible due to the triviality of AI making it not needed f…

"Philosophy was the first and will be the last academic subject." Hard no. Theology was first, and will forever be. Where was Plato's Akademia? In a chapel of Athena, goddess of wisdom. In Aristotle you'll often find that philosophy is actually a method of theology, it's a way to figure out the divine, and what is most or least divine.

I mean, theology and philosophy could be argued endlessly to be interchangeable, go ask Wittgenstein. He just argues that things that are 'truly argued' with language are philosophy, while things that are bullshit is more or less theology.

I usually stick to the analytical stuff, the continental stuff was pretty traumatizing honestly, reading through Being-and-Time in a couple days on Adderall fried some brain cells and my perception of reality permanently.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#139

Post by jambalaya8 »

throwaway27448 wrote: post #127
em500 wrote: post #19

This article seems high on vibes, low on metrics. > While a plain-vanilla philosophy degree remains as hard to monetize as ever, David Chalmers, a prominent philosopher of consciousness at N.Y.U., observes: “I think the demand for philosophers with A.I. training is, if anything, outstripping the supply right now. It’s an area I encourage students to go into. I think these issues with A.I. will be front and center for…

> each of which employs at least a half-dozen philosophers. Imagine knowing that you're hired to launder regulatory capture for a trillion dollar corporation lol

Imagine explaining Nietzsche's relationship with his sister to an AI. :/

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#140

Post by nezi »

Wissenschafter wrote: post #114

I have an undergrad in Philosophy. Our required math classes were formal logic, which we shared with the comp sci. majors. Those classes basically taught me how to program. I am now a senior engineer at a F500 and I just have a BA in Phil. It is a highly underrated degree, and going forward with knowledge specialization becoming unnecessary, and eventually unfeasible due to the triviality of AI making it not needed f…

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