Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
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Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#2This sounds a lot like another Scientism dispute, i.e. if all questions of human life can be empirically answered or that there are things beyond testability.
It is an exhausting discussion, that goes way deeper than a few snaky comments on contemporary philosophy papers. There is actually a quite good summary on Wikipedia on the conflict: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#3This sounds a lot like another Scientism dispute, i.e. if all questions of human life can be empirically answered or that there are things beyond testability. It is an exhausting discussion, that goes way deeper than a few snaky comments on contemporary philosophy papers. There is actually a quite good summary on Wikipedia on the conflict: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism
It sounds to me more like "Let's stop funding some parts of philosophy that aren't really tied to reality, when there are real philosophical problems with practical consequences that we need people working on".
* Edit: Made my interpretation a little less inflammatory.
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#4Why "train" philosophers?
When I imagine a "trained philosopher" I see a person who uses a lot of smart-sounding quotes but cannot choose between the right saying and the wrong saying. It's all the same to him, a material that he absorbed and now outputs.
Challenge philosophers. Confront them. Let them take on each other.
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#5This sounds a lot like another Scientism dispute, i.e. if all questions of human life can be empirically answered or that there are things beyond testability. It is an exhausting discussion, that goes way deeper than a few snaky comments on contemporary philosophy papers. There is actually a quite good summary on Wikipedia on the conflict: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism
It sounds to me more like "Let's stop funding some parts of philosophy that aren't really tied to reality, when there are real philosophical problems with practical consequences that we need people working on". * Edit: Made my interpretation a little less inflammatory.
The web site's not loading for me, so unfortunately I can't read the article yet, but your summary sounds worryingly wrongminded to me.
Philosophy should not necessarily be a practical endeavor – it concerns itself with being, life, and existence on their most abstract and difficult levels. There is a place for functional philosophy, and plenty of places where modern scientific discoveries can aid a line of philosophical inquiry, but suggesting we scrap Plato and Kant for "practical" thinkers is a dangerous way of thinking. I don't want to comment more until the article loads for me, but there's a place for practical consequence and it's elsewhere.
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds to me more like "Let's stop funding some parts of philosophy that aren't really tied to reality, when there are real philosophical problems with practical consequences that we need people working on". * Edit: Made my interpretation a little less inflammatory.
The web site's not loading for me, so unfortunately I can't read the article yet, but your summary sounds worryingly wrongminded to me. Philosophy should not necessarily be a practical endeavor – it concerns itself with being, life, and existence on their most abstract and difficult levels. There is a place for functional philosophy, and plenty of places where modern scientific discoveries can aid a line of philosoph…
The example abstracts cited in the article are particularly worrying to me. I would be interested in seeing if someone can explain why those papers are problems that smart people should be working on.
To a very pro-science layperson they seem especially absurd.
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#7This sounds a lot like another Scientism dispute, i.e. if all questions of human life can be empirically answered or that there are things beyond testability. It is an exhausting discussion, that goes way deeper than a few snaky comments on contemporary philosophy papers. There is actually a quite good summary on Wikipedia on the conflict: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism
It sounds to me more like "Let's stop funding some parts of philosophy that aren't really tied to reality, when there are real philosophical problems with practical consequences that we need people working on". * Edit: Made my interpretation a little less inflammatory.
Who will decide what has practical consequences?
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds to me more like "Let's stop funding some parts of philosophy that aren't really tied to reality, when there are real philosophical problems with practical consequences that we need people working on". * Edit: Made my interpretation a little less inflammatory.
Who will decide what has practical consequences?
There are many open problems in ethics and metaethics (i.e. what is right and wrong, is that even a thing, etc) that seem (to me) to have pretty clear practical consequences.
I think many of the problems could be phrased in a way to convince most people (that think about this kind of thing) as well.
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#9Notably absent from this guy's syllabus is anything concerning ethics, morality, values, or right and wrong. In all the fields he cites - even, to a large extent, psychology - values are exogenous.
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#10Why "train" philosophers? When I imagine a "trained philosopher" I see a person who uses a lot of smart-sounding quotes but cannot choose between the right saying and the wrong saying. It's all the same to him, a material that he absorbed and now outputs. Challenge philosophers. Confront them. Let them take on each other.
So, you imagine what a philosopher does, and then tell this imaginary philosopher what to do?
Doesn't that strike you as awful presumptuous?