this is worse than that ayn rand post a while back
In what way? (Genuine question.)
Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
51–60 of 129 posts
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lovely argument that I would like to second. I think you're the first person outside of my former research group that I've seen reference the Nature of Order . That made me very happy. It's too bad the books are so expensive – they deserve to be circulated more widely: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0972652914/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...
I'm making my way through The Process of Creating Life . It's one of only two books that I've read in recent years that I can't read too much of at once – I get three pages in and have to stop, because of how excited I am about his arguments and its implications. I was debating, at one point, scanning its pages and making a digital copy for my friends' sakes, but the work is so tremendous that I feel bad distributing…
> I'm making my way through The Process of Creating Life.
Pro tip: always provide a link when you refer to a title:
http://www.amazon.com/Process-Creating-Life-Building-Univers...
(This doesn't constitute a recommendation, indeed, this book is way too expensive for its content.)
> I was debating, at one point, scanning its pages and making a digital copy for my friends' sakes ...
Pro tip: never say this online. It's a crime, you know? Granted, this book doesn't deserve to cost US$75.00, regardless of what's between its covers. But copying it would be a crime, one receiving a lot of attention right now.
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#53The argument is absurd. Claiming that universities are "poisoning minds" by teaching Aristotle and Descartes in 101 Intro to Philosophy courses is just silly. Those same universities teach modern philosophy courses that deal with the intersection of science and philosophy – judging by my one or two philosophy friends, philosophers are much more interested in the practical discoveries of psychology, math, and science…
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Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#54The argument is absurd. Claiming that universities are "poisoning minds" by teaching Aristotle and Descartes in 101 Intro to Philosophy courses is just silly. Those same universities teach modern philosophy courses that deal with the intersection of science and philosophy – judging by my one or two philosophy friends, philosophers are much more interested in the practical discoveries of psychology, math, and science…
What a fantastic response! I'm so heartened to see this as the top comment. The article is completely absurd, of course, but unfortunately represents a bizarre sort of anti-intellectualism that is running rampant through academic communities which are coming closer and closer to declaring outright that philosophy as a discipline , and not just particular philosophers, is irrelevant and has been superseded by a specif…
That's interesting! My understanding of Descartes comes from the book Descartes' Bones, which frustrated me in some ways but made an argument about Descartes that I found very interesting: when Descartes wrote his Discourse on Method, he was a Christian who felt his works very strongly connected with the existing works of the Church. He was not an advocate of discarding all non-mechanistic discovery so much as he advocated reexamining what we already knew. It was philosophers who came after him who began to argue that perhaps the mechanistic model could function in its own right, without connection to any other existing school of knowledge.
I haven't read Discourse myself yet, unfortunately: it's in a long queue of works which is currently taken up by Alexander's The Nature of Order, a wonderful but long read. I was led to believe that Descartes argued his new method should be added to existing ones rather than replace them entirely – am I wrong in thinking this way?
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#55Notably 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.
> Notably absent from this guy's syllabus is anything concerning ethics, morality, values, or right and wrong. That's because all morality is relative, one of the few things philosophy got right. The universe is morally neutral, which means that, to the degree that we fully grasp reality, to the same degree we discover that morality is a human invention, malleable across time and place. Not to discount notions of mor…
Actually, according to the philpapers surveys most philosophers are moral realists. Of course, that means that they believe that at least some moral statements are true independent of what anyone thinks about them, not that "nature cares what our thoughts are" (whatever that means). And i think everyone would do well to explore the position seriously.
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#56Notably 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.
> Notably absent from this guy's syllabus is anything concerning ethics, morality, values, or right and wrong. That's because all morality is relative, one of the few things philosophy got right. The universe is morally neutral, which means that, to the degree that we fully grasp reality, to the same degree we discover that morality is a human invention, malleable across time and place. Not to discount notions of mor…
I'm not sure what that means. Dogs and apes and all social creatures have an innate sense of morality. They react emotionally to transgressions and punish transgressors.
Nature has evolved that, in humans it has created certain rather strong thoughts and feelings on the subject. So in that sense nature does care.
Different systems of morality are also going to lead to very different societies of varying effectiveness. So in terms of outcomes nature cares as well.
Seems like a potentially interesting and fruitful thing to look into.
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#57The argument is absurd. Claiming that universities are "poisoning minds" by teaching Aristotle and Descartes in 101 Intro to Philosophy courses is just silly. Those same universities teach modern philosophy courses that deal with the intersection of science and philosophy – judging by my one or two philosophy friends, philosophers are much more interested in the practical discoveries of psychology, math, and science…
While I agree that philosophy has the ability to ask good questions, unfortunately it does not seem to be able to answer those questions in any meaningful way. Science also has the ability to ask good questions, but it knows how to answer them in a meaningful way (at least good science does). By meaningful, I mean provably true. Philosophy is very happy to take untested opinion as true. Which is provably dangerous.
I get the sense from reading your post that you think of Philosophers as Philospher-Kings, who sit at the top of humanity and think about important things and their ideas eventually trickle down to the Plebeians at the bottom. And once everyone agrees with the Philosophers, there will no longer be a need for Philosophy. Give me Science any day.
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#58The argument is absurd. Claiming that universities are "poisoning minds" by teaching Aristotle and Descartes in 101 Intro to Philosophy courses is just silly. Those same universities teach modern philosophy courses that deal with the intersection of science and philosophy – judging by my one or two philosophy friends, philosophers are much more interested in the practical discoveries of psychology, math, and science…
>[Philosophy's real purpose] is to constantly search for deeper underlying truth. What "truth" has philosophy itself produced from that search which is well-defined, non-trivial, and correct?
No philosopher worth her salt would try to answer this question as formed because of the large number of buried assumptions in it that presuppose the form of the correct answer, and that answers not meeting that form are, by definition, incorrect. Your question is a sophisticated version of "have you stopped beating your wife?"
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm making my way through The Process of Creating Life . It's one of only two books that I've read in recent years that I can't read too much of at once – I get three pages in and have to stop, because of how excited I am about his arguments and its implications. I was debating, at one point, scanning its pages and making a digital copy for my friends' sakes, but the work is so tremendous that I feel bad distributing…
> I'm making my way through The Process of Creating Life. Pro tip: always provide a link when you refer to a title: http://www.amazon.com/Process-Creating-Life-Building-Univers... (This doesn't constitute a recommendation, indeed, this book is way too expensive for its content.) > I was debating, at one point, scanning its pages and making a digital copy for my friends' sakes ... Pro tip: never say this online. It's…
Oops, my bad: should have linked.
> (This doesn't constitute a recommendation, indeed, this book is way too expensive for its content.)
I assume you're saying that without having read it? Because it is a marvelous and astonishing work – one that manages to simultaneously work out an abstract view of order while reasoning all the way to its practical outcomes – outcomes which Alexander's demonstrated in his decades of work as an architect. There's a reason it's so long, and it's that Alexander works rigorously through all his theories and their underpinnings until he can finally come up with practical ways of using them and, in using them, proving their correctness.
> Pro tip: never say this online. It's a crime, you know? Granted, this book doesn't deserve to cost US$75.00, regardless of what's between its covers. But copying it would be a crime, one receiving a lot of attention right now.
That's actually why I'm not making a copy of it. I don't say this about many books, but this one is entirely worth the outrageousness of its price (well, almost: I ordered used copies for 25-33% off). I plan to incorporate Alexander's ideas into works of my own, even hopefully write about them so they can reach a wider audience, but I respect the work far too much to think I have a right to give it away myself.
Re: Train Philosophers with Pearl and Kahneman, not Plato and Kant
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
>[Philosophy's real purpose] is to constantly search for deeper underlying truth. What "truth" has philosophy itself produced from that search which is well-defined, non-trivial, and correct?
Many philosophers have questioned the scientific definition of "correctness". For example Heidegger who argued that scientific truth is an approximation and measurement of things that we already presume to exist. These discoveries may be correct, and they may be true. But what about the more primordial truth (i.e. being) which we take for granted before we even begin a scientific inquiry? This is what he investigates…
"These discoveries may be correct, and they may be true."
This is the problem with Philosophy. You can take something correct and true, and disregard it. Worse, it is disregarded in favor of what is essentially an opinion.