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How to Do Philosophy

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Do Philosophy

#111

Post by euccastro »

geebee wrote: post #61
forgotmylastone wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can tell you what an integer is, what a square root is, and what a ratio is, and as a result, I can (by looking it up in a book and typing in the text, heh heh) prove that the square root of 2 can't be expressed as the ratio of two integers. Not without words you can't.

sure, but these words have precise definitions. Paul alluded to this when he wrote "in fact, it would not be a bad definition of math to call it the study of terms that have precise meanings". "Ratio", "Square Root", and "Integer" have precise definitions, whereas "self interest" is imprecise.

Define 'precise'. :P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_the...

Re: How to Do Philosophy

#112

Post by euccastro »

ced wrote: post #104
pg wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I meant that when you learn about e.g. the chemical elements, you don't also learn who discovered each of them. It's accepted knowledge; you're taught it as facts. In philosophy, most of the exam questions have someone's name in them. E.g. "explain x's concept of y."

I also had problems with the sentence, probably because it doesn't ring especially true. I can name the discoverer of most of what I know about physics, right from the names: Newtonian physics, Bohr's model, the Schrodinger equation, Euclidian geometry, Gaussian curves... E=Mc2...

FWIW, I too got stuck at that sentence like nowhere else in the text; it took me some tries to macro-expand. Maybe your proofreaders got past it without blinking because they are more acquainted with that point?

(Although Newtonian physics and Euclidean geometry are not really counterexamples.)

Re: How to Do Philosophy

#114

Post by pg »

dudeman wrote: post #109

If you haven't already, I highly recommend reading, "Philosophy for Dummies" by Tom Morris, Ph.D.. You may find some of the presuppositions you present in your essay to be challenged.

Really? Which ones?

Re: How to Do Philosophy

#115

Post by Alex3917 »

pg wrote: post #76
dpapathanasiou wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plato, despite his intellect (or perhaps because of it), turned out to be, as you say yourself, "naive and mistaken". Yet Diogenes was able to see that about Plato then, as a contemporary. And while it's true that he never sat down to write anything himself, his work has endured via written accounts of others (Diogenes was a real person, not a mythical figure).

Every reddit commenter is "able to see" that my essays are mistaken. Does that make them smart?

"Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, I am here today to convince you that the Great Gatsby could not possibly be an allegory for animal beastiality. I have three reasons for this belief. First, none of the main characters in Gatsby are animals. While Daisy does have a pet dog, there is no reason to believe that Gatsby ever expresses an interest in man-on-dog relations. [insert paragraphs two and three.] In conclusion, the Great Gatsby could not possibly be an allegory for animal beastiality, and it would be simply absurd to believe otherwise."

/Agreeing with pg, intelligence can only be demonstrated by finding what is, not what isn't.

Re: How to Do Philosophy

#118

Post by kc5tja »

gwenhwyfaer wrote: post #62
mdemare wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there's a lot of pseudoscience being taught today. Maybe Rand shouldn't be taught, but why isn't it? Because of the form of her output (novels)?

Two wrongs don't make a right. I'd say it's more important to stop teaching pseudoscience in science classes than to use it as a justification for teaching pseudophilosophy in philosophy classes. And in general, novels should be taught in literature classes, not philosophy classes - although the example of L'Etranger suggests that there is room for crossover. (Anyway, the majority of Rand's work takes the form of non…

Actually, there is a good reason TO teach pseudo-science in science classes: to expose the student to literature which is not science. One of the most critical features that defines a person as a "scientist" is his healthy skepticism. This is very often NOT taught in science classes.

Since most pseudo-scientists have a genuine concern over some problem, and they have obviously acquired what little scientific exposure they did from their schooling, then I claim that if more science classes covered pseudo-science, explaining why it is not true science, then I predict a distinct drop in pseudo-science will result.

Re: How to Do Philosophy

#119

Post by kc5tja »

geebee wrote: post #33
uuilly wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. Ayn Rand basically says: -People are self interested. -This is not a bad thing. I think those are pretty good axioms to build upon. I don't think Rand came up with a grand unified theory of human behavior but she started from the right place... As opposed to our Greek ancestors...

yes, but what is "self?" what is "interested?" How does the meaning change when you put "self interested" together as a phrase? As Paul mentioned in his essay, you're already bumping into what words mean. I can tell you what an integer is, what a square root is, and what a ratio is, and as a result, I can (by looking it up in a book and typing in the text, heh heh) prove that the square root of 2 can't be expressed a…

"Self" and "interested" never appear in isolation in the above example, so we can only speculate on their precise interpretations when used in isolation. However, the compound concept "self-interested" has a well-defined meaning, even in casual, every-day conversations.

Calling into question the meaning of "self-interested" is merely a filibuster.

Re: How to Do Philosophy

#120

Post by kc5tja »

bdr wrote: post #25

"in fact, it would not be a bad definition of math to call it the study of terms that have precise meanings." What meanings? I think that math is made of structure, not meaning. The latter is a human phenomenon. For example, a proof using geometry and one using algebra might be mathematically identical, but have different meanings (created when they are perceived).

The symbology used to form each proof is universally accepted and agreed upon. The symbol "=", for example, is taken not as a verb (a becomes b), but as a statement of truth (a IS b). Likewise, "+" has a specific meaning. The juxtaposition of terms is implicitly understood (e.g., all mankind agrees to interpret it as) as multiplication of some form (which is generalized in higher mathematics to function composition, which makes sense once it's explained). It is the ultimate language, where one symbol has one, and only one, meaning.

It is the structure which is a human phenomenon. The fact that you can express any algebraic expression in reverse polish notation is a great example of this. 1 2 + 3 4 / has the same meaning as (1+2)/(3*4). (Sorry for the thing -- the markup system of this blog is positively broken since it doesn't provide a means of escaping the markup characters.) The symbols, and hence the meaning behind them, remain the same.

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