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What, exactly, do philosophers do?

the-tls.co.uk

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Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#141
post #135
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say that modern philosophers, or even old philosophers, have had much of an effect on current legislative decisions concerning things like euthanasia. As to what extent they have influenced real communities I also don't know about veganism (aside from perhaps Pinker, though again I don't know of his influence) but modern philosophy (since 1950s or so) has been "all the rage" within left-wing communities, m…

Why the downvotes for my comment? And why is this comment downvoted? If you don't think my comment above was substantive or helpful, please tell me so that I can improve the quality of my posts.

Likely your second comment was downvoted because it's specifically against the guidelines:

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#142
post #114

People forget that Alan Turing's essay "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" was published in Mind, a major philosophy journal. People forget that Boolean algebra comes from a work called "The Laws of Thought," where Boole tries to describe the algebraic operations underlying thought. If you think that isn't something "philosophers do," this is an ancient goal stretching back to Aristotle's logic, up through Descart…

[deleted]

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#143
post #26

Always warms my heart to see philosophy on top of HN. Philosophy is hard -- much harder than one would think. And people that contribute are incredibly smart -- far smarter than software engineers, by comparison. On the other hand, it's very political, and a lot of it is mental masturbation. Philosophy of Science, I think, is almost a completely bogus field. Philosophy of Mind, apart from a few great minds (Chalmers,…

"Philosophers, in short, do all kinds of things: from pushing the boundaries of exotic logics, to solving ethical problems, to systematizing natural language or understanding the metaphysics of causality." I think you're mostly talking about analytic philosophy.[1] That's dominant in English-speaking countries, and in the process of dominating most everywhere else. But Continental philosophy[2] also exists, and has p…

That said, there's a big argument to be made that the distinction between analytic and continental is false, useless and on a shaky foundation of approximations even with massive overlap.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#144
post #19
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the importance of exploring those questions, for they pertain to current movements and political issues, like veganism or euthanasia. So (from my position of now knowing the work of any modern philosopher) have such philosophical explorations, in the past decades or century, produced answers? In the sense that, have they made a change in the way these important issues developed? What are the biggest ways they h…

Not sure why you're being downvoted, I'd like to see an answer to this as well. I'd suspect that they've provided quite a few important answers but I'm curious how much power/influence these ideas had in their times.

Some HNers have a tendency to want to downvote without leaving an explanation as to why or a rebuttal to the point; one would think to expect better behaviour from those who the HN moderators thought it fit to trust with the power to downvote. It does not surprise me that having more than 500 internet points does not a curteous or reasonable person make.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#145
post #141
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the downvotes for my comment? And why is this comment downvoted? If you don't think my comment above was substantive or helpful, please tell me so that I can improve the quality of my posts.

Likely your second comment was downvoted because it's specifically against the guidelines: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I don't think it does make boring reading at all. In fact, it makes very important reading - the strange drive-by downvoting culture on HN deserves to be called out. And as I have noted elsewhere, those are merely guidelines; if they are to be rules then they ought to be called as such.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#146
post #18
post #5

Philosophy is not like software engineering. There's a lot more reading that needs to be done before you can make a contribution. A lot of it progresses by just reading the works of the established masters, getting ideas, and publishing your thoughts about what they had to say. You don't start from scratch. You build on what is already there. Addition by addition the field progresses and removes bad ideas or clarifie…

If philosophy is reasoning in its purest form, why so much reference to other work? Shouldn't it be like math where we logically conclude something and it is true regardless of what others think? If not, then it seems a less pure form of reasoning than math.

It can be like that though. Bertrand Russell and his Principia Mathematica basically does exactly that.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#148
post #145
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely your second comment was downvoted because it's specifically against the guidelines: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I don't think it does make boring reading at all. In fact, it makes very important reading - the strange drive-by downvoting culture on HN deserves to be called out. And as I have noted elsewhere, those are merely guidelines; if they are to be rules then they ought to be called as such.

I understand where you're coming from and sympathize with any effort to make HN a better place. I don't think you're necessarily going about it in a way that will accomplish that, or have taken to heart that there are some aspects of HN that are the way they are because that's how the mods want it to be after considered experience, thought, and reflection. I hesitated writing this response because it's not clear to me that it will have much of an effect: you seem intent on making HN the place you want, all the while ignoring the guidlines explicitly spelled out because you don't think they apply to you.

Yes, they're guidelines. Communities often have norms that aren't written down in laws, and people that behave outside of those norms end up feeling some friction. You can argue about whether or not that's fair, but that's part of human psychology. Another aspect of human psychology one needs to take into account is figuring out what is effective in creating the change you want. That's key to me wondering whether this comment is worth writing, because I don't think it's the best way to convince you that you may be making things harder for yourself than you could otherwise. Unfortunately I can't think of a better way to do so right now. (Indeed, having followed your comments yesterday in another thread, I hesitated to even make my initial comment.)

I think that's likely what drives some of the drive-by downvoting culture, as you put it. I remember a comment (likely by 'dang, but I can't find it at the moment) along the lines of how much effort it takes to respond well to comments like the last two you posted in this subthread. You asked why you you were downvoted (against the guidelines, and then again violated the guidelines with your edit), and when that was pointed out, stated that the guidlines are just that, so you shouldn't have been down voted. I'm really not sure how to answer you honestly in a way that you would accept, and take it upon yourself to accept some responsibity for the consequences of your comments, regardless of whether you personally agree with them. Communication involves every participant. I can affect my comments and responses, crafting them the best I can for productive conversation. I can't control how they'll be taken, but given what I understand of those I'm in discussion with, I can (and should) take that knowledge into account when I'm writing. To do otherwise just makes me ineffective and frustrated, and to do so repeatedly makes me appear a fool to those observing me, and they'll be even less likely to respond to me charitably.

Here's a comment by 'dang on the topic of downvoting:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440694

Also, if you search the archives, there's plenty of discussion on this, including people voicing exactly your concerns. While I sympathize with a "we shall overcome" attitude (I harbor some of that myself), expecting this to change just by continuing to call it out will likely work against you. Personally, I think encouraging better behavior while abiding by the guidelines is likely to make HN a better place. Finding the balance between encouraging good behavior and calling out bad is admittedly difficult.

As a concrete example, here's a suggestion for rewriting one of your comments:

You wrote:

> Why the downvotes for my comment? And why is this comment downvoted? If you don't think my comment above was substantive or helpful, please tell me so that I can improve the quality of my posts.

An alternative would be to just eliminate those first two sentences:

> If you don't think my comment was substantive or helpful, please tell me so I can improve the quality of my posts.

If within the editing time, you can append that to your post rather than starting a new comment. Try to frame it as best you can to not sound defensive.

I do wish you the best and hope that you can read this in the spirit in which its intended. I want everyone (including you and me) to have a positive, constructive experience on HN, and that's why I've taken the time to write this lengthy comment.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#149
post #10
post #3

The article starts with a question which asks about the present very clearly, but then answers a different question of what philosophers did (i.e the past) without any reference to modern philosophers. Modern philosophers analyse older philosophical work and reply to contemporaries; for example there is an ongoing debate about the difference between "letting die" and "killing", and if it is an ethical difference then…

I see the importance of exploring those questions, for they pertain to current movements and political issues, like veganism or euthanasia. So (from my position of now knowing the work of any modern philosopher) have such philosophical explorations, in the past decades or century, produced answers? In the sense that, have they made a change in the way these important issues developed? What are the biggest ways they h…

The "difference between killing and letting die" has quite a lot of importance in "real life". One example that come to mind are the intense discussions in some countries about the possible decision to shoot down a highjacked plane (killing some to save many). It's official policy in the US, but the German Supreme Court considered it unconstitutional when they examined a law intended to codify it.

Another example is the discussion about the algorithm's decisions in kill some/save many scenarios in autonomous driving.

In philosophy, the Trolley Problem and its many variants are about exactly these sort of problems.

I wouldn't say that philosophy has given any "answers" to these problems, but the debate (and politics/law/software) would certainly be different, or just not happening, without these efforts.

Effective Altruism is another well-known concept that can be called "applied philosophy". As are "responsibility to protect" ("do world power have a duty to protect people in other countries from, for example, genocide"), and anything in economics and criminal law that requires some sort of common understanding of what is "just".

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#150
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Philosophers, in short, do all kinds of things: from pushing the boundaries of exotic logics, to solving ethical problems, to systematizing natural language or understanding the metaphysics of causality." I think you're mostly talking about analytic philosophy.[1] That's dominant in English-speaking countries, and in the process of dominating most everywhere else. But Continental philosophy[2] also exists, and has p…

That said, there's a big argument to be made that the distinction between analytic and continental is false, useless and on a shaky foundation of approximations even with massive overlap.

Who usually makes those arguments, analytic philosophers or continental?
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