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The revenge of the philosophy majors

nytimes.com

241–250 of 292 posts

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophy treatises don’t trigger compiler errors. More seriously, the main issue with most philosophical investigations is a question of grounding. When you start stacking abstract concepts on top of each other, things can get dicey very quickly. Moreso if you are smart.

The objections that one treatise makes to another will typically be of type violation, category mistake, nonsense - which is typical of compilers. I don't need to tell you which discipline invented the ideas of type and type error and was even largely organized around them in early and mid- 20th c, even across wildly different theoretical views.

Mathematics.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#242
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…

The revenge of the _nearly a dozen_ philosophers.

Those are dining philosophers!

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#243

I studied analytic philosophy, which is basically an education in how to clarify your thoughts, say what you mean in precise terms, and make clear arguments. IMO there is no better preparation for any sort of writing-and-thinking job than studying analytic philosophy, although of course I am biased. Not sure I’d recommend doing only a philosophy degree, but I highly recommend pairing it with something else more emplo…

[deleted]

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interested to hear how you think one "bluffs" their way through a philosophy degree. Could you sketch that out?

Philosophy treatises don’t trigger compiler errors. More seriously, the main issue with most philosophical investigations is a question of grounding. When you start stacking abstract concepts on top of each other, things can get dicey very quickly. Moreso if you are smart.

Yes precisely. In my eyes the lack of objective answers in much of philosophy makes it an easy target for humans getting lost in their own "rationality". People vastly overestimate their ability to reason and draw conclusions about abstract concepts that really lack strong definitions.

Some philosophy study is very good for raising the questions one should always ponder in life, but building a career on philosophy very easily leads you astray.

I have studied philosophy, literature and physics. In literature you know everything is made up, that is the point of literature, creating art, but in philosophy many people make up things and then pretend they are real. Objective ethics? Postulating the nature of reality? Please.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#246
post #239
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without getting into a big fight, Marxist-Leninist Philosophy is not, like, general philosophy in the conceptual sense. The idea that you need to be familiar with Hegel as a prerequisite means you’re looking at graduate level classes if we’re taking it seriously.

Just to add to your “no big fight” observation: What in some countries is grad studies, is in other places undergrad, and in a personal high point, high school extension studies. In contemporary rich country education systems, it’s not just grade inflation, it’s very low expectations of the student population’s capabilities, in my opinion.

>contemporary rich country education systems

I'm from such a country and this tracks. I often look to individuals of the past with the same academic credentials as me and it seems they are much better read & educated. And when I was in school, it often felt like my education was diluted to cater to the LCD.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with some professional coders who were philosophy majors - there's some overlap between formal computer science and philosophy for sure. I was sort of surprised when one guy started talking about using diagonalization to prove Godels theorem of incompleteness - I thought, "ok, I guess they do teach y'all a thing or two". On the whole, though, it's _way_ easier to bluff your way through a philosophy degree…

The difficulty scale starts with o chem and then goes through all of the arts before it hits another STEM discipline.

Sorry, please elaborate.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#248
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was born a philosopher, people were telling me to study philosophy when I was in high school. But instead my formal education choices took a more circuitous route that included the fine arts, physics, electrical engineering, computer engineering, and eventually theoretical computer science. However even I can see that philosophy as a field is flawed and generic advice to tell students to go philosophy is incredibly…

So you've never actually studied philosophy or mathematics formally, yet you can succinctly claim that philosophy is easier than math? FWIW, I hold math and CS degrees, and fulfilled as many of my humanities requirements with philosophy classes as I could (although I didn't take anything beyond a 300 level course, and grad level is where both math and philosophy explode in difficulty). For me at least, I found CS the…

1. I never claimed philosophy was easier. The previous commenter blankly claimed the opposite on the basis that they are a teacher. I am making a simple meta-observation that if they get to do that, then I get to claim I was literally born with philosophical tendencies in that such an ad hominem is entirely transparent except to the teacher. This argument itself is an example of rigorous, critical argumentation. If they get to use an ad hominem, then they break the rules of good faith argumentation, hence the whole illustrative point about people having philosophical personality traits.

2. The fact that you completely failed to read this exchange context carefully, such casual prejudice toward the argument from authority ("I am a teacher, take it from me, philosophy > math blah blah blah"), also raises doubt in the quality of actually existing philosophy education. It is a lot more like court philosopher behavior than any regard for close reading and actual research-level rigor.

3a. There's an objective, rational argument as to why philosophy is "hard" (emphasis on the quotes). A lot of it has to do with the fact that it is about speculatively complex questions. See for example Noam Chomsky's elaboration on this, he generally philosophy as a field as having deflationary characteristic in relation to scientific progress.

3b. What this also means is that "hardness" is not a good measure at all of a human discipline being actually a good discipline--astrology can also be very "hard", so can Derrida, etc. Simply writing a good piece of fiction is also cognitively hard. But where is this nuance, I ask you, in the OP comments? I do not see it. Where is the impact of philosophy, then?

All of these ought to part and parcel of students who actually learned philosophy well. The fact that multiple top comments do not evince this level of learning, at least on a tech social media forum, says a lot and it should trouble you.

(Having written all this, I think there is a further elaboration on 3a that makes the question/issue much more interesting, but it does not excuse the attitude of philosophy-chauvinism which is well known as thing in academia, analogous to how math/physics has their share of hardness chauvinists over other disciplines, ad infinitum.)

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#249

I studied analytic philosophy, which is basically an education in how to clarify your thoughts, say what you mean in precise terms, and make clear arguments. IMO there is no better preparation for any sort of writing-and-thinking job than studying analytic philosophy, although of course I am biased. Not sure I’d recommend doing only a philosophy degree, but I highly recommend pairing it with something else more emplo…

I have one area of my education that I highly value but its very hard to explain without people importing a lot of assumptions. I like to call it critical listening but also its textual evaluation. In addition to some didactic instruction my Father gave me a short book on the principles of hermeneutics around 13. We went to different churches over the years growing up but I would bring my bible, take notes, and on th…

Do you remember the title of the book on principles of hermeneutics?

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#250
post #200
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was born a philosopher, people were telling me to study philosophy when I was in high school. But instead my formal education choices took a more circuitous route that included the fine arts, physics, electrical engineering, computer engineering, and eventually theoretical computer science. However even I can see that philosophy as a field is flawed and generic advice to tell students to go philosophy is incredibly…

I'm struggling to find a counter argument in your response. You say it is a deeply prejudiced argument? Why? You say blinders? What are those? What is a philosophical statement? One tendency I've noticed is that people well versed in philosophy can communicate well. Just anecdotally. Not something I am seeing here in this response.

Why is refusal to carefully and patiently explain the wrongness of prestige theater, "physics envy"-type conversations an example of not being well-versed in philosophy?
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