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Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

3-16am.co.uk

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Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#31

Post by whimsicalism »

boyobo wrote: post #28
keiferski wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stephen Hawking recently fluttered the academic dovecotes by writing in his new book The Grand Design – and repeating to an eager company of interviewers and journalists – that philosophy as practised nowadays is a waste of time and philosophers a waste of space. More precisely, he wrote that philosophy is ‘dead’ since it hasn’t kept up with the latest developments in science, especially theoretical physics." https:…

I don't know about the first quote, but the second quote is not saying that the study of philosophy is useless. Just that it's useless for science.

Philosophy is obviously not useless for science, but continental philosophy is useless.

The main problem with philosophy of science nowadays is that not enough scientists act as philosophers.

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#33

Post by whimsicalism »

yboris wrote: post #6

Philosophy is arguably the most important thing in my life. I'd like to live a morally good life, and figuring out what makes such a life is a great journey. Thanks to my pursuit, I now give at least 10% of my income to the most cost-effective charities I can find (see GiveWell). Thousands of people do the same: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/ Many philosophers are working on society's most pressing issues (see the…

I've found that the effective altruist community (and other "neo-rationalist"-adjacent communities) can be very arrogant about ethical philosophy.

Namely, they don't critically engage with alternatives to their ethical theory.

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#34

Post by acqq »

keiferski wrote: post #21
randlet wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still not clear to me how that implies I have a religion. Being influenced, consciously or subconsciously does not mean I have a religion, but maybe I'm misunderstanding your point.

Well, it basically comes down to how you are defining religion. The idea being that defining it as inherently supernatural is impossible and simply a linguistic reshuffling, when it's really more like "you've simply started calling your belief system something else, but it's actually still just Christian." Keep in mind here that Christianity, like all religions, is a really big tent. Put in other terms, the Western w…

Attempting to redefine "religion" to include "all the values people have" is a poor trick in distraction. Exactly in the Western world "religion" really means the belief in a number of supernatural deities, at least one much more powerful than the others, and/or in some form of life after death and supernatural punishment, and the institutions and organizations supporting such beliefs, dependent on their active believers.

Everything else is simply not "a religion." And I also have a whole book to cite:

https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Versus-Fact-Religion-Incompatib...

"Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible" by Jerry A. Coyne

"Evolutionary biologist Jerry A. Coyne lays out in clear, dispassionate detail why the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religion—including faith, dogma, and revelation—leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions."

Also, Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion

"Definition of religion

1a : the state of a religious (e.g. "a nun in her 20th year of religion")

1b(1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural

1b(2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance

2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices

3 archaic : scrupulous conformity : conscientiousness

4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith"

If you think "4" fits with the bad attempt to redefine the real meaning, it in to explain the use in the sentence like "rock'n'roll is his religion."

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#35

Post by jackcosgrove »

yboris wrote: post #6

Philosophy is arguably the most important thing in my life. I'd like to live a morally good life, and figuring out what makes such a life is a great journey. Thanks to my pursuit, I now give at least 10% of my income to the most cost-effective charities I can find (see GiveWell). Thousands of people do the same: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/ Many philosophers are working on society's most pressing issues (see the…

Your charity is fascinating and admirable.

It's also funny to me because elsewhere in the comments people are arguing what the nature of religion is, and here you are tithing.

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#36

Post by jfengel »

whimsicalism wrote: post #31
boyobo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the first quote, but the second quote is not saying that the study of philosophy is useless. Just that it's useless for science.

Philosophy is obviously not useless for science, but continental philosophy is useless. The main problem with philosophy of science nowadays is that not enough scientists act as philosophers.

"Continental philosophy" isn't useless, either, except by the definitions of those who made up the term "continental philosophy". They have a very limited notion of what "utility" is.

The things targeted as "continental philosophy" are mostly meaning-of-life questions. Those aren't "useful", but they're important to people. It's no more useless than literature or video games or skiing, which you don't need but are exactly what people do when they're not doing things that they are required to do.

Not all "continental philosophy" is done well, and the vagueness of the question means that it's hard to distinguish rigorously between "well done" and "not well done". But that doesn't diminish meaning, or value, that people find in it.

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#37

Post by rrsmtz »

mannykannot wrote: post #20
keiferski wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the commenter you replied to, but I recommend the book A Secular Age by Charles Taylor as an 874-page answer to your question. The short version: modern secularity is really more like a new development, where new influences interact in a (still essentially) Christian, Western context, and not a mere subtraction of previous religious attitudes. Really fascinating book, I can't recommend it enough. https://en.wikip…

Secular humanisn owes a lot to ethical principles developed in a religious context, but it does not follow that by adopting the ethics, one is also adopting the religion. Any attempt to push that proposition consistently is likely to devalue the overtly theistic aspects of the religion in question.

> it does not follow that by adopting the ethics, one is also adopting the religion

Those ethics were created from within a theistic worldview, they weren't born from reason. Adopting the ethics of a religious culture while denying the underlying assumptions is pretty unreasonable.

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#38

Post by quanticle »

keiferski wrote: post #21
randlet wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still not clear to me how that implies I have a religion. Being influenced, consciously or subconsciously does not mean I have a religion, but maybe I'm misunderstanding your point.

Well, it basically comes down to how you are defining religion. The idea being that defining it as inherently supernatural is impossible and simply a linguistic reshuffling, when it's really more like "you've simply started calling your belief system something else, but it's actually still just Christian." Keep in mind here that Christianity, like all religions, is a really big tent. Put in other terms, the Western w…

Put in other terms, the Western world in 2020 likes to act as if it reinvented itself afresh in the 1700-1800-1900s, but in reality, everything about "secular" knowledge has been formed in thousands of years of Christian culture.

That makes sense only if you redefine "Christianity" to mean "respect for universal human rights". By that logic most everyone is a Christian. Most Hindus and Buddhists would be Christian too.

The problem is that changing the definition of a word does not change boundaries in reality. I can call my automobile a "Leaf", but that doesn't mean my car does photosynthesis. Similarly, you can say that Christianity just means "respect for human rights", but that doesn't mean that everyone accepts the divinity of Jesus Christ.

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#39

Post by whimsicalism »

keiferski wrote: post #21
randlet wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still not clear to me how that implies I have a religion. Being influenced, consciously or subconsciously does not mean I have a religion, but maybe I'm misunderstanding your point.

Well, it basically comes down to how you are defining religion. The idea being that defining it as inherently supernatural is impossible and simply a linguistic reshuffling, when it's really more like "you've simply started calling your belief system something else, but it's actually still just Christian." Keep in mind here that Christianity, like all religions, is a really big tent. Put in other terms, the Western w…

I clearly have christian and western values instilled in me, I grew up in the US.

But that doesn't mean I practice or believe in a religion or deity?

Idk, this argument seems pretty facile and I've spent a lot of time reading philosophy of religion.

Re: Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away

#40

Post by whimsicalism »

rrsmtz wrote: post #37
mannykannot wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Secular humanisn owes a lot to ethical principles developed in a religious context, but it does not follow that by adopting the ethics, one is also adopting the religion. Any attempt to push that proposition consistently is likely to devalue the overtly theistic aspects of the religion in question.

> it does not follow that by adopting the ethics, one is also adopting the religion Those ethics were created from within a theistic worldview, they weren't born from reason. Adopting the ethics of a religious culture while denying the underlying assumptions is pretty unreasonable.

> Adopting the ethics of a religious culture while denying the underlying assumptions is pretty unreasonable.

Why is that unreasonable? I've "adopted" the basic idea of Newton's gravity but deny the fundamental assumptions regarding the flat spacetime and "gravity as just another force" because general relativity showed those to be incorrect.

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