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A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

jsomers.net

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Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#31

Post by agentcoops »

qqq wrote: post #21
straiberman wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're creating a straw-man here and end up proving jsomers's point. You jump on the delicacy of the language and that's the point. jsomers doesn't argue _about_ this particular law, he was only giving an example on how pushing and pulling language can have direct pragmatic purposes and real political ramifications. The point is that since law is mired in language, exploring language becomes an incredibly rel…

You say jsomers is defending analytic philosophy in this section. Later jsomers says philosophy was bad but has reformed. So on the one hand he defends old philosophy. And on the other he claims philosophy was bad, but is OK now because it has reformed. These defenses are incompatible.

I think the reformation to which he refers would be the advent of modern, analytic philosophy at the turn of the century through the works of Russell, Moore, Frege, and Wittgenstein. If so, the two claims are equivalent.

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#32

Post by agentcoops »

Prrometheus wrote: post #24

The author mentions several ways that philosophy, and especially philosophy of the mind, have contributed to Computer Science and AI in particular. If that is the case, then why don't we see CS teams collaborating with philosophers? He mentions that one particular philosopher of the mind generated some testable hypotheses about how the mind works. Why not, then, test them? Why don't we see many philosophers flitting…

You do. Have you read any of the literature on multi-agent systems design? Or the literature on belief-revision/database updating?

There's a significant community of modern philosophers/logicians actively contributing to developments in CS. Also, check out the Philosophy department at CMU: they've got someone employed full-time to work on implementations of philosophically-inspired causal inference systems.

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#33

Post by [deleted] »

agentcoops wrote: post #31
qqq wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say jsomers is defending analytic philosophy in this section. Later jsomers says philosophy was bad but has reformed. So on the one hand he defends old philosophy. And on the other he claims philosophy was bad, but is OK now because it has reformed. These defenses are incompatible.

I think the reformation to which he refers would be the advent of modern, analytic philosophy at the turn of the century through the works of Russell, Moore, Frege, and Wittgenstein. If so, the two claims are equivalent.

[deleted]

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#34

Post by qqq »

agentcoops wrote: post #31
qqq wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say jsomers is defending analytic philosophy in this section. Later jsomers says philosophy was bad but has reformed. So on the one hand he defends old philosophy. And on the other he claims philosophy was bad, but is OK now because it has reformed. These defenses are incompatible.

I think the reformation to which he refers would be the advent of modern, analytic philosophy at the turn of the century through the works of Russell, Moore, Frege, and Wittgenstein. If so, the two claims are equivalent.

You're saying Wittgenstein is part of reformed philosophy, not bad philosophy?

I don't know about that:

http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~luke_manning/tractatus/tractatus-j...

1 The world is everything that is the case. * 1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things. 1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts. 1.12 For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also all that is not the case. 1.13 The facts in logical space are the world. 1.2 The world divides into facts. 1.21 Any one can either be the case or not be the case, and everything else remain the same.

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#35

Post by agentcoops »

qqq wrote: post #34
agentcoops wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reformation to which he refers would be the advent of modern, analytic philosophy at the turn of the century through the works of Russell, Moore, Frege, and Wittgenstein. If so, the two claims are equivalent.

You're saying Wittgenstein is part of reformed philosophy, not bad philosophy? I don't know about that: http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~luke_manning/tractatus/tractatus-j... 1 The world is everything that is the case. * 1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things. 1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts. 1.12 For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also…

I'm saying that Wittgenstein /contributed/ to the advent of modern analytic or formal philosophy; an indisputable claim. While I have a spot in my heart for the Tractatus (if nothing else the method of truth tables in logic was co-invented within its pages, not to mention "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"), I'm not defending it and its solipsistic position/obfuscated style per se.

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#36

Post by agentcoops »

GavinB wrote: post #18

The problem with philosophy now is that students spend so much time slogging through the old incomprehensible junk. A philosophy degree (I have one) should be a separate entity from a degree studying the history of philosophy. Psych majors don't have to take classes on Phrenology. It's very frustrating to be told to write in a concise style and then asked to read some really obfuscated nonsense.

While I agree that slogging through Aristotle and Kant is incredibly painful (and many departments definitely over-emphasis), I think it's undeniably useful for one pursuing a career or even hobby in philosophy to have some knowledge of the discipline's history. If nothing else, it demonstrates exactly what not to do and how vital clarity and a rigorous, logical methodology are.

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#37

Post by agentcoops »

Something both of these papers miss is that most modern disciplines have their origins in philosophy and, in moments of foundational crisis, often return to their roots. While I do find pure philosophy to often be garbage (most metaphysics, ethics, and epistemology), I think one of its most important contributions is in multi-disciplinary pursuits and its concern with foundational matters. Not to mention that so much of modern, theoretical computer science (particularly logic and type theory) have its origins in the works of philosophers.

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#38

Post by qqq »

agentcoops wrote: post #35
qqq wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying Wittgenstein is part of reformed philosophy, not bad philosophy? I don't know about that: http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~luke_manning/tractatus/tractatus-j... 1 The world is everything that is the case. * 1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things. 1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by these being all the facts. 1.12 For the totality of facts determines both what is the case, and also…

I'm saying that Wittgenstein /contributed/ to the advent of modern analytic or formal philosophy; an indisputable claim. While I have a spot in my heart for the Tractatus (if nothing else the method of truth tables in logic was co-invented within its pages, not to mention "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"), I'm not defending it and its solipsistic position/obfuscated style per se.

How did his nonsense contribute to other people writing sense? Who was influenced by Wittgenstein then wrote sense?

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#39

Post by bdr »

Tichy wrote: post #28
GavinB wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese Room argument is wrong. That in itself does not make it useless. It forces you to bite the bullet and really think about how systems must be able to give rise to intelligence, regardless of their physical makeup. The wikipedia article that you linked has this quote: "The sheer volume of the literature that has grown up around it inspired Pat Hayes to quip that the field of cognitive science ought to be re…

"The sheer volume of the literature that has grown up around it..." So it inspired a huge waste of time. Doesn't really fit my definition of useful.

How is it a waste of time?

Re: A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham)

#40

Post by GavinB »

agentcoops wrote: post #36
GavinB wrote: post #18

The problem with philosophy now is that students spend so much time slogging through the old incomprehensible junk. A philosophy degree (I have one) should be a separate entity from a degree studying the history of philosophy. Psych majors don't have to take classes on Phrenology. It's very frustrating to be told to write in a concise style and then asked to read some really obfuscated nonsense.

While I agree that slogging through Aristotle and Kant is incredibly painful (and many departments definitely over-emphasis), I think it's undeniably useful for one pursuing a career or even hobby in philosophy to have some knowledge of the discipline's history. If nothing else, it demonstrates exactly what not to do and how vital clarity and a rigorous, logical methodology are.

I just think that a succinct summary of their views by a clear modern writer would have been sufficient for my purposes. For others who are more interested, it's great to have.
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