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What, exactly, do philosophers do?

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Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#61

Post by dvt »

toufka wrote: post #59
dvt wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm being kind of harsh, so let me restate: my experience with Philosophy of Science has been very sub-par. I took a class on the Philosophy of Time and a lot of it dealt with relativity. Now, I don't think you need to understand Einstein to understand the gist of relativity, but if you're studying it for 10-weeks in a formal environment then, yeah, you probably need to have a grasp not only on Minkowski spaces, but…

I do think you are being harsh here, or at least too particular to your own experience. My experience differs. As a practicing scientist who also did a thesis on the concept of Causality, with projects on Time, I did in fact have to interact with and learn significant physics to make a dent in my projects. My professors were themselves extraordinarily capable with respect to (at least theoretical) science. My graduat…

Fair enough, my experience was very wishy-washy and hand-wavy. Maybe I just got unlucky. Philosophy of Science isn't UCLA's strength, after all.

I hope one day I'll get a chance one day to take a class on Philosophy of Science I'll enjoy.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#62

Post by Retric »

dvt wrote: 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,…

Philosophy is easy. It takes a different skill set and is a more developed field, however their is nothing that verifies mistakes so you can succeeded without being absolutely correct.

The problem is when you confuse what you need to do to succeed with the search for truth.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#63

Post by dvt »

Retric wrote: post #62
dvt wrote: 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,…

Philosophy is easy . It takes a different skill set and is a more developed field, however their is nothing that verifies mistakes so you can succeeded without being absolutely correct. The problem is when you confuse what you need to do to succeed with the search for truth.

> there is nothing that verifies mistakes so you can succeeded without being absolutely correct

Yes there is. The primary method of argument is proof.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#64

Post by azeirah »

mcguire wrote: post #43
pishpash wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the state of the art in today's philosophy? What's the latest truly novel idea?

That is, I think, the wrong question. Or rather, the wrong approach to take.[1] Philosophy is not that kind of human endeavor. There is no "state of the art"; instead, Plato is as state-of-the-art as he ever was[2][3] and every publishing philosopher has novel ideas (or at least hopes they do, although they might also like to learn that some ancient sage has expressed support for their notions). My personal way of vi…

Isn't it so that whenever something within philosophy becomes state of the art, it stops being philosophy?

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#65

Post by sillysaurus3 »

dvt wrote: post #63
Retric wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophy is easy . It takes a different skill set and is a more developed field, however their is nothing that verifies mistakes so you can succeeded without being absolutely correct. The problem is when you confuse what you need to do to succeed with the search for truth.

> there is nothing that verifies mistakes so you can succeeded without being absolutely correct Yes there is. The primary method of argument is proof.

And yet, proof in this domain isn't precise the way a mathematical proof is precise.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#66

Post by mannykannot »

dvt wrote: post #37
smnrchrds wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Philosophy of Science, I think, is almost a completely bogus field. Could you please elaborate on this?

I'm being kind of harsh, so let me restate: my experience with Philosophy of Science has been very sub-par. I took a class on the Philosophy of Time and a lot of it dealt with relativity. Now, I don't think you need to understand Einstein to understand the gist of relativity, but if you're studying it for 10-weeks in a formal environment then, yeah, you probably need to have a grasp not only on Minkowski spaces, but…

I am not as awed by philosophers as you are, but I think this is rather unfair on philosophy by extrapolating from a bad example, that isn't even what is generally meant by the philosophy of science. From your description, your example looks like a group of philosophers (or at least philosophically-minded people) trying to take on a scientific topic without first learning the science (of course, some physicists have been accused of doing the same with regard to philosophy.)

Henri Bergson, who had put a lifetime's study into a philosophical rumination on time, vigorously rejected special relativity, to the point that it is said that Einstein's Nobel award citation did not mention special relativity on account of Bergson's criticism. Nevertheless, Einstein was in no doubt about what was his most important work, and gave an acceptance speech that was all about relativity.

If Bergson had been more aware of what had been going in in physics, over the previous two decades, to come to terms with the (meta?)physical implications of Maxwell's equations, he might not have been blindsided by special relativity.

As the above is rather critical of Bergson, I will end by noting that near the end of his life, he stood up to the Vichy regime's persecution of Jews, even though he was not Jewish himself and could have remained aloof.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#67

Post by dvt »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #54
dvt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously I can't prove it, but we can look at a few metrics: academic performance, influential ideas, impact on society. I think Carmack would lose on all these fronts.

How have modern philosophers impacted society? (Show your work.) It seems obvious that Carmack's ideas have been far more influential than most philosophers' ideas, but admittedly this is difficult to measure. Impact on society isn't, though. “Every mathematician believes that he is ahead of the others. The reason none state this belief in public is because they are intelligent people.”

Gorsuch, for example, often bases his arguments and decisions[1] on the moral framework of Dworkin[1] and Singer[2], just to name two of the biggest modern moral philosophers, regularly. If you don't think that SCOTUS decisions have more and longer-lasting social impact than Doom and the Oculus Rift, then we have some foundational disagreements.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/trump-b...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Dworkin

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#68

Post by dvt »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #65
dvt wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is nothing that verifies mistakes so you can succeeded without being absolutely correct Yes there is. The primary method of argument is proof.

And yet, proof in this domain isn't precise the way a mathematical proof is precise.

Of course it's precise (in fact, it's isomorphic to a mathematical proof).

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#69

Post by unhammer »

dmreedy wrote: post #46
duncanawoods wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All true but I feel as currently taught it is hamstrung as a "historical study of great men / literary study of original sources" instead of teaching the key ideas distilled into the the most efficient and practical form. High school physicists are not ploughing through Principia Mathematica, instead they learn the laws of motion and move on. Physicists pretty much leave behind the original sources until you are at t…

Because fundamentally, every single premise established in Philosophy is rejectable, and in practice, every premise is routinely rejected. Unlike physics, where there is one tower and it is built high by many hands, in Philosophy, there are many towers and many builders, all having made very little progress on what are incredibly hard problems. There are too many different schools and too few means of empirical refut…

> every single premise established in Philosophy is rejectable

until it's not, at which point it moves out of the domain of Philosophy and into physics, math, psychology, what have you.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#70

Post by Retric »

dvt wrote: post #63
Retric wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophy is easy . It takes a different skill set and is a more developed field, however their is nothing that verifies mistakes so you can succeeded without being absolutely correct. The problem is when you confuse what you need to do to succeed with the search for truth.

> there is nothing that verifies mistakes so you can succeeded without being absolutely correct Yes there is. The primary method of argument is proof.

At a practical level acceptance in The Philosophical Review arguably the top Journal does not require some sort of mechanical formal verification.

The barriers to entry are no less difficult from it's absence, but the barriers to accuracy are defiantly lower.

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