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What, exactly, do philosophers do?

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Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#81

Post by dsr_ »

dvt wrote: post #67
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]…

Gorsuch always manages to contort his opinion to match up with his politics. Being highly educated is orthogonal to being a good person.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#82

Post by throwawayknecht »

sametmax wrote: post #77
dvt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If you read universally accepted classical philosophers most of their work are not precise at all, yet they are widely recognized. Actually, a lot of philosophy is "arguable". I don't think you can argue a lot with a mathematical proof. And I'm sorry, but when Lacan compare the penis to square root of -1, it's hard to come back to scientists and sell the rigor of philosophy. Same when philosophers use and abuse Gödel…

> Same when philosophers use and abuse Gödel's incompleteness theorems...

Except the most popular abuser of Gödel's conclusions by far is a physicist and mathematician.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#83

Post by Osmium »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #41
nomel wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And people that contribute are incredibly smart -- far smarter than software engineers, by comparison Comparing a software engineer to someone contributing to the advancement of an entire field is not really a fair comparison. This is like comparing someone who has a job in "compliance and ethics" to someone making advancement in quantum computing.

It's also bogus. If there is one theme repeated over and over, from Aristotle to modern-day philosophers, it's that a philosopher is so much smarter than any other group, and that it's a humble sacrifice to go work in a field that won't pay very well. The vast majority of philosophers don't advance the field in any meaningful way.

> The vast majority of philosophers don't advance the field in any meaningful way.

The vast majority of people in any field don't advance the field in any meaningful way.

(Agree with both yourself and the OP: with great respect for philosophers, comparisons of 'relative smartness' of one field over another is not helpful or particularly meaningful.)

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#84

Post by otakucode »

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,…

When I went to college I took Computer Science as my major and Philosophy as a minor. Beyond the first year, the first day of every class was the same. Everyone introduced themselves and when I said I was a CS major everyone looked at me and wondered if I was in the right room... I love philosophy! For a CS person it is extremely relatable.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#85

Post by Osmium »

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,…

Not down-voting you, because it's an interesting comment, but:

> far smarter than software engineers, by comparison.

This is just a dumb, specious statement. Would expect better from a philosopher ;)

Also, would be interested why you think:

> Philosophy of Science, I think, is almost a completely bogus field.

What makes it bogus?

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#86

Post by default-kramer »

dvt wrote: post #68
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I suppose it depends on how narrowly you are defining philosophy. But the fact is that we can write computer programs to verify many more kinds of mathematical proofs than we can philosophical "proofs".

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#87

Post by eighthnate »

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,…

> And people that contribute are incredibly smart -- far smarter than software engineers, by comparison.

As someone who studied both computer science and philosophy ( CS and Philosophy degrees ), no.

> Philosophy of Science, I think, is almost a completely bogus field.

What?

> Philosophy of Mind, apart from a few great minds (Chalmers, Nagel) is also equivocal.

What?

Not sure how to respond to your comment since you are all over the place. But there are plenty of smart minds in software engineering/computer science and plenty of dumb minds in philosophy.

Not sure where you get the idea that philosophers are smarter than "software engineers" and what metric you are using to determine it. But if you have a metric, I'd love for you to lay it out.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#88

Post by Koshkin »

It looks like philosophy is several different things: an "umbrella" term for any subject that is still in a "pre-science" state and has not matured enough to acquire a name of its own; a part of the name that stuck for purely historical reasons, as in "philosophy of mathematics"; a collection of miscellaneous (named) subjects, some of which are "science", while others are not (yet); a world-view (including cases when it is driven by a political agenda).

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#89

Post by deadmetheny »

imgabe wrote: post #73
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,…

I think you probably had some good points to make about philosophy, but you killed it by turning it into a dick measuring contest.

It seems like half his point was that modern philosophy more or less is nothing but a dick measuring contest.

Re: What, exactly, do philosophers do?

#90

Post by eighthnate »

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…

> Maybe I'm being unfair, but I just think science should be left to the scientists.

There is a world of difference between science and philosophy of science. Karl Popper wasn't a scientist but that doesn't mean he can't inquire about the philosophy of science. Philosophers in "philosophy of science" aren't doing any science. You do realize that don't you?

In your top-level comment, you crow about how smart philosophers are and now you are just deriding philosophers as incapable of understanding science and basic mathematics?

"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."

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