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No, the authors acknowledge this counterargument, but they do not offer a substantial refutation of it. They try to confuse their readers by equating a historic

by kolbe 10y ago

No, the authors acknowledge this counterargument, but they do not offer a substantial refutation of it. They try to confuse their readers by equating a historical examination of philosophy with philosophy itself. id=whatshisface is correctly addressing how this argument applies to philosophy.

Avshalom 10y ago
Whathisface is arguing from unsupported assertion as much as TFA is.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  Whathisface is commenting on an article. You expect a counter article? I think the original article has a higher burden of evidence for supporting it's claims.
  - Avshalom 10y ago
    Not from whathisface no, but that wasn't a response to whathisface. It was a response to Kolbe who chose whathisface's assertion over TFAs assertion without evidence or even really additional argument.
Scarblac 10y ago
History of philosophy is a major part of all philosophy programs, and the list of topics that are discussed in the non-history topics are those that were discussed by the old European philosophers.
- jessriedel 10y ago
  > History of philosophy is a major part of all philosophy programs Right or wrong, modern philosophers at top universities would claim that they teach history of philosophy for the same modest reason that physicists learn about Newton: so they can get some context about how various ideas developed and the reason for conventions. Analytical philosophers generally resist about having to teach history of philosophy. > the list of topics that are discussed in the non-history topics are those that were discussed by the old European philosophers. What topics discussed by non-European philosophers do you think are neglected? Yes it's hard to imagine there isn't bias in topic selection, but then this needs to be addressed by convincing modern researchers that whatever non-European ideas are better on their merits, not by studying modern non-European philosophy as a separate topic.
  - whack 10y ago
    > "Analytical philosophers generally resist about having to teach history of philosophy." I actually agree with you on this. It's fine to draw inspiration from historical theories, but I'd prefer if we could focus more on the ideas themselves, and less on the history behind those ideas. That said, this is orthogonal to what the article is about. Given that so much of philosophy classes revolves around "History of Philosophy," it makes sense to cover the full range of history, and not just one slice of it. > "What topics discussed by non-European philosophers do you think are neglected? Yes it's hard to imagine there isn't bias in topic selection, but then this needs to be addressed by convincing modern researchers that whatever non-European ideas are better on their merits, not by studying modern non-European philosophy as a separate topic." What you said is exactly what the author is arguing as well. He's expressly arguing against the segmentation of western/eastern philosophy into different topics, and in favor of integrating them into the mainstream of philosophy, based on their individual merits. He's also given specific examples of non-western philosophy that is unfairly neglected, and meriting integrated study. So far in this thread, numerous people have disagreed with the author, but I've yet to see any highly rated comment dispute the merit of the examples he's given.
    - bobwaycott 10y ago
      I, for one, studied both history and philosophy in undergrad/grad school. I find it very illuminating to anchor philosophy in a thorough understanding of its historical context. In fact, I find this informative in other fields, as well—economics, literature, textual analysis, science, etc. That said, philosophy courses in university include a lot of historical survey because there's value in historically positioning schools of thoughts and their development across many philosophers who could be separated by culture and time, but nonetheless engage the same topic. Particularly in the Western tradition, it is fairly trivial to chronologically trace ideas through teachers and students, from one pivotal thinker to another, to the current state of Western thought. This at least helps students understand how we arrived to the present day, which I think is valuable. Incorporating non-western philosophy would certainly make for a very positive increased coverage of human ideas, and could offer some interesting and challenging opportunities for philosophy students. There still needs to be a way to situate the information for students to grasp. Without including historical and cultural context, you could invite students to directly engage the texts and ideas alone, absent context, and produce their own comparative analysis of complementary and opposing arguments/conclusions. It could be interesting to present texts in a blind fashion, omitting identifying information about a philosopher, and see what students make of the texts without the bias of knowing where it came from historically and culturally. While I agree it is beneficial to approach and study ideas based on their merits, and integrate non-western thought into philosophy courses that are centered on specific ideas, I think there is still value in some amount of segmentation to avoid overwhelming students. A survey of Middle Eastern and Eastern philosophy is just as valuable and informative as a survey of Western. They could all be required of philosophy majors, I think. We already have segmentation by topic, and could more easily integrate non-western thought that way. Somewhat related, my own graduate experience led me to realize that professors and departments are very resistant to teaching, incorporating, or even approving research into anything that is outside their identified areas of expertise. This is, I think, a likely additive reason for why any given topic X doesn't make it into an academic department that is ostensibly focused on the field topic X fits into.

by kolbe 10y ago

Avshalom 10y ago

Whathisface is arguing from unsupported assertion as much as TFA is.

Chris2048 10y ago
Whathisface is commenting on an article. You expect a counter article? I think the original article has a higher burden of evidence for supporting it's claims.
- Avshalom 10y ago
  Not from whathisface no, but that wasn't a response to whathisface. It was a response to Kolbe who chose whathisface's assertion over TFAs assertion without evidence or even really additional argument.

Scarblac 10y ago

History of philosophy is a major part of all philosophy programs, and the list of topics that are discussed in the non-history topics are those that were discussed by the old European philosophers.

jessriedel 10y ago
> History of philosophy is a major part of all philosophy programs Right or wrong, modern philosophers at top universities would claim that they teach history of philosophy for the same modest reason that physicists learn about Newton: so they can get some context about how various ideas developed and the reason for conventions. Analytical philosophers generally resist about having to teach history of philosophy. > the list of topics that are discussed in the non-history topics are those that were discussed by the old European philosophers. What topics discussed by non-European philosophers do you think are neglected? Yes it's hard to imagine there isn't bias in topic selection, but then this needs to be addressed by convincing modern researchers that whatever non-European ideas are better on their merits, not by studying modern non-European philosophy as a separate topic.
- whack 10y ago
  > "Analytical philosophers generally resist about having to teach history of philosophy." I actually agree with you on this. It's fine to draw inspiration from historical theories, but I'd prefer if we could focus more on the ideas themselves, and less on the history behind those ideas. That said, this is orthogonal to what the article is about. Given that so much of philosophy classes revolves around "History of Philosophy," it makes sense to cover the full range of history, and not just one slice of it. > "What topics discussed by non-European philosophers do you think are neglected? Yes it's hard to imagine there isn't bias in topic selection, but then this needs to be addressed by convincing modern researchers that whatever non-European ideas are better on their merits, not by studying modern non-European philosophy as a separate topic." What you said is exactly what the author is arguing as well. He's expressly arguing against the segmentation of western/eastern philosophy into different topics, and in favor of integrating them into the mainstream of philosophy, based on their individual merits. He's also given specific examples of non-western philosophy that is unfairly neglected, and meriting integrated study. So far in this thread, numerous people have disagreed with the author, but I've yet to see any highly rated comment dispute the merit of the examples he's given.
  - bobwaycott 10y ago
    I, for one, studied both history and philosophy in undergrad/grad school. I find it very illuminating to anchor philosophy in a thorough understanding of its historical context. In fact, I find this informative in other fields, as well—economics, literature, textual analysis, science, etc. That said, philosophy courses in university include a lot of historical survey because there's value in historically positioning schools of thoughts and their development across many philosophers who could be separated by culture and time, but nonetheless engage the same topic. Particularly in the Western tradition, it is fairly trivial to chronologically trace ideas through teachers and students, from one pivotal thinker to another, to the current state of Western thought. This at least helps students understand how we arrived to the present day, which I think is valuable. Incorporating non-western philosophy would certainly make for a very positive increased coverage of human ideas, and could offer some interesting and challenging opportunities for philosophy students. There still needs to be a way to situate the information for students to grasp. Without including historical and cultural context, you could invite students to directly engage the texts and ideas alone, absent context, and produce their own comparative analysis of complementary and opposing arguments/conclusions. It could be interesting to present texts in a blind fashion, omitting identifying information about a philosopher, and see what students make of the texts without the bias of knowing where it came from historically and culturally. While I agree it is beneficial to approach and study ideas based on their merits, and integrate non-western thought into philosophy courses that are centered on specific ideas, I think there is still value in some amount of segmentation to avoid overwhelming students. A survey of Middle Eastern and Eastern philosophy is just as valuable and informative as a survey of Western. They could all be required of philosophy majors, I think. We already have segmentation by topic, and could more easily integrate non-western thought that way. Somewhat related, my own graduate experience led me to realize that professors and departments are very resistant to teaching, incorporating, or even approving research into anything that is outside their identified areas of expertise. This is, I think, a likely additive reason for why any given topic X doesn't make it into an academic department that is ostensibly focused on the field topic X fits into.