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I studied some philosophy in college, and found the experience pretty disappointing. The field addresses some really fascinating problems, but I'm not too impre

I studied some philosophy in college, and found the experience pretty disappointing. The field addresses some really fascinating problems, but I'm not too impressed with their answers. A typical assignment in philosophy consists of thinking about a really hard problem with no good solutions, picking one, and arguing for it. And since there are so few fixed points, almost anything is arguable. Really, it's a debater's paradise. If I were to do undergrad all over again, with an emphasis on mental calisthenics rather than job skills, I'd study physics and history. Physics is rigorous and really builds your analytical skills. History is deep and builds your research and writing skills. But both are ultimately grounded in reality. There are none of those oh so precious arguments about whether reality is even there.

jraedisch 10y ago
The rules of logic should be applied in philosophy as in physics. If you don't do that, or there is no competent judge (e.g. teacher) things tend to get out of hand, especially with people studying philosophy because they "can't do math".
- YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
  I thought people do programming because they "can't do math"?
  - jraedisch 10y ago
    There are varying degrees of "can't do math", programming's being slightly above philosophy's (IMHO).
    - foldr 10y ago
      IYHO as a web developer!
      - jraedisch 10y ago
        That's just my job.
        foldr 10y ago
        I'm sure philosophers also like to think that they're better at math than programmers.
        YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
        Or at the very least, more humble.
- _glass 10y ago
  The rules of logic are applied in philosophy for sure. That's the discipline that came up with the concept.
  - AlgorithmicTime 10y ago
    They seem to have given it up at some point. Or at least a good portion of them did.
- bbctol 10y ago
  But how do we decide what "the rules of logic" are? And here we go...
IsaacL 10y ago
I started a course in philosophy during my first year of university. I studied CS (in the UK, where you don't typically go far outside your major) but I'd always been curious about the humanities and thought it worthwhile to learn about all fields of knowledge. I'd also read about philosophy for laymen books as a teenager. In the first lecture, I remember being surprised at how rational and logical the lecturer was. However, in the second lecture, we started getting into the details of different theories of meta-ethics. I was interested in the topic, but the presentation was exactly as you describe, focused on hairsplitting the viewpoints of everyone who'd debated the question previously. In the last few years I was inspired to start analysing my own ideas and began studying philosophy in my own time. I now know my undergraduate experience was typical of analytical philosophy, which dominates the English-speaking academic world. Unlike continental philosophers, they believe that there's an objective reality and that our thoughts should be logically consistent. However, they also have accumulated a pile of logical puzzles (Frege cases, Gettier problems, the Raven paradox, etc) which imply that language does not straightforwardly refer to reality, that certain knowledge is impossible, and so on. This skepticism is (imo) at the root of the "debaters paradise" you observed. Anyone looking for an alternative should give Objectivism a serious study. It has such a bad reputation in academic circles that I dismissed it for a long time, but when I finally got around to reading serious Objectivist non-fiction, I found it held together much better with my view of reality. It's basically a version of Aristotelianism, with some of the mystical implications removed. (Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology is the book to read if you want to dive in at the deep end).
- kefka 10y ago
  Objectivism: the OO of philosophy. Or, LaVeyan Satanism without the occult element.
- hartator 10y ago
  Similar studies and experience, I also think that Objectivism is one of the strongest philosophies. It's kind of ironic that we have to talk about Objectivism without naming the main author for politic reasons.
- pmoriarty 10y ago
justin66 10y ago
> Really, it's a debater's paradise. I think are overstating that, but it's worth pointing out that more than anything students in my philosophy program went on to law school and seminary...
Houshalter 10y ago
I like philosophy but, the "debater's paradise" really gets to the problems with it. Arguments can never be settled, just dragged on. I like this quote about the history of science, before the scientific method. >...The scholastics saying that matter was this, or that, and justifying themselves by long treatises about how based on A, B, C, the word of the Bible, Aristotle, self-evident first principles, and the Great Chain of Being all clearly proved their point. Then other scholastics would write different long treatises on how D, E, and F, Plato, St. Augustine, and the proper ordering of angels all indicated that clearly matter was something different. Both groups were pretty sure that the other had make a subtle error of reasoning somewhere, and both groups were perfectly happy to spend centuries debating exactly which one of them it was.... People are terrible. If you let people debate things, they will do it forever, come up with horrible ideas, get them entrenched, play politics with them, and finally reach the point where they’re coming up with theories why people who disagree with them are probably secretly in the pay of the Devil... Imagine having to conduct the global warming debate, except that you couldn’t appeal to scientific consensus and statistics because scientific consensus and statistics hadn’t been invented yet. In a world without science, everything would be like that. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of-control/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-ou...
- ktRolster 10y ago
  There is selection bias there, problems that do get settled stop being dragged on.
  - tome 10y ago
    Yes. A lot of this discussion hasn't grasped your point. Philosophy did settle a lot of questions. They became natural history, physics, chemistry, even mathematics. The ones that are taught in Philosophy courses are the ones that haven't been settled.
    - Houshalter 10y ago
      Mathematics existed for a long time before philosophy, although the two do seem closely related. Science does have origins in philosophy, but I don't think it was philosophical arguments that settled scientific issues, but the invention of the scientific method, which abandoned the need for them. Anyway the main point of that quote is that without developing a consensus or the ability to experimentally test theories, debates have a tendency to drag on for centuries without going anywhere. Of course philosophy can't settle issues experimentally. The main criticism I've heard of philosophy, is that they don't try to form consensus and encourage the dragging on. Philosophy students spend their time reading through the history of philosophy and studying old arguments and issues. Whereas in math or science, there isn't really an emphasis on history or even that much about ongoing debates. Mathematicians don't have a way to experimentally test ideas either. Certain ideas, like the validity of infinite sets, or of Cantor's diagonal theorem, are arguably philosophical in nature as much as mathematical. And were extremely controversial at one time, with many notable mathematicians taking the side against them. But mathematicians did come to consensus on them, eventually.
tome 10y ago
> thinking about a really hard problem with no good solutions, picking one, and arguing for it. And since there are so few fixed points, almost anything is arguable. Really, it's a debater's paradise. Sounds like the entire content of all non-technical jobs and a good proportion of the content of technical jobs.

jraedisch 10y ago

The rules of logic should be applied in philosophy as in physics. If you don't do that, or there is no competent judge (e.g. teacher) things tend to get out of hand, especially with people studying philosophy because they "can't do math".

YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
I thought people do programming because they "can't do math"?
- jraedisch 10y ago
  There are varying degrees of "can't do math", programming's being slightly above philosophy's (IMHO).
  - foldr 10y ago
    IYHO as a web developer!
    - jraedisch 10y ago
      That's just my job.
      - foldr 10y ago
        I'm sure philosophers also like to think that they're better at math than programmers.
        YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
        Or at the very least, more humble.
_glass 10y ago
The rules of logic are applied in philosophy for sure. That's the discipline that came up with the concept.
- AlgorithmicTime 10y ago
  They seem to have given it up at some point. Or at least a good portion of them did.
bbctol 10y ago
But how do we decide what "the rules of logic" are? And here we go...

IsaacL 10y ago

I started a course in philosophy during my first year of university. I studied CS (in the UK, where you don't typically go far outside your major) but I'd always been curious about the humanities and thought it worthwhile to learn about all fields of knowledge. I'd also read about philosophy for laymen books as a teenager. In the first lecture, I remember being surprised at how rational and logical the lecturer was. However, in the second lecture, we started getting into the details of different theories of meta-ethics. I was interested in the topic, but the presentation was exactly as you describe, focused on hairsplitting the viewpoints of everyone who'd debated the question previously. In the last few years I was inspired to start analysing my own ideas and began studying philosophy in my own time. I now know my undergraduate experience was typical of analytical philosophy, which dominates the English-speaking academic world. Unlike continental philosophers, they believe that there's an objective reality and that our thoughts should be logically consistent. However, they also have accumulated a pile of logical puzzles (Frege cases, Gettier problems, the Raven paradox, etc) which imply that language does not straightforwardly refer to reality, that certain knowledge is impossible, and so on. This skepticism is (imo) at the root of the "debaters paradise" you observed. Anyone looking for an alternative should give Objectivism a serious study. It has such a bad reputation in academic circles that I dismissed it for a long time, but when I finally got around to reading serious Objectivist non-fiction, I found it held together much better with my view of reality. It's basically a version of Aristotelianism, with some of the mystical implications removed. (Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology is the book to read if you want to dive in at the deep end).

kefka 10y ago
Objectivism: the OO of philosophy. Or, LaVeyan Satanism without the occult element.
hartator 10y ago
Similar studies and experience, I also think that Objectivism is one of the strongest philosophies. It's kind of ironic that we have to talk about Objectivism without naming the main author for politic reasons.
pmoriarty 10y ago

justin66 10y ago

> Really, it's a debater's paradise. I think are overstating that, but it's worth pointing out that more than anything students in my philosophy program went on to law school and seminary...

Houshalter 10y ago

I like philosophy but, the "debater's paradise" really gets to the problems with it. Arguments can never be settled, just dragged on. I like this quote about the history of science, before the scientific method. >...The scholastics saying that matter was this, or that, and justifying themselves by long treatises about how based on A, B, C, the word of the Bible, Aristotle, self-evident first principles, and the Great Chain of Being all clearly proved their point. Then other scholastics would write different long treatises on how D, E, and F, Plato, St. Augustine, and the proper ordering of angels all indicated that clearly matter was something different. Both groups were pretty sure that the other had make a subtle error of reasoning somewhere, and both groups were perfectly happy to spend centuries debating exactly which one of them it was.... People are terrible. If you let people debate things, they will do it forever, come up with horrible ideas, get them entrenched, play politics with them, and finally reach the point where they’re coming up with theories why people who disagree with them are probably secretly in the pay of the Devil... Imagine having to conduct the global warming debate, except that you couldn’t appeal to scientific consensus and statistics because scientific consensus and statistics hadn’t been invented yet. In a world without science, everything would be like that. http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of-control/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-ou...

ktRolster 10y ago
There is selection bias there, problems that do get settled stop being dragged on.
- tome 10y ago
  Yes. A lot of this discussion hasn't grasped your point. Philosophy did settle a lot of questions. They became natural history, physics, chemistry, even mathematics. The ones that are taught in Philosophy courses are the ones that haven't been settled.
  - Houshalter 10y ago
    Mathematics existed for a long time before philosophy, although the two do seem closely related. Science does have origins in philosophy, but I don't think it was philosophical arguments that settled scientific issues, but the invention of the scientific method, which abandoned the need for them. Anyway the main point of that quote is that without developing a consensus or the ability to experimentally test theories, debates have a tendency to drag on for centuries without going anywhere. Of course philosophy can't settle issues experimentally. The main criticism I've heard of philosophy, is that they don't try to form consensus and encourage the dragging on. Philosophy students spend their time reading through the history of philosophy and studying old arguments and issues. Whereas in math or science, there isn't really an emphasis on history or even that much about ongoing debates. Mathematicians don't have a way to experimentally test ideas either. Certain ideas, like the validity of infinite sets, or of Cantor's diagonal theorem, are arguably philosophical in nature as much as mathematical. And were extremely controversial at one time, with many notable mathematicians taking the side against them. But mathematicians did come to consensus on them, eventually.

tome 10y ago

> thinking about a really hard problem with no good solutions, picking one, and arguing for it. And since there are so few fixed points, almost anything is arguable. Really, it's a debater's paradise. Sounds like the entire content of all non-technical jobs and a good proportion of the content of technical jobs.