4 ms·

We don't study philosophy simply based on who is first, we study texts because they are thorough and influential on future philosophical and political developme

We don't study philosophy simply based on who is first, we study texts because they are thorough and influential on future philosophical and political development. We know this because future scholars directly cite them. Before all the aforementioned authors, it's all but certain that many of these thoughts were had by unknown people without the ability to archive them in depth. The Bible alone is evidence of this; for someone to write that denial of religion deserves death, they must consider religion as a choice in the first place. This just feels like someone is shoehorning a narrative that they like.

dang 9y ago
This isn't as cheap as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16200064 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16200064 but it's still a shallow dismissal of a straw view of the article. What's interesting here is not that these guys did or didn't have historical influence—obviously they didn't, end of story. It's that their ideas were surprisingly similar to later, more famous thinkers in a place few would have expected. That easily clears the bar for interest on Hacker News. When the HN guidelines say the following, it applies to articles as well: Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- nickysielicki 9y ago
  > What's interesting here is not that these guys did or didn't have historical influence—obviously they didn't, end of story. It's that their ideas were surprisingly similar to later, more famous thinkers in a place few would have expected. That easily clears the bar for interest on Hacker News. I agree with you on this-- it's definitely interesting, but the point you're making here is very different from the thesis of the link. The thesis restatement in the last paragraph of the article makes the case that these authors have high historical relevance in philosophy, and that argument is what I was responding to. I understand the goal of the guideline, but as a starting point it's unreasonable to expect someone to respond to an argument as it could be rather than as it really is. I think we're on the same page.
- kolbe 9y ago
  Turns out, if you have some education, but then get rejected by your society for what seems like intellectually insignificant reasons, it's almost universal to react by thinking it's not fair and that everyone should be equal.
- Rexxar 9y ago
  For some definitions of 'philosopher', the impact of the person on a group is an essential part of the definition. The first sentence on the french wikipédia for philosopher (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophe https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophe) is "Un philosophe est une personne dont les écrits ou la parole sont reconnus par des écoles, groupes, religions, ou académies" => "A philosopher is a person whose writings or words are recognized by schools, groups, religions, or academies" With this definition in mind, it's logical that the concept of "precursor" or "unknow philosopher/thinker" seems just absurd to some people. I don't necessarily agree with this definition but we can't really blame nickysielicki for this very frequent point of view.
anigbrowl 9y ago
Presumably as this philosopher becomes better known and some readers find his arguments more coherent or inspiring than those of his peers, he will become more widely cited in future. Your argument seems to rest on intellectual popularity as the metric of success, as if the work of all philosophers had been equally accessible to all students of the discipline.
- mcguire 9y ago
  "Your argument seems to rest on intellectual popularity as the metric of success,..." And further, intellectual popularity among a philosophers contemporaries and immediate successors. That makes it rather difficult to introduce a new thinker.

dang 9y ago

This isn't as cheap as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16200064 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16200064 but it's still a shallow dismissal of a straw view of the article. What's interesting here is not that these guys did or didn't have historical influence—obviously they didn't, end of story. It's that their ideas were surprisingly similar to later, more famous thinkers in a place few would have expected. That easily clears the bar for interest on Hacker News. When the HN guidelines say the following, it applies to articles as well: Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

nickysielicki 9y ago
> What's interesting here is not that these guys did or didn't have historical influence—obviously they didn't, end of story. It's that their ideas were surprisingly similar to later, more famous thinkers in a place few would have expected. That easily clears the bar for interest on Hacker News. I agree with you on this-- it's definitely interesting, but the point you're making here is very different from the thesis of the link. The thesis restatement in the last paragraph of the article makes the case that these authors have high historical relevance in philosophy, and that argument is what I was responding to. I understand the goal of the guideline, but as a starting point it's unreasonable to expect someone to respond to an argument as it could be rather than as it really is. I think we're on the same page.
kolbe 9y ago
Turns out, if you have some education, but then get rejected by your society for what seems like intellectually insignificant reasons, it's almost universal to react by thinking it's not fair and that everyone should be equal.
Rexxar 9y ago
For some definitions of 'philosopher', the impact of the person on a group is an essential part of the definition. The first sentence on the french wikipédia for philosopher (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophe https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophe) is "Un philosophe est une personne dont les écrits ou la parole sont reconnus par des écoles, groupes, religions, ou académies" => "A philosopher is a person whose writings or words are recognized by schools, groups, religions, or academies" With this definition in mind, it's logical that the concept of "precursor" or "unknow philosopher/thinker" seems just absurd to some people. I don't necessarily agree with this definition but we can't really blame nickysielicki for this very frequent point of view.

anigbrowl 9y ago

Presumably as this philosopher becomes better known and some readers find his arguments more coherent or inspiring than those of his peers, he will become more widely cited in future. Your argument seems to rest on intellectual popularity as the metric of success, as if the work of all philosophers had been equally accessible to all students of the discipline.

mcguire 9y ago
"Your argument seems to rest on intellectual popularity as the metric of success,..." And further, intellectual popularity among a philosophers contemporaries and immediate successors. That makes it rather difficult to introduce a new thinker.