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This is why philosophy is important: Education has two related yet distinct purposes. The first is to endow us with specific domain knowledge and reasoning. Th

This is why philosophy is important: Education has two related yet distinct purposes. The first is to endow us with specific domain knowledge and reasoning. The second is to endow us with general reasoning and critical thinking skills. The value of natural language philosophy - not formal logic and other mathematically adjacent subfields - is that it teaches us to be as rigorous as possible when reasoning in natural language. Given that so much of our lives and the events of history and society unfold in natural language and that it is in natural language that we do much of our critical thinking and reasoning, it's important that we hold ourselves to as high a standard as is reasonably possible when talking (either to ourselves or others) as when performing mathematical calculations. It's often said that one of the benefits of studying math is that it improves critical thinking skills. I believe this to be true, but I also believe that if our primary concern is improving our day to day critical thinking skills, then we would be better served studying natural language philosphy than mathematics, because on a day to day basis we tend to think and reason and debate and engage with one another in natural language.

steaknsteak 9y ago
Agreed. In my anecdotal experience, imprecise language and simple logical mistakes made in conversation is a pretty frequent source of miscommunication and minor interpersonal conflict. But I can't really tell people to speak more precisely or consider the logical implications of their speech without sounding like a prick
humanrebar 9y ago
> ...it teaches us to be as rigorous as possible when reasoning in natural language. A philosopher should explain to all the natural-language-as-code people why their endeavor is much, much harder than they think it is. If a philosopher isn't available, a lawyer would probably be qualified as well. Point being, I feel like I'm getting some of those benefits just writing code and talking about it on a regular basis.
- meri_dian 9y ago
  It sounds to me like you're philosophizing about code then, which is a fine thing to philosophize about. We use natural language to express abstractions formed over a very complex world, so it's guaranteed that when talking we'll be imprecise in some way, but the goal is to try to reduce this imprecision.
- tommorris 9y ago
  > If a philosopher isn't available, a lawyer would probably be qualified as well. The lawyers are busy explaining to the "smart contracts" people that trying to translate contract law into code is going to produce a whole lot more comedy than it is practical value.
nora4 9y ago
In my view philosophy is important in and of itself, because these are natural questions about our existence which many brilliant people have thought about and written on for centuries. And these are very worth reading. Second, because it illuminates good ways of life. Third, because of the reason you mentioned.
dsacco 9y ago
> It's often said that one of the benefits of studying math is that it improves critical thinking skills. I believe this to be true, but I also believe that if our primary concern is improving our day to day critical thinking skills, then we would be better served studying natural language philosphy than mathematics, because on a day to day basis we tend to think and reason and debate and engage with one another in natural language. I agree. For this reason, my favorite philosopher has always been Wittgenstein. I also have an affection for the existentialists, but language games demonstrate that philosophy can be eminently practical and relevant despite the pejorative connotations of the term, "philosophizing." That said, I really don't think philosophy should be its own major in most schools. It would be better, in my opinion, to teach philosophy as we teach arithmetic and language, rather than a focused degree.
- meri_dian 9y ago
  Wittgenstein is one of my favorites as well for the same reason. The Tractatus should be required reading for everyone, not just philosophy students.
  - otoburb 9y ago
    If one reads Tractatus, then a reading of Philosophical Investigations is likely needed shortly thereafter.
  - philipov 9y ago
    Philosophical Investigations is better.
  - fastaguy88 9y ago
    I can't resist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSdHoNJu5fU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSdHoNJu5fU
- goatlover 9y ago
  And what if someone wants to become a philosopher? That's like saying we shouldn't teach match as a major because every kid gets taught arithmetic. Well, some people want to do more with math than arithmetic.
stdbrouw 9y ago
The irony is that when philosophers make statements like these, they never provide any empirical evidence to back it up. Does philosophy really improve critical thinking and reasoning skills? We're told it does, based on nothing more than "that's what it feels like to me". Rigorous reasoning is worthless without facts to reason on.
- whataretensors 9y ago
  My experience with philosophy was a mixture of half-baked history and distracting discussions that aren't useful.
  - asimpletune 9y ago
    I don’t doubt that :)
  - tw1010 9y ago
    This is the reason introducing mandatory programming in high school will likely cause more harm than good to the reputation of the field. (Don't judge a field of study by how it is taught.)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- tw1010 9y ago
  How to measure this is itself a philosophical question.
  - fullshark 9y ago
    No offense, but comments like this just make me think philosophy is intellectual masturbation.
- tMcGrath 9y ago
  In this case that's not true though - the article is about someone who used critical thinking/reasoning skills to make a huge amount of money, and credits this in large part to his training in philosophy. It's possible, of course, that Miller is mistaken about the origin of his critical thinking ability (or just got lucky, and there's no ability to credit), however on balance this seems like a strong piece of anecdata in favour of the hypothesis. I'm interested what would constitute empirical evidence for/against the claim "philosophy helps improve critical thinking". Are there accepted standardised measures of this?
drharby 9y ago
I anecdotally echo similar opinion confirmed by more recently critical interactions in meatspace. People value unambiguous concise communication
stcredzero 9y ago
Given that so much of our lives and the events of history and society unfold in natural language and that it is in natural language that we do much of our critical thinking and reasoning, it's important that we hold ourselves to as high a standard as is reasonably possible when talking (either to ourselves or others) as when performing mathematical calculations. This is also why we should be skeptical of "meta-ideologies." Ideologies derived from Postmodernism often make something akin to a claim of transcendence, attempting to lean on the ability of Postmodern analysis to deconstruct anything expressed in language. Marxian philosophy attempts to be such a meta-ideology, claiming that, in a constantly changing world, only the analysis of things in the process of change is valid, and attempting to formulate its own system of logic that takes such transformation into account from its foundation. I think Science, done honestly, is okay as a meta-ideology, as it's subordinate to logic, mathematics, and empirical data. The honest conduct of science will eventually expose charlatans. Capitalism as ideology, as apparently subscribed to by some Libertarians, fails to be anything more than a (rather good) method of regulating an economy, so falls far short of being a meta-ideology. Evolution, attempting to become a meta-ideology as Daniel Dennett's "universal acid," is interesting as a meta-ideology, but I'm not sure it's quite ready. I wonder if Marxian philosophy could be reformulated to ditch its historical dialectic nonsense and its utopian nonsense, taking up evolution by natural selection as its analytical foundation instead?
DanielBMarkham 9y ago
Natural philosophy, rhetoric, statistics. There are a handful of skills that for some reason we don't teach and then society suffers through the impact the lack of them has on public debate. Philosophy has been a victim of its own success. By creating science and organizing our relationship with religion, it has pushed itself out of the public arena.
ggg9990 9y ago
Natural language reasoning skills are more important than ever, since the relatively recent explosion of “firmware hacks” into people’s brains using natural language as an attack vector. People get a math education so that they can’t be fooled by an otherwise reasonable-sounding proof that 1=2. I don’t know if philosophy is the answer, but people need to get a reasoning education as well so that they aren’t susceptible to a “proof” that [politician] is “fake news.”

steaknsteak 9y ago

Agreed. In my anecdotal experience, imprecise language and simple logical mistakes made in conversation is a pretty frequent source of miscommunication and minor interpersonal conflict. But I can't really tell people to speak more precisely or consider the logical implications of their speech without sounding like a prick

humanrebar 9y ago

> ...it teaches us to be as rigorous as possible when reasoning in natural language. A philosopher should explain to all the natural-language-as-code people why their endeavor is much, much harder than they think it is. If a philosopher isn't available, a lawyer would probably be qualified as well. Point being, I feel like I'm getting some of those benefits just writing code and talking about it on a regular basis.

meri_dian 9y ago
It sounds to me like you're philosophizing about code then, which is a fine thing to philosophize about. We use natural language to express abstractions formed over a very complex world, so it's guaranteed that when talking we'll be imprecise in some way, but the goal is to try to reduce this imprecision.
tommorris 9y ago
> If a philosopher isn't available, a lawyer would probably be qualified as well. The lawyers are busy explaining to the "smart contracts" people that trying to translate contract law into code is going to produce a whole lot more comedy than it is practical value.

nora4 9y ago

In my view philosophy is important in and of itself, because these are natural questions about our existence which many brilliant people have thought about and written on for centuries. And these are very worth reading. Second, because it illuminates good ways of life. Third, because of the reason you mentioned.

dsacco 9y ago

> It's often said that one of the benefits of studying math is that it improves critical thinking skills. I believe this to be true, but I also believe that if our primary concern is improving our day to day critical thinking skills, then we would be better served studying natural language philosphy than mathematics, because on a day to day basis we tend to think and reason and debate and engage with one another in natural language. I agree. For this reason, my favorite philosopher has always been Wittgenstein. I also have an affection for the existentialists, but language games demonstrate that philosophy can be eminently practical and relevant despite the pejorative connotations of the term, "philosophizing." That said, I really don't think philosophy should be its own major in most schools. It would be better, in my opinion, to teach philosophy as we teach arithmetic and language, rather than a focused degree.

meri_dian 9y ago
Wittgenstein is one of my favorites as well for the same reason. The Tractatus should be required reading for everyone, not just philosophy students.
- otoburb 9y ago
  If one reads Tractatus, then a reading of Philosophical Investigations is likely needed shortly thereafter.
- philipov 9y ago
  Philosophical Investigations is better.
- fastaguy88 9y ago
  I can't resist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSdHoNJu5fU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSdHoNJu5fU
goatlover 9y ago
And what if someone wants to become a philosopher? That's like saying we shouldn't teach match as a major because every kid gets taught arithmetic. Well, some people want to do more with math than arithmetic.

stdbrouw 9y ago

The irony is that when philosophers make statements like these, they never provide any empirical evidence to back it up. Does philosophy really improve critical thinking and reasoning skills? We're told it does, based on nothing more than "that's what it feels like to me". Rigorous reasoning is worthless without facts to reason on.

whataretensors 9y ago
My experience with philosophy was a mixture of half-baked history and distracting discussions that aren't useful.
- asimpletune 9y ago
  I don’t doubt that :)
- tw1010 9y ago
  This is the reason introducing mandatory programming in high school will likely cause more harm than good to the reputation of the field. (Don't judge a field of study by how it is taught.)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tw1010 9y ago
How to measure this is itself a philosophical question.
- fullshark 9y ago
  No offense, but comments like this just make me think philosophy is intellectual masturbation.
tMcGrath 9y ago
In this case that's not true though - the article is about someone who used critical thinking/reasoning skills to make a huge amount of money, and credits this in large part to his training in philosophy. It's possible, of course, that Miller is mistaken about the origin of his critical thinking ability (or just got lucky, and there's no ability to credit), however on balance this seems like a strong piece of anecdata in favour of the hypothesis. I'm interested what would constitute empirical evidence for/against the claim "philosophy helps improve critical thinking". Are there accepted standardised measures of this?

drharby 9y ago

I anecdotally echo similar opinion confirmed by more recently critical interactions in meatspace. People value unambiguous concise communication

stcredzero 9y ago

Given that so much of our lives and the events of history and society unfold in natural language and that it is in natural language that we do much of our critical thinking and reasoning, it's important that we hold ourselves to as high a standard as is reasonably possible when talking (either to ourselves or others) as when performing mathematical calculations. This is also why we should be skeptical of "meta-ideologies." Ideologies derived from Postmodernism often make something akin to a claim of transcendence, attempting to lean on the ability of Postmodern analysis to deconstruct anything expressed in language. Marxian philosophy attempts to be such a meta-ideology, claiming that, in a constantly changing world, only the analysis of things in the process of change is valid, and attempting to formulate its own system of logic that takes such transformation into account from its foundation. I think Science, done honestly, is okay as a meta-ideology, as it's subordinate to logic, mathematics, and empirical data. The honest conduct of science will eventually expose charlatans. Capitalism as ideology, as apparently subscribed to by some Libertarians, fails to be anything more than a (rather good) method of regulating an economy, so falls far short of being a meta-ideology. Evolution, attempting to become a meta-ideology as Daniel Dennett's "universal acid," is interesting as a meta-ideology, but I'm not sure it's quite ready. I wonder if Marxian philosophy could be reformulated to ditch its historical dialectic nonsense and its utopian nonsense, taking up evolution by natural selection as its analytical foundation instead?

DanielBMarkham 9y ago

Natural philosophy, rhetoric, statistics. There are a handful of skills that for some reason we don't teach and then society suffers through the impact the lack of them has on public debate. Philosophy has been a victim of its own success. By creating science and organizing our relationship with religion, it has pushed itself out of the public arena.

ggg9990 9y ago

Natural language reasoning skills are more important than ever, since the relatively recent explosion of “firmware hacks” into people’s brains using natural language as an attack vector. People get a math education so that they can’t be fooled by an otherwise reasonable-sounding proof that 1=2. I don’t know if philosophy is the answer, but people need to get a reasoning education as well so that they aren’t susceptible to a “proof” that [politician] is “fake news.”