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I really wanted to enjoy this book review, but I could not penetrate the philosophical jargon and labyrinthine paragraph structure. I suspect it is for audience

I really wanted to enjoy this book review, but I could not penetrate the philosophical jargon and labyrinthine paragraph structure. I suspect it is for audiences more familiar with the relevant literature.

aphx 8y ago
The reviewer may have been making the same comment in the 2nd and 3rd sentences with "[...] in more sophisticated detail than any other work in print," and, "The book will be of interest [...] to anyone interested in understanding what a [work of this kind] can look like." And in the 2nd-to-last paragraph as well, "Gerken takes great care -- perhaps a bit too much care at times".
whatshisface 8y ago
>such as our inclination to deny that someone knows that p in the face of a salient alternative, q Here is a small gripe with philosophical tradition that I'm sure many of us share: they easily could have phrased this without symbols[0], but ended up using them anyway. The only reason science and math papers use letters in body text is because they are about to be used in equations! After they are introduced at the expense of using "professional" grammar, p and q never show up again. [0] "such as our inclination to deny that someone knows something in the face of a salient alternative."
- AlexCoventry 8y ago
  He does actually reference p again, in the 5th sentence of that paragraph. It took me about 10 minutes to get there from the first sentence, though.
- mjburgess 8y ago
  "know that p" clarifies the sense of "know", i.e., to know a proposition. The symbols "q" and "p" here stand in for propositions and "that p" is common parlance. Its not about introducing variables.
- jonnybgood 8y ago
  That’s an odd gripe. It was philosophers who first used logical form going all the way back to Aristotle. Also, equations are not only reason symbols/letters are used in math and science. When speaking of logic, their usage is built on philosophical foundations. Math also didn’t always use symbols as it does today. Symbolic math took root sometime in the 14th century.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    There isn't a single reason to use symbols except that they save space. They aren't a magical spice that turns sentences into true proofs - the best they can do is let you write text that is already a proof in less space. Logical form is only worthwhile if you're doing so much logic that you can't print the word therefore that many times!
- EdwardCoffin 8y ago
  It's funny that you should mention this, because I see a close correspondence to a tendency here, on Hacker News, to use the C language's logical symbols like !, !=, and == instead of the plain English not, not equal, and equal. I know that a lot of people here are not programmers, and of those that are, some are surely not programmers of C or its descendants. I think that, in philosophical literature at least, using symbols is a way of signalling that something is meant precisely, whereas using everyday words is perhaps less so.
AlexCoventry 8y ago
Yeah, you know you're in for a ride when you have to break out the IEP in the third paragraph. http://www.iep.utm.edu/kn-norms/ http://www.iep.utm.edu/kn-norms/
- forapurpose 8y ago
  Out of curiosity, why the IEP and not the SEP? How do they compare? https://plato.stanford.edu https://plato.stanford.edu
  - AlexCoventry 8y ago
    It's usually the first link when I search, that's all. I have generally found it more approachable, too, but I didn't explicitly seek it out. My wife always tells me I should prefer the SEP, but it hasn't led me to disaster, yet.
avs733 8y ago
>I suspect it is for audiences more familiar with the relevant literature. It is the a journal dedicated to the review of philosophical literature so I suspect you are right.

aphx 8y ago

The reviewer may have been making the same comment in the 2nd and 3rd sentences with "[...] in more sophisticated detail than any other work in print," and, "The book will be of interest [...] to anyone interested in understanding what a [work of this kind] can look like." And in the 2nd-to-last paragraph as well, "Gerken takes great care -- perhaps a bit too much care at times".

whatshisface 8y ago

>such as our inclination to deny that someone knows that p in the face of a salient alternative, q Here is a small gripe with philosophical tradition that I'm sure many of us share: they easily could have phrased this without symbols[0], but ended up using them anyway. The only reason science and math papers use letters in body text is because they are about to be used in equations! After they are introduced at the expense of using "professional" grammar, p and q never show up again. [0] "such as our inclination to deny that someone knows something in the face of a salient alternative."

AlexCoventry 8y ago
He does actually reference p again, in the 5th sentence of that paragraph. It took me about 10 minutes to get there from the first sentence, though.
mjburgess 8y ago
"know that p" clarifies the sense of "know", i.e., to know a proposition. The symbols "q" and "p" here stand in for propositions and "that p" is common parlance. Its not about introducing variables.
jonnybgood 8y ago
That’s an odd gripe. It was philosophers who first used logical form going all the way back to Aristotle. Also, equations are not only reason symbols/letters are used in math and science. When speaking of logic, their usage is built on philosophical foundations. Math also didn’t always use symbols as it does today. Symbolic math took root sometime in the 14th century.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  There isn't a single reason to use symbols except that they save space. They aren't a magical spice that turns sentences into true proofs - the best they can do is let you write text that is already a proof in less space. Logical form is only worthwhile if you're doing so much logic that you can't print the word therefore that many times!
EdwardCoffin 8y ago
It's funny that you should mention this, because I see a close correspondence to a tendency here, on Hacker News, to use the C language's logical symbols like !, !=, and == instead of the plain English not, not equal, and equal. I know that a lot of people here are not programmers, and of those that are, some are surely not programmers of C or its descendants. I think that, in philosophical literature at least, using symbols is a way of signalling that something is meant precisely, whereas using everyday words is perhaps less so.

AlexCoventry 8y ago

Yeah, you know you're in for a ride when you have to break out the IEP in the third paragraph. http://www.iep.utm.edu/kn-norms/ http://www.iep.utm.edu/kn-norms/

forapurpose 8y ago
Out of curiosity, why the IEP and not the SEP? How do they compare? https://plato.stanford.edu https://plato.stanford.edu
- AlexCoventry 8y ago
  It's usually the first link when I search, that's all. I have generally found it more approachable, too, but I didn't explicitly seek it out. My wife always tells me I should prefer the SEP, but it hasn't led me to disaster, yet.

avs733 8y ago

>I suspect it is for audiences more familiar with the relevant literature. It is the a journal dedicated to the review of philosophical literature so I suspect you are right.