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I've probably read a hundred or so pages on my own, and 'recaps' by Russel, Durant, and have spoken with practicing philosophers about him. I have enough exposu

I've probably read a hundred or so pages on my own, and 'recaps' by Russel, Durant, and have spoken with practicing philosophers about him. I have enough exposure that I've been able to make much more sense of why later philosophers seem obsessed about certain points that only make sense if you consider the historical philosophical tradition from Plato. But hearing people talk about him, especially when they insist on his continued relevance, it makes me think either I'm missing something or they're faking something. But then again, I'd answer the questions you mentioned in a way I feel that most philosophers would find to be 'missing the point'. For example: > What is justice? A concept useful for regulating human societies. It's based on ultimately arbitrary heuristics that are effective for satisfying an approximately maximum number of people. > What is good? A word we use to label a fundamental behavior in our brains: we use values as something like utility functions in optimization processes. Ultimately there are constraints placed on the values we're capable of selecting which are imposed on us by our evolved biology, but we do have a good amount of freedom, so by studying human nature we can figure out which values are the most effective for creating the sort of lives we're interested in. > What is the best way to govern? We don't know yet. There probably is no best. If there is, we'll probably find it algorithmically. > What is true? There is too much ambiguity here to really answer, so I'll just choose one interpretation and say: whatever it is, it's highly unlikely that human minds would be capable of 'understanding' it ('understanding' being a human faculty, and not likely something important to the nature of the universe). > Where does knowledge come from? Brains. > Why should any of this matter? Because experience is real.

pmoriarty 8y ago
It's not about the answers, but about thinking deeply about these questions and questioning your own assumptions (and those of others). I'd highly recommend taking an intro to philosophy course, or one on ancient philosophy, where you can read the Socratic dialogues and engage with them in a group setting, along with others who are encountering these for the first time. When done well, if you're lucky enough to have a good teacher and be in a group of students who are willing to engage fully with the reading and talk about it in class, this can be an experience like no other.
- westoncb 8y ago
  I've already taken in intro philosophy class. Furthermore, I've been debating philosophical points with friends since I was a kid—and since I've grown up two of my good friends who I spent multiple years talking philosophy with were either presently in grad school for philosophy or had finished with it. I see what you mean about doing philosophy in a group setting, but for what I'm interested in anyway, I'm not going to have a great time debating the above questions with an intro to philosophy class. A starting point for me to enjoy it would be that my interlocutors would need to be able to have some degree of understanding of the answers I gave above, what points might be in their favor, and what their limitations might be. I can say no philosopher I've met personally would answer those questions like I did (though I think I've read some who would), so I'm still very curious to see why we choose different ways. But my guess is still just that they'd answer differently if they had more knowledge of cognitive science and other topics.
skissane 8y ago
> > What is good? > A word we use to label a fundamental behavior in our brains: we use values as something like utility functions in optimization processes. That position limits the degree to which ethics can be objective. Suppose some other culture believes in doing things we believe to be gravely immoral. If our idea of good is just "a behaviour in our brains" or a "utility function" or a product of "evolved biology", well then theirs is too, so how can we say our moral views are objectively better than theirs? The ability to say that certain behaviour is immoral, in an objective and transcultural way, is threatened by your position; and I think that threat is a good reason to reject it. > > Where does knowledge come from? > Brains. You seem to treat (some version of) materialism as if it were obviously true, but I don't think its truth is obvious. I'm inclined toward idealism, and I don't believe there are any good reasons to believe that materialism is more likely to be true than idealism.
- westoncb 8y ago
  > and I don't believe there are any good reasons to believe that materialism is more likely to be true than idealism. You poke someone in the brain (or drop some chemicals in there), their behavior changes. This is a pretty good reason for considering the brain to be the generator of our minds. And then on top of that, we now have another hundred years or so of experiments (via neuroscience and its antecedents) and theoretical models which allow us to accurately predict things about how the brain in fact behaves, and how people's larger scale behavior conforms to that. But that's only a reply I give because you called me a materialist after my answer of 'Brain.' In fact I'm not a thoroughgoing materialist, but we have enough data at this point to confidently say values arise from brains.
  - skissane 8y ago
    > You poke someone in the brain (or drop some chemicals in there), their behavior changes. An idealist can say: Physical objects, events, and processes, and the correlations between them, are all patterns in the experiences of minds. "Brain" is a pattern in the experiences of minds. "Poke someone in the brain" or "drop some chemicals in there" are also patterns in the experiences of minds, and so likewise is "their behaviour changes". The fact that the former is regularly correlated with the later is a yet further pattern in the experiences of minds. There is nothing here that cannot be explained by idealism. > This is a pretty good reason for considering the brain to be the generator of our minds A materialist explains these observations in terms of brains generating minds, whereas an idealist can explain them in terms of minds generating brains. Since both can explain the evidence in terms of their own theories, it is unclear how this could be a reason to prefer one theory to the other. > In fact I'm not a thoroughgoing materialist I'd be interested to know what your position is.

pmoriarty 8y ago

It's not about the answers, but about thinking deeply about these questions and questioning your own assumptions (and those of others). I'd highly recommend taking an intro to philosophy course, or one on ancient philosophy, where you can read the Socratic dialogues and engage with them in a group setting, along with others who are encountering these for the first time. When done well, if you're lucky enough to have a good teacher and be in a group of students who are willing to engage fully with the reading and talk about it in class, this can be an experience like no other.

westoncb 8y ago
I've already taken in intro philosophy class. Furthermore, I've been debating philosophical points with friends since I was a kid—and since I've grown up two of my good friends who I spent multiple years talking philosophy with were either presently in grad school for philosophy or had finished with it. I see what you mean about doing philosophy in a group setting, but for what I'm interested in anyway, I'm not going to have a great time debating the above questions with an intro to philosophy class. A starting point for me to enjoy it would be that my interlocutors would need to be able to have some degree of understanding of the answers I gave above, what points might be in their favor, and what their limitations might be. I can say no philosopher I've met personally would answer those questions like I did (though I think I've read some who would), so I'm still very curious to see why we choose different ways. But my guess is still just that they'd answer differently if they had more knowledge of cognitive science and other topics.

skissane 8y ago

> > What is good? > A word we use to label a fundamental behavior in our brains: we use values as something like utility functions in optimization processes. That position limits the degree to which ethics can be objective. Suppose some other culture believes in doing things we believe to be gravely immoral. If our idea of good is just "a behaviour in our brains" or a "utility function" or a product of "evolved biology", well then theirs is too, so how can we say our moral views are objectively better than theirs? The ability to say that certain behaviour is immoral, in an objective and transcultural way, is threatened by your position; and I think that threat is a good reason to reject it. > > Where does knowledge come from? > Brains. You seem to treat (some version of) materialism as if it were obviously true, but I don't think its truth is obvious. I'm inclined toward idealism, and I don't believe there are any good reasons to believe that materialism is more likely to be true than idealism.

westoncb 8y ago
> and I don't believe there are any good reasons to believe that materialism is more likely to be true than idealism. You poke someone in the brain (or drop some chemicals in there), their behavior changes. This is a pretty good reason for considering the brain to be the generator of our minds. And then on top of that, we now have another hundred years or so of experiments (via neuroscience and its antecedents) and theoretical models which allow us to accurately predict things about how the brain in fact behaves, and how people's larger scale behavior conforms to that. But that's only a reply I give because you called me a materialist after my answer of 'Brain.' In fact I'm not a thoroughgoing materialist, but we have enough data at this point to confidently say values arise from brains.
- skissane 8y ago
  > You poke someone in the brain (or drop some chemicals in there), their behavior changes. An idealist can say: Physical objects, events, and processes, and the correlations between them, are all patterns in the experiences of minds. "Brain" is a pattern in the experiences of minds. "Poke someone in the brain" or "drop some chemicals in there" are also patterns in the experiences of minds, and so likewise is "their behaviour changes". The fact that the former is regularly correlated with the later is a yet further pattern in the experiences of minds. There is nothing here that cannot be explained by idealism. > This is a pretty good reason for considering the brain to be the generator of our minds A materialist explains these observations in terms of brains generating minds, whereas an idealist can explain them in terms of minds generating brains. Since both can explain the evidence in terms of their own theories, it is unclear how this could be a reason to prefer one theory to the other. > In fact I'm not a thoroughgoing materialist I'd be interested to know what your position is.