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Stupid people should strive to become smarter. They should not proclaim themselves to be the norm for being stupid and smart people to be somehow inferior for

Stupid people should strive to become smarter. They should not proclaim themselves to be the norm for being stupid and smart people to be somehow inferior for failure to conform with that norm and for failure to communicate the complex thoughts they have to people who are incapable of taking in complex thoughts. It's a type of transaction that I bet takes place every single day in every single tech-sector business between a smart-guy code monkey and a dimwit pointy-haired boss and, for some reason, it's always the pointy-haired boss who walks away with his overconfidence in tact and the code monkey that walks away having been made to feel bad about themselves, when it should be the other way around. It's a cultural norm that may exist in the tech world today, but it's certainly not a cultural norm that existed at Cambridge back in Wittgenstein's and Russel's day. -- It's one of the many cultural attitudes that are working together to create the post-truth society we live in today. It is true about pretty much any philosopher of note that they are thought of as being hard to understand (just think of Kierkegaard). That's not because those philosophers are altogether so very overrated. It's because the readership is mostly comprised of people who are not as smart as those philosophers. That's true by construction. Because the reason you read is because you start out stupid and want to end up smart.

dr_dshiv 7y ago
I actually disagree with the idea that incomprehensible philosophy comes from philosophers so smart that their readership can't understand them. Smarter philosophers could say things that would permit more people to gain greater understanding, wouldn't you say? Assuming of course that philosophers are trying to say things that support understanding. Further,I think philosophical quality ultimately has to do with its ability to produce positive outcomes. Plato is not definitive -- but reflecting on Plato is deeply enriching. Incomprehensible and miserable philosophy is just that and only that.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Guthur 7y ago
  It's not simple thing to explain non simple things in a way that it's comprehensible to a layman. I think this video is a very good illustration of this fact https://youtu.be/36GT2zI8lVA https://youtu.be/36GT2zI8lVA
  - dddw 7y ago
    gotta love that man
- jplayer01 7y ago
  > Smarter philosophers could say things that would permit more people to gain greater understanding, wouldn't you say. This contains the assumption that the purpose of philosophers is to convey philosophy to the masses. I'm not sure why it should be. An electrical engineer's job isn't to convey electronics to lay people. A mathematicians' job isn't to convey his work to laypeople. There are people of those disciplines who take up that as their purpose, and this is an important, crucial role, but to pretend that the goal of every great engineer, scientist or philosopher is to do it is absurd.
  - dr_dshiv 7y ago
    Explaining to the masses is one thing. I'm saying the smarter philosophers are able to understand concepts well enough to explain clearly to other smart people. Like, say Richard Feynman in physics. He is smarter, I'd say, for being able to develop concepts and communicate them. I agree it is a different job to do promotion. But it's an issue if Wittgenstein couldn't communicate comprehensibly to the greatest philosophers of his time -- or experts of today.
- namelosw 7y ago
  Achieve two goals at the same time is always harder or equal to achieve one of them. If philosophy is easy to understand then good. But make every concept comprehensible to 6-year-old kids would limit the exploration of concepts. As an example I can think of - in programming world, a bunch of programmers always trying to explain an abstract idea of 'monad' to other programmers but almost always fail. But it's a really useful universal abstraction in programming.
ivalm 7y ago
Let me preface that I do find Wittgenstein very interesting and I enjoyed reading his works. But your critique of the article is really bad. > It's a type of transaction that I bet takes place every single day in every single tech-sector business between a smart-guy code monkey and a dimwit pointy-haired boss and, for some reason, it's always the pointy-haired boss who walks away with his overconfidence in tact and the code monkey that walks away having been made to feel bad about themselves, when it should be the other way around. How is this related to the article? You have some (potentially correct) grievance about imbalanced power relationships in the workplace leading to stupid person winning argument. But this is not the situation here. I don't think the blog author has some power over Wittgenstein. > It is true about pretty much any philosopher of note that they are thought of as being hard to understand Russel is a great example of a very clear philosopher. Heck, Russel's main complaint with Hegel, for example, was failure to use clear logic. > That's not because those philosophers are altogether so very overrated. It's because the readership is mostly comprised of people who are not as smart as those philosophers. This is a hard sell. I've ready many books and research papers by great physicists and mathematicians. People who are as "smart" as the best of philosophers (and certainly smarter than me), but mostly their works are quite clear. ---- I think there is a tendency among, especially, austrian and german philosophers to write in sentences that are hard for modern Americans to parse. I suspect this is not a function of "intellect" but rather the prevalent writing style. A lot of philosophical works used lots of indexical references and non-linear patterns. Yet, we are now taught to write with direct, short sentences. Books and other media we read are full of such language. Even our long sentences usually have only dependent clauses. This makes it hard for us to parse out things like: "Thus the word “is” appears as the copula, as the sign of equality, and as the expression of existence; “to exist” as an intransitive verb like “to go”; “identical” as an adjective; we speak of something but also of the fact of something happening." (3.323, picked somewhat at random by opening a book and looking for a long sentence on the page) With no particular loss of meaning (but with greatly improved comprehension, albeit somewhat more verbose, the fault being all mine as it is too late) we could have: "Thus the word "is" forms a copula that can have two meanings: a sign of equality or an expression of existence. When used to mean "equality," it links an adjective with the object. But, when used to mean "existence," it is an intransitive verb unbound to an object. Thus "is" allows us to speak of something (an object) but also of something happening (no object)."

dr_dshiv 7y ago

I actually disagree with the idea that incomprehensible philosophy comes from philosophers so smart that their readership can't understand them. Smarter philosophers could say things that would permit more people to gain greater understanding, wouldn't you say? Assuming of course that philosophers are trying to say things that support understanding. Further,I think philosophical quality ultimately has to do with its ability to produce positive outcomes. Plato is not definitive -- but reflecting on Plato is deeply enriching. Incomprehensible and miserable philosophy is just that and only that.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Guthur 7y ago
It's not simple thing to explain non simple things in a way that it's comprehensible to a layman. I think this video is a very good illustration of this fact https://youtu.be/36GT2zI8lVA https://youtu.be/36GT2zI8lVA
- dddw 7y ago
  gotta love that man
jplayer01 7y ago
> Smarter philosophers could say things that would permit more people to gain greater understanding, wouldn't you say. This contains the assumption that the purpose of philosophers is to convey philosophy to the masses. I'm not sure why it should be. An electrical engineer's job isn't to convey electronics to lay people. A mathematicians' job isn't to convey his work to laypeople. There are people of those disciplines who take up that as their purpose, and this is an important, crucial role, but to pretend that the goal of every great engineer, scientist or philosopher is to do it is absurd.
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  Explaining to the masses is one thing. I'm saying the smarter philosophers are able to understand concepts well enough to explain clearly to other smart people. Like, say Richard Feynman in physics. He is smarter, I'd say, for being able to develop concepts and communicate them. I agree it is a different job to do promotion. But it's an issue if Wittgenstein couldn't communicate comprehensibly to the greatest philosophers of his time -- or experts of today.
namelosw 7y ago
Achieve two goals at the same time is always harder or equal to achieve one of them. If philosophy is easy to understand then good. But make every concept comprehensible to 6-year-old kids would limit the exploration of concepts. As an example I can think of - in programming world, a bunch of programmers always trying to explain an abstract idea of 'monad' to other programmers but almost always fail. But it's a really useful universal abstraction in programming.

ivalm 7y ago

Let me preface that I do find Wittgenstein very interesting and I enjoyed reading his works. But your critique of the article is really bad. > It's a type of transaction that I bet takes place every single day in every single tech-sector business between a smart-guy code monkey and a dimwit pointy-haired boss and, for some reason, it's always the pointy-haired boss who walks away with his overconfidence in tact and the code monkey that walks away having been made to feel bad about themselves, when it should be the other way around. How is this related to the article? You have some (potentially correct) grievance about imbalanced power relationships in the workplace leading to stupid person winning argument. But this is not the situation here. I don't think the blog author has some power over Wittgenstein. > It is true about pretty much any philosopher of note that they are thought of as being hard to understand Russel is a great example of a very clear philosopher. Heck, Russel's main complaint with Hegel, for example, was failure to use clear logic. > That's not because those philosophers are altogether so very overrated. It's because the readership is mostly comprised of people who are not as smart as those philosophers. This is a hard sell. I've ready many books and research papers by great physicists and mathematicians. People who are as "smart" as the best of philosophers (and certainly smarter than me), but mostly their works are quite clear. ---- I think there is a tendency among, especially, austrian and german philosophers to write in sentences that are hard for modern Americans to parse. I suspect this is not a function of "intellect" but rather the prevalent writing style. A lot of philosophical works used lots of indexical references and non-linear patterns. Yet, we are now taught to write with direct, short sentences. Books and other media we read are full of such language. Even our long sentences usually have only dependent clauses. This makes it hard for us to parse out things like: "Thus the word “is” appears as the copula, as the sign of equality, and as the expression of existence; “to exist” as an intransitive verb like “to go”; “identical” as an adjective; we speak of something but also of the fact of something happening." (3.323, picked somewhat at random by opening a book and looking for a long sentence on the page) With no particular loss of meaning (but with greatly improved comprehension, albeit somewhat more verbose, the fault being all mine as it is too late) we could have: "Thus the word "is" forms a copula that can have two meanings: a sign of equality or an expression of existence. When used to mean "equality," it links an adjective with the object. But, when used to mean "existence," it is an intransitive verb unbound to an object. Thus "is" allows us to speak of something (an object) but also of something happening (no object)."