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> I studied philosophy because of what it seemed to be. It seemed to promise a direct route to the most general truths. I pursued this illusion for some time a

> I studied philosophy because of what it seemed to be. It seemed to promise a direct route to the most general truths. I pursued this illusion for some time as well. Then the first 50-some pages of Sartre's Being and Nothingness started a turn toward my present view that 20th-century academic philosophy is on the whole little more than a sophistical hustle.

morelisp 7y ago
> on the whole little more than a sophistical hustle. Funny, this is also what philosophers think about modern tech companies.
- philwelch 7y ago
  They use the services provided by those companies to smugly advertise this attitude all the time.
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    That's a good thing - they're using the world as it is to their advantage. The idea that using something means you can't criticize it (or elements of it) has no logical basis.
  - morelisp 7y ago
    This is conversely true also!
    - philwelch 7y ago
      How do you mean?
claudiawerner 7y ago
I wonder, then, how many experts in the discipline, and lay people (including me) come away with exactly the opposite conclusion. If you're going to fault Sartre and talk about 20th c. academic philosophy, you may as well also fault Hegel or Nietzche or Marx for their 18th and 19th c. philosophy, and then Heraclitus for his 4th century BC obscurities. Maybe you only meant "continental" philosophy, but you'd probably need metaphilosophy to argue the point as to what is genuine and a "sophistical hustle". Apparently the people who study Sartre come out with some pretty interesting ideas[0]. It's a little tiring to hear people reading 50 pages of a French philosopher known for his difficulty and concluding that 20th c. academic philosophy is sophistry(?!)[1] A non-mathematician might just say the same thing about Erdos. The fact that people feel comfortable making such sweeping judgements on a wide-ranging and deep discipline is frankly shocking. You're not alone, however; the gwern.net guy has done the same. [0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/ [1] Sartre mostly wrote books on philosophy, rather than publishing in academic journals, alongside plays and novels. If you mean to talk about "academic philosophy", Sartre is certainly not your best example. Neither would Marx or Nietzche be good examples. Heidegger and Hegel maybe.
- keiferski 7y ago
  > The fact that people feel comfortable making such sweeping judgements on a wide-ranging and deep discipline is frankly shocking. You're not alone, however; the gwern.net guy has done the same. It's par for the course in tech, unfortunately. I think tech leadership in particular would benefit from a rigorous education in ethics.
  - choonway 7y ago
    really? ethics? so.. which standards of ethics do you think leaders should adhere to? so many to choose from...
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    > I think tech leadership in particular would benefit from a rigorous education in ethics. I’m not aware of any evidence that education in ethics leads to more ethical behavior though it obviously leads to being able to discuss ethical problems better. The evidence suggests ethicists steal more books than other philosophers[1]. ]1] Do ethicists steal more books? Eric Schwitzgebel If explicit cognition about morality promotes moral behavior then one might expect ethics professors to behave particularly well. However, professional ethicists’ behavior has never been empirically studied. The present research examined the rates at which ethics books are missing from leading academic libraries, compared to other philosophy books similar in age and popularity. Study 1 found that relatively obscure, contemporary ethics books of the sort likely to be borrowed mainly by professors and advanced students of philosophy were actually about 50% more likely to be missing than non-ethics books. Study 2 found that classic (pre-1900) ethics books were about twice as likely to be missing.
    - keiferski 7y ago
      This is such a hilarious bad study that I'm surprised anyone could link to it seriously. The theft rate of ethics books are stolen from "top academic libraries" is supposed to reflect on the overall effectiveness of ethical education? Sorry, but this is an abuse of the term "scientific study."
keiferski 7y ago
Sartre is one philosopher from one movement (Existentialism). "Academic philosophy" also doesn't really mean anything. The two main schools of thought in academic Western philosophy are analytical and continental. They have essentially nothing to do with each other. Sartre is associated more with continentals, but this is an anachronistic association. Even then, he is one thinker among thousands. This is akin to eating a potato, disliking it, and swearing off all vegetables.
- techbio 7y ago
  Potatoes are fine without philosophizing, and so are vegetables.
powerset 7y ago
Even if that's true about some modern philosophy, the old stuff is still worth studying!
crispinb 7y ago
If one prominent evolutionary theory of reason's likely functional role (ie. it developed for justification & persuasion, not primarily decision making) is correct, then your judgement of 20thC philosophy's significance could be something of a tautology. My impression (from undergrad & postgrad philosophy) was not far off - much philosophy is grounded in sincere attempts to clarify issues of importance, but it's largely doomed to failure (as are scientific attempts to take over canonical 'philosophical' problems - just witness neuroscience's often hilarious tilts at consciousness). That's too long an argument to justify here, but suffice it to say philosophy is truly excellent at revealing our limitations. Which strikes me as no bad thing for a species (and indeed era) whose primary motif could reasonably be considered to be the Dunning–Kruger effect.
choonway 7y ago
I thought what the philosophers were saying was quite cool, until I realized most of them said things that sounded nice without any link to the foundations of the hard physical sciences. When I made that link on why we behave the way we do, I realized that philosophy is a little like theology, and the real truths are much darker.
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  >until I realized most of them said things that sounded nice without any link to the foundations of the hard physical sciences. Part of philosophy's job is finding a solid epistemological basis for the "hard sciences", and what claims such sciences can legitimately make about the world. >I realized that philosophy is a little like theology, and the real truths are much darker. Philosophy has plenty of "dark truths". What are nihilism or moral skepticism, for instance, if not philosophical theories that negate the meaning of life and morality? Besides, to justifiably throw out philospohy because its claims are inconvenient to you (e.g. by "sounding nice") would require some philosophy to begin with.
  - choonway 7y ago
    That part about what claims sciences can make - has been addressed in statistical significance. No need to invoke philosophy. The dark truths are even darker than that. It is what will get you deplatformed. Paul has a very nice article on this somewhere on his blog. somewhere. lazy to link. something about things you can't say.
    - claudiawerner 7y ago
      > That part about what claims sciences can make - has been addressed in statistical significance. No need to invoke philosophy. This is not what I meant, nor is it what the majority of philosophy of science concerns itself with. I specifically mentioned epistemological basis[4]. Questions such as what deliniates science from pseudoscience, and what empirical investigation tells us about how things really are, are questions in the domain of philosophy[0]. Even so, what rigorous justification deliniates a good statistical significance from a bad one? >The dark truths are even darker than that. It is what will get you deplatformed. Sure enough, philosophy studies those too[1][2][3]. >Paul has a very nice article on this somewhere on his blog. It's hard to see why PG should be considered an authority on philosophy. [0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/ [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/race/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/race/ [2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-politics/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-politics/ [3] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/speech-acts/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/speech-acts/ [4] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/#WhatKnow https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/#WhatKnow

morelisp 7y ago

> on the whole little more than a sophistical hustle. Funny, this is also what philosophers think about modern tech companies.

philwelch 7y ago
They use the services provided by those companies to smugly advertise this attitude all the time.
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  That's a good thing - they're using the world as it is to their advantage. The idea that using something means you can't criticize it (or elements of it) has no logical basis.
- morelisp 7y ago
  This is conversely true also!
  - philwelch 7y ago
    How do you mean?

claudiawerner 7y ago

I wonder, then, how many experts in the discipline, and lay people (including me) come away with exactly the opposite conclusion. If you're going to fault Sartre and talk about 20th c. academic philosophy, you may as well also fault Hegel or Nietzche or Marx for their 18th and 19th c. philosophy, and then Heraclitus for his 4th century BC obscurities. Maybe you only meant "continental" philosophy, but you'd probably need metaphilosophy to argue the point as to what is genuine and a "sophistical hustle". Apparently the people who study Sartre come out with some pretty interesting ideas[0]. It's a little tiring to hear people reading 50 pages of a French philosopher known for his difficulty and concluding that 20th c. academic philosophy is sophistry(?!)[1] A non-mathematician might just say the same thing about Erdos. The fact that people feel comfortable making such sweeping judgements on a wide-ranging and deep discipline is frankly shocking. You're not alone, however; the gwern.net guy has done the same. [0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/ [1] Sartre mostly wrote books on philosophy, rather than publishing in academic journals, alongside plays and novels. If you mean to talk about "academic philosophy", Sartre is certainly not your best example. Neither would Marx or Nietzche be good examples. Heidegger and Hegel maybe.

keiferski 7y ago
> The fact that people feel comfortable making such sweeping judgements on a wide-ranging and deep discipline is frankly shocking. You're not alone, however; the gwern.net guy has done the same. It's par for the course in tech, unfortunately. I think tech leadership in particular would benefit from a rigorous education in ethics.
- choonway 7y ago
  really? ethics? so.. which standards of ethics do you think leaders should adhere to? so many to choose from...
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  > I think tech leadership in particular would benefit from a rigorous education in ethics. I’m not aware of any evidence that education in ethics leads to more ethical behavior though it obviously leads to being able to discuss ethical problems better. The evidence suggests ethicists steal more books than other philosophers[1]. ]1] Do ethicists steal more books? Eric Schwitzgebel If explicit cognition about morality promotes moral behavior then one might expect ethics professors to behave particularly well. However, professional ethicists’ behavior has never been empirically studied. The present research examined the rates at which ethics books are missing from leading academic libraries, compared to other philosophy books similar in age and popularity. Study 1 found that relatively obscure, contemporary ethics books of the sort likely to be borrowed mainly by professors and advanced students of philosophy were actually about 50% more likely to be missing than non-ethics books. Study 2 found that classic (pre-1900) ethics books were about twice as likely to be missing.
  - keiferski 7y ago
    This is such a hilarious bad study that I'm surprised anyone could link to it seriously. The theft rate of ethics books are stolen from "top academic libraries" is supposed to reflect on the overall effectiveness of ethical education? Sorry, but this is an abuse of the term "scientific study."

keiferski 7y ago

Sartre is one philosopher from one movement (Existentialism). "Academic philosophy" also doesn't really mean anything. The two main schools of thought in academic Western philosophy are analytical and continental. They have essentially nothing to do with each other. Sartre is associated more with continentals, but this is an anachronistic association. Even then, he is one thinker among thousands. This is akin to eating a potato, disliking it, and swearing off all vegetables.

techbio 7y ago
Potatoes are fine without philosophizing, and so are vegetables.

powerset 7y ago

Even if that's true about some modern philosophy, the old stuff is still worth studying!

crispinb 7y ago

If one prominent evolutionary theory of reason's likely functional role (ie. it developed for justification & persuasion, not primarily decision making) is correct, then your judgement of 20thC philosophy's significance could be something of a tautology. My impression (from undergrad & postgrad philosophy) was not far off - much philosophy is grounded in sincere attempts to clarify issues of importance, but it's largely doomed to failure (as are scientific attempts to take over canonical 'philosophical' problems - just witness neuroscience's often hilarious tilts at consciousness). That's too long an argument to justify here, but suffice it to say philosophy is truly excellent at revealing our limitations. Which strikes me as no bad thing for a species (and indeed era) whose primary motif could reasonably be considered to be the Dunning–Kruger effect.

choonway 7y ago

I thought what the philosophers were saying was quite cool, until I realized most of them said things that sounded nice without any link to the foundations of the hard physical sciences. When I made that link on why we behave the way we do, I realized that philosophy is a little like theology, and the real truths are much darker.

claudiawerner 7y ago
>until I realized most of them said things that sounded nice without any link to the foundations of the hard physical sciences. Part of philosophy's job is finding a solid epistemological basis for the "hard sciences", and what claims such sciences can legitimately make about the world. >I realized that philosophy is a little like theology, and the real truths are much darker. Philosophy has plenty of "dark truths". What are nihilism or moral skepticism, for instance, if not philosophical theories that negate the meaning of life and morality? Besides, to justifiably throw out philospohy because its claims are inconvenient to you (e.g. by "sounding nice") would require some philosophy to begin with.
- choonway 7y ago
  That part about what claims sciences can make - has been addressed in statistical significance. No need to invoke philosophy. The dark truths are even darker than that. It is what will get you deplatformed. Paul has a very nice article on this somewhere on his blog. somewhere. lazy to link. something about things you can't say.
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    > That part about what claims sciences can make - has been addressed in statistical significance. No need to invoke philosophy. This is not what I meant, nor is it what the majority of philosophy of science concerns itself with. I specifically mentioned epistemological basis[4]. Questions such as what deliniates science from pseudoscience, and what empirical investigation tells us about how things really are, are questions in the domain of philosophy[0]. Even so, what rigorous justification deliniates a good statistical significance from a bad one? >The dark truths are even darker than that. It is what will get you deplatformed. Sure enough, philosophy studies those too[1][2][3]. >Paul has a very nice article on this somewhere on his blog. It's hard to see why PG should be considered an authority on philosophy. [0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-science/ [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/race/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/race/ [2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-politics/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-politics/ [3] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/speech-acts/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/speech-acts/ [4] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/#WhatKnow https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/#WhatKnow