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> Harris’s failure to grasp the content of many of the philosophical claims and arguments that he criticises > Lawrence Krauss engages with philosophical argum

by mrkeen 6y ago

> Harris’s failure to grasp the content of many of the philosophical claims and arguments that he criticises > Lawrence Krauss engages with philosophical arguments for theism without understanding them properly. Most saliently, he ends up criticising a caricature version of the so-called cosmological argument about the existence of God. Oof. Perhaps back up those drive-by-shootings with some clarification. > Usually, the prose is infused with arcane terminology and learned jargon, creating an aura of scholarly profundity. We can call this phenomenon obscurantist pseudophilosophy. The irony.

whimsicalism 6y ago
> The irony. It's only ironic if you haven't read this so called "obscurantist pseudophilosophy." This sentence hardly holds a candle to the writings of someone like Deleuze or Derrida.
- karaterobot 6y ago
  Agreed with this. Also, to give the author of the Psyche article credit, he defined what he meant by obscurantist philosophy earlier in the article. In my fairly limited reading of them, Foucault, Derrida, et al., don't always do this, even when the terms they use are much less self-explanatory than this one.
- walleeee 6y ago
  This is obviously very reductive, but I would argue those two helped pioneer a career arc which threatens to conscript (or recruit) many a knowledge-worker today: deconstruct the context you came up in, ride the blast wave to comfort or notoriety, and hope it keeps you afloat until you die. Ambiguity is useful if you're as interested in yourself as you are your intellectual project. Their work makes more sense if you view it as equal parts masturbation (note that this is not a value judgment; where do new ideas come from if not the mind touching itself?) and socio-political maneuvering which occasionally self-assembles into interesting theory, like most philosophy. This isn't to be totally cynical about their projects though. They both tolerated paradox more than most philosophers. I do like Derrida's intuition that text is an infinitely self-referential hall of mirrors. And Deleuze saw the extent of the cybernetic project fairly clearly.
- gmtx725 6y ago
  I admit Deleuze's writing is hard work but he has some really interesting metaphysical ideas linked to complexity and systems theory, try reading Manuel DeLanda for a more accessible introduction
ixtli 6y ago
I mean harris is pretty bad with this. I agree that the article has that tone that most of us normies find distasteful, but it's not really wrong in my experience. If anything, in not directly calling Harris' straying from his area of expertise charlatanism, the author is being generous.
baryphonic 6y ago
> The irony. Translation for the HN crowd: obscurantist pseudophilosophy == philosophy theater through obscurity.
0x262d 6y ago
> The irony. That's just a sentence that isn't afraid of using long words, they're all pretty precisely, neatly used IMO. Not ironic at all. This would be a mouthful to say or understand out loud but it seems like normal writing to me.
mistermann 6y ago
> The irony. Similarly: > There are many kinds of pseudosciences: astrology, homeopathy, flat-Earthism, anti-vaxx. These ‘fields’ traffic in bizarre claims with scientific pretensions. On a surface level, these claims seem to be scientific and usually appear to comment on the same kind of things that science does. However, upon closer inspection, pseudoscience is revealed to be bullshit: it is indifferent to the truth. ...combined with: > A problem is that most of us are lacking in epistemic conscientiousness, at least sometimes and to some extent. In order for something to count as pseudoscience, some minimal degree of unconscientiousness is therefore required. A good rule of thumb for being conscientious is to keep an eye out for classical fallacies such as ad hominem, straw man, false dilemma and cherry-picking. Such fallacies occur in all kinds of contexts, but in pseudoscience they occur more systematically. They "surely" occur more systematically in "pseudoscience", but it's funnier when they occur in an article that is literally criticizing others for this kind of thinking.
- cowpig 6y ago
  Both of the passages you quoted read as coherent and even convincing. Sure, terms like "epistemic" or "unconscientiousness" may be a bit unfamiliar, but they have specific meanings that are clear in the passage, and are used to make a salient argument. The use of jargon does not equate to obfuscation! For example, these two statements are very different: "Making the world a better place through canonical data models to communicate between endpoints." (Silicon Valley season 1 episode 6) "And then there are other aspects of complexity that come into programming with any of these more commonly used statically typed languages, which have to do with the complexity in the language space." (Rich Hickey talk) If you aren't familiar with the jargon, they're both unintelligible, but if you are, one sounds silly and the other does not.
  - mistermann 6y ago
    > Both of the passages you quoted read as coherent and even convincing. They sure do - that's the problem! The author shows little sign of being concerned with the degree to which they are true (which considering he's representing skills in epistemology, seems like a bit of a shortcoming). >> These ‘fields’ traffic in bizarre claims with scientific pretensions. On a surface level, these claims seem to be scientific and usually appear to comment on the same kind of things that science does. However, upon closer inspection, pseudoscience is revealed to be bullshit: it is indifferent to the truth. Setting the stage by choosing "astrology, homeopathy, flat-Earthism, anti-vaxx" at the start of the article seems like a bit of the very "straw man, false dilemma and cherry-picking" the author complains about, since they go on to discuss pseudoscience in general. I suspect "These 'fields'" is hinting (without explicitly saying) at conspiracy theories in general, going on to say "...upon closer inspection, pseudoscience is(!) [implicitly: without exception] revealed to be bullshit". (An example of using persuasive rhetoric to misinform readers.) > An illustrative example is Sam Harris’s book The Moral Landscape (2010), in which straw men are lined up due to Harris’s failure to grasp the content of many of the philosophical claims and arguments that he criticises. The author seems to not considered the possibility that the same applies to him (he who is without sin...). And then wraps it up with this beauty of a paragraph: > While pseudoscience can perhaps be counteracted by science education, the cure for pseudophilosophy is not science education but philosophical education. More specifically, it is a matter of developing the kind of basic critical thinking skills that are taught to undergraduates in philosophy. This doesn’t need to be anything fancy [Oh? Are you sure?]. Students should be taught things like learning to distinguish in a disciplined way between central philosophical concepts such as belief, truth, rationality and knowledge. They should be aware of the way ambiguities can be exploited by equivocating arguments, and become adept at how to spot other fallacies such as ad hominem and straw man. With these fundamental tools in hand, there would be a good deal less pseudophilosophy going around. Perhaps we should add psychology and mindfulness (self-awareness) to this list. > The use of jargon does not equate to obfuscation! Agreed.
yters 6y ago
Most of the modern atheists are clueless when it comes to the theism discussion.
- anthk 6y ago
  Theism is bullshit, as much as people reading cards, voodoo or the horoscopes.
  - yters 6y ago
    Your response proves my point.
    - anthk 6y ago
      You didn't prove your god.
      - yters 6y ago
        There are many proofs: - God is greater than the greatest imaginable thing, so must exist (this one is proven to be logically valid with computational theorem prover, and Bertrand Russell even said it was sound at one point in his life) - the world is intelligently designed - there must be a first cause, and that must be God - nothing in this world is perfect so there must be a transcendently perfect being - we can only be satisfied be an infinite being, so the object of our desire lies beyond this world - moral laws exist and require a law giver - our mind is not reducible to our body, and must have been created by an even greater being - jesus existed, claimed to be God, and rose from the dead according to reliable historical documentation Off the top of my head On the other hand it is impossible to prove atheism, you cannot prove a negative So we are left with theism and a lot of proofs, and atheism which is inherently incapable of being proven Seems the rational choice leans towards theism
        psyc 6y ago
        You and I have very different ideas of what the word ‘proof’ means. I have no doubt this is how it looks to you. From where I sit, we have theism and a lot of nebulous thought experiments that gel with the way religious minds already think, and atheism which is simply the default until the day God decides to grace us with a press conference.
kderbyma 6y ago
couldn't agree more... the use profundity that many times....obscurantist..... sounds like a bunch of pseudophilosophising to me
TZubiri 6y ago
I remember the exact dismissal of Peterson's critics of Foucalt . "He doesn't understand him, therefore his criticism is invalid." period. It's conductive to nowhere, and gatekeeps critics to a light variety. Reading someone's work should be the only requirement to offer views on them. That said, Peterson didn't read Marx.

by mrkeen 6y ago

whimsicalism 6y ago

> The irony. It's only ironic if you haven't read this so called "obscurantist pseudophilosophy." This sentence hardly holds a candle to the writings of someone like Deleuze or Derrida.

karaterobot 6y ago
Agreed with this. Also, to give the author of the Psyche article credit, he defined what he meant by obscurantist philosophy earlier in the article. In my fairly limited reading of them, Foucault, Derrida, et al., don't always do this, even when the terms they use are much less self-explanatory than this one.
walleeee 6y ago
This is obviously very reductive, but I would argue those two helped pioneer a career arc which threatens to conscript (or recruit) many a knowledge-worker today: deconstruct the context you came up in, ride the blast wave to comfort or notoriety, and hope it keeps you afloat until you die. Ambiguity is useful if you're as interested in yourself as you are your intellectual project. Their work makes more sense if you view it as equal parts masturbation (note that this is not a value judgment; where do new ideas come from if not the mind touching itself?) and socio-political maneuvering which occasionally self-assembles into interesting theory, like most philosophy. This isn't to be totally cynical about their projects though. They both tolerated paradox more than most philosophers. I do like Derrida's intuition that text is an infinitely self-referential hall of mirrors. And Deleuze saw the extent of the cybernetic project fairly clearly.
gmtx725 6y ago
I admit Deleuze's writing is hard work but he has some really interesting metaphysical ideas linked to complexity and systems theory, try reading Manuel DeLanda for a more accessible introduction

ixtli 6y ago

I mean harris is pretty bad with this. I agree that the article has that tone that most of us normies find distasteful, but it's not really wrong in my experience. If anything, in not directly calling Harris' straying from his area of expertise charlatanism, the author is being generous.

baryphonic 6y ago

> The irony. Translation for the HN crowd: obscurantist pseudophilosophy == philosophy theater through obscurity.

0x262d 6y ago

> The irony. That's just a sentence that isn't afraid of using long words, they're all pretty precisely, neatly used IMO. Not ironic at all. This would be a mouthful to say or understand out loud but it seems like normal writing to me.

mistermann 6y ago

> The irony. Similarly: > There are many kinds of pseudosciences: astrology, homeopathy, flat-Earthism, anti-vaxx. These ‘fields’ traffic in bizarre claims with scientific pretensions. On a surface level, these claims seem to be scientific and usually appear to comment on the same kind of things that science does. However, upon closer inspection, pseudoscience is revealed to be bullshit: it is indifferent to the truth. ...combined with: > A problem is that most of us are lacking in epistemic conscientiousness, at least sometimes and to some extent. In order for something to count as pseudoscience, some minimal degree of unconscientiousness is therefore required. A good rule of thumb for being conscientious is to keep an eye out for classical fallacies such as ad hominem, straw man, false dilemma and cherry-picking. Such fallacies occur in all kinds of contexts, but in pseudoscience they occur more systematically. They "surely" occur more systematically in "pseudoscience", but it's funnier when they occur in an article that is literally criticizing others for this kind of thinking.

cowpig 6y ago
Both of the passages you quoted read as coherent and even convincing. Sure, terms like "epistemic" or "unconscientiousness" may be a bit unfamiliar, but they have specific meanings that are clear in the passage, and are used to make a salient argument. The use of jargon does not equate to obfuscation! For example, these two statements are very different: "Making the world a better place through canonical data models to communicate between endpoints." (Silicon Valley season 1 episode 6) "And then there are other aspects of complexity that come into programming with any of these more commonly used statically typed languages, which have to do with the complexity in the language space." (Rich Hickey talk) If you aren't familiar with the jargon, they're both unintelligible, but if you are, one sounds silly and the other does not.
- mistermann 6y ago
  > Both of the passages you quoted read as coherent and even convincing. They sure do - that's the problem! The author shows little sign of being concerned with the degree to which they are true (which considering he's representing skills in epistemology, seems like a bit of a shortcoming). >> These ‘fields’ traffic in bizarre claims with scientific pretensions. On a surface level, these claims seem to be scientific and usually appear to comment on the same kind of things that science does. However, upon closer inspection, pseudoscience is revealed to be bullshit: it is indifferent to the truth. Setting the stage by choosing "astrology, homeopathy, flat-Earthism, anti-vaxx" at the start of the article seems like a bit of the very "straw man, false dilemma and cherry-picking" the author complains about, since they go on to discuss pseudoscience in general. I suspect "These 'fields'" is hinting (without explicitly saying) at conspiracy theories in general, going on to say "...upon closer inspection, pseudoscience is(!) [implicitly: without exception] revealed to be bullshit". (An example of using persuasive rhetoric to misinform readers.) > An illustrative example is Sam Harris’s book The Moral Landscape (2010), in which straw men are lined up due to Harris’s failure to grasp the content of many of the philosophical claims and arguments that he criticises. The author seems to not considered the possibility that the same applies to him (he who is without sin...). And then wraps it up with this beauty of a paragraph: > While pseudoscience can perhaps be counteracted by science education, the cure for pseudophilosophy is not science education but philosophical education. More specifically, it is a matter of developing the kind of basic critical thinking skills that are taught to undergraduates in philosophy. This doesn’t need to be anything fancy [Oh? Are you sure?]. Students should be taught things like learning to distinguish in a disciplined way between central philosophical concepts such as belief, truth, rationality and knowledge. They should be aware of the way ambiguities can be exploited by equivocating arguments, and become adept at how to spot other fallacies such as ad hominem and straw man. With these fundamental tools in hand, there would be a good deal less pseudophilosophy going around. Perhaps we should add psychology and mindfulness (self-awareness) to this list. > The use of jargon does not equate to obfuscation! Agreed.

yters 6y ago

Most of the modern atheists are clueless when it comes to the theism discussion.

anthk 6y ago
Theism is bullshit, as much as people reading cards, voodoo or the horoscopes.
- yters 6y ago
  Your response proves my point.
  - anthk 6y ago
    You didn't prove your god.
    - yters 6y ago
      There are many proofs: - God is greater than the greatest imaginable thing, so must exist (this one is proven to be logically valid with computational theorem prover, and Bertrand Russell even said it was sound at one point in his life) - the world is intelligently designed - there must be a first cause, and that must be God - nothing in this world is perfect so there must be a transcendently perfect being - we can only be satisfied be an infinite being, so the object of our desire lies beyond this world - moral laws exist and require a law giver - our mind is not reducible to our body, and must have been created by an even greater being - jesus existed, claimed to be God, and rose from the dead according to reliable historical documentation Off the top of my head On the other hand it is impossible to prove atheism, you cannot prove a negative So we are left with theism and a lot of proofs, and atheism which is inherently incapable of being proven Seems the rational choice leans towards theism
      - psyc 6y ago
        You and I have very different ideas of what the word ‘proof’ means. I have no doubt this is how it looks to you. From where I sit, we have theism and a lot of nebulous thought experiments that gel with the way religious minds already think, and atheism which is simply the default until the day God decides to grace us with a press conference.

kderbyma 6y ago

couldn't agree more... the use profundity that many times....obscurantist..... sounds like a bunch of pseudophilosophising to me

TZubiri 6y ago

I remember the exact dismissal of Peterson's critics of Foucalt . "He doesn't understand him, therefore his criticism is invalid." period. It's conductive to nowhere, and gatekeeps critics to a light variety. Reading someone's work should be the only requirement to offer views on them. That said, Peterson didn't read Marx.