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Yes, pg comes across as remarkably uninformed about philosophy. But, it is a general tendency I notice among programmers, including myself, to dismiss philosop
by yters 6y ago
Yes, pg comes across as remarkably uninformed about philosophy. But, it is a general tendency I notice among programmers, including myself, to dismiss philosophy as vague speculation. The accusation is as old as Aristophanes' play The Clouds mocking Socrates for his questioning of the status quo.
Yet you don't condemn bumbling absentminded professors to death, as Aristophanes did to Socrates during his trial. I believe the dismissal of philosophy has a deeper cause, perhaps because it poses uncomfortable questions.
Regarding PG's essay, I don't think it is fair to say metaphysics is a failed project. For instance, deeply thinking about whether things can be infinitely divisible led to the concept of the infinitesimal, which led to the discovery of calculus. If any field of math can be said to be useful, calculus surely is. None of our modern IT would exist without it, nor things like rockets, flight, material engineering, etc. Yet calculus is based on the non physical notion of infinite division that Aristotle discussed in his metaphysics.
As for Plato and math, in Meno Socrates leads a boy to understand the existence of irrational numbers, which the Pythagoreans had executed its member for discovering. So not only are ancient Greek philosophers discovering deep useful mathematical truths, they are also speaking truth to power at the same time. Imagine if math were outlawed under threat of death!
- slibhb 6y agoHe doesn't come off as uninformed. Plenty of philosophers who were well informed have variously proclaimed the death of philosopy or that philosophy is useless or that it has reached the end of its usefulness. Hume foreclosed on the possibility of metaphysics altogether. Kant disagreed but considered all metaphysics prior to him a failed project. Since Kant we've burrowed into the human mind and into human language. It's not clear that this has borne fruit. It's also not clear that it hasn't. But informed people can disagree. > Regarding PG's essay, I don't think it is fair to say metaphysics is a failed project. For instance, deeply thinking about whether things can be infinitely divisible led to the concept of the infinitesimal, which led to the discovery of calculus. If any field of math can be said to be useful, calculus surely is. None of our modern IT would exist without it, nor things like rockets, flight, material engineering, etc. Yet calculus is based on the non physical notion of infinite division that Aristotle discussed in his metaphysics. I think your perspective is perfectly valid (and well-represented). You're saying "even if metaphysics is impossible, the pursuit of metaphysics has proven useful". Fair enough.
- yters 6y agoAlright, I will abrogate uninformed to misinformed. The latter is worse because it blinds PG. Yes, exactly, Aristotle's project was supremely successful and one of its fruits is the calculus that underlies modern science and technology. How is that for immortality? I'd like to see PG discard that part of ancient philosophy.
- yters 6y agoI will follow up my negative take on pg with a positive. He already has a lot of flack for that essay online. I do agree with the general frustration. Philosophy taught in school seems to somehow miss the mark in our scientific discourse, and my exposure in school left me quite disatissfied. So, I do agree with PG's overall approach of starting with concrete useful things and generalizing from there. After all, Plato and Aristotle had a very concrete purpose for their philosophizing, which was: how does one live a good life? That is why Socrates went around asking all the sophists how to become virtuous, since virtue for him is defined as being skilled at living the good life. A fair amount of subsequent philosophers missed this original goal, and I suspect that is why a lot of philosophy seems pointless.