5 ms·
Working on some inforgraphics tackling gender bias a while back, I was'accused' of producing data visualization art. I defended the intellectual rigor of my wor
by ANarrativeApe 6y ago
Working on some inforgraphics tackling gender bias a while back, I was'accused' of producing data visualization art. I defended the intellectual rigor of my work, yet lost the argument - my 'accuser' turned out to be the curator of data visualization art at the Tate Modern. He won the argument by pointing out that the work, though based on hard data, was designed to evoke an emotional rather than an intellectual response.
Ao much philosophy is taught as if it were a niche area of literary criticism, rather than as raw materials for the creation of algorithms for intentional living, it probably is fair to regard much philosophy as if art, or even art criticism.
- routerl 6y agoThere's something to be said for the notion that, in the modern world, anyone who is a "professional philosopher" is just incapable of doing the kind of "here's how you should live" work that dominates early Western and Asian philosophy. Among modern professions, the only ones that can bear the legal liability of such a line of inquiry are in the health sciences. In this sense, philosophy professors cannot be doing what Socrates thought he was doing, except while teaching. But, as a rule, teaching is not considered the "productive work" of any professors. The "serious" work of academics is to produce tomes and articles, and to manage their citations like investments.
- staticman2 6y agoI don't understand where you got the idea that people who tell others how to live have legal liability: if that were the case your local preacher would be in serious trouble.
- routerl 6y agoThere's a thin line between cult and religion, and a lot of it has to do with institutional age. Although, yeah, there are a lot of christian, and buddhist for that matter, cults. Often these do end up breaching legal boundaries, as I've described, but more often they merely offend common morality or decency, which also reveals the problem of trying to tell people how to live, outside of accepted avenues (i.e. health sciences and, as you've pointed out, established religions).
- staticman2 6y agoI highly doubt that they are breaching legal boundries. Doctors only have a monopoly on formal medical advise- they do not have a monopoly on "telling people how to live". Nobody thinks their local preacher or philosopher is giving formal medical advise- so there is unlikely to be any liability at all outside of gratuitously bad behavior like telling people to drink bleach.
- routerl 6y agoThere are mental health doctors as well.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- wombatmobile 6y ago“The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own” -- Frank Zappa
- faeriechangling 6y agoWouldn't this imply that doctors, perticularly those working in mental health, are practicing philosophy on their patients while not being experts in it?
- smhost 6y agothe wording of your parent comment is ambiguous (maybe on purpose), but the early (western) philosophers weren't so concerned with telling people how to live than they were with raising the question of what it means to lead a good life, which are two different things. mental health professionals today are more concerned with the former than they are with the latter. the ones who do practice the latter are very marginalized in the united states (i heard it's less the case in europe), but they do really interesting political work that might or might not start a flame war if i talk about it here so i won't.
- watwut 6y agoSocrates got executed. Socrates was framed as teacher anyway. You can give advice on how to live, many people do. There are whole booshelves of self-help advice which is literally giving advice on how to live.
- prionassembly 6y agoBut that's really a problem with academia, not philosophy per se? I'm not sure e.g. academic engineers working in materials science are ready to just take the place of an engineer in a construction site. (Then, people like Norvig are a counter-example to this claim. But positions created in MAGFA for top academics like Norvig, Varian, etc. will always have a tailor-made character and defer to celebrity status.)
- keenreed 6y agoWell, processing data correctly is a form of art. Raw data contain systemic biases and are not ethical. It takes an artist to cleanse data, and present them without bias in an ethical and moral way.
- seneca 6y ago> Well, processing data correctly is a form of art. Raw data contain systemic biases and are not ethical. It takes an artist to cleanse data, and present them without bias in an ethical and moral way. This is one of the most dystopian things I've read in recent memory. Raw data is bias but it's art to "cleanse" the data and make them "ethical and moral"? The system is bias, but the artist is without and can bring purity. This is some truly Ministry of Truth level thinking and it's quite disturbing to know people genuinely believe this. No wonder we have a replication crisis.