4 ms·
Academic philosophers will never agree on anything because modern academic philosophy lacks a method to do so, and the incentives are in standing your ground an
by Iv 5y ago
Academic philosophers will never agree on anything because modern academic philosophy lacks a method to do so, and the incentives are in standing your ground and do performative arguing instead of reaching out for truths, agreements, compromises or consensus.
- a-nikolaev 5y agoWell, as if non-academic internet? philosophers are better at agreeing or reaching any form of truth. I'm very skeptical about that.
- Iv 5y agoI certainly hope that the "internet-philosophers" include some academics as well. No I am more talking about people who do philosophy "accidentally" as part of their jobs: scientists or engineers mostly. And on many philosophical questions, yes, most specialists in a field will tend to reach more agreement than academic philosophers. To take an example I know, I think you will find far more agreement on things like the nature of qualia or the relevance of Searle's Chinese room amongst AI researchers than you would among academic philosophers. Nowadays, many philosophical questions benefit from a scientific background that academic philosophers just lack. Some philosophical positions are simply wrong or come from a misunderstanding solved decades ago by scientists.
- a-nikolaev 5y agoYeah, but what you are saying now is more like that academic/professional non-philosophers are easier to reach an agreement on particular philosophy-adjacent questions from their field of expertise. Yeah, this is totally possible, but I think, this is not the same as your original statement.
- keiferski 5y agoAcademic philosophers have consensus on many things. That doesn’t make them correct, merely a reflection of what a societal group thinks. The notion of agreement or compromise is antithetical to philosophy, so I’m not sure how that would be relevant. That is the domain of politics.
- Iv 5y agoCan you name one thing there is a consensus on, in academic philosophy?
- keiferski 5y agohttps://old.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/es98yo/has_any_philosophical_problem_been_solved_why_or/fg324tw/ https://old.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/es98yo/has_a... Adding to that, you’ll also find that most philosophers are atheists / non-theists while most theologians are theists, which is why I said a consensus mostly reflects social groups and not any final say on the topic.
- Iv 5y ago"Possible worlds exist" -> Damn what a breakthrough Yes, I agree that once you remove all the theists from the domain and are ready to call out people who do theology badly disguised as philosophy, the field becomes a bit clearer.
- keiferski 5y agoThat isn’t what I said nor is it the conclusion I’m drawing. The field becomes “clearer” because people who are not atheists then self-filter themselves out, don’t become philosophers, etc. It has nothing to do with the legitimacy or illegitimacy of theology. Which is exactly why you should be skeptical of philosophical consensus on social issues. Philosophers are subject to the same social pressures and effects as any other human group.
- yboris 5y agoThere is a philosopher survey organized by David Chalmers Results: https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl https://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl
- Iv 5y agoHilarious that nothing has more than 81% agreement. And here again, the same thing happens: I did not know Newcomb's box problems, so I google it, I find that people Newcomb and people who solved it are all actually scientists (The problem is vague and there are two ways to fill in the gaps, leading to an apparent paradox). Yet philosophers are split in their answers.