7 ms·

The tendentious answer on philosophy is an invitation for what would be another "Dabblers and Blowhards" drive-by shooting. It's not enormously surprising that

The tendentious answer on philosophy is an invitation for what would be another "Dabblers and Blowhards" drive-by shooting. It's not enormously surprising that this question is 'rarely asked'. One would learn a lot more about philosophy ("what questions are these guys asking?" "what are some of the answers they've come to?") from even a mediocre introductory text or a chat with a TA/tutor, than by assuming that this rather sophomoric answer represents a reasonable response to the entire field. Calling it 'sophomoric' doesn't properly engage with the claims, but the claims are so smug, random and content-free: "Books on philosophy per se are either highly technical stuff that doesn't matter much, or vague concatenations of abstractions their own authors didn't fully understand (e.g. Hegel)... It can be interesting to study ancient philosophy, but more as a kind of accident report than to teach you anything useful." ... that I can't find anything remotely meaningful to engage with. Someone recommended Russell's History of Western Philosophy as an option; this isn't bad (although its treatment of Continental philosophy is hopelessly biased, it would still be enough to get you oriented). The fact that whenever PG makes statements on some area I understand more about (philosophy, politics, economics) seem to be incredibly shallow, juvenile crowd-pleasers, makes me wonder at his expertise in areas that I don't know much about (history, painting).

forensic 15y ago
What kind of people does pg draw in? Its mainly naive young programmers (socially stunted nerds) who believe they are smarter than everyone and have everything figured out. I believe nerd hubris comes from a fundamental lack of empathy; an inability to put themselves in the shoes of people who are different. People who lack perspective are easy pickings for silver tongued writers who make emotionally-potent audience-felating oversimplifications.
- AmericanOP 15y ago
  I don't understand why this crowd is more likely to hit the verbal 'dislike' button than average. Why do people think it's so important to share that they resist the attraction of something? The name-calling and prodding is especially disturbing.
pg 15y ago
It's hard to get that deep in a couple paragraphs. But there is a longer version here: http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html
- jsomers 15y ago
  I wrote a response to this (in defense of philosophy) a few years ago at http://jsomers.net/pg-philosophy.html http://jsomers.net/pg-philosophy.html. And here's the yc discussion about it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=404707 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=404707.
- onan_barbarian 15y ago
  I don't think you got much deeper in the long form. From what I recall, these critiques of philosophy are well-known in philosophy, especially reactions to Aristotle. A inexperienced reader would get the impression that Aristotle and the mistakes he engendered went unchecked for a couple thousand years, until brought to bay by the sterling efforts of Bertrand Russell and Paul Graham. From someone proposing a new approach to philosophy (!): 1. I would expect to see a little more on some of the less peculiar empiricists - Berkeley, in my dim memories, was the most obscure of that little grouping. 2. A less Cliff's Notes discussion of what's happened in analytic philosophy that strays beyond the brand names (Russell, Wittgenstein) wouldn't go astray either. Claiming it's all about 'language games' is a sophomoric 'out' to having to engage with any of the rest of analytic philosophy.
  - pg 15y ago
    Can you give an example of something I wrote that you believe is false?
    - onan_barbarian 15y ago
      It's the omissions that are the problem, not errors. You have selectively ignored major areas of philosophy in order to make your ideas seem original and compelling.
philwelch 15y ago
It's interesting how a concise conclusion you disagree with is evidence of ignorance. I don't know how much you know about philosophy, but from what I picked up during my bachelor's, it turned out to be interesting but all in all not too important. The central problem is still there: anything that's rigorous enough that it might be true is narrowly scoped and doesn't come to a wide enough conclusion to be interesting, and anything that's especially vast in terms of implications is usually vague bullshit.
- forensic 15y ago
  Your definition of "important" is deeply subjective.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    The entire question is deeply subjective, which just underlines my bemusement at people accusing pg of ignorance for seeming to take a given position on the question.
    - forensic 15y ago
      When you talk like that you sound like someone who equates 'subjective' with 'useless' The subjective is very important which is precisely the value of philosophy and other liberal arts.
  - wisty 15y ago
    Here's a definition of "important" - as important as you had thought it might be when you selected the course. I'm guessing philosophy haters are like militant atheists - they don't really think it's an objectively terrible thing, they are just a bit bitter and disappointed.
steven5122 15y ago
Mortimer Adler has written some philosophy books that are accessible, like How to Think About the Great Ideas: From the Great Books of Western Civilization. http://www.amazon.com/How-Think-About-Great-Ideas/dp/0812694120/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316397627&sr=1-3 http://www.amazon.com/How-Think-About-Great-Ideas/dp/0812694...
Jun8 15y ago
In this regard, I found Talking Philosophy (http://www.amazon.com/Talking-Philosophy-Dialogues-Fifteen-Philosophers/dp/0192854178 http://www.amazon.com/Talking-Philosophy-Dialogues-Fifteen-P...) an excellent book, it consists of post-edited transcripts of interviews with leading philosophers on BBC. Prodded by Bryan Magee, the wise men in most cases come right to the point.

forensic 15y ago

What kind of people does pg draw in? Its mainly naive young programmers (socially stunted nerds) who believe they are smarter than everyone and have everything figured out. I believe nerd hubris comes from a fundamental lack of empathy; an inability to put themselves in the shoes of people who are different. People who lack perspective are easy pickings for silver tongued writers who make emotionally-potent audience-felating oversimplifications.

AmericanOP 15y ago
I don't understand why this crowd is more likely to hit the verbal 'dislike' button than average. Why do people think it's so important to share that they resist the attraction of something? The name-calling and prodding is especially disturbing.

pg 15y ago

It's hard to get that deep in a couple paragraphs. But there is a longer version here: http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html

jsomers 15y ago
I wrote a response to this (in defense of philosophy) a few years ago at http://jsomers.net/pg-philosophy.html http://jsomers.net/pg-philosophy.html. And here's the yc discussion about it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=404707 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=404707.
onan_barbarian 15y ago
I don't think you got much deeper in the long form. From what I recall, these critiques of philosophy are well-known in philosophy, especially reactions to Aristotle. A inexperienced reader would get the impression that Aristotle and the mistakes he engendered went unchecked for a couple thousand years, until brought to bay by the sterling efforts of Bertrand Russell and Paul Graham. From someone proposing a new approach to philosophy (!): 1. I would expect to see a little more on some of the less peculiar empiricists - Berkeley, in my dim memories, was the most obscure of that little grouping. 2. A less Cliff's Notes discussion of what's happened in analytic philosophy that strays beyond the brand names (Russell, Wittgenstein) wouldn't go astray either. Claiming it's all about 'language games' is a sophomoric 'out' to having to engage with any of the rest of analytic philosophy.
- pg 15y ago
  Can you give an example of something I wrote that you believe is false?
  - onan_barbarian 15y ago
    It's the omissions that are the problem, not errors. You have selectively ignored major areas of philosophy in order to make your ideas seem original and compelling.

philwelch 15y ago

It's interesting how a concise conclusion you disagree with is evidence of ignorance. I don't know how much you know about philosophy, but from what I picked up during my bachelor's, it turned out to be interesting but all in all not too important. The central problem is still there: anything that's rigorous enough that it might be true is narrowly scoped and doesn't come to a wide enough conclusion to be interesting, and anything that's especially vast in terms of implications is usually vague bullshit.

forensic 15y ago
Your definition of "important" is deeply subjective.
- philwelch 15y ago
  The entire question is deeply subjective, which just underlines my bemusement at people accusing pg of ignorance for seeming to take a given position on the question.
  - forensic 15y ago
    When you talk like that you sound like someone who equates 'subjective' with 'useless' The subjective is very important which is precisely the value of philosophy and other liberal arts.
- wisty 15y ago
  Here's a definition of "important" - as important as you had thought it might be when you selected the course. I'm guessing philosophy haters are like militant atheists - they don't really think it's an objectively terrible thing, they are just a bit bitter and disappointed.

steven5122 15y ago

Mortimer Adler has written some philosophy books that are accessible, like How to Think About the Great Ideas: From the Great Books of Western Civilization. http://www.amazon.com/How-Think-About-Great-Ideas/dp/0812694120/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316397627&sr=1-3 http://www.amazon.com/How-Think-About-Great-Ideas/dp/0812694...

Jun8 15y ago

In this regard, I found Talking Philosophy (http://www.amazon.com/Talking-Philosophy-Dialogues-Fifteen-Philosophers/dp/0192854178 http://www.amazon.com/Talking-Philosophy-Dialogues-Fifteen-P...) an excellent book, it consists of post-edited transcripts of interviews with leading philosophers on BBC. Prodded by Bryan Magee, the wise men in most cases come right to the point.