3 ms·

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 Ari

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.
  - pg 15y ago
    Even omissions should cause sentences in the essay to be false though. Is there really not one sentence you believe is false? (Also, would you mind being civil? I'm doing it; you can too.)
    - PakG1 15y ago
      Hmm, I know I'll get downvoted for this, but I don't think he's being uncivil, pg. He made an accusation against you, but he didn't do it in an uncivil manner. Asking him to be civil strikes me as weird, and possibly that you're being too defensive?
      - 16BitTons 15y ago
        PakG1, you have a good point. Accusing someone of "selectively ignoring" evidence is suggesting the person is not seeking truth at all. In civil discourse, one owes a response. In uncivil discourse, then the opponent often isn't asking a real question and the answer doesn't need to take it seriously. I think PG was taking onan_barbarian's comment seriously and asking a sincere question.
      - Willwhatley 15y ago
        I do not suppose it to be possible to accuse anyone of anything in a civil manner. Accusation belongs to prosecutors, mothers in law, schoolteachers and other beings that are clearly on a higher plane than one. Civility is a difficult, but simple, art, necessitating primarily that one should wish to get along with another: onan does not seem to be going out of his to make himself agreeable to pg or anyone else in this exchange.
        PakG1 15y ago
        Forking the conversation, but going out of your way to make yourself agreeable is not efficient conversation. Now, the workplace and an Internet forum may differ in terms of environment, but if I applied "going out of my way to be civil" to the workplace, it would make for a lot of inefficient conversation and meetings. Being direct is much more preferable in the workplace, and as long as you leave out insults and profanity, it can be quite civil. That is what I'd expect in everyday life as well. My standards of comparing the workplace and other environments may not be shared. Perhaps you would prefer people use more phrases like "I think", "I feel like", or pose sentences as questions. I suppose that works well enough for me without destroying conversation efficiency too much. The word "accusation" has a broad spectrum of emotion, but perhaps a very narrow emotive connotation when heard by the accused.
      - pg 15y ago
        The civil version (at least tolerably so) would be the first 17 words. The remaining 10 could be affixed to any criticism of any essay by anyone.
    - onan_barbarian 15y ago
      I don't understand why you are so keen to draw me into a line by line nitpick. You saw my objection to the essay. Address it or don't. I don't think your points in the essay can stand without both a discussion of empiricism and an examination of the broader analytic philosophy project. You obviously do, so I'm happy to leave it there.
      - pg 15y ago
        I want to focus the discussion. When people complain about things I've written, often as not they're complaining about things they believe I think, rather than things I actually said. It's hard to have a meaningful conversation with that level of disconnection between the participants. So I usually ask people who disagree with something I wrote to tell me what specific sentence or passage they feel is false. If I've said something false, I'd honestly like to know what it is. I wrote that essay, like most essays I write, to figure out things for myself. So if I've made a mistake I want to know what it is.
  - gbog 15y ago
    It is a bit sad to avoid the discussion with pg below (maybe it is in preparation?) For me there is one (very excusable) "blind" point in pg's position, it's Eastern classic philosophy (hear Confucianism and a bit of Taoism). For some, it will not even be considered philosophy, because it do not ask questions about questions. It is closer to politics, because it tries to answer the one important question (in Eastern eyes), how to have human beings living together without too much blood. Answers are complex, and rely on ethics, self-cultivation, etc. Studying these Classics is not just for statisfying one's curiosity about past things, it will help understand the world, and what to be in the world, all of that without any "magic trick" (hear God, promise of the paradise). I don't think the ommissions you are talking about are on these lines, so it would be nice to see where these ommission make pg's essay unfair.

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.
- pg 15y ago
  Even omissions should cause sentences in the essay to be false though. Is there really not one sentence you believe is false? (Also, would you mind being civil? I'm doing it; you can too.)
  - PakG1 15y ago
    Hmm, I know I'll get downvoted for this, but I don't think he's being uncivil, pg. He made an accusation against you, but he didn't do it in an uncivil manner. Asking him to be civil strikes me as weird, and possibly that you're being too defensive?
    - 16BitTons 15y ago
      PakG1, you have a good point. Accusing someone of "selectively ignoring" evidence is suggesting the person is not seeking truth at all. In civil discourse, one owes a response. In uncivil discourse, then the opponent often isn't asking a real question and the answer doesn't need to take it seriously. I think PG was taking onan_barbarian's comment seriously and asking a sincere question.
    - Willwhatley 15y ago
      I do not suppose it to be possible to accuse anyone of anything in a civil manner. Accusation belongs to prosecutors, mothers in law, schoolteachers and other beings that are clearly on a higher plane than one. Civility is a difficult, but simple, art, necessitating primarily that one should wish to get along with another: onan does not seem to be going out of his to make himself agreeable to pg or anyone else in this exchange.
      - PakG1 15y ago
        Forking the conversation, but going out of your way to make yourself agreeable is not efficient conversation. Now, the workplace and an Internet forum may differ in terms of environment, but if I applied "going out of my way to be civil" to the workplace, it would make for a lot of inefficient conversation and meetings. Being direct is much more preferable in the workplace, and as long as you leave out insults and profanity, it can be quite civil. That is what I'd expect in everyday life as well. My standards of comparing the workplace and other environments may not be shared. Perhaps you would prefer people use more phrases like "I think", "I feel like", or pose sentences as questions. I suppose that works well enough for me without destroying conversation efficiency too much. The word "accusation" has a broad spectrum of emotion, but perhaps a very narrow emotive connotation when heard by the accused.
    - pg 15y ago
      The civil version (at least tolerably so) would be the first 17 words. The remaining 10 could be affixed to any criticism of any essay by anyone.
  - onan_barbarian 15y ago
    I don't understand why you are so keen to draw me into a line by line nitpick. You saw my objection to the essay. Address it or don't. I don't think your points in the essay can stand without both a discussion of empiricism and an examination of the broader analytic philosophy project. You obviously do, so I'm happy to leave it there.
    - pg 15y ago
      I want to focus the discussion. When people complain about things I've written, often as not they're complaining about things they believe I think, rather than things I actually said. It's hard to have a meaningful conversation with that level of disconnection between the participants. So I usually ask people who disagree with something I wrote to tell me what specific sentence or passage they feel is false. If I've said something false, I'd honestly like to know what it is. I wrote that essay, like most essays I write, to figure out things for myself. So if I've made a mistake I want to know what it is.
- gbog 15y ago
  It is a bit sad to avoid the discussion with pg below (maybe it is in preparation?) For me there is one (very excusable) "blind" point in pg's position, it's Eastern classic philosophy (hear Confucianism and a bit of Taoism). For some, it will not even be considered philosophy, because it do not ask questions about questions. It is closer to politics, because it tries to answer the one important question (in Eastern eyes), how to have human beings living together without too much blood. Answers are complex, and rely on ethics, self-cultivation, etc. Studying these Classics is not just for statisfying one's curiosity about past things, it will help understand the world, and what to be in the world, all of that without any "magic trick" (hear God, promise of the paradise). I don't think the ommissions you are talking about are on these lines, so it would be nice to see where these ommission make pg's essay unfair.