5 ms·

If philosophy is useful (which it may not be), then studying the history of philosophy is useful. This is like saying "Why bother studying Newton? He didn't ev

If philosophy is useful (which it may not be), then studying the history of philosophy is useful. This is like saying "Why bother studying Newton? He didn't even know about relativity!" You study Newton because it's a simple model and motivates what comes after.

sebastianconcpt 4y ago
The alternative to Philosophy is The Matrix (flawless global alienation). Our thinking is unconsciously molded by philosophers that died hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
- WHA8m 4y ago
  This is not an alternative to philosophy. This is philosophy. I'm afraid you have not escaped yet, sir.
  - sebastianconcpt 4y ago
    Oh, precisely, I'd never argue that we can escape it. Philosophy is the vehicle we have to make our consciousness able to navigate reality. A point that I'd try to put some light on, is that, among many dangers, we can get lost in false worldviews that trap our consciousness in apparently true realities that are ultimately false by a delicate house of cards/lies/mistakes. The Matrix, or more appropriately, Plato's Cave, made that point infinitely better than I could ever do.
- im3w1l 4y ago
  You might argue that getting this molding "for free" as it were, is exactly the reason we don't need to study them.
  - sebastianconcpt 4y ago
    That won't work in your best interest. Would be like being a citizen of The Matrix, seeing something suspicious that only agents can do, and opting for staying willfully ignorant about it, or even boycott its investigation. That's exactly what the people in Plato's Cave did. How ironic is that?
WHA8m 4y ago
I agree. Even though I think the comparison to physics doesn't fully found what you want to say. Physics is an empirical science with a rather neutral language to communicate its content. Arguments (much more 'findings') can be translated to this language and be understood on their own. The language of philosophy isn't so clear (or it is, but everyone has their own). Therefore an argument might not be fully understood on its own. The author/ philosopher might have tried to do so, but eventually it is easier to understand an arguments if you know what the state of the art was back then. My point basically is, that this goes beyond 'motivation' - which is hard to illustrate if we look at physics for comparison. - Unrelated: What's better: "My point basically is, [...]" or "My point is basically, [...]". If I knew how to ask this, I'd google it.
- orwin 4y ago
  You know there is a field of philosophy that study languages and meta-languages. It is now tightly tied to linguistic (maybe because of Noam Chomsky) but you have still logicians who publish in philosophical papers on this subject. Not my cup of tea, but worth taking a look at.
  - WHA8m 4y ago
    Yes I know. No one likes these guys /s I agree. As I've just stated in another comment, it's hard to say something with substance about philosophy in general. There are just a lot of different fields with individual axioms and scientific methods. That said, if these 'languages and meta-languages' fields would have found something viable (usage and usability), eg. a good tool to use, we would already use it.
    - orwin 4y ago
      I think they did, i've read an article about that with my previous job, when i was mostly working with EU and universities: they created a meta-language to convey ideas fast between scientists of different fields and talking different languages, but with a common culture. I dont' have the paper but i found this [0] which might refer to the paper i read. [0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332781241_Developing_a_meta-language_in_multidisciplinary_research_projects_the_case_study_of_READ-IT_Workshop_W14_Standing_on_the_Shoulders_of_Giants_Exploring_the_Intersection_of_Philosophy_and_HCI_at_CHI_201 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332781241_Developin...
ycombinete 4y ago
From the article: “Physics is not taught or practiced by reading and interpreting Newton’s Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis, Geometry is not done by studying Euclid’s Elements, and so on”
- jovial_cavalier 4y ago
  But it is. Especially for the last one. Graduate level geometry courses still go back to the elements at the beginning of the semester. I know, because I've taken them.
  - ycombinete 4y ago
    I'm not saying that it isn't. It just seemed worth sharing that the paper used the same example as you, inverted.
JadeNB 4y ago
> If philosophy is useful (which it may not be), then studying the history of philosophy is useful. I'm not sure this follows, though nor can I think of any counterexamples where it is uncontroversially absolutely useless to study the history of a useful subject. But I think that one can, e.g., be a successful professional mathematician without being much interested in the history of mathematics.

sebastianconcpt 4y ago

The alternative to Philosophy is The Matrix (flawless global alienation). Our thinking is unconsciously molded by philosophers that died hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

WHA8m 4y ago
This is not an alternative to philosophy. This is philosophy. I'm afraid you have not escaped yet, sir.
- sebastianconcpt 4y ago
  Oh, precisely, I'd never argue that we can escape it. Philosophy is the vehicle we have to make our consciousness able to navigate reality. A point that I'd try to put some light on, is that, among many dangers, we can get lost in false worldviews that trap our consciousness in apparently true realities that are ultimately false by a delicate house of cards/lies/mistakes. The Matrix, or more appropriately, Plato's Cave, made that point infinitely better than I could ever do.
im3w1l 4y ago
You might argue that getting this molding "for free" as it were, is exactly the reason we don't need to study them.
- sebastianconcpt 4y ago
  That won't work in your best interest. Would be like being a citizen of The Matrix, seeing something suspicious that only agents can do, and opting for staying willfully ignorant about it, or even boycott its investigation. That's exactly what the people in Plato's Cave did. How ironic is that?

WHA8m 4y ago

I agree. Even though I think the comparison to physics doesn't fully found what you want to say. Physics is an empirical science with a rather neutral language to communicate its content. Arguments (much more 'findings') can be translated to this language and be understood on their own. The language of philosophy isn't so clear (or it is, but everyone has their own). Therefore an argument might not be fully understood on its own. The author/ philosopher might have tried to do so, but eventually it is easier to understand an arguments if you know what the state of the art was back then. My point basically is, that this goes beyond 'motivation' - which is hard to illustrate if we look at physics for comparison. - Unrelated: What's better: "My point basically is, [...]" or "My point is basically, [...]". If I knew how to ask this, I'd google it.

orwin 4y ago
You know there is a field of philosophy that study languages and meta-languages. It is now tightly tied to linguistic (maybe because of Noam Chomsky) but you have still logicians who publish in philosophical papers on this subject. Not my cup of tea, but worth taking a look at.
- WHA8m 4y ago
  Yes I know. No one likes these guys /s I agree. As I've just stated in another comment, it's hard to say something with substance about philosophy in general. There are just a lot of different fields with individual axioms and scientific methods. That said, if these 'languages and meta-languages' fields would have found something viable (usage and usability), eg. a good tool to use, we would already use it.
  - orwin 4y ago
    I think they did, i've read an article about that with my previous job, when i was mostly working with EU and universities: they created a meta-language to convey ideas fast between scientists of different fields and talking different languages, but with a common culture. I dont' have the paper but i found this [0] which might refer to the paper i read. [0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332781241_Developing_a_meta-language_in_multidisciplinary_research_projects_the_case_study_of_READ-IT_Workshop_W14_Standing_on_the_Shoulders_of_Giants_Exploring_the_Intersection_of_Philosophy_and_HCI_at_CHI_201 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332781241_Developin...

ycombinete 4y ago

From the article: “Physics is not taught or practiced by reading and interpreting Newton’s Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis, Geometry is not done by studying Euclid’s Elements, and so on”

jovial_cavalier 4y ago
But it is. Especially for the last one. Graduate level geometry courses still go back to the elements at the beginning of the semester. I know, because I've taken them.
- ycombinete 4y ago
  I'm not saying that it isn't. It just seemed worth sharing that the paper used the same example as you, inverted.

JadeNB 4y ago

> If philosophy is useful (which it may not be), then studying the history of philosophy is useful. I'm not sure this follows, though nor can I think of any counterexamples where it is uncontroversially absolutely useless to study the history of a useful subject. But I think that one can, e.g., be a successful professional mathematician without being much interested in the history of mathematics.