4 ms·

I don't understand the island analogy. While the external world is disjoint from the island, our world -- with its scientific knowledge of contemporary physics

by pron 4y ago

I don't understand the island analogy. While the external world is disjoint from the island, our world -- with its scientific knowledge of contemporary physics and biology and astronomy and psychology, mathematics and logic and, of course, the internet -- is a product of our history. In other words, while it's true that history didn't have the internet, it is also the reason that we do. People like Frege and Russell made certain choices in the design of formal logic because they were influenced by Leibniz, who, in turn, arranged things in a certain way because he was influenced by Aristotle. If you don't know what Aristotle said, it's hard to understand Leibniz, and if you don't know Leibniz, it's hard to understand Frege and Russell.

woodruffw 4y ago
Well said. One of the greatest travesties in popular philosophy is the tendency among otherwise intelligent, well-read people to think that they can “get” philosophy by just reading whatever small slice addresses some particular fancy. You can learn a great deal that way, but it fundamentally strips the historical dimension away. And philosophy’s greatest ideas are developed over the order of centuries.
yamtaddle 4y ago
The island analogy's misleading crap. A couple tweaks to make it closer to reality (say, if the islanders had been working for millennia and we only cared about a handful of their very best works from that entire time span—instantly less crazy with just that one tweak, no?) and it falls apart. There's almost a hint of an interesting line of argument, buried somewhere in there, but the way it's presented isn't good and is the precise opposite of convincing, on close inspection. Relying heavily on really bad analogies seems to be a theme in the paper, reading on. There's some hilariously-bad question-begging-laundered-through-analogy in the bit about body-building advice / reasons-to-study-historical-philosophy. Leading with emphasizing the importance of correctness is also pretty silly when we spend much of a student's training for most other fields teaching them one useful lie or another. That philosophy's lies happen to often come from very old books hardly seems material. Clearly, scaffolding with outright known lies is the norm, so "much of the material is probably wrong" isn't, per se, much of an attack. I don't think the paper's conclusion's even necessarily wrong (and by calling for some vague "less" focus on the history of philosophy, it defies firm refutation anyway) and some of it does make interesting points, but damn, it's got some seriously off-putting flaws. I especially think it fails to make a strong case against such study as training for philosophers. But maybe there are far more doctors of philosophy out there who spend their careers analyzing historical philosophy, than would be optimal. That seems plausible, but also doesn't seem to be the focus of the paper.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Add another proviso: that the island (or those strongly influenced by it) are now filling cultural lore with themes and messages born of those works and ideas. Much as Hollywood, British cinema and broadcasting, etc., have been in the case of Western philosophy. Even if the ideas are complete bunkum and red herrings, their cultural ubiquity and influence merit study if only to understand how things went astray. In practice, there are useful concepts to be found, precursors of much present empirically-derived understandings (contrasting with classical Western philosophy's focus on rational thought, as highlighted by of course Kant). And the buried bones and foundations of much present thinking. Digging to find root causes of common shibboleths and tropes is also useful in debunking those same (or so I'd like to hope: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adredmorbius%20weber%20monpoly%20legitimate%20violence&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>).
layer8 4y ago
I believe it should be possible to rephrase the philosophical ideas of the past in modern language, instead of requiring study of original texts, similar to how I can read modern textbooks on physics without having to defer to the long line of physicists who developed the theories, and their original papers and exchanges. IMO it is a failure of philosophy as a discipline that it is so path-dependend on an ever-growing corpus and lineage of past philosophers. It seems that one must enjoy interpreting old texts that employ ambiguous language and that require understanding the context of a very different intellectual environment of the past, in order to get into ”serious” philosophy. Although I’m very interested in philosophical thought, that aspect has completely turned me off. I’d also like to mention the old adage “if you can’t explain it, you don’t really understand it”. The common deferral along the lines of “oh you have to read philosopher X to really understand that” indicates to me that actually there is a generally poor understanding of what those philosophers really meant. Otherwise people should be able to express those ideas with clarity in their own words.
- codemonkey-zeta 4y ago
  I think this is possible to an extent, but the saying “oh you have to read philosopher X to really understand that” feels more like “oh you have to listen to band X to really understand their music”. Sure you _could_ explain the music along all the various dimensions, but the actual experience of the music _itself_ is the experience worth having. Same is true of most philosophy in my experience. I mean, you can read all the summaries and theses on Nietzsche's work that you want, but it won't be the same as _reading_ Nietzsche.
  - layer8 4y ago
    Reading the original work is of course its own experience and can be worthwhile for that experience. But it shouldn't be necessary in order to understand the philosophical ideas and arguments, just like for example it absolutely isn't necessary to read Einstein's original papers to understand and discuss relativity. It can give some flavor, or a better understanding of the historical development, but that is non-essential for the actual subject matter. In philosophy, however, there is a sentiment that you have to trace the historical development and debates to be able to understand the subject matter. Whereas the actual philosophical matters of fact, the truths that we are trying to come up with in philosophy, surely shouldn't inherently depend on the happenstances of the historical course of philosophical debate.
TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago
Anyone under about, what?, 30-ish lives in a world where the internet is a historical fact.
raincom 4y ago
This is called "problem-situation" in philosophy of sciences. One can understand physics, by studying problems in a historical context--and this field is called "history and philosophy of physics". Wrt biology, it is "history and philosophy of biology". We also need to study history of philosophy to understand various philosophical theories: later theories try to account for failures of earlier philosophical theories; etc.

by pron 4y ago

woodruffw 4y ago

Well said. One of the greatest travesties in popular philosophy is the tendency among otherwise intelligent, well-read people to think that they can “get” philosophy by just reading whatever small slice addresses some particular fancy. You can learn a great deal that way, but it fundamentally strips the historical dimension away. And philosophy’s greatest ideas are developed over the order of centuries.

yamtaddle 4y ago

The island analogy's misleading crap. A couple tweaks to make it closer to reality (say, if the islanders had been working for millennia and we only cared about a handful of their very best works from that entire time span—instantly less crazy with just that one tweak, no?) and it falls apart. There's almost a hint of an interesting line of argument, buried somewhere in there, but the way it's presented isn't good and is the precise opposite of convincing, on close inspection. Relying heavily on really bad analogies seems to be a theme in the paper, reading on. There's some hilariously-bad question-begging-laundered-through-analogy in the bit about body-building advice / reasons-to-study-historical-philosophy. Leading with emphasizing the importance of correctness is also pretty silly when we spend much of a student's training for most other fields teaching them one useful lie or another. That philosophy's lies happen to often come from very old books hardly seems material. Clearly, scaffolding with outright known lies is the norm, so "much of the material is probably wrong" isn't, per se, much of an attack. I don't think the paper's conclusion's even necessarily wrong (and by calling for some vague "less" focus on the history of philosophy, it defies firm refutation anyway) and some of it does make interesting points, but damn, it's got some seriously off-putting flaws. I especially think it fails to make a strong case against such study as training for philosophers. But maybe there are far more doctors of philosophy out there who spend their careers analyzing historical philosophy, than would be optimal. That seems plausible, but also doesn't seem to be the focus of the paper.

dredmorbius 4y ago
Add another proviso: that the island (or those strongly influenced by it) are now filling cultural lore with themes and messages born of those works and ideas. Much as Hollywood, British cinema and broadcasting, etc., have been in the case of Western philosophy. Even if the ideas are complete bunkum and red herrings, their cultural ubiquity and influence merit study if only to understand how things went astray. In practice, there are useful concepts to be found, precursors of much present empirically-derived understandings (contrasting with classical Western philosophy's focus on rational thought, as highlighted by of course Kant). And the buried bones and foundations of much present thinking. Digging to find root causes of common shibboleths and tropes is also useful in debunking those same (or so I'd like to hope: <https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adredmorbius%20weber%20monpoly%20legitimate%20violence&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...>).

layer8 4y ago

I believe it should be possible to rephrase the philosophical ideas of the past in modern language, instead of requiring study of original texts, similar to how I can read modern textbooks on physics without having to defer to the long line of physicists who developed the theories, and their original papers and exchanges. IMO it is a failure of philosophy as a discipline that it is so path-dependend on an ever-growing corpus and lineage of past philosophers. It seems that one must enjoy interpreting old texts that employ ambiguous language and that require understanding the context of a very different intellectual environment of the past, in order to get into ”serious” philosophy. Although I’m very interested in philosophical thought, that aspect has completely turned me off. I’d also like to mention the old adage “if you can’t explain it, you don’t really understand it”. The common deferral along the lines of “oh you have to read philosopher X to really understand that” indicates to me that actually there is a generally poor understanding of what those philosophers really meant. Otherwise people should be able to express those ideas with clarity in their own words.

codemonkey-zeta 4y ago
I think this is possible to an extent, but the saying “oh you have to read philosopher X to really understand that” feels more like “oh you have to listen to band X to really understand their music”. Sure you _could_ explain the music along all the various dimensions, but the actual experience of the music _itself_ is the experience worth having. Same is true of most philosophy in my experience. I mean, you can read all the summaries and theses on Nietzsche's work that you want, but it won't be the same as _reading_ Nietzsche.
- layer8 4y ago
  Reading the original work is of course its own experience and can be worthwhile for that experience. But it shouldn't be necessary in order to understand the philosophical ideas and arguments, just like for example it absolutely isn't necessary to read Einstein's original papers to understand and discuss relativity. It can give some flavor, or a better understanding of the historical development, but that is non-essential for the actual subject matter. In philosophy, however, there is a sentiment that you have to trace the historical development and debates to be able to understand the subject matter. Whereas the actual philosophical matters of fact, the truths that we are trying to come up with in philosophy, surely shouldn't inherently depend on the happenstances of the historical course of philosophical debate.

TheSpiceIsLife 4y ago

Anyone under about, what?, 30-ish lives in a world where the internet is a historical fact.

raincom 4y ago

This is called "problem-situation" in philosophy of sciences. One can understand physics, by studying problems in a historical context--and this field is called "history and philosophy of physics". Wrt biology, it is "history and philosophy of biology". We also need to study history of philosophy to understand various philosophical theories: later theories try to account for failures of earlier philosophical theories; etc.