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I haven’t read this paper, but instinctively flinch at any kind of dismissal of the past. I would think this comes down to how we define philosophy. On scienti
by ycombinete 4y ago
I haven’t read this paper, but instinctively flinch at any kind of dismissal of the past.
I would think this comes down to how we define philosophy. On scientific matters sure Aristotle likely has little to offer; but human nature has not changed at all since Plato, or Siddhartha we’re born.
After saying the following I feel that it would be hard for them to argue their point very strongly. So I’m definitely going to read the paper:
To be perfectly clear: my claim is not that we should not be doing history of philosophy. There are all kinds of reasons why reading and talking about the Critique of Pure Reason or the Republic are worthwhile: studying these seminal texts is an inherently interesting intellectual pursuit; reading them is often tremendously enjoyable; and familiarity with these texts can be very valuable to intellectual historians for the insights into culture, knowledge and morality they may contain. There are thus many excellent reasons to engage with the history of philosophy. Gaining traction on the aforementioned philosophical problems, however, is not one of them. This means that I am not arguing against historians of philosophy and what they do, but against what could be called philosophical historicists, that is, those who seem to think that at least one good method of thinking about knowledge or justice is to study what historical authors have written about knowledge and justice a long time ago. This, I argue, is a mistake.
- tz18 4y agohow about you read the paper?
- ycombinete 4y agoThere's a sentence in my comment where I literally say, "I'm definitely going to read the paper."
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y agoDo you believe someone needs to understand the history of math to effectively use math? I don't think anyone is claiming historical context isn't helpful, but these are tools for thinking. This doesn't go anywhere near the 'history repeating itself' mantra. The only way it could get close to that is for someone who is attempting to discover new math (or philosophy), but that's a very small subset of those who benefit from these tools.
- jhbadger 4y agoYes. So many things in math, in science, in programming, only make sense if you understand where they came from and in what context. Otherwise things just seem weird and arbitrary and hard to understand.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y agoI don't need to understand how a fence post evolved in order to successfully use fence posts.
- jhbadger 4y agoTo use them well I think you would. People who haven't been exposed to a history of a method or technology often say "I think this is silly; I can think of a better way to do this". Sometimes, extremely rarely, they are right. But more often, what they are thinking of is something that was tried and was found not to work well. Knowing the history of what you are doing, and what things worked and failed prevents you from making the same mistakes your forerunners did.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y agoThere's always an odd dichotomy between those who do, and those who do not. No farmer in existence would ever agree they need to understand the historical context to successfully use a fence post, or that they need it to be able to critically evaluate their specific needs and adjust their usage of fence posts to meet those needs. I find this attitude amongst software architects a lot as well. The stereotype of the hapless academic didn't come about because there's no truth to it.
- _Algernon_ 4y agoIn math everything can be derived directly from the underlying axioms given enough time. You don't need historical context. You may want the set of previously proven things to save some time, but you don't need it.
- 4y ago