4 ms·
This paper makes some excellent points, at least directionally - surely the important historical arguments will be representable in a more polished, accessible
by conformist 4y ago
This paper makes some excellent points, at least directionally - surely the important historical arguments will be representable in a more polished, accessible and condensed form today. And in cases where they aren't perhaps that's a good filter in its own right?
It appears like, maybe vis a vis physical sciences philosophy as an academic discipline has not got quite such a prevalent tradition in producing "tidied up" textbooks?
- forgetfreeman 4y agoI don't know the answer here but I am instantly skeptical whenever the notion is put forward that some complex topic or idea is inherently reduceable.
- solveit 4y agoI am instantly skeptical that the first thinker to understand some complex topic produced a book crisply detailing the irreducible core of the idea rather than spending six hundred pages flailing around trying to gesture at the good stuff they only vaguely see and don't have the vocabulary to express. First iterations are rarely good and never sleek.
- forgetfreeman 4y agoMaybe. But pop science, pop psychology, and webMD are all things. None of these speak particularly well to the idea that complexity reduces cleanly, or that anything useful is produced by the attempt.
- masswerk 4y agoMind that any such textbook (of which there are many) would be just yet another interpretation, reflecting mostly the times it was written in.