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That's true, but this essay is written with an authoritative voice, not a pondering one. PG tends to write as if he is teaching his audience something profound.
by apeace 4y ago
That's true, but this essay is written with an authoritative voice, not a pondering one. PG tends to write as if he is teaching his audience something profound. So I think it's fair to call out when he is wrong or misguided.
- danielvaughn 4y agoThis might just be a subjective thing then. My impression was that he was simply following a casual train of thought. I agree with the other comment that my words “hostile gatekeeping” were too strong. I just get irritated with philosophers specifically, because philosophy itself is a normal human experience. Everyone finds themselves thinking about things that veer into philosophical subjects. To even criticize people for doing so without reading the professional literature is just so annoying to me.
- missingrib 4y agoI think philosophers get a bit annoyed about this because they've spent literal years and years thinking about something that might be quite esoteric/tricky, and then someone comes along and just assumes the answer as if there hasn't been decades of discourse about this exact thing. The subtext in your comment is that everyone does philosophy all the time, and there's no difference between professional and amateur philosophers.
- jdthedisciple 4y ago> then someone comes along and just assumes the answer as if there hasn't been decades of discourse about this exact thing. I'd think that would present itself as a rather pleasant opportunity for any bypassing philosopher to stop and teach them about the "decades of discourse" on it rather than being annoyed?
- danielvaughn 4y agoYeah that’s what I’ve seen before from chemists, biologists, geologists, physicists, etc. They’re excited, not irritated, to share their knowledge with the public.
- missingrib 4y agoNobody does this stuff to those kinds of scientists.