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> I have a degree in philosophy, but haven't read any of the classic literature on this subject, so I'm almost certainly reinventing the wheel. This shows when

> I have a degree in philosophy, but haven't read any of the classic literature on this subject, so I'm almost certainly reinventing the wheel. This shows when you call both Watts and Vonnegut a nihilist. Absurdism for example is not the same as nihilism.

loughnane 3y ago
That quote is weird. In technical fields you wouldn’t read the classic literature (mechanical engineers don’t read Euclid), but there’s no fear of reinventing the wheel since modern books take account of fundamental works; if not by name then for sure in content. I’m surprised how you can get a philosophy degree and then be afraid of “reinventing the wheel”. I suppose the author is self-aware enough to know what he doesn’t know… but still. It’s odd.
- bamfly 3y ago
  It's more like a math major speculating on some possible route to a proof of a hard problem without having dug specifically into the literature on that problem in particular, such that there's a good chance they're barking up a proven-unproductive tree or ineptly re-discovering something well-known to those who have so-studied.
  - loughnane 3y ago
    Which is a fine thought experiment for a person to go through and at the same time a waste of time for anyone to read. I don’t begrudge the author for writing it, blogging is in large part a “this is what I’m thinking about, take it as you will”, and that’s ok. Just noisy.
- thenerdhead 3y ago
  I just don't understand how you can get a philosophy degree without a course on like "Classics of Western Philosophy" or similar. Technical fields have similar fundamental courses...
- HKH2 3y ago
  Coining new terms often muddies the waters. Defining words well is one of the hardest challenges of philosophy because philosophical terms easily gain baggage due to all the abstractions.
bamfly 3y ago
Vonnegut wasn't "a nihilist" (not... many people are, really? Approximately zero? Not in some all-encompassing sense, anyway—"I'm a nihilist" usually means subscribing to some philosophy that features nihilistic elements in some parts of it, or to having accepted, specifically, existential nihilism as a ground truth for one's further exploration of philosophy) but definitely expresses elements of existential nihilism in his writing, which is what people usually mean when they say stuff like "I'm a nihilist" or "so-and-so is a nihilist": rejection of (the possibility of) objective meaning or purpose. Nihilism's a feature of positions/schools more than some philosophical school of its own, and that feature's strongly present in much of Vonnegut's work. Existential nihilism is a key element of absurdism (which you mention)—in a philosophical sense, and in the places where that intersects with literature, not necessarily in the colloquial senses of the word. In some areas, sure, Vonnegut's not particularly nihilistic. I don't think it'd make any sense to associate him with moral nihilism, for instance. Watts, IDK, he's on my to-read list but it's a looooong list.

loughnane 3y ago

That quote is weird. In technical fields you wouldn’t read the classic literature (mechanical engineers don’t read Euclid), but there’s no fear of reinventing the wheel since modern books take account of fundamental works; if not by name then for sure in content. I’m surprised how you can get a philosophy degree and then be afraid of “reinventing the wheel”. I suppose the author is self-aware enough to know what he doesn’t know… but still. It’s odd.

bamfly 3y ago
It's more like a math major speculating on some possible route to a proof of a hard problem without having dug specifically into the literature on that problem in particular, such that there's a good chance they're barking up a proven-unproductive tree or ineptly re-discovering something well-known to those who have so-studied.
- loughnane 3y ago
  Which is a fine thought experiment for a person to go through and at the same time a waste of time for anyone to read. I don’t begrudge the author for writing it, blogging is in large part a “this is what I’m thinking about, take it as you will”, and that’s ok. Just noisy.
thenerdhead 3y ago
I just don't understand how you can get a philosophy degree without a course on like "Classics of Western Philosophy" or similar. Technical fields have similar fundamental courses...
HKH2 3y ago
Coining new terms often muddies the waters. Defining words well is one of the hardest challenges of philosophy because philosophical terms easily gain baggage due to all the abstractions.

bamfly 3y ago

Vonnegut wasn't "a nihilist" (not... many people are, really? Approximately zero? Not in some all-encompassing sense, anyway—"I'm a nihilist" usually means subscribing to some philosophy that features nihilistic elements in some parts of it, or to having accepted, specifically, existential nihilism as a ground truth for one's further exploration of philosophy) but definitely expresses elements of existential nihilism in his writing, which is what people usually mean when they say stuff like "I'm a nihilist" or "so-and-so is a nihilist": rejection of (the possibility of) objective meaning or purpose. Nihilism's a feature of positions/schools more than some philosophical school of its own, and that feature's strongly present in much of Vonnegut's work. Existential nihilism is a key element of absurdism (which you mention)—in a philosophical sense, and in the places where that intersects with literature, not necessarily in the colloquial senses of the word. In some areas, sure, Vonnegut's not particularly nihilistic. I don't think it'd make any sense to associate him with moral nihilism, for instance. Watts, IDK, he's on my to-read list but it's a looooong list.