4 ms·

Wait, I'm sorry - philosophy has no audience beyond its own practitioners? Just look at all the people interested in philosophy in this thread. I'm willing to b

Wait, I'm sorry - philosophy has no audience beyond its own practitioners? Just look at all the people interested in philosophy in this thread. I'm willing to bet a large sum of money that the majority of people who have implicitly expressed interest in philosophy here are not practicing philosophers. I'm quite surprised by your reference to music; music is something I usually bring up when people tell me that philosophy is useless. You yourself like Dennett's work, don't you? I know you think that most philosophers haven't produced anything that interesting to you, but I think it's often the case that impact is Pareto-distributed across practitioners of a discipline, certainly not unique to philosophy. Like, I imagine a lot of people are only interested in a select few musicians/bands.

lisper 2y ago
> Wait, I'm sorry - philosophy has no audience beyond its own practitioners? Just look at all the people interested in philosophy in this thread. I'm willing to bet a large sum of money that the majority of people who have implicitly expressed interest in philosophy here are not practicing philosophers. That depends on how you define "practicing philosophers". The vast majority of people who do yoga are not yoga masters. But no one gets value from watching yoga. The only value in yoga is doing it. This is not true for e.g. music. You can get value from passively listening to someone else play an instrument. It's not necessary for you to to it yourself. I would claim that the vast majority of people participating in this thread fancy themselves armchair philosophers. It is indeed fun to argue about this stuff. But that doesn't justify paying anyone to do it as a profession. > You yourself like Dennett's work, don't you? I've already said that Dennett is a notable exception, and one of the things that sets him apart is that he bases his work in science more than what is traditionally called "philosophy". He's more like a massage therapist than a yoga instructor.
- knightoffaith 2y ago
  I mean, there are plenty of people who read philosophy and enjoy it but don't publish papers in philosophy conferences or journals, discuss topics with academic philosophers, etc. Reading a work of philosophy without writing a work of philosophy is something that a lot of people do and enjoy.
  - lisper 2y ago
    I'd be really surprised if there are a lot of people who read philosophy journals (as opposed to pop philosophy) for fun.
    - knightoffaith 2y ago
      I'm sure there are some people who do. But books for popular audiences like Consciousness Explained are taken seriously by philosophers too. I don't see why there's any relevant difference between philosophy and music here.
      - lisper 2y ago
        Like I keep saying, Dennett is the exception, not the rule.
        knightoffaith 2y ago
        Fine, I'll just pick some random books: Feyerabend's Against Method, Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Nietzsche's The Antichrist, Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, Descartes's Meditations, Spinoza's Ethics, Plato's dialogues, I could go on and on. Maybe you don't like all of these, but there are plenty of people who read these for fun, and all of them are taken seriously by philosophers.
        lisper 2y ago
        > there are plenty of people who read these for fun I really doubt that. I think you'd find it quite challenging to find people who have read these books who do not also enjoy engaging in philosophical debates. But given the effort it would take to test this I think we should just agree to disagree.
        knightoffaith 2y ago
        >who do not also enjoy engaging in philosophical debates. Philosophical debates as in talking with other random people about philosophy? Sure, I'm sure most people who have read these books enjoy that. But that's not doing philosophy---such conversations are usually going to be riddled with errors and just not up to par for academic philosophical discussion. I think we've gone so far down the rabbit hole about why the discipline of philosophy isn't justified that I've nearly forgotten why this current discussion is that relevant. Plenty of people enjoy philosophy, and it's something that humans have been discussing in a rigorous way for thousands of years. Somehow this isn't good enough? I really just don't see why music somehow meets the bar as being enjoyable enough for enough people, but philosophy doesn't. You don't have to be a musician to enjoy musician, and you don't have to be a philosopher to enjoy philosophy. "Oh, well, the people who do enjoy philosophy probably enjoy philosophical debates, so they're basically philosophers!" I mean, isn't this like me saying, "The people who enjoy music probably enjoy humming or singing tunes, so they're basically musicians!" The distinction seems to be getting continually more and more contrived.

lisper 2y ago

> Wait, I'm sorry - philosophy has no audience beyond its own practitioners? Just look at all the people interested in philosophy in this thread. I'm willing to bet a large sum of money that the majority of people who have implicitly expressed interest in philosophy here are not practicing philosophers. That depends on how you define "practicing philosophers". The vast majority of people who do yoga are not yoga masters. But no one gets value from watching yoga. The only value in yoga is doing it. This is not true for e.g. music. You can get value from passively listening to someone else play an instrument. It's not necessary for you to to it yourself. I would claim that the vast majority of people participating in this thread fancy themselves armchair philosophers. It is indeed fun to argue about this stuff. But that doesn't justify paying anyone to do it as a profession. > You yourself like Dennett's work, don't you? I've already said that Dennett is a notable exception, and one of the things that sets him apart is that he bases his work in science more than what is traditionally called "philosophy". He's more like a massage therapist than a yoga instructor.

knightoffaith 2y ago
I mean, there are plenty of people who read philosophy and enjoy it but don't publish papers in philosophy conferences or journals, discuss topics with academic philosophers, etc. Reading a work of philosophy without writing a work of philosophy is something that a lot of people do and enjoy.
- lisper 2y ago
  I'd be really surprised if there are a lot of people who read philosophy journals (as opposed to pop philosophy) for fun.
  - knightoffaith 2y ago
    I'm sure there are some people who do. But books for popular audiences like Consciousness Explained are taken seriously by philosophers too. I don't see why there's any relevant difference between philosophy and music here.
    - lisper 2y ago
      Like I keep saying, Dennett is the exception, not the rule.
      - knightoffaith 2y ago
        Fine, I'll just pick some random books: Feyerabend's Against Method, Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Nietzsche's The Antichrist, Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, Descartes's Meditations, Spinoza's Ethics, Plato's dialogues, I could go on and on. Maybe you don't like all of these, but there are plenty of people who read these for fun, and all of them are taken seriously by philosophers.
        lisper 2y ago
        > there are plenty of people who read these for fun I really doubt that. I think you'd find it quite challenging to find people who have read these books who do not also enjoy engaging in philosophical debates. But given the effort it would take to test this I think we should just agree to disagree.
        knightoffaith 2y ago
        >who do not also enjoy engaging in philosophical debates. Philosophical debates as in talking with other random people about philosophy? Sure, I'm sure most people who have read these books enjoy that. But that's not doing philosophy---such conversations are usually going to be riddled with errors and just not up to par for academic philosophical discussion. I think we've gone so far down the rabbit hole about why the discipline of philosophy isn't justified that I've nearly forgotten why this current discussion is that relevant. Plenty of people enjoy philosophy, and it's something that humans have been discussing in a rigorous way for thousands of years. Somehow this isn't good enough? I really just don't see why music somehow meets the bar as being enjoyable enough for enough people, but philosophy doesn't. You don't have to be a musician to enjoy musician, and you don't have to be a philosopher to enjoy philosophy. "Oh, well, the people who do enjoy philosophy probably enjoy philosophical debates, so they're basically philosophers!" I mean, isn't this like me saying, "The people who enjoy music probably enjoy humming or singing tunes, so they're basically musicians!" The distinction seems to be getting continually more and more contrived.