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I think the author is implicitly talking about academic philosophy papers. Regarding point 8, the "bottom line" rule (http://lesswrong.com/lw/js/the_bottom_lin
by scott_s 14y ago
I think the author is implicitly talking about academic philosophy papers.
Regarding point 8, the "bottom line" rule (http://lesswrong.com/lw/js/the_bottom_line/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/js/the_bottom_line/) is about process, not actual placement of the bottom line. It is about asking how the conclusion and evidence came about: is the conclusion derived from the evidence, or was the conclusion stated, and the evidence filled in afterwards to support it?
Sure, I will state my conclusions in the abstract of my (computer science, mostly systems) papers. But I arrived at those conclusions after designing and experimenting with the artifact I'm presenting in the paper. That my conclusion comes first in the paper is not what matters.
I assume the author does not mean to apply point 8 to engineering and scientific papers. But I want to point this out since he didn't say so.
- voyou 14y agoBut many of the author's points don't apply to philosophy papers, either - when philosophers are deciding what to write they don't start with their conclusion any more than scientists and engineers do. Likewise, the author's claim not to have been convinced by a philosophical paper seems odd to me, and suggests he doesn't have much familiarity with philosophy. If anything, I think there are more influential papers than books in philosophy, particularly of the analytic sort; think of Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism," Gettier's "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge," or Putnam's "The Meaning of Meaning," for instance, all of which are more influential than any of the books written by these authors.