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I usually like PG's essays, but this one is nowhere near as good as his essays usually are. His argument has more holes in it than aerogel. > Most philosophica

by kijin 14y ago

I usually like PG's essays, but this one is nowhere near as good as his essays usually are. His argument has more holes in it than aerogel. > Most philosophical debates are not merely afflicted by but driven by confusions over words. Do we have free will? Depends what you mean by "free." Do abstract ideas exist? Depends what you mean by "exist." Isn't that exactly why (analytic) philosophers make a great deal of effort to clarify the sense in which they're using a word? Philosophy professors often tell students not to quote dictionaries in their essays, because typical definitions of English words are nearly useless when it comes to modern philosophy. Yes, ancient philosophers got confused by words. But people do learn from their predecessors' mistakes! Read any good paper from the last century that deals with free will, and it won't take long before you come across words like "P-free", "Q-free", "T-free", etc., each with its own precise definition. Nobody cares whether we have "free will" in a fuzzy sense. What actually matters is whether we have "ABC-free DEF-will", where "ABC-free" and "DEF-will" each have very precise definitions. Has America become a communist country? Depends on what you mean by "communist". But this doesn't mean that there aren't any interesting questions to be asked about shifts in America's ideological makeup. > Instead of trying to answer the question: What are the most general truths? let's try to answer the question: Of all the useful things we can say, which are the most general? The test of utility I propose is whether we cause people who read what we've written to do anything differently afterward. I'm afraid a lot of people who are attracted to philosophy actually want very much to tackle the first question, and find the second question rather uninteresting. If you're someone who is deeply attracted to the P=NP problem and similar topics, would you find it satisfactory to spend your life creating the next Instagram instead? Seriously, I want to know whether there exist any general truths. Using a suitably precise definition of "exist", "general" and "truth", of course. I don't give a damn whether those truths (if they exist) have any impact on human life, although I don't deny that it would be neat if they did. Given what's being proposed here, the title of the article should be "What to do instead of philosophy", or at best "How to do this special kind of philosophy", not "How to do philosophy (in general)". The same applies to the lesswrong crowd. I don't have anything against what they're trying to achieve, but let's call a spade a spade. Failure to do so only exacerbates the confusion-of-words problem that PG rightly points out. > Knowing we have to give definite (if implicit) advice will keep us from straying beyond the resolution of the words we're using. If the resolution of English words is not enough, why not try to increase the resolution? Why give up already? Steve Jobs gave us the Retina Display while everyone else was playing with anti-aliasing. The pseudo-words I mentioned above are one way to do to human languages what Steve Jobs did to mainstream computer displays. (Okay, I'm oversimplifying. The history of high-res screens is much more complicated. But anyway.) Also, we already use words like "#fdfdfd" and "#fcfcfc" to increase the resolution of words like "white". Disclaimer: I have a Ph.D. in philosophy, so I'm probably biased. Edit: Increased precision in some of the sentences.

Confusion 14y ago
Disclaimer: I have a Ph.D. in philosophy, so I'm probably biased. You're not biased: you know WTF you are talking about. Whereas pg doesn't. He's fallen into the same trap that many very smart people fall into: thinking they understand philosophy, just because they're capable of deeply thinking about a problem. They fail to understand that that isn't enough: you need to very thoroughly study and understand what others have had to say on a subject, because nobody is smart enough to think of all angles and relevant points on his own. You see this a lot with theoretical physicists, who ramble on about philosophical consequences of theories without a clue of the actual complexity of the subject.
- mattmanser 14y ago
  pg did Philosophy you plonker.
  - Confusion 14y ago
    No, he didn't. He 'majored in philosophy for most of college'. That means that he was merely ready to start doing philosophy, like earning a black belt is generally taken to mean that you are finally ready to actually start studying your art. Pg's conclusion is much like concluding some defensive art doesn't work, right after earning your black belt, because you realize you would probably still lose from an attacker with a knife. You're not yet capable of handling such a formidable challenge, unless you are lucky. Additional practice is needed to confidently handle armed opponents. These theoretical physicists have all read works on philosophy. The problem is not lack of basic knowledge: it's lack of deep knowledge about the specific issue.
    - mattmanser 14y ago
      Start doing? This sounds very much like a religious argument. 'Have faith my son, one day you will understand'. If you want to keep moving the goal posts, go ahead. Perhaps you feel only Doctors are qualified to talk about philosophy. pg actually attacks this very point in the article: Wittgenstein is popularly credited with the idea that most philosophical controversies are due to confusions over language. I'm not sure how much credit to give him. I suspect a lot of people realized this, but reacted simply by not studying philosophy, rather than becoming philosophy professors. The whole point is that by the end of a Philosophy degree the smart ones have realized its a bust, a dead end. I am sorry if you are a professional philosopher/teacher, but one day you will realize you've wasted your professional career. The whole point about Philosophy is that there is no deep knowledge. You can't think deeply because you keep getting caught by semantics.

by kijin 14y ago

Confusion 14y ago

Disclaimer: I have a Ph.D. in philosophy, so I'm probably biased. You're not biased: you know WTF you are talking about. Whereas pg doesn't. He's fallen into the same trap that many very smart people fall into: thinking they understand philosophy, just because they're capable of deeply thinking about a problem. They fail to understand that that isn't enough: you need to very thoroughly study and understand what others have had to say on a subject, because nobody is smart enough to think of all angles and relevant points on his own. You see this a lot with theoretical physicists, who ramble on about philosophical consequences of theories without a clue of the actual complexity of the subject.

mattmanser 14y ago
pg did Philosophy you plonker.
- Confusion 14y ago
  No, he didn't. He 'majored in philosophy for most of college'. That means that he was merely ready to start doing philosophy, like earning a black belt is generally taken to mean that you are finally ready to actually start studying your art. Pg's conclusion is much like concluding some defensive art doesn't work, right after earning your black belt, because you realize you would probably still lose from an attacker with a knife. You're not yet capable of handling such a formidable challenge, unless you are lucky. Additional practice is needed to confidently handle armed opponents. These theoretical physicists have all read works on philosophy. The problem is not lack of basic knowledge: it's lack of deep knowledge about the specific issue.
  - mattmanser 14y ago
    Start doing? This sounds very much like a religious argument. 'Have faith my son, one day you will understand'. If you want to keep moving the goal posts, go ahead. Perhaps you feel only Doctors are qualified to talk about philosophy. pg actually attacks this very point in the article: Wittgenstein is popularly credited with the idea that most philosophical controversies are due to confusions over language. I'm not sure how much credit to give him. I suspect a lot of people realized this, but reacted simply by not studying philosophy, rather than becoming philosophy professors. The whole point is that by the end of a Philosophy degree the smart ones have realized its a bust, a dead end. I am sorry if you are a professional philosopher/teacher, but one day you will realize you've wasted your professional career. The whole point about Philosophy is that there is no deep knowledge. You can't think deeply because you keep getting caught by semantics.