5 ms·

It doesn’t help that a lot of philosophy is actually bullshit.

by lisper 2mo ago

demilicious 2mo ago
mind defending that? I suspect that opinion would only come from one who took philosophy 101 and stopped there. If all you took was philosophy 101, this sounds a lot more reasonable and runs right into the point made by the pos you just responded to
- lisper 2mo ago
  How would you expect me to defend it? It's my opinion. I could give you a long list of things in philosophy that I consider BS, but what good would that do? Do you really doubt that I could provide such a list? The most likely outcome of that exercise would be for you to invoke the no-true-scotsman fallacy and say, "Oh, of course those things are bullshit, but that's not real philosophy." And the fact that I can make that prediction with confidence is my defense. If you really want my list, since this is HN, I'll start with Ayn Rand and the Austrian school. You can read this if you like: https://blog.rongarret.info/2013/03/murray-rothbard-was-idiot.html https://blog.rongarret.info/2013/03/murray-rothbard-was-idio... Oh, and since this is HN, I'll also invoke an argument from authority and cite: https://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html https://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html
  - KPGv2 2mo ago
    I think it's ironically telling about your opinion on philosophy that your argument is illogical and boils down to: 1. people who aren't philosophers said some bullshit 2. don't you dare point out people who don't do philosophy shouldn't have their ramblings labeled philosophy Ayn Rand, a 20th century writer without a university education; Paul Graham, a computer scientist; and the Austrian School, an economics movement, are categorically not entities that have produced or ever will produce philosophy. That's no a No True Scotsman fallacy. It is a strict application of the definition of philosophy, a deep analysis of certain specific topics. Neither Rand nor Graham is educationally equipped to plumb that depth. And, again, the other name you dropped is not even a philosophical school.
    - defrost 2mo ago
      > Neither Rand nor Graham is educationally equipped to plumb that depth In his defence, Graham does hold a BA (Philosophy) from Cornell University in 1986. Is your distaste here due to BA degrees rather than PhDs, a dislike of Cornell, or that Graham didn't chase academic philosophy and join a philosophy department?
      - deleted 2mo ago
        [deleted]
    - lisper 2mo ago
      > people who aren't philosophers said some bullshit Wow, I didn't expect to be vindicated quite so definitively when I predicted: "The most likely outcome of that exercise would be for you to invoke the no-true-scotsman fallacy." > That's no a No True Scotsman fallacy. It absolutely is: > the definition of philosophy, a deep analysis of certain specific topics. I see nothing in that definition about writing in a particular time period or having a university degree, which are the two features you cited that allegedly disqualify Ayn Rand. I also see an awful lot of wiggle-room in the "specific topics" and how one measures whether one's analysis is sufficiently "deep". You exclude economics and computer science from your list of "certain topics" but you don't say what topics are allowed or on what basis this assessment of admissibility is to be made. Your argument is a paragon of muddled thinking, and does more to support my position than refute it.
      - KPGv2 2mo ago
        > You exclude economics and computer science from your list of "certain topics" but you don't say what topics are allowed or on what basis this assessment of admissibility is to be made Oh, so you're not at all engaging in good faith. Thanks for wasting my time. It breaks credulity when you try to argue that economics is a field of philosophy in some attempt to demonstrate I'm engaging in a NTS fallacy.
        lisper 2mo ago
  - tremon 2mo ago
    > a lot of philosophy is actually bullshit > How would you expect me to defend it? It's my opinion One of the first useful things that philosophy teaches you is how to construct a well-rounded argument in support of any position. Following up "philosophy is useless" with "I don't know how to argue my own opinion" demonstrates quite a lack of awareness.
    - lisper 2mo ago
      Apparently they don't teach you about straw-man arguments. I didn't say philosophy was useless, I said a lot of philosophy is bullshit. That is not the same thing. A lot of physics nowadays is bullshit (like string theory) but that is not to say that physics is useless.
  - peterashford 2mo ago
    Ayn Rand and the Austrian school aren't philosophers
    - lisper 2mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand "Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum;[c] February 2 [O.S. January 20], 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (/aɪn/ ⓘ), was a Russian and American writer and philosopher.[3] She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which she named Objectivism."
      - peterashford 2mo ago
        She's a philosopher in the same way that Erich von Daniken is a scientist
        lisper 2mo ago
        And so, as I predicted, we come full-circle back to the no-true-scotsman fallacy.
epgui 2mo ago
Well “a lot” in volume sure, but that feels unnecessarily (maybe ignorantly) dismissive of the core corpus of the field. Find me any field in which there isn’t “a lot” of BS.
- 6510 2mo ago
  If it is known that a lot of the marbles are pink there would have to be other colors. That means there is something to it!
  - Lerc 2mo ago
    I'm not sure if providing a counterargument to a point not being made is a good way to argue against a field that trains people to notice when you do that.
    - 6510 2mo ago
      The one who dies with the most tools wins.
- lisper 2mo ago
  There's a lot of BS in most fields. The problem with philosophy is that it has no criterion for separating the wheat from the chaff. All other fields have some kind of external forcing function. In science, its experimental data. In the arts, it's the ability to produce novelty or exhibit skill or attract an audience. In philosophy there is no external forcing function. The only thing that makes a great philosopher is other philosophers saying they are great philosophers. There are definitely some non-BS philosophers, like Dan Dennett and Tim Maudlin. But really they are more like scientists than philosophers. In Maudlin's case, he's really a physicist, he just happens to work in a philosophy department.
  - KPGv2 2mo ago
    > it has no criterion for separating the wheat from the chaff This comment does nothing but make you look ignorant.
fasterik 2mo ago
It really depends on what you mean by philosophy. Academic philosophy? Ancient philosophy? Pop philosophy? Self-help content? For a list of topics that aren't bullshit, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a good starting point. https://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html https://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html
- lisper 2mo ago
  Well, yeah, obviously. I didn't say that all philosophy is BS, only that a lot of it is, including a lot of what is included in SEP. But as a source for making the field accessible, SEP is excellent.
  - fasterik 2mo ago
    It's not obvious at all from your comment, since you didn't qualify "a lot" or mention which topics in philosophy you think are legitimate.
    - lisper 2mo ago
      > you didn't qualify "a lot" Why do you think I needed to? The phrase "a lot" has an established meaning in the English language. > or mention which topics in philosophy you think are legitimate That's true. I was writing an HN comment, not a review paper for submission to a peer-review journal. But it doesn't take a lot of imagination to notice that my comment was made in the context of a discussion of an article entitled "Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy" and to infer from that I was referring to philosophical topics popular among silicon valley tech bros. The specific topics I had in mind are mainly political and economic theories, which not everyone considers philosophy. But I'll point as an undeniable example the work of Curtis Yarvin a.k.a. Mencius Moldbug who, rather incredibly, attracts a huge audience by advocating for the divine right of kings, among other absurdities.
      - fasterik 2mo ago
        When I read "a lot of philosophy is bullshit" without qualification I read it as an anti-intellectual statement either dismissing academic philosophy as a discipline, or confusing philosophy for self-help/mysticism. In some sense, I guess Curtis Yarvin could be considered (very bad) political philosophy, but he's so far removed from serious philosophy that he wouldn't have crossed my mind.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
blitzar 2mo ago
That's a super philosophy lisper

It doesn’t help that a lot of philosophy is actually bullshit.

by lisper 2mo ago

It doesn’t help that a lot of philosophy is actually bullshit.

mind defending that? I suspect that opinion would only come from one who took philosophy 101 and stopped there. If all you took was philosophy 101, this sounds a lot more reasonable and runs right into the point made by the pos you just responded to

lisper 2mo ago
How would you expect me to defend it? It's my opinion. I could give you a long list of things in philosophy that I consider BS, but what good would that do? Do you really doubt that I could provide such a list? The most likely outcome of that exercise would be for you to invoke the no-true-scotsman fallacy and say, "Oh, of course those things are bullshit, but that's not real philosophy." And the fact that I can make that prediction with confidence is my defense. If you really want my list, since this is HN, I'll start with Ayn Rand and the Austrian school. You can read this if you like: https://blog.rongarret.info/2013/03/murray-rothbard-was-idiot.html https://blog.rongarret.info/2013/03/murray-rothbard-was-idio... Oh, and since this is HN, I'll also invoke an argument from authority and cite: https://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html https://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html
- KPGv2 2mo ago
  I think it's ironically telling about your opinion on philosophy that your argument is illogical and boils down to: 1. people who aren't philosophers said some bullshit 2. don't you dare point out people who don't do philosophy shouldn't have their ramblings labeled philosophy Ayn Rand, a 20th century writer without a university education; Paul Graham, a computer scientist; and the Austrian School, an economics movement, are categorically not entities that have produced or ever will produce philosophy. That's no a No True Scotsman fallacy. It is a strict application of the definition of philosophy, a deep analysis of certain specific topics. Neither Rand nor Graham is educationally equipped to plumb that depth. And, again, the other name you dropped is not even a philosophical school.
  - defrost 2mo ago
    > Neither Rand nor Graham is educationally equipped to plumb that depth In his defence, Graham does hold a BA (Philosophy) from Cornell University in 1986. Is your distaste here due to BA degrees rather than PhDs, a dislike of Cornell, or that Graham didn't chase academic philosophy and join a philosophy department?
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
  - lisper 2mo ago
    > people who aren't philosophers said some bullshit Wow, I didn't expect to be vindicated quite so definitively when I predicted: "The most likely outcome of that exercise would be for you to invoke the no-true-scotsman fallacy." > That's no a No True Scotsman fallacy. It absolutely is: > the definition of philosophy, a deep analysis of certain specific topics. I see nothing in that definition about writing in a particular time period or having a university degree, which are the two features you cited that allegedly disqualify Ayn Rand. I also see an awful lot of wiggle-room in the "specific topics" and how one measures whether one's analysis is sufficiently "deep". You exclude economics and computer science from your list of "certain topics" but you don't say what topics are allowed or on what basis this assessment of admissibility is to be made. Your argument is a paragon of muddled thinking, and does more to support my position than refute it.
    - KPGv2 2mo ago
      > You exclude economics and computer science from your list of "certain topics" but you don't say what topics are allowed or on what basis this assessment of admissibility is to be made Oh, so you're not at all engaging in good faith. Thanks for wasting my time. It breaks credulity when you try to argue that economics is a field of philosophy in some attempt to demonstrate I'm engaging in a NTS fallacy.
      - lisper 2mo ago
- tremon 2mo ago
  > a lot of philosophy is actually bullshit > How would you expect me to defend it? It's my opinion One of the first useful things that philosophy teaches you is how to construct a well-rounded argument in support of any position. Following up "philosophy is useless" with "I don't know how to argue my own opinion" demonstrates quite a lack of awareness.
  - lisper 2mo ago
    Apparently they don't teach you about straw-man arguments. I didn't say philosophy was useless, I said a lot of philosophy is bullshit. That is not the same thing. A lot of physics nowadays is bullshit (like string theory) but that is not to say that physics is useless.
- peterashford 2mo ago
  Ayn Rand and the Austrian school aren't philosophers
  - lisper 2mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand "Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum;[c] February 2 [O.S. January 20], 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (/aɪn/ ⓘ), was a Russian and American writer and philosopher.[3] She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which she named Objectivism."
    - peterashford 2mo ago
      She's a philosopher in the same way that Erich von Daniken is a scientist
      - lisper 2mo ago
        And so, as I predicted, we come full-circle back to the no-true-scotsman fallacy.

epgui 2mo ago

Well “a lot” in volume sure, but that feels unnecessarily (maybe ignorantly) dismissive of the core corpus of the field. Find me any field in which there isn’t “a lot” of BS.

6510 2mo ago
If it is known that a lot of the marbles are pink there would have to be other colors. That means there is something to it!
- Lerc 2mo ago
  I'm not sure if providing a counterargument to a point not being made is a good way to argue against a field that trains people to notice when you do that.
  - 6510 2mo ago
    The one who dies with the most tools wins.
lisper 2mo ago
There's a lot of BS in most fields. The problem with philosophy is that it has no criterion for separating the wheat from the chaff. All other fields have some kind of external forcing function. In science, its experimental data. In the arts, it's the ability to produce novelty or exhibit skill or attract an audience. In philosophy there is no external forcing function. The only thing that makes a great philosopher is other philosophers saying they are great philosophers. There are definitely some non-BS philosophers, like Dan Dennett and Tim Maudlin. But really they are more like scientists than philosophers. In Maudlin's case, he's really a physicist, he just happens to work in a philosophy department.
- KPGv2 2mo ago
  > it has no criterion for separating the wheat from the chaff This comment does nothing but make you look ignorant.

fasterik 2mo ago

It really depends on what you mean by philosophy. Academic philosophy? Ancient philosophy? Pop philosophy? Self-help content? For a list of topics that aren't bullshit, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a good starting point. https://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html https://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html

lisper 2mo ago
Well, yeah, obviously. I didn't say that all philosophy is BS, only that a lot of it is, including a lot of what is included in SEP. But as a source for making the field accessible, SEP is excellent.
- fasterik 2mo ago
  It's not obvious at all from your comment, since you didn't qualify "a lot" or mention which topics in philosophy you think are legitimate.
  - lisper 2mo ago
    > you didn't qualify "a lot" Why do you think I needed to? The phrase "a lot" has an established meaning in the English language. > or mention which topics in philosophy you think are legitimate That's true. I was writing an HN comment, not a review paper for submission to a peer-review journal. But it doesn't take a lot of imagination to notice that my comment was made in the context of a discussion of an article entitled "Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy" and to infer from that I was referring to philosophical topics popular among silicon valley tech bros. The specific topics I had in mind are mainly political and economic theories, which not everyone considers philosophy. But I'll point as an undeniable example the work of Curtis Yarvin a.k.a. Mencius Moldbug who, rather incredibly, attracts a huge audience by advocating for the divine right of kings, among other absurdities.
    - fasterik 2mo ago
      When I read "a lot of philosophy is bullshit" without qualification I read it as an anti-intellectual statement either dismissing academic philosophy as a discipline, or confusing philosophy for self-help/mysticism. In some sense, I guess Curtis Yarvin could be considered (very bad) political philosophy, but he's so far removed from serious philosophy that he wouldn't have crossed my mind.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

blitzar 2mo ago

That's a super philosophy lisper