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So, I should probably point out that pg went to Harvard specifically to study Philosophy. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy in 1990. Therefore your critique th
by sillysaurus2 13y ago
So, I should probably point out that pg went to Harvard specifically to study Philosophy. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy in 1990. Therefore your critique that he should have a degree before writing about philosophy is interesting.
All of those people are academics par execellance. I'm not talking about business-ified institutional academica. I'm talking about spending a long time on a topic, researching it and thinking deeply, clearly on it before you offer your opinion as though it were valuable.
pg spent weeks on each of his early essays. He spent a solid month writing What You Can't Say. He spent at least a couple days writing this one. They aren't opinion pieces.
- umanwizard 13y agoDo you honestly not know what a Ph.D is, or are you just making a flabbergastingly disingenuous argument? He has a doctorate in CS, not philosophy, despite the ceremonial Latin name of the degree.
- chris_wot 13y agoHe seems to have made a mistake. pg has BA in philosophy.
- coldtea 13y agoInstead of going on about a "flabbergastingly disingenuous argument" and blaming it on him not understanding that a Ph.D is not a philosophy degree (seriously? you think he doesn't know that?), it would have been much more productive, and correct, to assume he made the simple mistake of thinking pg has a Ph.D in philosophy, where in fact he has a B.A.
- jacalata 13y agoYes, I think he doesn't know that, and the way the comment was written seems to make that the obvious reading. What makes you so certain he does?
- chris_wot 13y agoI would consider this to be the definitive comment that puts to bed the argument being pushed.
- throwawaykf03 13y ago> pg spent weeks on each of his early essays. He spent a solid month writing What You Can't Say. He spent at least a couple days writing this one. Stephenie Meyer spent years writing the Twilight books. Time spent on a work is in no way indicative on the quality of that work.
- Crito 13y agoHow are we measuring "quality"? Reaction from literary critics? Reaction from the target audience? Financial success? It seems to me that by two of those standards Stephenie Meyer knocked the ball out of the park. It is not clear to me why we should care about the other standard of quality.
- mjburgess 13y ago> It is not clear to me why we should care about the other standard of quality. Yeah, I think this is a fairly good characterization of pg's audience.
- throwawaykf03 13y agoAnalogously, pg's essays being very popular with a number of people in no way translates to other standards of quality :-) They may resonate with people, but without solid grounding in reality, they may be no better than "pop philosophy". Personally, I agree with some of his essays, but on some others he's way off the mark. For instance, his writings on anything Hollywood or copyright-related betray a fundamental misunderstanding of what artists sell. Yet those essays were extremely popular simply because they confirmed people's biases (hence "pop philosophy"). However, if you check the so-called "blogosphere", you can find many others who have posted well-reasoned criticisms of those (and other) essays.
- Crito 13y agoYou won't have an argument from me there. I don't count myself among the PG fans.