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Why Paul Graham is sort of wrong about philosophy

56 points by kmdupree 12y ago

pmoriarty 12y ago
pg's essay about philosophy is simply embarrassing. He should just stick to essays about startups and lisp instead of pontificating on something he clearly has very little understanding of.
- WestCoastJustin 12y ago
  Since you seem to be relatively new to HN (based off when your account was created), when commenting, it is common practice to give examples/links/proof, ie. in this case; why his essay is embarrassing. The reason, is that this could lead to an insightful discussion, and offer paths to improvement. If you give evidence then you will likely not get downvoted even for saying something controversial [1]. After looking through your comment history, this style of commenting seems to ring true, in that when you provide links and proof, you have an improved comment score. [1] Although, you are talking about PG (who is the founder of this forum), so you might get downvoted just for the hell of it ;)
  - coffeecodecouch 12y ago
    > Although, you are talking about PG (who is the founder of this forum), so you might get downvoted just for the hell of it ;) I'd like to add that while this may be true, it's not a good thing. Any act of silencing someone in an act of fanboy revenge is an embarrassment to this forum. It's a shame the downvote threshold doesn't rid of this type of behavior, and I doubt raising it would help. I'm tired of seeing grayed out controversial opinions.
    - larrys 12y ago
      Well though there were for sure "fighting words" in this comment. And with anyone who is admired such as PG you would typically try to be very careful (almost diplomatic) in how and what you said. Statement was: "He should just stick to essays about startups and lisp instead of pontificating on something he clearly has very little understanding of." or, suggested re-write (for someone who feels this way): "PG's essays about startups and lisp are great|good|wonderful however in my opinion, and based on my particular experience, I can't tell that he has any particular expertise in Philosophy".
  - larrys 12y ago
    Good points but I think the entire post is just link or karma porn anyway. While I agree that forks like this post sometimes make interesting discussions (and here I am discussing it) I'm not sure what the exact authority is of the OP (per the about page) "I’m a wannabe philosophy professor turned wannabe tech entrepreneur" is anyway, so that if I don't know much about philosophy to begin with why should I even pollute my brain by reading it. Not to mention that I don't know to what degree I can even trust the comments here about this subject at all. Ironically, that said, separately, and since a theme of the post is "words" [1] interesting how it has been concluded that "seem to be relatively new to HN" when as evidence all you have is the fact that the account was created 22 days ago and a review of the previous comments. [1] I just changed what I said from "you have concluded" to "how it has been concluded" so as not to appear to be attacking you. Once again, ironically.
    - WestCoastJustin 12y ago
      Updated my comment, based off your feedback, to state I am using the account creation date as a data point ;) This post and comments about philosophy are so subjective that I doubt anything useful is going to come of it. Likely the only reason it was posted here, is that it's about PG. I just thought I'd give some advice about commenting style.
scotty79 12y ago
Philosophy is what you do when you don't have data. The other thing to do would be to get data, but who would bother. Especially before lunch.
- rfrey 12y ago
  How do you collect data about what constitutes a good life? - Study people who are leading a good life? Circular: how do you identify them? - Ask people if they are leading a good life? Begs the question, since to decide they must have already answered it. Do you believe the answer is unimportant? Self-evident? Relative to time and place? Naturally dictated and discoverable by reason? Primarily decided by social structure? Primarily determined by the individual? All of those positions have been held by and forcefully defended, and all of them have also been forcefully attacked. By people studying philosophy, because that is at root what philosophy is. It's a vital question because we can't measure the effectiveness of public policy or personal decisions without some notion of "good" to apply as a scale.
  - agildehaus 12y ago
    Has contemporary philosophy come up with an answer to "what constitutes a good life?" or made measurable progress on this answer? Under what measure is it progress? Just coming up with arguments without answers is nothing more than "structured pondering". It'd only seem useful to increasingly meta topics where data can't be found.
    - memla 12y ago
      Well, holding fallacious beliefs prevents you from arriving at the correct answer. Since philosophers have refuted many fallacious arguments concerning that question they have, therefore, made some measurable progress.
      - scotty79 12y ago
        You can't refute an argument without data. If it was precisely defined you could disprove it without data but that's math not philosophy.
mattmanser 12y ago
I'm not sure he knows anything about philosophy, ethics and epistemology are both ridden with word arguments. Ethics - Are people really altruistic if they gain pleasure from it? What does altruism mean? Epistemology - what does know mean? (Yes, he's completely wrong, a whole chunk of epistomolgy is about the meaning of what is a justified true belief) I didn't read any more. No idea who he is, but he doesn't seem to have studied first year philosophy.
- johnchristopher 12y ago
  Let me goo... follow that about link on his website for you: Formation de K. Matthew Dupree Tufts University Master's degree, Philosophy 2012 – 2013 University of Central Florida Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Philosophy and Religious Studies 2007 – 2011 University of Central Florida Minor, Mathematics 2007 – 2011
  - jasode 12y ago
    If those are his credentials, I would have preferred he debate Wittgenstein instead of PG. In the article, he could have simply acknowledged PG's essay for re-igniting his critique of Wittgenstein. And, as a bonus, a blog title of "Why Wittgenstein is sort of wrong about philosophy" might have attracted more hits.
  - deleted 12y ago
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- larrys 12y ago
  "Ethics - Are people really altruistic if they gain pleasure" To me this is a matter of degree and not absolute. So it's not "if gain pleasure (or benefit) then not altruistic" and black and white but rather that someone can be altruistic and gain pleasure at the same time depending on what they are gaining and losing specifically. So a billionaire giving $100,000 for a good cause might seem to be less altruistic than a person with $200,000 net worth giving $100,000 of it for a good cause. (Fwiw I've never taken a philosophy course so this is just my personal common sense opinion..)
csallen 12y ago
>> Suppose I’m wondering whether it is it right for me demand extra equity because I’m the guy who came up with the idea for our startup. This is not a question about the meaning of my words. If someone responded to my wonderings by saying, “It depends what you mean by the word, ‘right’,” we’d probably think they have missed something. I haven't studied philosophy, so I may be naive here, but does this question NOT depend on the definition of "right"? In a practical discussion, maybe both parties would agree that "right" in this case means "fair, in accordance with my contributions to this startup". But in a philosophical debate, "right" would be quite ambiguous. One party, for example, could posit that the ideas of "right" and "wrong" are completely subjective. That, in the absence of some stated goal or constraints, what's "right" or "wrong", "good" or "evil" is no more valid a topic of debate than whether chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla. However, once you introduce said constraints, the discussion is no longer philosophically interesting.
- pdonis 12y ago
  > does this question NOT depend on the definition of "right"? I think it does; this is another example of what I pointed out in my post upthread, the author assuming that, because he knows what he means when he uses a word, everyone else must assign it the same meaning.
- nardi 12y ago
  In the context of ethics, "right" and "wrong" as judgement calls on the "goodness" or "badness" of a choice are basically given. Depending on your ethical standpoint, there are different things in the "right" set and the "wrong" set, but all ethical viewpoints (such as utilitarianism or hedonism) have a "right" set and a "wrong" set. (The sole exception being moral nihilism.)
  - vdaniuk 12y ago
    Not really. When one thinks about ethics, one should take into account the existence of teleological ethics or consequentialism where "right" and "wrong" depends on the outcomes of the action. As far as a person isn't aware of the outcomes of the action, he or she can't really judge if the action was "right" or "wrong". Also due to the butterfly effects,in most cases a person is theoretically unable to produce objective judgement, thus leaving the judgement of the action in the "undefined" state.
jonsen 12y ago
Another computer scientist's take on philosophy: http://www.naur.com/Antiphil.html http://www.naur.com/Antiphil.html
jasode 12y ago
PG was not the only one highlighting "confusion over words". The more notable philosopher Wittgenstein also expressed this idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations#Private_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations#Pr... The TFA proposes that 2 other branches of philosophy 1) ethics and 2) epistemology have not been affected by "confusion over words". I think Wittgenstein would say that must be false because those 2 subject areas also are discussed using the mechanism of words. You can't escape "words" because philosophy (any branch) can't be discussed any other way. I believe the TFA is arguing incorrectly because he thinks PG's criticism of philosophy is about "word confusion" when the higher meta-issue is that the "words" themselves handicaps all of philosophy.
- kristofferR 12y ago
  PG mentions that in his blog post: "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."
  - jasode 12y ago
    Ah yes, I see that now. I didn't notice that the TFA had a direct link to PG's essay. Since the author (K. Matthew Dupree) could see Wittgenstein was cited, I'm wondering why he didn't address what the notable philosopher already said.
pdonis 12y ago
I don't think the author's case for philosophy not being driven by confusion over words holds up. His argument is basically that he knows what he means when he uses a word, so how can there be confusion? For example: 'When I ask, "How do I know I’m not in the matrix?," I'm asking, "Why should I believe that I’m not in the matrix?"' Ok, fine, but is that what everybody who uses the word "know" means by it? And shifting to the word "believe", as the author does here, doesn't help; there's just as much argument over what "believe" means, or should mean, as over what "know" means, or should mean. In some cases he doesn't even explicitly give his preferred meaning, but just assumes that we all know what it is: 'Whether someone was "free to act" is something that we consider often in legal settings, and I think it’s right for us to ask this question before we lock someone up.' Which may well be true, but it still leaves open the question of what, exactly, we are asking when we ask if someone was "free to act". What do we need to take into account in order to decide the legal case one way or the other? And is the legal question the same question as all the other questions that are pointed at when we use the term "free will"? The author seems to assume that we all agree on all these things, but the philosophical literature makes clear that we don't. In fact, as this example illustrates, the author mis-states Graham's point about confusion over words. He says: 'To say that a question can be answered by saying, "Depends on what you mean by X" is far from proving that the question is motivated by a confusion over words.' But Graham didn't claim that we could answer all philosophical questions by just defining what we mean by X (and he certainly didn't claim that we could answer them just by saying "Depends on what you mean by X"). He only claimed that the questions aren't well-defined unless we specify what we mean by X. What looks like one question could end up being three or four (or seven or eight) depending on which definition we choose for X; so unless and until we pin down the question more precisely, we end up talking past each other instead of actually accomplishing anything. I tend to agree with Graham that much of philosophy suffers from exactly this disease. Finally, I would like to see some evidence for this claim of the author's: 'Graham seems to be saying that if a philosophy professor can’t distinguish a “real” philosophy paper from a fake, placebo paper that is purposely filled with nonsense, then the real paper is meaningless. If this is Graham’s proposal, I think that many philosophy professors could pass this test for many philosophical texts. There are definitely some charlatans posing as philosophers out there, but that doesn’t mean that all or most of philosophy is B.S.
carsongross 12y ago
Wittgenstein was certainly interesting, but he thought Godel was wrong, precisely because Godel showed something interesting about logic itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems#Wittgenstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_the... Paul is obviously right in criticizing the gaseous generalizations, nonsensical pretentiousness and word games that much of the western (particularly, the german) philosophical tradition fell into after the reformation. But I also agree with the philosphical hacker that he is overstating the case that word-confusion is the primary cause of conflict in philosophical disagreement, and I think Godel showed why this is compatible with an apparently deterministic and logical universe. As near as my uneducated mind can tell, Godel is the most important philosopher since Aristotle: he proved something practical, dramatic and unintuitive about the world, using only words. In as much as I understand it, it makes me laugh hysterically.
- Balgair 12y ago
  "We can do philosophy better if we filter out thoughts that don’t meet a usefulness criterion." Yep, as soon as I read that, I knew someone on HN would point to Godel somewhere in the comments. I'll agree with you as well on Godel and his importance. His theorem is easily one of the most important things to come out of the 20th century. I'd go: penicillin, atomic bomb, better farming tech and chemistry, Godel. I've not got the chops for the actual proof, but the many 'for the layman's' books Ive read on it just point out how incredibly important it is. From AI research to Turing's tape to the nature of reality itself, the proof is just astounding. To put him up on Aristotle's level is obvious even to a math layman like me. Likely because of the difficulty of the proof, it is not very well known, and that is a shame. I'd love a torn-down proof easy enough for a high schooler to understand. The best I've found is: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/453503/can-someone-explain-godels-incompleteness-theorems-in-layman-terms https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/453503/can-someone-...
  - peterashford 12y ago
    I have very often seen people criticise Philosophy from a point of ignorance and then follow up by espousing their own very bad philosophy. It's kinda like criticising a Mathematical proof without understanding Math. You can do it, but you're highly likely to be off the mark. It's not that Philosophy doesn't have areas worthy of criticism. I personally believe that the best reason to study metaphysics is to learn why metaphysics is useless. Ironically, understanding why it's useless is actually quite useful :o)
bsirkia 12y ago
What surprised me the most about PG's essay was his use of tiny small sample size to make a broad statement about an entire field of study. He puts together an interesting argument about the pros and cons of ancient Greek philosophy and their discussion of metaphysics, and includes modern perspectives, but then titles it "How to Do Philosophy". That's akin to writing an essay called "How to do Computer Science", then only discussing the shortcomings of COBOL, FORTRAN, and LISP and concluding that Comp Sci is still a young field and has a long way to go. Yes, Philosophy is still a young field, but there's at least 2000 years of material not covered in his essay.
kristofferR 12y ago
To me it seems like this whole debate (Is philosophy useless or not in 2014?) is suffering from the same debate over words which philosophy supposedly suffers from. Nobody seems to agree what philosophy actually is. The question can't be answered without that being clearly defined.
bkoa 12y ago
Why do people think that computer science gives them the authority to pontificate on any topic of their choosing? Clearly the author has no idea what they are talking about, as by their own admission, "I’ve only taken 1 metaphysics class" and has a "suspicion" about the entire field. And even considering the question of "is all philosophy simply word confusion" would get you laughed out of the room by any philosophy grad student. You wouldn't like it if some philosophy student wrote blog posts about how P=NP without having the slightest knowledge of the field, so afford other areas of study the same respect.
- deleted 12y ago
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- danbruc 12y ago
  Philosophy touches many different fields and it seems quite natural to me that interested people explore the border regions. If you are a physicist or even if you are only interested in physics it is quite easy to recognize that there is a problem with the idea of free will. Or if you are a neurobiologist. Mathematicians naturally get into contact with logic, proofs, knowledge and the like. Or think of linguists. Not that any of them would be a full-fledged philosopher but there are for sure areas of philosophy where people from other professions naturally have something to say.
- kmdupree 12y ago
  Hey, bkoa. I actually just graduated with a master's degree in philosophy from Tufts University, one of the top philosophy programs in the country. (I also studied philosophy in undergrad.) I'm perfectly happy with admitting that I don't know a lot about metaphysics and I'm perfectly happy for people to call me out on this point. (In fact, I call myself out on this point in a footnote in my post.) I just wanted to set the record straight: I am not merely a comp sci person who feels that he has the authority to "pontificate on any topic of their choosing."
- erikpukinskis 12y ago
  Why does it matter? If an 8 year old wanted to pontificate on metaphysics, I would gladly listen to and engage them. And maybe I would learn something. Not all exchange has to be professionally compiled knowledge being bestowed to laypeople. I kind of think everyone can learn something from everybody on most any topic. Within a discussion I think it makes sense to interpret statements based on the speaker and their epistemology. But that doesn't mean you can't have a conversation.
edanm 12y ago
I don't think the article gives valid criticisms of Paul Graham's essay. Let's take a few points: "Let’s start with ethics. Suppose I’m wondering whether it is it right for me demand extra equity because I’m the guy who came up with the idea for our startup. This is not a question about the meaning of my words. If someone responded to my wonderings by saying, “It depends what you mean by the word, ‘right’,” we’d probably think they have missed something." As another commenter has pointed out - of course it depends on what we mean by "right". Right as in "can I get away with it"? Right as in "what's best for people if everyone does what I do"? Right as in "what's best for society"? This is exactly a case of being able to argue a lot without people defining what exactly they mean, and therefore their arguments are worthless. Let's take another quote from the article: "Then there’s epistemology, the study of knowledge. How do we know that we’re not in the matrix? How can we know anything if all our beliefs rest on beliefs that are unsupported by evidence? (We’ve got to have some “foundational beliefs.”) Again, if someone responded to these questions by saying that we are confused about the meaning of the word “know,” we’d feel that they have missed the point." But once again, this shows the problem with philosophy - there are fields in which people discuss what it means to "know things". We've come a long way in certain respects, e.g. coming up with respected models like Bayesianism and others. If someone says "no, but how can I really know I'm not in the Matrix", the answers he should be getting should take into account modern thought backed by some kind of progress. If answers from 2000 years ago are just as valid, we haven't learned anything. And once again, clarifiying that the actual argument isn't about the matrix at all, but rather about the nature of knowledge, is exactly the right approach - trying to clarify what it means to know is what will solve this issue. Paul Graham's essay isn't the best or most complete criticism of philosophy, but it certainly makes a strong case in a clear way that's accessible to many people, and that obviously many people connect with.
- rquantz 12y ago
  But once again, this shows the problem with philosophy - there are fields in which people discuss what it means to "know things". That's not a problem with philosophy, it's a problem with the OP. Epistemology is the study of what we can know, and what is required to make a claim to knowledge. A side effect of that is that there are a lot of arguments and questions surrounding what it means to know. The difference between me a PG (er, one of many) is that I don't have a problem with that. If you're having an informal discussion on the internet, yes maybe you'll spend a lot of time talking in circles before you can say anything meaningful, but trained philosophers have 3000 years of philosophical arguments to draw on, and can be very specific about what they mean with a given argument or word. Also, there are many forms of philosophy that people don't always think of when they write dismissively about philosophy. Any field of study has a surrounding philosophical discourse, including the hard sciences (Hello, philosophy of research, hello materialism). Dismissing philosophy because it includes arguments about the meaning of words misses the point. We argue about the meanings of words because they form the basis for how we conduct our work, how we transfer knowledge, and how we talk about what we do.
kenko 12y ago
I have Ph.D. in philosophy and assert, with all the authority that grants me, that Graham's essay is extremely ignorant and arrogant; this should, I suppose, surprise no one intelligent.
- pmelendez 12y ago
  "with all the authority that grants me, that Graham's essay is extremely ignorant and arrogant" I am sorry for the following comment, but isn't that comment actually extremely arrogant as well? One should present ideas and arguments and not credentials, but I guess this is only the opinion of some one not as intelligent as a PhD holder.
  - kenko 12y ago
    Yes, it is also arrogant, and relies on a lot of presumed deference to the holder of a degree. Freely granted! Would you prefer a full-length analog to Dabblers & Blowhards?
- coldtea 12y ago
  Especially since he says nothing new. The idea about philosophy being based on a "confusion of words" is centuries older than even Wittgenstein, and has been debated appropriately (but he seems blisfully unaware of those discussions. It's like arguing against something you only know from an 101 class). To put it in layman terms, the thing is, words with precise meaning are not that useful in discussing lots of things. Perhaps because lots of things are not inherently clear, but fuzzy in itself. What is "freedom"? What it "moral"? What is the best thing to do with my life? Etc. None of these are clear cut -- and the things that are clear cut, well, not all of those are worth discussing or really important. A lot of stuff is better described and argued about with imprecise words. Philosophy is also the body of such discussions. In essense, this parallels Godel's incompleteness result (Note that I say "parallels" -- Godel only proved it within a very specific mathematical context). Mathematics thrive even if they are not concerned with purely axiomatic systems.
scotty79 12y ago
I noticed there's a lot of people here on HN that strongly oppose any doubt in utility of philosophy. Does opposing notion of utility of philosophy paint one to be anti-intelectual?
kmdupree 12y ago
Hey, all. Thank you so much for the comments and criticisms on my post. I'm glad you found it interesting. I'd like to respond to your comments, but there's a lot here and there is some overlap in the points that people are bringing up. If you are interested, I think I'll go ahead and respond to your comments in a separate post that I'll have up by this Thursday.
- mercer 12y ago
  I would definitely prefer another post over replying to individual posts. Good luck!
peterashford 12y ago
As someone with a degree in Philosophy, I would humbly suggest to PG that the fact that many philosophical puzzles are entirely about what the words actually mean is something that Philosophy as a discipline has been aware of for at least centuries.

56 points by kmdupree 12y ago

pg's essay about philosophy is simply embarrassing. He should just stick to essays about startups and lisp instead of pontificating on something he clearly has very little understanding of.

WestCoastJustin 12y ago
Since you seem to be relatively new to HN (based off when your account was created), when commenting, it is common practice to give examples/links/proof, ie. in this case; why his essay is embarrassing. The reason, is that this could lead to an insightful discussion, and offer paths to improvement. If you give evidence then you will likely not get downvoted even for saying something controversial [1]. After looking through your comment history, this style of commenting seems to ring true, in that when you provide links and proof, you have an improved comment score. [1] Although, you are talking about PG (who is the founder of this forum), so you might get downvoted just for the hell of it ;)
- coffeecodecouch 12y ago
  > Although, you are talking about PG (who is the founder of this forum), so you might get downvoted just for the hell of it ;) I'd like to add that while this may be true, it's not a good thing. Any act of silencing someone in an act of fanboy revenge is an embarrassment to this forum. It's a shame the downvote threshold doesn't rid of this type of behavior, and I doubt raising it would help. I'm tired of seeing grayed out controversial opinions.
  - larrys 12y ago
    Well though there were for sure "fighting words" in this comment. And with anyone who is admired such as PG you would typically try to be very careful (almost diplomatic) in how and what you said. Statement was: "He should just stick to essays about startups and lisp instead of pontificating on something he clearly has very little understanding of." or, suggested re-write (for someone who feels this way): "PG's essays about startups and lisp are great|good|wonderful however in my opinion, and based on my particular experience, I can't tell that he has any particular expertise in Philosophy".
- larrys 12y ago
  Good points but I think the entire post is just link or karma porn anyway. While I agree that forks like this post sometimes make interesting discussions (and here I am discussing it) I'm not sure what the exact authority is of the OP (per the about page) "I’m a wannabe philosophy professor turned wannabe tech entrepreneur" is anyway, so that if I don't know much about philosophy to begin with why should I even pollute my brain by reading it. Not to mention that I don't know to what degree I can even trust the comments here about this subject at all. Ironically, that said, separately, and since a theme of the post is "words" [1] interesting how it has been concluded that "seem to be relatively new to HN" when as evidence all you have is the fact that the account was created 22 days ago and a review of the previous comments. [1] I just changed what I said from "you have concluded" to "how it has been concluded" so as not to appear to be attacking you. Once again, ironically.
  - WestCoastJustin 12y ago
    Updated my comment, based off your feedback, to state I am using the account creation date as a data point ;) This post and comments about philosophy are so subjective that I doubt anything useful is going to come of it. Likely the only reason it was posted here, is that it's about PG. I just thought I'd give some advice about commenting style.

scotty79 12y ago

Philosophy is what you do when you don't have data. The other thing to do would be to get data, but who would bother. Especially before lunch.

rfrey 12y ago
How do you collect data about what constitutes a good life? - Study people who are leading a good life? Circular: how do you identify them? - Ask people if they are leading a good life? Begs the question, since to decide they must have already answered it. Do you believe the answer is unimportant? Self-evident? Relative to time and place? Naturally dictated and discoverable by reason? Primarily decided by social structure? Primarily determined by the individual? All of those positions have been held by and forcefully defended, and all of them have also been forcefully attacked. By people studying philosophy, because that is at root what philosophy is. It's a vital question because we can't measure the effectiveness of public policy or personal decisions without some notion of "good" to apply as a scale.
- agildehaus 12y ago
  Has contemporary philosophy come up with an answer to "what constitutes a good life?" or made measurable progress on this answer? Under what measure is it progress? Just coming up with arguments without answers is nothing more than "structured pondering". It'd only seem useful to increasingly meta topics where data can't be found.
  - memla 12y ago
    Well, holding fallacious beliefs prevents you from arriving at the correct answer. Since philosophers have refuted many fallacious arguments concerning that question they have, therefore, made some measurable progress.
    - scotty79 12y ago
      You can't refute an argument without data. If it was precisely defined you could disprove it without data but that's math not philosophy.

mattmanser 12y ago

I'm not sure he knows anything about philosophy, ethics and epistemology are both ridden with word arguments. Ethics - Are people really altruistic if they gain pleasure from it? What does altruism mean? Epistemology - what does know mean? (Yes, he's completely wrong, a whole chunk of epistomolgy is about the meaning of what is a justified true belief) I didn't read any more. No idea who he is, but he doesn't seem to have studied first year philosophy.

johnchristopher 12y ago
Let me goo... follow that about link on his website for you: Formation de K. Matthew Dupree Tufts University Master's degree, Philosophy 2012 – 2013 University of Central Florida Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Philosophy and Religious Studies 2007 – 2011 University of Central Florida Minor, Mathematics 2007 – 2011
- jasode 12y ago
  If those are his credentials, I would have preferred he debate Wittgenstein instead of PG. In the article, he could have simply acknowledged PG's essay for re-igniting his critique of Wittgenstein. And, as a bonus, a blog title of "Why Wittgenstein is sort of wrong about philosophy" might have attracted more hits.
- deleted 12y ago
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larrys 12y ago
"Ethics - Are people really altruistic if they gain pleasure" To me this is a matter of degree and not absolute. So it's not "if gain pleasure (or benefit) then not altruistic" and black and white but rather that someone can be altruistic and gain pleasure at the same time depending on what they are gaining and losing specifically. So a billionaire giving $100,000 for a good cause might seem to be less altruistic than a person with $200,000 net worth giving $100,000 of it for a good cause. (Fwiw I've never taken a philosophy course so this is just my personal common sense opinion..)

csallen 12y ago

>> Suppose I’m wondering whether it is it right for me demand extra equity because I’m the guy who came up with the idea for our startup. This is not a question about the meaning of my words. If someone responded to my wonderings by saying, “It depends what you mean by the word, ‘right’,” we’d probably think they have missed something. I haven't studied philosophy, so I may be naive here, but does this question NOT depend on the definition of "right"? In a practical discussion, maybe both parties would agree that "right" in this case means "fair, in accordance with my contributions to this startup". But in a philosophical debate, "right" would be quite ambiguous. One party, for example, could posit that the ideas of "right" and "wrong" are completely subjective. That, in the absence of some stated goal or constraints, what's "right" or "wrong", "good" or "evil" is no more valid a topic of debate than whether chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla. However, once you introduce said constraints, the discussion is no longer philosophically interesting.

pdonis 12y ago
> does this question NOT depend on the definition of "right"? I think it does; this is another example of what I pointed out in my post upthread, the author assuming that, because he knows what he means when he uses a word, everyone else must assign it the same meaning.
nardi 12y ago
In the context of ethics, "right" and "wrong" as judgement calls on the "goodness" or "badness" of a choice are basically given. Depending on your ethical standpoint, there are different things in the "right" set and the "wrong" set, but all ethical viewpoints (such as utilitarianism or hedonism) have a "right" set and a "wrong" set. (The sole exception being moral nihilism.)
- vdaniuk 12y ago
  Not really. When one thinks about ethics, one should take into account the existence of teleological ethics or consequentialism where "right" and "wrong" depends on the outcomes of the action. As far as a person isn't aware of the outcomes of the action, he or she can't really judge if the action was "right" or "wrong". Also due to the butterfly effects,in most cases a person is theoretically unable to produce objective judgement, thus leaving the judgement of the action in the "undefined" state.

jonsen 12y ago

Another computer scientist's take on philosophy: http://www.naur.com/Antiphil.html http://www.naur.com/Antiphil.html

jasode 12y ago

PG was not the only one highlighting "confusion over words". The more notable philosopher Wittgenstein also expressed this idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations#Private_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations#Pr... The TFA proposes that 2 other branches of philosophy 1) ethics and 2) epistemology have not been affected by "confusion over words". I think Wittgenstein would say that must be false because those 2 subject areas also are discussed using the mechanism of words. You can't escape "words" because philosophy (any branch) can't be discussed any other way. I believe the TFA is arguing incorrectly because he thinks PG's criticism of philosophy is about "word confusion" when the higher meta-issue is that the "words" themselves handicaps all of philosophy.

kristofferR 12y ago
PG mentions that in his blog post: "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."
- jasode 12y ago
  Ah yes, I see that now. I didn't notice that the TFA had a direct link to PG's essay. Since the author (K. Matthew Dupree) could see Wittgenstein was cited, I'm wondering why he didn't address what the notable philosopher already said.

pdonis 12y ago

I don't think the author's case for philosophy not being driven by confusion over words holds up. His argument is basically that he knows what he means when he uses a word, so how can there be confusion? For example: 'When I ask, "How do I know I’m not in the matrix?," I'm asking, "Why should I believe that I’m not in the matrix?"' Ok, fine, but is that what everybody who uses the word "know" means by it? And shifting to the word "believe", as the author does here, doesn't help; there's just as much argument over what "believe" means, or should mean, as over what "know" means, or should mean. In some cases he doesn't even explicitly give his preferred meaning, but just assumes that we all know what it is: 'Whether someone was "free to act" is something that we consider often in legal settings, and I think it’s right for us to ask this question before we lock someone up.' Which may well be true, but it still leaves open the question of what, exactly, we are asking when we ask if someone was "free to act". What do we need to take into account in order to decide the legal case one way or the other? And is the legal question the same question as all the other questions that are pointed at when we use the term "free will"? The author seems to assume that we all agree on all these things, but the philosophical literature makes clear that we don't. In fact, as this example illustrates, the author mis-states Graham's point about confusion over words. He says: 'To say that a question can be answered by saying, "Depends on what you mean by X" is far from proving that the question is motivated by a confusion over words.' But Graham didn't claim that we could answer all philosophical questions by just defining what we mean by X (and he certainly didn't claim that we could answer them just by saying "Depends on what you mean by X"). He only claimed that the questions aren't well-defined unless we specify what we mean by X. What looks like one question could end up being three or four (or seven or eight) depending on which definition we choose for X; so unless and until we pin down the question more precisely, we end up talking past each other instead of actually accomplishing anything. I tend to agree with Graham that much of philosophy suffers from exactly this disease. Finally, I would like to see some evidence for this claim of the author's: 'Graham seems to be saying that if a philosophy professor can’t distinguish a “real” philosophy paper from a fake, placebo paper that is purposely filled with nonsense, then the real paper is meaningless. If this is Graham’s proposal, I think that many philosophy professors could pass this test for many philosophical texts. There are definitely some charlatans posing as philosophers out there, but that doesn’t mean that all or most of philosophy is B.S.

carsongross 12y ago

Wittgenstein was certainly interesting, but he thought Godel was wrong, precisely because Godel showed something interesting about logic itself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems#Wittgenstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_the... Paul is obviously right in criticizing the gaseous generalizations, nonsensical pretentiousness and word games that much of the western (particularly, the german) philosophical tradition fell into after the reformation. But I also agree with the philosphical hacker that he is overstating the case that word-confusion is the primary cause of conflict in philosophical disagreement, and I think Godel showed why this is compatible with an apparently deterministic and logical universe. As near as my uneducated mind can tell, Godel is the most important philosopher since Aristotle: he proved something practical, dramatic and unintuitive about the world, using only words. In as much as I understand it, it makes me laugh hysterically.

Balgair 12y ago
"We can do philosophy better if we filter out thoughts that don’t meet a usefulness criterion." Yep, as soon as I read that, I knew someone on HN would point to Godel somewhere in the comments. I'll agree with you as well on Godel and his importance. His theorem is easily one of the most important things to come out of the 20th century. I'd go: penicillin, atomic bomb, better farming tech and chemistry, Godel. I've not got the chops for the actual proof, but the many 'for the layman's' books Ive read on it just point out how incredibly important it is. From AI research to Turing's tape to the nature of reality itself, the proof is just astounding. To put him up on Aristotle's level is obvious even to a math layman like me. Likely because of the difficulty of the proof, it is not very well known, and that is a shame. I'd love a torn-down proof easy enough for a high schooler to understand. The best I've found is: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/453503/can-someone-explain-godels-incompleteness-theorems-in-layman-terms https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/453503/can-someone-...
- peterashford 12y ago
  I have very often seen people criticise Philosophy from a point of ignorance and then follow up by espousing their own very bad philosophy. It's kinda like criticising a Mathematical proof without understanding Math. You can do it, but you're highly likely to be off the mark. It's not that Philosophy doesn't have areas worthy of criticism. I personally believe that the best reason to study metaphysics is to learn why metaphysics is useless. Ironically, understanding why it's useless is actually quite useful :o)

bsirkia 12y ago

What surprised me the most about PG's essay was his use of tiny small sample size to make a broad statement about an entire field of study. He puts together an interesting argument about the pros and cons of ancient Greek philosophy and their discussion of metaphysics, and includes modern perspectives, but then titles it "How to Do Philosophy". That's akin to writing an essay called "How to do Computer Science", then only discussing the shortcomings of COBOL, FORTRAN, and LISP and concluding that Comp Sci is still a young field and has a long way to go. Yes, Philosophy is still a young field, but there's at least 2000 years of material not covered in his essay.

kristofferR 12y ago

To me it seems like this whole debate (Is philosophy useless or not in 2014?) is suffering from the same debate over words which philosophy supposedly suffers from. Nobody seems to agree what philosophy actually is. The question can't be answered without that being clearly defined.

bkoa 12y ago

Why do people think that computer science gives them the authority to pontificate on any topic of their choosing? Clearly the author has no idea what they are talking about, as by their own admission, "I’ve only taken 1 metaphysics class" and has a "suspicion" about the entire field. And even considering the question of "is all philosophy simply word confusion" would get you laughed out of the room by any philosophy grad student. You wouldn't like it if some philosophy student wrote blog posts about how P=NP without having the slightest knowledge of the field, so afford other areas of study the same respect.

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danbruc 12y ago
Philosophy touches many different fields and it seems quite natural to me that interested people explore the border regions. If you are a physicist or even if you are only interested in physics it is quite easy to recognize that there is a problem with the idea of free will. Or if you are a neurobiologist. Mathematicians naturally get into contact with logic, proofs, knowledge and the like. Or think of linguists. Not that any of them would be a full-fledged philosopher but there are for sure areas of philosophy where people from other professions naturally have something to say.
kmdupree 12y ago
Hey, bkoa. I actually just graduated with a master's degree in philosophy from Tufts University, one of the top philosophy programs in the country. (I also studied philosophy in undergrad.) I'm perfectly happy with admitting that I don't know a lot about metaphysics and I'm perfectly happy for people to call me out on this point. (In fact, I call myself out on this point in a footnote in my post.) I just wanted to set the record straight: I am not merely a comp sci person who feels that he has the authority to "pontificate on any topic of their choosing."
erikpukinskis 12y ago
Why does it matter? If an 8 year old wanted to pontificate on metaphysics, I would gladly listen to and engage them. And maybe I would learn something. Not all exchange has to be professionally compiled knowledge being bestowed to laypeople. I kind of think everyone can learn something from everybody on most any topic. Within a discussion I think it makes sense to interpret statements based on the speaker and their epistemology. But that doesn't mean you can't have a conversation.

edanm 12y ago

I don't think the article gives valid criticisms of Paul Graham's essay. Let's take a few points: "Let’s start with ethics. Suppose I’m wondering whether it is it right for me demand extra equity because I’m the guy who came up with the idea for our startup. This is not a question about the meaning of my words. If someone responded to my wonderings by saying, “It depends what you mean by the word, ‘right’,” we’d probably think they have missed something." As another commenter has pointed out - of course it depends on what we mean by "right". Right as in "can I get away with it"? Right as in "what's best for people if everyone does what I do"? Right as in "what's best for society"? This is exactly a case of being able to argue a lot without people defining what exactly they mean, and therefore their arguments are worthless. Let's take another quote from the article: "Then there’s epistemology, the study of knowledge. How do we know that we’re not in the matrix? How can we know anything if all our beliefs rest on beliefs that are unsupported by evidence? (We’ve got to have some “foundational beliefs.”) Again, if someone responded to these questions by saying that we are confused about the meaning of the word “know,” we’d feel that they have missed the point." But once again, this shows the problem with philosophy - there are fields in which people discuss what it means to "know things". We've come a long way in certain respects, e.g. coming up with respected models like Bayesianism and others. If someone says "no, but how can I really know I'm not in the Matrix", the answers he should be getting should take into account modern thought backed by some kind of progress. If answers from 2000 years ago are just as valid, we haven't learned anything. And once again, clarifiying that the actual argument isn't about the matrix at all, but rather about the nature of knowledge, is exactly the right approach - trying to clarify what it means to know is what will solve this issue. Paul Graham's essay isn't the best or most complete criticism of philosophy, but it certainly makes a strong case in a clear way that's accessible to many people, and that obviously many people connect with.

rquantz 12y ago
But once again, this shows the problem with philosophy - there are fields in which people discuss what it means to "know things". That's not a problem with philosophy, it's a problem with the OP. Epistemology is the study of what we can know, and what is required to make a claim to knowledge. A side effect of that is that there are a lot of arguments and questions surrounding what it means to know. The difference between me a PG (er, one of many) is that I don't have a problem with that. If you're having an informal discussion on the internet, yes maybe you'll spend a lot of time talking in circles before you can say anything meaningful, but trained philosophers have 3000 years of philosophical arguments to draw on, and can be very specific about what they mean with a given argument or word. Also, there are many forms of philosophy that people don't always think of when they write dismissively about philosophy. Any field of study has a surrounding philosophical discourse, including the hard sciences (Hello, philosophy of research, hello materialism). Dismissing philosophy because it includes arguments about the meaning of words misses the point. We argue about the meanings of words because they form the basis for how we conduct our work, how we transfer knowledge, and how we talk about what we do.

kenko 12y ago

I have Ph.D. in philosophy and assert, with all the authority that grants me, that Graham's essay is extremely ignorant and arrogant; this should, I suppose, surprise no one intelligent.

pmelendez 12y ago
"with all the authority that grants me, that Graham's essay is extremely ignorant and arrogant" I am sorry for the following comment, but isn't that comment actually extremely arrogant as well? One should present ideas and arguments and not credentials, but I guess this is only the opinion of some one not as intelligent as a PhD holder.
- kenko 12y ago
  Yes, it is also arrogant, and relies on a lot of presumed deference to the holder of a degree. Freely granted! Would you prefer a full-length analog to Dabblers & Blowhards?
coldtea 12y ago
Especially since he says nothing new. The idea about philosophy being based on a "confusion of words" is centuries older than even Wittgenstein, and has been debated appropriately (but he seems blisfully unaware of those discussions. It's like arguing against something you only know from an 101 class). To put it in layman terms, the thing is, words with precise meaning are not that useful in discussing lots of things. Perhaps because lots of things are not inherently clear, but fuzzy in itself. What is "freedom"? What it "moral"? What is the best thing to do with my life? Etc. None of these are clear cut -- and the things that are clear cut, well, not all of those are worth discussing or really important. A lot of stuff is better described and argued about with imprecise words. Philosophy is also the body of such discussions. In essense, this parallels Godel's incompleteness result (Note that I say "parallels" -- Godel only proved it within a very specific mathematical context). Mathematics thrive even if they are not concerned with purely axiomatic systems.

scotty79 12y ago

I noticed there's a lot of people here on HN that strongly oppose any doubt in utility of philosophy. Does opposing notion of utility of philosophy paint one to be anti-intelectual?

kmdupree 12y ago

Hey, all. Thank you so much for the comments and criticisms on my post. I'm glad you found it interesting. I'd like to respond to your comments, but there's a lot here and there is some overlap in the points that people are bringing up. If you are interested, I think I'll go ahead and respond to your comments in a separate post that I'll have up by this Thursday.

mercer 12y ago
I would definitely prefer another post over replying to individual posts. Good luck!

peterashford 12y ago

As someone with a degree in Philosophy, I would humbly suggest to PG that the fact that many philosophical puzzles are entirely about what the words actually mean is something that Philosophy as a discipline has been aware of for at least centuries.