Classical philosophers like Hume came up with some great ideas, too, especially considering that they had no access to modern scientific knowledge. But you don’t have to spend thousands of hours reading through their bad ideas to find the few good ones, because their best ideas have become modern scientific knowledge.
The reason why people read those works is to figure out how those people arrived at their wrong conclusions, what has changed so that we today know better and what this tells us about possible shortcomings of contemporary ideas. Learning from the failure of history and about our cultural evolution and the associated conceptual revolutions are some of the reasons to read what you might perceive as simply outdated.
That may be why people ought to read them, but I don’t think it’s why they read them. Philosophy, as taught in colleges and books, places almost no emphasis on methodology, identifying errors, critiquing and disposing of extremely bad or outdated ideas, etc. It’s as if the Enlightenment never happened.
Michael Vassar says philosophy is a field unconcerned with what people in college teach as philosophy, but I don’t know what he means. Possibly he means philosophers now are either analytic philosophers or deconstructionists.
Philosophy, as taught in colleges and books, places almost no emphasis on methodology, identifying errors, critiquing and disposing of extremely bad or outdated ideas, etc.
?! Add “anything other than” right after “almost no emphasis on” and you’d have it about right. At least, judging by the two universities whose philosophy courses I took. YMMV.
Michael Vassar says philosophy is a field unconcerned with what people in college teach as philosophy, but I don’t know what he means.
I suspect what he means is that the general philosophy course tends to the ‘read and summarize as best you can’, with some questioning to test recall and a bit of comprehension, while philosophy in practice is more about nailing down arguments into a formally valid argument and then figuring out what to accept or reject about it.
The best philosophy course I ever took consisted basically of each class, the teacher walked in, defined some terms, wrote up a valid syllogism or propositional argument (sometimes messing it up just to test us), asking us whether we accepted the conclusion, or rejected one of the premises; which one and why? and then we debated each other.
Possibly he means philosophers now are either analytic philosophers or deconstructionists.
Doesn’t seem right to me; modern philosophy isn’t quite that simply divided. (Where does someone like Jurgen Habermas, to name someone in the news recently, fit in? He’s far from analytic, although he’s quite sharp in person (as I can attest), but also not merely deconstructing existing things.)
The reason why people read those works is to figure out how those people arrived at their wrong conclusions, what has changed so that we today know better and what this tells us about possible shortcomings of contemporary ideas. Learning from the failure of history and about our cultural evolution and the associated conceptual revolutions are some of the reasons to read what you might perceive as simply outdated.
That may be why people ought to read them, but I don’t think it’s why they read them. Philosophy, as taught in colleges and books, places almost no emphasis on methodology, identifying errors, critiquing and disposing of extremely bad or outdated ideas, etc. It’s as if the Enlightenment never happened.
Michael Vassar says philosophy is a field unconcerned with what people in college teach as philosophy, but I don’t know what he means. Possibly he means philosophers now are either analytic philosophers or deconstructionists.
?! Add “anything other than” right after “almost no emphasis on” and you’d have it about right. At least, judging by the two universities whose philosophy courses I took. YMMV.
I suspect what he means is that the general philosophy course tends to the ‘read and summarize as best you can’, with some questioning to test recall and a bit of comprehension, while philosophy in practice is more about nailing down arguments into a formally valid argument and then figuring out what to accept or reject about it.
The best philosophy course I ever took consisted basically of each class, the teacher walked in, defined some terms, wrote up a valid syllogism or propositional argument (sometimes messing it up just to test us), asking us whether we accepted the conclusion, or rejected one of the premises; which one and why? and then we debated each other.
Doesn’t seem right to me; modern philosophy isn’t quite that simply divided. (Where does someone like Jurgen Habermas, to name someone in the news recently, fit in? He’s far from analytic, although he’s quite sharp in person (as I can attest), but also not merely deconstructing existing things.)