Interesting. Part way through this switches to a narrower focus but the general concept applies to obsolete philosophy or discarded theories or anything else that has essentially been “overruled” by later works. One could even make the case that Newtonian physics is an obsolete ideology.
Philosophy in particular has great deal of old stuff that sticks around because it was first, even though large parts of it are now irrelevant. While it makes an interesting historical study, it now borders on bad philosophy. I have no specific examples to share, however, this is just an impression.
One could even make the case that Newtonian physics is an obsolete ideology.
Newtonian physics successfully makes precise predictions that approximate reality much closer than the precision of human perception for a large domain of problems that includes most of human experience, with far less computational cost than the more exact theories, and the more exact theories explain why the approximations are so good. While it is important to remember it is an approximation if you are going to investigate phenomena outside the domain that it works, the approximation is useful.
Conversely, religious morality is perceptibly wrong except in very narrow domains, and more complicated than secular morality.
Agreed. I am not making the case against Newtonian physics, but I can see how someone would start.
Also, is it just me, or are my examples just causing more confusion? If I switched to the word “illustration” would it be easier? I keep using small examples to help convey a point but people jump on a problem with the example and completely ignore the point.
I am not making the case against Newtonian physics, but I can see how someone would start.
I did not mean to imply that you were. I meant to demonstrate that this concept of obsolete ideology can discriminate between old theories that are just wrong and old theories that are still useful. The best way I know to show that Newtonian physics could be defended against the charge of being an obsolete ideology is to actually defend it against the charge.
Perhaps I could have been clearer about my central point, that the concept of obsolete ideology is not a fully general counter argument against any use of old theories that are inconsistent with newer theories.
I did not mean to imply that you were. I meant to demonstrate that this concept of obsolete ideology can discriminate between old theories that are just wrong and old theories that are still useful.
Ah, okay. I think that the distinction you make is very good point.
[T]he concept of obsolete ideology is not a fully general counter argument against any use of old theories that are inconsistent with newer theories.
This in particular is good to keep in mind. “Old” does not mean “bad” and even if something comes along and supersedes an older ideology, the older ideology can have its uses. Approximation is the current example. Are there any others?
There is some old stuff that sticks around because, even though it turned out to be wrong, it was worth a try; and if you didn’t keep it (and its critique) around, people would just keep re-inventing it. Platonic realism, Aristotelian necessary-and-sufficient definitions of categories, Marxism, and attempts to make quantum mechanics Newtonian are examples.
I have no specific examples to share, however, this is just an impression.
In my experience, this is a common position to be in. I’ve heard a lot of blanket statements about the problems with academic philosophy, without much evidence to back it up.
Actual philosophers tend to be either good philosophers who know the good old stuff from the bad old stuff, or bad philosophers who write utter nonsense. Someone who actually cares shouldn’t have too much of a problem telling one from the other, even though they’re both acceptable in the academy. Compare Dennett and Derrida.
Academic philosophy differs from science in that it seems to place much higher value on the personalities and the original works relative to the ideas. When I studied physics at university we didn’t learn physics from the original works or papers of the pioneering scientists. Newton is rightly recognized for his huge contribution to physics but no physics course will use the Principia to teach mechanics. The core ideas have been refined and are now presented in ways that are easier for students to grasp, without extraneous or incorrect extra detail present in the original works or problems of language.
When I studied philosophy at university however, great import was placed on reading the original texts from great philosophers. In many cases reading these works I was struck by the amount of confused and wrong ideas and the lack of clarity of presentation—Descartes is a prime example. It seemed to me at the time that if philosophy was the pursuit of truth in any sense then it would be better served by a model of instruction more like science: where the key ideas are presented in a refined and clarified modern text. My experience of academic philosophy was that it couldn’t quite decide if it wanted to be science or literary criticism.
It seemed to me at the time that if philosophy was the pursuit of truth in any sense then it would be better served by a model of instruction more like science
The fact that philosophy hasn’t adopted such a model strongly suggests that it’s not concerned with truth.
There are people who can do good philosophy—contrary to thomblake’s assertion, I’ve found that they’re virtually never people called ‘philosophers’. They’re usually scientists.
As a data point, it should be noted that in the past 3 or so discussions of this problem, I’ve used Dan Dennett as my sole example of a good contemporary philosopher that anyone’s heard of. If I’m going to keep talking about this, I really should find at least one or two more.
My guess would be that people aren’t aware of the discourse you’ve been involved in regarding “philosophy” vs “academic philosophy”. As stated, it seems like you’re expressing something contradictory. Compare:
“philosophy...[is] not concerned with truth” ″people who can do good philosophy...[are] usually scientists”
You seem to be equivocating. In the first sense, I think you mean “academic philosophy” (the institution), while in the second, you mean… well, philosophy (love of wisdom / pursuit of truith).
Though I’d be surprised if anyone actually thought it through that clearly before downvoting.
My downvote was because I consider this sentence to be noise and inflammatory:
The fact that philosophy hasn’t adopted such a model strongly suggests that it’s not concerned with truth.
… And this sentence is anecdotal and coming from what I judge to be a biased position:
There are people who can do good philosophy—contrary to thomblake’s assertion, I’ve found that they’re virtually never people called ‘philosophers’. They’re usually scientists.
I downvoted but did not comment because any direct response in the lines of argument seem likely to delve into semantics on the definitions of philosopher, philosophy, scientist, and science. Also, on a more personal note, I have yet to get any meaningful value from a conversation with you. For whatever reason, my fault or yours, it is not worth my time.
There’s an element of truth to this critique, and I have felt for a long time that what is usually taught as “Introduction to Philosophy” should be taught as “Introduction to the History of Philosophy”.
However it’s also totally off-base in that philosophy, when it’s not being a total waste of time, is the examination of problems which are important but which can’t be solved by science alone. As such philosophical conclusions aren’t “true” and there is no “truth” to pursue or teach.
There are competing views with no truth value, like deontological and utilitarian ethics, but neither is “true” or “false” and it’s a category error to try to put them into those boxes.
Done well it’s neither science nor literary criticism, but rather the search for mental constructs which are useful or internally consistent.
In my experience, this is a common position to be in. I’ve heard a lot of blanket statements about the problems with academic philosophy, without much evidence to back it up.
Agreed; I made the disclaimer with the intent that this comment was meant to filed under “Hmm, interesting” not “Arguments against Philosophy”. I was not specifically targeting academic philosophy but old philosophy. Quick potential examples from the top of my head:
Descartes’ suggestions about the purpose of the pineal gland
The various Greek philosophers who tried to reduce all matter into combinations of Fire/Air/Water/Earth
Early psychology?
Anyone reading Descartes and translating “pineal gland” into something other than “pineal gland” so they can continue claiming Descartes was right is another example of the parable above. Translating “Fire/Air/Water/Earth” into “Plasma/Gas/Liquid/Solid” is doing the same thing. The Greeks were not saying “Plasma/Gas/Liquid/Solid”. They were saying “Fire/Air/Water/Earth”.
Actual philosophers tend to be either good philosophers who know the good old stuff from the bad old stuff, or bad philosophers who write utter nonsense. Someone who actually cares shouldn’t have too much of a problem telling one from the other, even though they’re both acceptable in the academy. Compare Dennett and Derrida.
Agreed. I focused on Philosophy because I have enough experience to think of potential examples. The reason I did not put them in the first comment is because I am not in a position to defend my examples and did not consider them particularly relevant to the point. Also, my experience with “bad” Philosophers is that they seem to attach Truth to specific People and then try to turn anything said by those People into Truth using method like those in the parable. Most of these bad Philosophers were encountered during the few classes I took to get a Philosophy minor. I assume that most of these people are weeded out by the time they get to upper-level classes and beyond.
So, anyway, to wrap it up, I agree with you completely. I extended my points to try bringing a little more clarification to my original comment not to argue against your comment.
Most of these bad Philosophers were encountered during the few classes I took to get a Philosophy minor.
Initially I thought you were talking about professional Philosophers, not students. This clears that up, but it would be better to refer to them as Philosophy students. Most people wouldn’t call Science undergrads “Scientists”.
My experience with Philosophy has been the opposite. Almost all the original writing we’ve read has been focused on how and why the original authors were wrong, and how modern theories address their errors. Admittedly, I’ve tailored my study to contain more History and Philosophy of Science than is usual, but I’ve found the same to be true of the standard Philosophy classes I’ve taken.
In summary, it probably varies from school to school and I don’t think it’s entirely fair to tar the whole field of Philosophy with the same brush.
One could even make the case that Newtonian physics is an obsolete ideology.
That would be a difficult case to make. At most, you might be able to argue that it was founded on certain assumptions that were later recognized as not being necessarily true.
Interesting. Part way through this switches to a narrower focus but the general concept applies to obsolete philosophy or discarded theories or anything else that has essentially been “overruled” by later works. One could even make the case that Newtonian physics is an obsolete ideology.
Philosophy in particular has great deal of old stuff that sticks around because it was first, even though large parts of it are now irrelevant. While it makes an interesting historical study, it now borders on bad philosophy. I have no specific examples to share, however, this is just an impression.
Newtonian physics successfully makes precise predictions that approximate reality much closer than the precision of human perception for a large domain of problems that includes most of human experience, with far less computational cost than the more exact theories, and the more exact theories explain why the approximations are so good. While it is important to remember it is an approximation if you are going to investigate phenomena outside the domain that it works, the approximation is useful.
Conversely, religious morality is perceptibly wrong except in very narrow domains, and more complicated than secular morality.
Agreed. I am not making the case against Newtonian physics, but I can see how someone would start.
Also, is it just me, or are my examples just causing more confusion? If I switched to the word “illustration” would it be easier? I keep using small examples to help convey a point but people jump on a problem with the example and completely ignore the point.
Something is amiss but I cannot see what it is.
I did not mean to imply that you were. I meant to demonstrate that this concept of obsolete ideology can discriminate between old theories that are just wrong and old theories that are still useful. The best way I know to show that Newtonian physics could be defended against the charge of being an obsolete ideology is to actually defend it against the charge.
Perhaps I could have been clearer about my central point, that the concept of obsolete ideology is not a fully general counter argument against any use of old theories that are inconsistent with newer theories.
Ah, okay. I think that the distinction you make is very good point.
This in particular is good to keep in mind. “Old” does not mean “bad” and even if something comes along and supersedes an older ideology, the older ideology can have its uses. Approximation is the current example. Are there any others?
There is some old stuff that sticks around because, even though it turned out to be wrong, it was worth a try; and if you didn’t keep it (and its critique) around, people would just keep re-inventing it. Platonic realism, Aristotelian necessary-and-sufficient definitions of categories, Marxism, and attempts to make quantum mechanics Newtonian are examples.
In my experience, this is a common position to be in. I’ve heard a lot of blanket statements about the problems with academic philosophy, without much evidence to back it up.
Actual philosophers tend to be either good philosophers who know the good old stuff from the bad old stuff, or bad philosophers who write utter nonsense. Someone who actually cares shouldn’t have too much of a problem telling one from the other, even though they’re both acceptable in the academy. Compare Dennett and Derrida.
Academic philosophy differs from science in that it seems to place much higher value on the personalities and the original works relative to the ideas. When I studied physics at university we didn’t learn physics from the original works or papers of the pioneering scientists. Newton is rightly recognized for his huge contribution to physics but no physics course will use the Principia to teach mechanics. The core ideas have been refined and are now presented in ways that are easier for students to grasp, without extraneous or incorrect extra detail present in the original works or problems of language.
When I studied philosophy at university however, great import was placed on reading the original texts from great philosophers. In many cases reading these works I was struck by the amount of confused and wrong ideas and the lack of clarity of presentation—Descartes is a prime example. It seemed to me at the time that if philosophy was the pursuit of truth in any sense then it would be better served by a model of instruction more like science: where the key ideas are presented in a refined and clarified modern text. My experience of academic philosophy was that it couldn’t quite decide if it wanted to be science or literary criticism.
The fact that philosophy hasn’t adopted such a model strongly suggests that it’s not concerned with truth.
There are people who can do good philosophy—contrary to thomblake’s assertion, I’ve found that they’re virtually never people called ‘philosophers’. They’re usually scientists.
As a data point, it should be noted that in the past 3 or so discussions of this problem, I’ve used Dan Dennett as my sole example of a good contemporary philosopher that anyone’s heard of. If I’m going to keep talking about this, I really should find at least one or two more.
I would be fascinated to know why the above comment garnered two downvotes so quickly.
My guess would be that people aren’t aware of the discourse you’ve been involved in regarding “philosophy” vs “academic philosophy”. As stated, it seems like you’re expressing something contradictory. Compare:
“philosophy...[is] not concerned with truth”
″people who can do good philosophy...[are] usually scientists”
You seem to be equivocating. In the first sense, I think you mean “academic philosophy” (the institution), while in the second, you mean… well, philosophy (love of wisdom / pursuit of truith).
Though I’d be surprised if anyone actually thought it through that clearly before downvoting.
My downvote was because I consider this sentence to be noise and inflammatory:
… And this sentence is anecdotal and coming from what I judge to be a biased position:
I downvoted but did not comment because any direct response in the lines of argument seem likely to delve into semantics on the definitions of philosopher, philosophy, scientist, and science. Also, on a more personal note, I have yet to get any meaningful value from a conversation with you. For whatever reason, my fault or yours, it is not worth my time.
‘Inflammatory’ I could understand, although I submit that simple truth assertions ought not to be evaluated by looking at their social acceptability.
But calling it noise is just silly.
Then stop replying to me, please. And voting on my posts as well.
There’s an element of truth to this critique, and I have felt for a long time that what is usually taught as “Introduction to Philosophy” should be taught as “Introduction to the History of Philosophy”.
However it’s also totally off-base in that philosophy, when it’s not being a total waste of time, is the examination of problems which are important but which can’t be solved by science alone. As such philosophical conclusions aren’t “true” and there is no “truth” to pursue or teach.
There are competing views with no truth value, like deontological and utilitarian ethics, but neither is “true” or “false” and it’s a category error to try to put them into those boxes.
Done well it’s neither science nor literary criticism, but rather the search for mental constructs which are useful or internally consistent.
Agreed; I made the disclaimer with the intent that this comment was meant to filed under “Hmm, interesting” not “Arguments against Philosophy”. I was not specifically targeting academic philosophy but old philosophy. Quick potential examples from the top of my head:
Descartes’ suggestions about the purpose of the pineal gland
The various Greek philosophers who tried to reduce all matter into combinations of Fire/Air/Water/Earth
Early psychology?
Anyone reading Descartes and translating “pineal gland” into something other than “pineal gland” so they can continue claiming Descartes was right is another example of the parable above. Translating “Fire/Air/Water/Earth” into “Plasma/Gas/Liquid/Solid” is doing the same thing. The Greeks were not saying “Plasma/Gas/Liquid/Solid”. They were saying “Fire/Air/Water/Earth”.
Agreed. I focused on Philosophy because I have enough experience to think of potential examples. The reason I did not put them in the first comment is because I am not in a position to defend my examples and did not consider them particularly relevant to the point. Also, my experience with “bad” Philosophers is that they seem to attach Truth to specific People and then try to turn anything said by those People into Truth using method like those in the parable. Most of these bad Philosophers were encountered during the few classes I took to get a Philosophy minor. I assume that most of these people are weeded out by the time they get to upper-level classes and beyond.
So, anyway, to wrap it up, I agree with you completely. I extended my points to try bringing a little more clarification to my original comment not to argue against your comment.
Initially I thought you were talking about professional Philosophers, not students. This clears that up, but it would be better to refer to them as Philosophy students. Most people wouldn’t call Science undergrads “Scientists”.
My experience with Philosophy has been the opposite. Almost all the original writing we’ve read has been focused on how and why the original authors were wrong, and how modern theories address their errors. Admittedly, I’ve tailored my study to contain more History and Philosophy of Science than is usual, but I’ve found the same to be true of the standard Philosophy classes I’ve taken.
In summary, it probably varies from school to school and I don’t think it’s entirely fair to tar the whole field of Philosophy with the same brush.
That would be a difficult case to make. At most, you might be able to argue that it was founded on certain assumptions that were later recognized as not being necessarily true.