It probably explains theism—if you don’t take the arguments seriously, you’ll more likely want to study religion anthropologically rather than argue it out philosophically—but I don’t see why one couldn’t study aesthetics as ‘subjective’ (whatever precisely that means), or metaphysics as a skeptic. (In fact, many do each of those things. Just not most.) I guess I can see how devoting your whole life’s work to destroying illusions could be a downer for some, though.
I agree LW hasn’t thought enough about most of these issues to reach a solid, vetted assessment. I’m mostly interested in what these doctrines say about underlying methodology, as a canary in a coalmine. I’m rather less interested in seeing LW and Academic Philosophy duke it out to see who happens to be right on specialized, arcane, mostly not-very-important debates. How many philosophers are epistemic externalists only really matters inasmuch as it’s symptomatic of general professional standards and methodology.
but I don’t see why one couldn’t study aesthetics as ‘subjective’ (whatever precisely that means), or metaphysics as a skeptic. (In fact, many do each of those things. Just not most.) I guess I can see how devoting your whole life’s work to destroying illusions could be a downer, though.
Subjective aesthetics is probably more the realm of psychology (unless it is so subjective that you can’t study it). But I’m obviously not saying only Platonists would want to study metaphysics. I’m just saying that the selection effect is sufficient to explain the differences in positions between specialists and non-specialists.
It probably explains theism—if you don’t take the arguments seriously, you’ll more likely want to study religion anthropologically rather than argue it out philosophically—but I don’t see why one couldn’t study aesthetics as ‘subjective’ (whatever precisely that means), or metaphysics as a skeptic. (In fact, many do each of those things. Just not most.) I guess I can see how devoting your whole life’s work to destroying illusions could be a downer for some, though.
I agree LW hasn’t thought enough about most of these issues to reach a solid, vetted assessment. I’m mostly interested in what these doctrines say about underlying methodology, as a canary in a coalmine. I’m rather less interested in seeing LW and Academic Philosophy duke it out to see who happens to be right on specialized, arcane, mostly not-very-important debates. How many philosophers are epistemic externalists only really matters inasmuch as it’s symptomatic of general professional standards and methodology.
Subjective aesthetics is probably more the realm of psychology (unless it is so subjective that you can’t study it). But I’m obviously not saying only Platonists would want to study metaphysics. I’m just saying that the selection effect is sufficient to explain the differences in positions between specialists and non-specialists.