I think thats a product of people being evaluated by the ‘rightness’ of their conclusions rather than the validity of their arguments, so someone who rationally derived a wrong conclusion from bad data is less respected than someone who found a conclusion similar to our present ones by bad reasoning or sheer chance (e.g. certain ancient philosophers).
Maybe, but that doesn’t explain why there is so much misinformation about medieval philosophy in popular sources. For instance, as Will Newsome tried to point out, Saint Thomas Aquinas was arguably a compatibilist with respect to the problem of free will, but I was taught in university that the “right” solution to the problem of free will (compatibilism) had to wait for a cognitive scientist (specifically, Daniel Dennet). There are numerous issues where thinkers from the Middle Ages did come to roughly the “right” answer, but that moderns teach that they didn’t. There has got to be more to the story.
I was taught in university that the “right” solution to the problem of free will (compatibilism) had to wait for a cognitive scientist (specifically, Daniel Dennet).
I am surprised by this. The proto-compatibilism of Aquinas might be little-known, but I thought it was common knowledge that compatibilism has a long pedigree before the late 20th century, including most logical positivists like Ayer and earlier British empiricists like Hume (I would include Spinoza as well). What Dennett gives is a version informed by modern cognitive science, but not especially novel in its basic features.
Maybe, but that doesn’t explain why there is so much misinformation about medieval philosophy in popular sources. For instance, as Will Newsome tried to point out, Saint Thomas Aquinas was arguably a compatibilist with respect to the problem of free will, but I was taught in university that the “right” solution to the problem of free will (compatibilism) had to wait for a cognitive scientist (specifically, Daniel Dennet). There are numerous issues where thinkers from the Middle Ages did come to roughly the “right” answer, but that moderns teach that they didn’t. There has got to be more to the story.
I am surprised by this. The proto-compatibilism of Aquinas might be little-known, but I thought it was common knowledge that compatibilism has a long pedigree before the late 20th century, including most logical positivists like Ayer and earlier British empiricists like Hume (I would include Spinoza as well). What Dennett gives is a version informed by modern cognitive science, but not especially novel in its basic features.