Replying separately to the section you edited in after your reply. If you are going to edit in additional replies it might be helpful for you to note when you have done so explicitly so people can see them.
You metaphysics may be the opposite of theism, but your epistemology is identical.
This sentence is apparently part of your general insults to my epistemological framework, so I’ll just note that I’m mildly amused here- you accused me earlier of thinking of “theists as some sort of Bad people that no one should associate with in case it’s inferiors” ([sic]^3) but you seem to think that theism must inherently be connected with terrible epistemologies, which isn’t the case as demonstrated by the many theists in many disciplines (math, science, history, etc.) who do very good work.
. But if you want an example of good philosophy that’s being done outside professional, academic philosophy, I’d be happy to point to the recent paper by Eliezer et. al. on modal agents and the prisoner’s dilemma. See here.
Not philosophy. Filed under .CS.
This seems like a No True Scotsman more than anything else. Have you read the paper in question? If so, can you explain how what they are doing does not have a strong philosophical element?
Counterexample: his theory of metaethics...the one no one understands.
I don’t think the word “counterexample” is what you are looking for here; it might make sense if I had argued that everything philosophically Eliezer says is great and productive or something like that. Since no one has made that argument, your “counterexample” isn’t terribly relevant.
I’m not saying there are no good amateur philosophers. I am saying there are not enough good enough amateur philosophers to iindicate that the professionals are systematically underperformi.ng by comparison.
I’m not saying there are .ni good amateur philosophers. I am saying there are not enough good enough amateur philosophers to iindicate that the professionals are systematically underperforming.
There are multiple problems with this response. First, I already outlined how “X is performing better than Y” is not the only metric to decide that “Y is performing badly” or “Y could perform better.” To expand on that point, since it apparently didn’t occur the last time, it might help to consider other fields that currently have serious issues. Many branches of science have terrible problems with reproducing results, biology and psychology being high on that list. I don’t need to point to someone currently doing psychology today to identify this as a problem and discuss causes and solutions. Similarly, another related problem is the file-drawer effect. I don’t need to show that someone else is avoiding it to discuss that it is a bad thing and discuss what one can do to prevent it.
Anything can be said to fall short of some theoretical ideal. Usain Bolt runs slower than some theoretical person who runs faster.
Biology and psychology are presumably doing worse than other, real, actually existing sciences...otherwise, why single them out?
If you have a realistic proposal to get more good quality work done in the same time, lets hear it. So far, it sounds like you want to get things done faster by cutting corners.
Anything can be said to fall short of some theoretical ideal. Usain Bolt runs slower than some theoretical person who runs faster.
Sure, but that doesn’t mean we cannot discuss ways of running faster. Even the best athletes are able to work at getting better at what they do without seeing anyone better than they are.
Biology and psychology are presumably doing worse than other, real, actually existing sciences...otherwise, why single them out?
If you prefer we can look at chemistry which is not doing as badly compared to biology and psychology. I can still look at it and notice frequent failures to reproduce, retracted papers, and other signs of problems and conclude that there are steps to improve.
If you have a realistic proposal to get more good quality work done in the same time, lets hear it. So far, it sounds like you want to get things done faster by cutting corners.
So in the case of the STEM fields, the basic steps are pretty clear: pre-registration of experiments, better use of meta-studies, willingness to accept papers that don’t do much other than just reproduce an earlier experiment, etc.
In the case of philosophy, the steps are also pretty clear :Teach introductory philosophy with less emphasis on the ancients, don’t make philosophy students read primary source texts when there are better secondary texts (Kant is one serious example of this), make phil students have to take more STEM classes as undergraduates. These are all concrete, obvious proposals.
Replying separately to the section you edited in after your reply. If you are going to edit in additional replies it might be helpful for you to note when you have done so explicitly so people can see them.
This sentence is apparently part of your general insults to my epistemological framework, so I’ll just note that I’m mildly amused here- you accused me earlier of thinking of “theists as some sort of Bad people that no one should associate with in case it’s inferiors” ([sic]^3) but you seem to think that theism must inherently be connected with terrible epistemologies, which isn’t the case as demonstrated by the many theists in many disciplines (math, science, history, etc.) who do very good work.
This seems like a No True Scotsman more than anything else. Have you read the paper in question? If so, can you explain how what they are doing does not have a strong philosophical element?
I don’t think the word “counterexample” is what you are looking for here; it might make sense if I had argued that everything philosophically Eliezer says is great and productive or something like that. Since no one has made that argument, your “counterexample” isn’t terribly relevant.
I’m not saying there are no good amateur philosophers. I am saying there are not enough good enough amateur philosophers to iindicate that the professionals are systematically underperformi.ng by comparison.
There are multiple problems with this response. First, I already outlined how “X is performing better than Y” is not the only metric to decide that “Y is performing badly” or “Y could perform better.” To expand on that point, since it apparently didn’t occur the last time, it might help to consider other fields that currently have serious issues. Many branches of science have terrible problems with reproducing results, biology and psychology being high on that list. I don’t need to point to someone currently doing psychology today to identify this as a problem and discuss causes and solutions. Similarly, another related problem is the file-drawer effect. I don’t need to show that someone else is avoiding it to discuss that it is a bad thing and discuss what one can do to prevent it.
Anything can be said to fall short of some theoretical ideal. Usain Bolt runs slower than some theoretical person who runs faster.
Biology and psychology are presumably doing worse than other, real, actually existing sciences...otherwise, why single them out?
If you have a realistic proposal to get more good quality work done in the same time, lets hear it. So far, it sounds like you want to get things done faster by cutting corners.
Sure, but that doesn’t mean we cannot discuss ways of running faster. Even the best athletes are able to work at getting better at what they do without seeing anyone better than they are.
If you prefer we can look at chemistry which is not doing as badly compared to biology and psychology. I can still look at it and notice frequent failures to reproduce, retracted papers, and other signs of problems and conclude that there are steps to improve.
So in the case of the STEM fields, the basic steps are pretty clear: pre-registration of experiments, better use of meta-studies, willingness to accept papers that don’t do much other than just reproduce an earlier experiment, etc.
In the case of philosophy, the steps are also pretty clear :Teach introductory philosophy with less emphasis on the ancients, don’t make philosophy students read primary source texts when there are better secondary texts (Kant is one serious example of this), make phil students have to take more STEM classes as undergraduates. These are all concrete, obvious proposals.