I’m part of Roger Bacon’s lineage too, and not ashamed of it either, but time passes and things improve and then there’s not much point in looking back.
Meh. Historical context can help put things in perspective. You’ve done that plenty of times in your own posts on Less Wrong. Again, you seem to be holding my post to a different standard of usefulness than your own posts. But like I said, I don’t recommend anybody actually read Quine.
Oftentimes you simply can’t understand what some theorem or experiment was for without at least knowing about its historical context. Take something as basic as calculus: if you’ve never heard the slightest thing about classical mechanics, what possible meaning could a derivative, integral, or differential equation have to you?
Thanks for sharing. That too. :)
I’m part of Roger Bacon’s lineage too, and not ashamed of it either, but time passes and things improve and then there’s not much point in looking back.
Meh. Historical context can help put things in perspective. You’ve done that plenty of times in your own posts on Less Wrong. Again, you seem to be holding my post to a different standard of usefulness than your own posts. But like I said, I don’t recommend anybody actually read Quine.
Oftentimes you simply can’t understand what some theorem or experiment was for without at least knowing about its historical context. Take something as basic as calculus: if you’ve never heard the slightest thing about classical mechanics, what possible meaning could a derivative, integral, or differential equation have to you?
Does human nature improve, too?
What’s “human nature”?
Something that probably hasn’t changed much over the history of philosophy.