Could we reasonably say that an F is in F2 if most of the institutional participants in that F are intelligent, well-educated people? This leaves room for cranks who are right to object to F, of course.
So, just to pick an example, IIRC Dan Dennett believes the philosophical study of consciousness (qualia, etc.) is fundamentally confused in more or less the same way Desrtopa claims of the philosophical study of ethics is.
So under this formulation, if most of the institutional participants in the philosophical study of consciousness are intelligent, well-educated people, Dan Dennet is a crank?
No, I don’t think we can reasonably say that. Dan Dennet might be a crank, but it takes more than that argument to demonstrate the fact.
Good point. So how about this: someone is a crank if they object to F, where F is in F2 (by my above standard), and the reasons they have for objecting to F are not recognized as sound by a proportionate number of intelligent and well educated people.
(shrug) I suppose that works well enough, for some values of “proportionate.”
Mostly I consider this a special case of the basic “who do I trust?” social problem, applied to academic disciplines, and I don’t have any real problem saying about an academic discipline “this discipline is fundamentally confused, and the odds of work in it contributing anything valuable to the world is slim.”
Of course, as Prawn has pointed out a few times, there’s also the question of where we draw the lines around a discipline, but I mostly consider that an orthogonal question to how we evaluate the discipline.
I think this question is moot in the case of philosophy in general then; I think any philosopher worth their shirt should tell you that trust is a wholly inappropriate attitude toward philosophers, philosophical institutions and philosophical traditions.
Not in the sense I meant it. If a philosopher makes a claim that seems on the surface to be false or incoherent, I have to decide whether to devote the additional effort to evaluating it to confirm or deny that initial judgment. One of the factors that will feed into that decision will be my estimate of the prior probability that they are saying something false or incoherent. If I should refer to that using a word other than “trust”, that’s fine, tell me what word will refer to that to you and I’ll try to use it instead.
No, that describes what I’m talking about, so long as by trust you mean ‘a reason to hear out an argument that makes reference to the credibility of a field or its professionals’, rather than just ‘a reason to hear out an argument’. If the former, then I do think this is an inappropriate attitude toward philosophy. One reason for this is that such trust seems to depend on having a good standard for the success of a field independently of hearing out an argument. I can trust physicists because they make such good predictions, and because their work leads to such powerful technological advances. I don’t need to be a physicist to observe that. I don’t think philosophy has anything like that to speak for it. The only standards of success are the arguments themselves, and you can only evaluate them by just going ahead and doing some philosophy.
You can find trust in an institution independently of such standards by watching to see whether people you think are otherwise credible take it seriously. That will of course work with philosophy too, but if you trust Tom to be able to judge whether or not a philosophical claim is worth pursuing (and if I’m right about the above), then Tom can only be trustworthy in this regard because he has been doing philosophy (i.e. engaging with the argument). This could get you through the door on some particular philosophical claim, but not into philosophy generally.
so long as by trust you mean ‘a reason to hear out an argument that makes reference to the credibility of a field or its professionals’, rather than just ‘a reason to hear out an argument’.
I mean neither, I mean ‘a reason to devote time and resources to evaluating the evidence for and against a position.’ As you say, I can only evaluate a philosophical argument by ‘going ahead and doing some philosophy,’ (for a sufficiently broad understanding of ‘philosophy’), but my willingness to do, say, 20 hours of philosophy in order to evaluate Philosopher Sam’s position is going to depend on, among other things, my estimate of the prior probability that Sam is saying something false or incoherent. The likelier I think that is, the less willing I am to spend those 20 hours.
I mean neither, I mean ‘a reason to devote time and resources to evaluating the evidence for and against a position.’
That’s fine, that’s not different from ‘hearing out an argument’ in any way important to my point (unless I’m missing something).
EDIT: Sorry, if you don’t want to include ‘that makes some reference to the credibility...etc.’ (or something like that) in what you mean by ‘trust’ then you should use a different term. Curiosity, or money, or romantic interest would all be reasons to devote time...etc. and clearly none of those are rightly called ‘trust’.
my estimate of the prior probability that Sam is saying something false or incoherent.
What do you have in mind as the basis for such a prior? Can you give me an example?
Point taken about other reasons to devote resources other than trust. I think we’re good here.
Re: example… I don’t mean anything deeply clever. E.g., if the last ten superficially-implausible ideas Sam espoused were false or incoherent, my priors for it will be higher than if the last ten such ideas were counterintuitive and brilliant.
Hm. I can’t argue with that, and I suppose it’s trivial to extend that to ‘if the last ten superficially-implausible ideas philosophy professors/books/etc. espoused were false or incoherent...’. So, okay, trust is an appropriate (because necessary) attitude toward philosophers and philosophical institutions. I think it’s right to say that philosophy doesn’t have external indicators in the way physics or medicine does, but the importance of that point seems diminished.
So, just to pick an example, IIRC Dan Dennett believes the philosophical study of consciousness (qualia, etc.) is fundamentally confused in more or less the same way Desrtopa claims of the philosophical study of ethics is.
Dennett only thinks the idea of qualia is confused. He has no problem with his own books on consciousness.
So under this formulation, if most of the institutional participants in the philosophical study of consciousness are intelligent, well-educated people, Dan Dennet is a crank?
No. He isn’t dismissing a whole academic subject, or a sub-field. Just one idea.
What is Dennett’s account for why philosophers of consciousness other than himself continue to think that a dismissable idea like qualia is worth continuing to discuss, even though he considers it closed?
Could we reasonably say that an F is in F2 if most of the institutional participants in that F are intelligent, well-educated people? This leaves room for cranks who are right to object to F, of course.
So, just to pick an example, IIRC Dan Dennett believes the philosophical study of consciousness (qualia, etc.) is fundamentally confused in more or less the same way Desrtopa claims of the philosophical study of ethics is.
So under this formulation, if most of the institutional participants in the philosophical study of consciousness are intelligent, well-educated people, Dan Dennet is a crank?
No, I don’t think we can reasonably say that. Dan Dennet might be a crank, but it takes more than that argument to demonstrate the fact.
Good point. So how about this: someone is a crank if they object to F, where F is in F2 (by my above standard), and the reasons they have for objecting to F are not recognized as sound by a proportionate number of intelligent and well educated people.
(shrug) I suppose that works well enough, for some values of “proportionate.”
Mostly I consider this a special case of the basic “who do I trust?” social problem, applied to academic disciplines, and I don’t have any real problem saying about an academic discipline “this discipline is fundamentally confused, and the odds of work in it contributing anything valuable to the world is slim.”
Of course, as Prawn has pointed out a few times, there’s also the question of where we draw the lines around a discipline, but I mostly consider that an orthogonal question to how we evaluate the discipline.
I think this question is moot in the case of philosophy in general then; I think any philosopher worth their shirt should tell you that trust is a wholly inappropriate attitude toward philosophers, philosophical institutions and philosophical traditions.
Not in the sense I meant it.
If a philosopher makes a claim that seems on the surface to be false or incoherent, I have to decide whether to devote the additional effort to evaluating it to confirm or deny that initial judgment. One of the factors that will feed into that decision will be my estimate of the prior probability that they are saying something false or incoherent.
If I should refer to that using a word other than “trust”, that’s fine, tell me what word will refer to that to you and I’ll try to use it instead.
No, that describes what I’m talking about, so long as by trust you mean ‘a reason to hear out an argument that makes reference to the credibility of a field or its professionals’, rather than just ‘a reason to hear out an argument’. If the former, then I do think this is an inappropriate attitude toward philosophy. One reason for this is that such trust seems to depend on having a good standard for the success of a field independently of hearing out an argument. I can trust physicists because they make such good predictions, and because their work leads to such powerful technological advances. I don’t need to be a physicist to observe that. I don’t think philosophy has anything like that to speak for it. The only standards of success are the arguments themselves, and you can only evaluate them by just going ahead and doing some philosophy.
You can find trust in an institution independently of such standards by watching to see whether people you think are otherwise credible take it seriously. That will of course work with philosophy too, but if you trust Tom to be able to judge whether or not a philosophical claim is worth pursuing (and if I’m right about the above), then Tom can only be trustworthy in this regard because he has been doing philosophy (i.e. engaging with the argument). This could get you through the door on some particular philosophical claim, but not into philosophy generally.
I mean neither, I mean ‘a reason to devote time and resources to evaluating the evidence for and against a position.’ As you say, I can only evaluate a philosophical argument by ‘going ahead and doing some philosophy,’ (for a sufficiently broad understanding of ‘philosophy’), but my willingness to do, say, 20 hours of philosophy in order to evaluate Philosopher Sam’s position is going to depend on, among other things, my estimate of the prior probability that Sam is saying something false or incoherent. The likelier I think that is, the less willing I am to spend those 20 hours.
That’s fine, that’s not different from ‘hearing out an argument’ in any way important to my point (unless I’m missing something).
EDIT: Sorry, if you don’t want to include ‘that makes some reference to the credibility...etc.’ (or something like that) in what you mean by ‘trust’ then you should use a different term. Curiosity, or money, or romantic interest would all be reasons to devote time...etc. and clearly none of those are rightly called ‘trust’.
What do you have in mind as the basis for such a prior? Can you give me an example?
Point taken about other reasons to devote resources other than trust. I think we’re good here.
Re: example… I don’t mean anything deeply clever. E.g., if the last ten superficially-implausible ideas Sam espoused were false or incoherent, my priors for it will be higher than if the last ten such ideas were counterintuitive and brilliant.
Hm. I can’t argue with that, and I suppose it’s trivial to extend that to ‘if the last ten superficially-implausible ideas philosophy professors/books/etc. espoused were false or incoherent...’. So, okay, trust is an appropriate (because necessary) attitude toward philosophers and philosophical institutions. I think it’s right to say that philosophy doesn’t have external indicators in the way physics or medicine does, but the importance of that point seems diminished.
Dennett only thinks the idea of qualia is confused. He has no problem with his own books on consciousness.
No. He isn’t dismissing a whole academic subject, or a sub-field. Just one idea.
What is Dennett’s account for why philosophers of consciousness other than himself continue to think that a dismissable idea like qualia is worth continuing to discuss, even though he considers it closed?