My general impression is that you put far too much stock in what a majority of philosophers think. While lots of people thinking something is some evidence that it’s true, and lots of “experts” thinking something is even better evidence, I have yet to hear a compelling account of why I should think philosophers are experts at reaching correct philosophical conclusions in a reliable and consistent way, across different issues.
And, in any case, there are a variety of reasons why we should seriously doubt that what amounts to barely over a 2:1 ratio of realists to antirealists is anything more than paltry evidence for realism. What matters is why philosophers endorse realism. Do they have good arguments? Does studying philosophy cause people to be realists? If it does, why does it do so? We don’t know enough about the base rate of endorsement of realism among the general population, we don’t know enough about whether self-selection effects cause people more disposed to endorse realism to become philosophers, we don’t know why they endorse realism, and so on. F
Furthermore, if you ask around, you’ll find philosophers commenting on how the rise of realism is fairly recent, and if you go back a few decades, most philosophers seemed to be moral antirealists (sadly, we don’t have PhilPapers surveys from the 20th century). If we go back even further, we might find most were moral realists. Realism has waxed and waned in popularity among philosophers. It’s unclear whether its popularity is due to good arguments or due to fashionable trends in the field.
I’d be curious to hear how much stock you think we should put in philosophers on these matters, and why. What kind of expertise do philosophers have? Why should we think that they are generally better at converging on correct conclusions about realism and consciousness than people on LessWrong?
2. Updating doesn’t change much in this case
One can grant that most philosophers endorse a position contrary to their positions, consider that some evidence for their views, and yet still be unconvinced. How strong of evidence do you take it to be that e.g., 62% of philosophers endorse moral realism? How much should that increase my confidence that moral realism is true? And why?
You endorse utilitarianism, even though most philosophers reject it, and possibly by a larger margin than they reject moral realism. Only 30.6% endorsed or leaned towards consequentialism, and only a subset of these would endorse utilitarianism. It’s not likely that the total number of philosophers who endorse utilitarianism is as high as the amount who endorse moral antirealism (~26%), since this would require almost all of those who endorse consequentialism to be utilitarians as well.
Presumably you take the majority rejection of utilitarianism as some evidence against it, but not enough to overturn your confidence in utilitarianism. Perhaps the same is true of people that lean towards antirealism and physicalist views of consciousness. It’s hard to know.
3. Dogmas
I also want to briefly flag that your title, “Two Dogmas of LessWrong,” seems to suggest that rejecting moral realism and antiphysicalist views of consciousness are “dogmas.” I’m not sure that they are. Yet you may want to consider that the prominence of both views among philosophers may likewise be dogmas or, more plausibly, there may be more foundational dogmas common among contemporary analytic philosophers that cause higher rates of realism and antiphysicalist views of consciousness than in the absence of those dogmas. I’m not idly speculating: I think this is in fact the case. I’m not the first to suggest this, and I won’t be the last.
There have been a variety of traditions and thinkers that have raised concerns about analytic philosophy’s methods, and it’s strange approach to language, concepts, metaphysics, and epistemology, from the pragmatists in the form of James and the more caustic FCS Schiller, to positivists, through Wittgenstein, ordinary language philosophers, and more recently experimental philosophers and others who have questions the ubiquity and reliance on intuitions among philosophers.
Whatever their flaws, in these various ways these thinkers and approaches have raised what I take to be very serious challenges to mainstream philosophical methods, challenges that I saw echoed in the critical stance many people associated with LessWrong took towards much of contemporary philosophy. I suspect the root of the problem isn’t realism and antiphysicalist views about consciousness, but analytic philosophy’s methods. If your methods aren’t any good, you’re going to end up with lots of people converging on bad ideas. Garbage in, garbage out. I should note that these are preliminary remarks, and I’m not attempting to make a more comprehensive case against the methods of contemporary philosophy. While that’s something I have done in passing in other comments, I’m more interested in a positive case for why we should put stock in contemporary analytic philosophy in the first place. It doesn’t strike me as having an especially good track record at solving problems.
I think this for pretty basic Auman’s agreement theorem reasons. While their methodology may be super wrong, so may be the methodology of LessWrongers.
I don’t know exactly, but I’d give it at least 10% odds even if it remained implausible sounding. I endorse utilitarianism, but peer disagreement dramatically reduces my confidence in it.
This was just a reference to Two Dogmas of Empiricism—one clearly need not be dogmatic to be an anti-realist—though I think there are lots of dogmatic anti-realists; as is no doubt also true of realism.
I understand if it’s a reference to Quine, but a title like that is still provocative and carries rhetorical weight. I see little reason in giving the impression that people are being “dogmatic” about something, and even less if you don’t actually think that. I’m also not sure how many readers are going to pick up on the reference, either (it wouldn’t surprise me if they did, I’m not sure one way or the other).
Fair enough. I still think find it somewhat unappealing to use a title that implies people are being dogmatic without providing much in the way of support for the implication. I’d prefer titles be accurate rather than clever.
I agree: accurate is better than clever. (And, for the avoidance of doubt, I wasn’t meaning to argue that omnizoid’s choice of title is a good one.)
I’m not sure whether I think it’s fair to call the two things omnizoid is complaining about “dogmas of LW”. Physicalism about consciousness is certainly pretty widely and confidently accepted around here. Moral nonrealism I’m not so sure about. It doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable to suggest that these things are viewed on LW in something like the way the analytic/synthetic distinction and reductionism were viewed among empiricist philosophers when Quine wrote “Two Dogmas”.
Quine’s paper is much more interesting than omnizoid’s because (1) he makes better arguments and (2) he is arguing for a thesis more like “this stuff is subtler than everyone thinks” than like “you guys are straightforwardly wrong and one of the standard alternatives to your view is correct instead” and actually bringing some new ideas to the table, which I don’t really think omnizoid is doing.
It doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable to suggest that these things are viewed on LW in something like the way the analytic/synthetic distinction and reductionism were viewed among empiricist philosophers when Quine wrote “Two Dogmas”
That’s fair. I can grant that. Like you, I’m less sure about the general attitude towards moral realism here. I’d have thought inclinations were more towards dissolve-the-dispute than a decidedly antirealist stance. I’d be interested in finding out more about people’s metaethical views on LW.
1. Putting stock in philosophers
My general impression is that you put far too much stock in what a majority of philosophers think. While lots of people thinking something is some evidence that it’s true, and lots of “experts” thinking something is even better evidence, I have yet to hear a compelling account of why I should think philosophers are experts at reaching correct philosophical conclusions in a reliable and consistent way, across different issues.
And, in any case, there are a variety of reasons why we should seriously doubt that what amounts to barely over a 2:1 ratio of realists to antirealists is anything more than paltry evidence for realism. What matters is why philosophers endorse realism. Do they have good arguments? Does studying philosophy cause people to be realists? If it does, why does it do so? We don’t know enough about the base rate of endorsement of realism among the general population, we don’t know enough about whether self-selection effects cause people more disposed to endorse realism to become philosophers, we don’t know why they endorse realism, and so on. F
Furthermore, if you ask around, you’ll find philosophers commenting on how the rise of realism is fairly recent, and if you go back a few decades, most philosophers seemed to be moral antirealists (sadly, we don’t have PhilPapers surveys from the 20th century). If we go back even further, we might find most were moral realists. Realism has waxed and waned in popularity among philosophers. It’s unclear whether its popularity is due to good arguments or due to fashionable trends in the field.
I’d be curious to hear how much stock you think we should put in philosophers on these matters, and why. What kind of expertise do philosophers have? Why should we think that they are generally better at converging on correct conclusions about realism and consciousness than people on LessWrong?
2. Updating doesn’t change much in this case
One can grant that most philosophers endorse a position contrary to their positions, consider that some evidence for their views, and yet still be unconvinced. How strong of evidence do you take it to be that e.g., 62% of philosophers endorse moral realism? How much should that increase my confidence that moral realism is true? And why?
You endorse utilitarianism, even though most philosophers reject it, and possibly by a larger margin than they reject moral realism. Only 30.6% endorsed or leaned towards consequentialism, and only a subset of these would endorse utilitarianism. It’s not likely that the total number of philosophers who endorse utilitarianism is as high as the amount who endorse moral antirealism (~26%), since this would require almost all of those who endorse consequentialism to be utilitarians as well.
Presumably you take the majority rejection of utilitarianism as some evidence against it, but not enough to overturn your confidence in utilitarianism. Perhaps the same is true of people that lean towards antirealism and physicalist views of consciousness. It’s hard to know.
3. Dogmas
I also want to briefly flag that your title, “Two Dogmas of LessWrong,” seems to suggest that rejecting moral realism and antiphysicalist views of consciousness are “dogmas.” I’m not sure that they are. Yet you may want to consider that the prominence of both views among philosophers may likewise be dogmas or, more plausibly, there may be more foundational dogmas common among contemporary analytic philosophers that cause higher rates of realism and antiphysicalist views of consciousness than in the absence of those dogmas. I’m not idly speculating: I think this is in fact the case. I’m not the first to suggest this, and I won’t be the last.
There have been a variety of traditions and thinkers that have raised concerns about analytic philosophy’s methods, and it’s strange approach to language, concepts, metaphysics, and epistemology, from the pragmatists in the form of James and the more caustic FCS Schiller, to positivists, through Wittgenstein, ordinary language philosophers, and more recently experimental philosophers and others who have questions the ubiquity and reliance on intuitions among philosophers.
Whatever their flaws, in these various ways these thinkers and approaches have raised what I take to be very serious challenges to mainstream philosophical methods, challenges that I saw echoed in the critical stance many people associated with LessWrong took towards much of contemporary philosophy. I suspect the root of the problem isn’t realism and antiphysicalist views about consciousness, but analytic philosophy’s methods. If your methods aren’t any good, you’re going to end up with lots of people converging on bad ideas. Garbage in, garbage out. I should note that these are preliminary remarks, and I’m not attempting to make a more comprehensive case against the methods of contemporary philosophy. While that’s something I have done in passing in other comments, I’m more interested in a positive case for why we should put stock in contemporary analytic philosophy in the first place. It doesn’t strike me as having an especially good track record at solving problems.
I think this for pretty basic Auman’s agreement theorem reasons. While their methodology may be super wrong, so may be the methodology of LessWrongers.
I don’t know exactly, but I’d give it at least 10% odds even if it remained implausible sounding. I endorse utilitarianism, but peer disagreement dramatically reduces my confidence in it.
This was just a reference to Two Dogmas of Empiricism—one clearly need not be dogmatic to be an anti-realist—though I think there are lots of dogmatic anti-realists; as is no doubt also true of realism.
I understand if it’s a reference to Quine, but a title like that is still provocative and carries rhetorical weight. I see little reason in giving the impression that people are being “dogmatic” about something, and even less if you don’t actually think that. I’m also not sure how many readers are going to pick up on the reference, either (it wouldn’t surprise me if they did, I’m not sure one way or the other).
As one data point, I saw immediately what omnizoid was referencing. (But I don’t think omnizoid makes as good a case as Quine does.)
Fair enough. I still think find it somewhat unappealing to use a title that implies people are being dogmatic without providing much in the way of support for the implication. I’d prefer titles be accurate rather than clever.
I agree: accurate is better than clever. (And, for the avoidance of doubt, I wasn’t meaning to argue that omnizoid’s choice of title is a good one.)
I’m not sure whether I think it’s fair to call the two things omnizoid is complaining about “dogmas of LW”. Physicalism about consciousness is certainly pretty widely and confidently accepted around here. Moral nonrealism I’m not so sure about. It doesn’t seem entirely unreasonable to suggest that these things are viewed on LW in something like the way the analytic/synthetic distinction and reductionism were viewed among empiricist philosophers when Quine wrote “Two Dogmas”.
Quine’s paper is much more interesting than omnizoid’s because (1) he makes better arguments and (2) he is arguing for a thesis more like “this stuff is subtler than everyone thinks” than like “you guys are straightforwardly wrong and one of the standard alternatives to your view is correct instead” and actually bringing some new ideas to the table, which I don’t really think omnizoid is doing.
That’s fair. I can grant that. Like you, I’m less sure about the general attitude towards moral realism here. I’d have thought inclinations were more towards dissolve-the-dispute than a decidedly antirealist stance. I’d be interested in finding out more about people’s metaethical views on LW.