Coherence is the primary attribute of Truth Wisdom and The Truth is maximally coherent ( internally ( to be rational) and externally ( compatible with scientific consensus, to be useful )).
All the useless squabbling over the trees when the forest is right in front of them is an attribute of Academic Philosophy, not Truth or Practical Wisdom, where settled answers and solutions are required respectively.
Love the irony of complaining about philosophy's detachment from reality to an LLM that exists in a state of detachment from reality itself.
You make a valid point, but may I suggest that this problem is not merely the problem of a profession, but also the problem of a system that does not incentivize the right sort of philosophical work?
I really enjoyed this and would love to see it expanded to include voices like Gödel, Wittgenstein, and Popper. Gödel, in particular, absolutely kicked the shit out of the logical positivists—“Nice try, but no.”
Isn't it more the case that much of philosophy is incoherent rather than philosophy is an incoherent profession?
And if you're right, isn't that because you have learnt from the mistakes of those who are wrong? And from others who are right?
Haven't philosophy and science evolved in symbiosis, with all the mistakes and all the progress? Isn't science spun off of philosophy?
Aren't a majority of philosophers of mind nowadays aligned with neuroscience? Aren't they helping neuroscience?
I mean, I agree 100% that philosophy holds an enormous amount of BS and that you can get away with almost anything. And I agree that it should be critiqued. Much more than it is. But I do suspect your critique itself is at least partially an expression of modern philosophy. I think you're going too far.
Reading your part of the conversation was good. Reading the AI was utterly boring and I skipped it all after the first one.
The reason I stand by "philosophy is an incoherent profession" has to do with the norms and incentives within the actual profession.
Semantic gatekeeping is a well established aspect of philosophy today - dressing stuff in increasingly obscure verbiage is just what you do. And they deliberately do it to confuse and misled laypeople. "Clear writing is clear thinking" I reject much philosophy on this ground alone - it is intellectually disingenuous to cloak your ideas in opaque writing simply as a flex. Feynman said "If you can't explain it simply you don't understand it"
Beyond that, when you look at who becomes "successful" and "influential" in philosophy today, it becomes apparent that it's a shell game.
To the best of my understanding, I largely agree with your statement about the norms and incentives promoting increasingly obscure verbiage and that strong reactions are warranted. I'm not as convinced that it is typically deliberate to confuse and mislead. I understand the judgement, but I think it's largely mistaken.
I'll point out that philosophers say what Feynman said too, Dennett for example. Dennett and other philosophers, like you, point out that a lot of philosophy is just not worth doing.
Yes, incoherent nonsense by smart and dumb philosophers does get a lot of attention, especially in media / YouTube etc. But I don't think this is surprising or a sign that philosophy is incoherent as a profession or that it's not making important contributions.
I'm a physicalist but I do consider property dualism, for example, progress over a Christian ontology. Property dualism, as incoherent as it is, is still a better soil for physicalism to grow in than a Christian ontology is.
I don't know the history but I suspect science-anchored views sighing philosophy of mind have not been a majority view for that many decades.
Philosophers like Dennett have not only learned a lot from neuroscience, but neuroscientists have learned from them. And Dennett has learned from the traditions and what's good and bad within the philosophical tradition.
Anyway, thanks. I'm not that knowledgeable about philosophy as a whole, but with that limitation, I am largely sympathetic to your view expressed here, or a somewhat softer variant of it.
Coherence is a mandate for Western philosophy because the application of philosophy at its best is the answer to the question, what is humanity, in its present state, to do?
Granted, this becomes a pragmatic approach to philosophy where ethical human agency (moving from the “is” to the “ought”) allows philosophy to breathe and become concrete (not in the static sense but in the actionable sense). Correspondence is therefore the lynch-pin for this movement from conception to concrete outcomes.
Without coherence, philosophy is not a fully-orbed philosophy in the best sense of the discipline.
That is interesting, but it seems like a person able to turn mere words into becoming an historically significant figure is the ultimate in living out the will the power. Didn't he prove himself to be a Superman?
I would count that in his favor. Despite being mentally unfit, and physically unfit, he used what he had to become one of the more significant historical figures. Would you think better of him if he would have been mentally collapsed but achieved nothing? Like most people who have mental collapses? The speculation I believe is that he had syphilis and that caused his mental collapse in later days.
I would think better of him if his work didn't look like cope. That's my entire point. So, if he had these beliefs about power, but had actually experienced and accumulated power in his life, then yeah maybe I'd think better of him. Like if he was more of a Teddy Roosevelt figure who overcame illness to go on and do great things anyways, then yes.
I do agree with you that in general philosophy lost the thread, because it kept only the intellectual and spun off science which was the only path forward to a truly improved philosophy. Philosophy that is not psychology and physics is dead. But I think Nietzsche said something like that as well:-)
A great example of philosophical theory that has failed to hold up to reality is Marxism. The works of Marx and Engles underwrote the entire 20th socialist movement. You argue that even if it had relevance and coherence, it ended mid 20th century
Then again, the likes of Hegel and Popper as well as Wittgenstein did was pretty seminal work And we have Gödel …
Maybe you'll like this! "Facing Up to the Problem of Philosophy"
https://markslight.substack.com/p/facing-up-to-the-problem-of-philosophy
Coherence is the primary attribute of Truth Wisdom and The Truth is maximally coherent ( internally ( to be rational) and externally ( compatible with scientific consensus, to be useful )).
All the useless squabbling over the trees when the forest is right in front of them is an attribute of Academic Philosophy, not Truth or Practical Wisdom, where settled answers and solutions are required respectively.
Love the irony of complaining about philosophy's detachment from reality to an LLM that exists in a state of detachment from reality itself.
You make a valid point, but may I suggest that this problem is not merely the problem of a profession, but also the problem of a system that does not incentivize the right sort of philosophical work?
The next level of irony is that the LLM is more coherent than many humans, philosophers included.
But yeah, it all comes down to incentives
Didn't Hanzi Freinacht or one of those other researchers basically make all the other old stuff obsolete anyway?
I really enjoyed this and would love to see it expanded to include voices like Gödel, Wittgenstein, and Popper. Gödel, in particular, absolutely kicked the shit out of the logical positivists—“Nice try, but no.”
Quantum physics, the fundamental nature of the universe, is also decoherent and paradoxical.
Isn't it more the case that much of philosophy is incoherent rather than philosophy is an incoherent profession?
And if you're right, isn't that because you have learnt from the mistakes of those who are wrong? And from others who are right?
Haven't philosophy and science evolved in symbiosis, with all the mistakes and all the progress? Isn't science spun off of philosophy?
Aren't a majority of philosophers of mind nowadays aligned with neuroscience? Aren't they helping neuroscience?
I mean, I agree 100% that philosophy holds an enormous amount of BS and that you can get away with almost anything. And I agree that it should be critiqued. Much more than it is. But I do suspect your critique itself is at least partially an expression of modern philosophy. I think you're going too far.
Reading your part of the conversation was good. Reading the AI was utterly boring and I skipped it all after the first one.
Here's a coherent set of answers to everything in metaphysics: https://kaiserbasileus.substack.com/p/metaphysics-in-a-nutshell
It's Academia that's incoherent, not philosophy per-se.
The reason I stand by "philosophy is an incoherent profession" has to do with the norms and incentives within the actual profession.
Semantic gatekeeping is a well established aspect of philosophy today - dressing stuff in increasingly obscure verbiage is just what you do. And they deliberately do it to confuse and misled laypeople. "Clear writing is clear thinking" I reject much philosophy on this ground alone - it is intellectually disingenuous to cloak your ideas in opaque writing simply as a flex. Feynman said "If you can't explain it simply you don't understand it"
Beyond that, when you look at who becomes "successful" and "influential" in philosophy today, it becomes apparent that it's a shell game.
Absolutely LOL. I once refused to do an assignment on Derrida and told that the professor if he anything to say he would have said it clearly
To the best of my understanding, I largely agree with your statement about the norms and incentives promoting increasingly obscure verbiage and that strong reactions are warranted. I'm not as convinced that it is typically deliberate to confuse and mislead. I understand the judgement, but I think it's largely mistaken.
I'll point out that philosophers say what Feynman said too, Dennett for example. Dennett and other philosophers, like you, point out that a lot of philosophy is just not worth doing.
Yes, incoherent nonsense by smart and dumb philosophers does get a lot of attention, especially in media / YouTube etc. But I don't think this is surprising or a sign that philosophy is incoherent as a profession or that it's not making important contributions.
I'm a physicalist but I do consider property dualism, for example, progress over a Christian ontology. Property dualism, as incoherent as it is, is still a better soil for physicalism to grow in than a Christian ontology is.
I don't know the history but I suspect science-anchored views sighing philosophy of mind have not been a majority view for that many decades.
Philosophers like Dennett have not only learned a lot from neuroscience, but neuroscientists have learned from them. And Dennett has learned from the traditions and what's good and bad within the philosophical tradition.
Anyway, thanks. I'm not that knowledgeable about philosophy as a whole, but with that limitation, I am largely sympathetic to your view expressed here, or a somewhat softer variant of it.
Coherence is a mandate for Western philosophy because the application of philosophy at its best is the answer to the question, what is humanity, in its present state, to do?
Granted, this becomes a pragmatic approach to philosophy where ethical human agency (moving from the “is” to the “ought”) allows philosophy to breathe and become concrete (not in the static sense but in the actionable sense). Correspondence is therefore the lynch-pin for this movement from conception to concrete outcomes.
Without coherence, philosophy is not a fully-orbed philosophy in the best sense of the discipline.
This is a great comment. You summarized it far better than I did!
That is interesting, but it seems like a person able to turn mere words into becoming an historically significant figure is the ultimate in living out the will the power. Didn't he prove himself to be a Superman?
He lived in a state of cognitive and physical collapse for the last decade of his life, so if that's what the Ubermensch is, count me out.
I would count that in his favor. Despite being mentally unfit, and physically unfit, he used what he had to become one of the more significant historical figures. Would you think better of him if he would have been mentally collapsed but achieved nothing? Like most people who have mental collapses? The speculation I believe is that he had syphilis and that caused his mental collapse in later days.
I would think better of him if his work didn't look like cope. That's my entire point. So, if he had these beliefs about power, but had actually experienced and accumulated power in his life, then yeah maybe I'd think better of him. Like if he was more of a Teddy Roosevelt figure who overcame illness to go on and do great things anyways, then yes.
I do agree with you that in general philosophy lost the thread, because it kept only the intellectual and spun off science which was the only path forward to a truly improved philosophy. Philosophy that is not psychology and physics is dead. But I think Nietzsche said something like that as well:-)
Fair enough. At the same time, I find myself as a philosopher wondering "WTF is the point of this?" Maybe we all have more in common... LOL
A great example of philosophical theory that has failed to hold up to reality is Marxism. The works of Marx and Engles underwrote the entire 20th socialist movement. You argue that even if it had relevance and coherence, it ended mid 20th century
Then again, the likes of Hegel and Popper as well as Wittgenstein did was pretty seminal work And we have Gödel …
You're agreeing... I think... but this comment is slightly incoherent! LOL. What are the parallels you're thinking?
Ha ha! Yeah, I typed as my plane was taking off and the flight attendant was starting to get snarky.
Seems to me that “philosophers of old”, especially the likes of Popper were quite rigorous and it’s “post modernism” that has become sloppy!
Marx was so influential and seemed brilliant to many of his era and it just feels like reading Ptolemy today.
At the end of the day, most of what passes for philosophy fail, IMHO, in being not falsifiable