
Philosophy Has Made Plenty of Progress - chablent
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/philosophy-has-made-plenty-of-progress/
======
ripsawridge
The only thing our world needs now is a reorientation away from growth at all
costs into a mode of life that values the simple, the close by, the cheap.

I don't see this guy giving a damn about that problem. Instead he tosses off
bon mots about Popper and Gödel, and intones comfortably that in his view his
peers have the right idea because they converge on atheism/agnosticism. Wow.
The world is saved.

There is a class of people who value a "small life," the kind we all need to
adopt: zen monks. Unfortunately, such people are afflicted by the disease of
irrationalism in their ideas about God, or some similar concept that offends
the sensibility of the excessively rational so much that they can only paint
Belief in the most lurid colors.

Highly unfashionable to study such people. Instead, a professional philosopher
keeps giving interviews, attending conferences and publishing papers. I'll be
glad when we can no longer afford them. I also apologize for my lack of
charity but there it is.

~~~
camelNotation
I like you.

There's been a total over-correction away from religion and we've lost sight
of why it evolved in the first place. Social scientists have long known that
there is nothing rational about the decisions we make, and certainly not in
groups. Religion may have led us to quite a bit of violence in the past and
might not have given us self-driving cars, but simply understanding the
universe is not going to be enough to save the world when we are all still
driven moment to moment by our emotional predispositions. We need a way to
engineer and shape our emotions and and our collective psyche - something
religion evolved to do. Science is a valuable tool for good, but it is limited
by our own lack of virtue in how we use it.

I think a lot of people dislike that idea because religion, unlike science,
doesn't offer us any certainty. We're addicted to an illusion of certainty in
a world where our actual lived reality is always uncertain. We need to get
over that. Certainty is a lie.

~~~
louwrentius
Religion is not about certainty or uncertainty but about a higher purpose,
about meaning. This life, this pain, this suffering needs to amount to
something or why bother continuing?

Religion doesn't seem the answer, it always creates more problems than it
solves. It thrives on suffering. Because suffering creates a need for
religion, it sustains itself this way.

Can we find meaning and purpose in our existence in a way that isn't so
detrimental to quality of life, now and in our future?

~~~
camelNotation
Religion does provide meaning and purpose, but that is hardly all it is
"about."

Religion also provides inclusion for those that would otherwise feel outcast.
It provides social structure and identity. It provides a framework for you to
build culture upon. It acts as a moral guide for behavior. It unifies
communities around central goals. It uses myth to convey inter-generational
wisdom. It teaches rituals that improve mental and physical health. It
provides dozens of important things.

The idea that religion is just about an individual doing X or Y to feel like
they have "meaning" or "purpose" is nonsense. Religion evolved as the
foundation of human social order. It's about communion and community, not
self-indulgence. We know from our earliest architectural sites, like Gobekli
Tepe, that religion preceded even the agrarian forms of human society. It's
part of who and what we are.

It's extremely arrogant to call it detrimental, especially when our "post-
religious" society - where everyone claims a god of their own but no one
practices anything - has a workforce composed almost entirely of alienated,
corporate slaves that lack more than half the things I mentioned in my second
paragraph and a non-working population that suffers in silence because they
offer no "economic benefit" to the rest. We are hardly enlightened in any
meaningful sense of the word.

~~~
renox
> Religion also provides inclusion for those that would otherwise feel
> outcast.

Except for those who don't fit in the religion narrow view of what is
acceptable..

> It provides a framework for you to build culture upon.[cut]It provides
> dozens of important things.

Proof needed: there are many countries which have a high share of
atheists/agnostics (northern European countries), these countries have their
own culture and people seem to be quite happy in these countries _without_
needing a religion.

~~~
camelNotation
Culture, with all its variations in values, art, and identity, develops over
very long periods of time. To look at modern, irreligious countries in Europe
and say they have culture without religion ignores the fact that they only
lost their religious identity in the past couple of generations. They're
eating meat that their ancestors already hunted.

~~~
renox
camelNotation,vanterdon: Reread what the GP said: he used the present tense,
not the past tense. If you rewrite what he said in the past tense, I agree,
but for the present tense? No, while it 's true that in many countries
religions still shape the culture, there are some countries which mostly left
religion behind so his generalization isn't correct.

------
brobdingnagians
Sounds like a clever, witty, and charming guy. Would be very interesting to
talk to him; I like his style of talking. Curiously ironic that he cites a
consensus in personal belief in atheism and agnostics among philosophers (at
least, modern philosophers, most philosophers in history believed in God..) as
a good reason for philosophy not accepting the existence of God, which appears
to be a popularity contest (and echo-chamber), then later in discussing a
scientific belief says "This I do believe, but have no proof." Sounds like
some faith to me... (and I agree that there is probably a surprisingly simple
and elegant theory underlying all of physics, based on what I understand and
see of the universe) Of course, I've found that most atheists tend to have
faith in science without actually understanding science (though plenty do
understand the science) and have some personal, emotional reason for not
believing in God rather than a well-thought out chain of reasoning; but most
people believe things for personal and emotional reasons, so it isn't
surprising. It is always a bit humorous to ask them why they believe in
science or what it is they believe and get back answers based on a fanatical
devotion to, and blind trust in, the priesthood of "pseudo-"scientists like
Dawkins, who makes all sorts of unsupported meta-physical claims in his books.
I would always encourage atheists to investigating with an open mind, and to
learn more about their system of beliefs, and more about logic. They should do
what they believe is correct, and should always seek the truth, but be open to
discovery of truth even when they may not like it. Most real scientists have a
healthy skepticism towards the correctness of at least part of their own
theories.

~~~
malmsteen
The point of science is that its supposed to be verifiable/ provable at least
by someone. Its "trust" (in that "someone" or "group of people" who can prove
it)... not "faith".

Faith is when its literally unprovable by anyone but you still believe it. Its
completely different.

~~~
cyborgx7
I've explained this to people a couple of times who make the "faith in
science" argument. The difference is that you -can- verify it, not that you
did verify it.

Your terminology of trust vs. faith is great. I will incorporate it into my
arguments in the future.

~~~
superqwert
I think you may have a different understanding of "faith in science" than
brobdingnagians. It could mean anything, such as:

1\. A belief that the scientific method will definitely approach reality (a
realist/pragmatist claim)

2\. A belief that the current consensus is right - (but it could be
disclaimed)

3\. A belief that science will explain everything, so one could discard other
studies, such as philosophy or theology.

Each of these positions can be disputed and may be wrong (especially since
they were not acquired by the scientific method, but arrived at by
philosophical thought), so to some extent you need some "faith" to accept
these statements to be true.

~~~
13415
Position 1 is analytically true.

No scientist believes position 2 in general. Regarding particular subject
matters and well-confirmed theories, on the other hand, it's pretty much
uncontroversial. No cell phone would work and no plane would fly if the
underlying physical theories were flat-out false.

Position 3 is probably analytically true, too. The idea that there is
something that can in principle not be explained by taking a close scientific
(=skeptic, methodical, experimental, precise) look at it hardly makes any
sense.

~~~
Miltnoid
What do you mean by "analytically true"

~~~
FabHK
Basically, "analytic" = "by definition", while "synthetic" = "empirically".

See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic–synthetic_distinction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic–synthetic_distinction)

------
visarga
I don't think philosophy is keeping up with the progress in AI, neuroscience
and game theory. If it did, there would be less discussion about the 'Chinese
room', qualia and 'hard problem' of consciousness. Instead, we'd head about
embodiment, rewards, agents vs environments, learning, representation,
exploration-exploitation tradeoff, and such. There are theories of language
and meaning in philosophy, but in AI there are actual high dimensional
representations for text and images, with their affordances and limitations.
It's like comparing a drawing of a car with an actual working car, with its
good and bad parts. Philosophy seems not to be keeping up the progress in the
last 5 years, and it has been one hell of 5 years with amazing discoveries.

~~~
gepi79
IMO, progress in philosophy leads to science. First you think and imagine
(philosophy) then you try and know and have made progress (science).

From the article: Yes (with qualification) and yes. Already in Republic (Plato
again!) we have an argument—a clear and compelling rational argument—that even
the highest political office should be open to women. The argument? List what
it takes to be a good leader of the state, then note the conditions that
distinguish the sexes. There just is zero overlap between the two lists.

IMO there is not much of interest in philosophy regarding AI (except for the
thinking and imagination of AI engineers). AI is still just computations as
far as we know.

From the article: Almost all believe in consciousness and most don’t have a
clue how to explain it, which is wisdom.

~~~
YorkshireSeason

       Already in Republic
    

Given that Plato's _Republic_ was written over 2000 years ago, that's pretty
weak a claim to progress in philosophy.

~~~
gepi79
IMO the interesting point was the approach:

\- First thinking what could lead to progress.

\- Then progress in the form of 2 lists that answer the question if women
should be allowed for the highest political office.

------
dghf
> Hasn’t quantum mechanics demolished the hope that science will make reality
> intelligible?

> Not in the least. As Bell said, study Bohm’s pilot wave theory and you see
> that everything can be explained perfectly well, with no funny business at
> all logically or conceptually. We are stuck with non-locality, as Bell
> proved, but maybe in the end you need non-locality for the deep simplicity
> of law that I anticipate.

I'm not a physicist, but isn't dumping locality a bit of a bigger deal than
this quote suggests?

~~~
gus_massa
Yes, it is!

I think that Bohm’s pilot wave theory is appealing to non technical people
because it replace all the scary equations of quantum mechanics with a wave
and a particle. The trick is that the wave has a scary equation, and the
interaction of the wave and the particle has a scary equation, but you can
hide the scary equations behind a nice animated graph of a wave and a ball.

For a nonrelativistic particle, the pilot wave is equivalent to the other
quantum mechanics interpretations. The other interpretations can be extended
to the special relativity case, moreover all the work in the last 50 (or more)
years in particle physis use the extended versions. Nobody know how to extend
the pilot wave theory, and perhaps it's impossible.

~~~
crazygringo
I think you're being quite disrespectful in claiming that Bohm's theory is
only appealing to "non technical" people, because it hides "scary" parts.

The appeal of Bohm is that it results in QM that is deterministic, without
needing to resort to ill-defined notions of collapse.

I'm quite sure "hiding the scary equations" has absolutely zero to do with it,
and it honestly comes across as offensive to suggest that it is.

~~~
Koshkin
> _ill-defined notions of collapse_

Actually, the wavefunction collapse is a very well defined mathematical
construct; so, if you are ignoring or trying to avoid it, you are literally
"hiding the scary equations."

~~~
crazygringo
It's well-defined mathematically but ill-defined philosophically. There is no
agreement on what an "observation" is -- that is what is ill-defined:

> _The Copenhagen interpretation is the oldest and probably still the most
> widely held interpretation of quantum mechanics. Most generally it posits
> something in the act of observation which results in the collapse of the
> wave function. According to the von Neumann–Wigner interpretation the
> causative agent in this collapse is consciousness. How this could happen is
> widely disputed._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem)

~~~
gus_massa
It's an open problem, and I'm not sure if there are official tallies, but I
think that currently most people think that the explanation is decoherence
instead of consciousness. From the same Wikipedia page:

> _Erich Joos and Heinz-Dieter Zeh claim that the phenomenon of quantum
> decoherence, which was put on firm ground in the 1980s, resolves the
> problem. The idea is that the environment causes the classical appearance of
> macroscopic objects._

------
MrScruff
Could someone with better understanding explain compatibalism to me? I’m
struggling to grasp how it can allow for both determinism and free will.

~~~
skissane
There is no single universally agreed definition of the term "free will".

So, it is possible to define "free will" in such a way that it is compatible
with determinism (e.g., "my will is free if its decisions are the product of
my ordinary processes of thinking–even if those ordinary processes are
determined by natural laws–as opposed to the product of any extraordinary
external interference such as drugs, brainwashing, mind control implants,
etc").

Part of the dispute is over whether such a definition of "free will" matches
people's everyday pre-philosophical usage, and also whether it works for the
purposes of other disciplines in which the concept of "free will" might be
invoked, such as ethics or law. Compatibilists would say it is close enough,
and can be made to work for those purposes. Incompatibilists say it is a
radical redefinition, and undermines those purposes.

~~~
naasking
I think you pretty fairly describe the current landscape of this debate, which
is unusual in itself. Kudos!

> Part of the dispute is over whether such a definition of "free will" matches
> people's everyday pre-philosophical usage, and also whether it works for the
> purposes of other disciplines in which the concept of "free will" might be
> invoked, such as ethics or law.

Fortunately, this is an empirical question that has been explored by
experimental philosophy [1]. It turns out that most lay people employ
Compatibilist reasoning, so I think this question has also been answered.

[1] The latest that I've seen on the topic:
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274892120_Why_Compa...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274892120_Why_Compatibilist_Intuitions_are_not_Mistaken_A_Reply_to_Feltz_and_Millan)

~~~
fjsolwmv
Lay people, yes, but lay people also believe in ghosts and angels. Lay people
believing it doesn't make it true. Scientific reasoning shows compatibilism is
inaccurate, But just how like how belief in an scientifically absurd afterife
can make people happy, being scientifically correct is not equivalent to
having a good life. And this is a potential definition of the essence religion
or wait, properly opposed to science: faith can make you happy even when you
are wrong, and losing that faith makes you unhappy. Therefore, having faith is
the correct choice for an ideal human life. _It 's right to be wrong._

~~~
naasking
> Lay people, yes, but lay people also believe in ghosts and angels. Lay
> people believing it doesn't make it true.

I suggest you read the study and others like it. If you flat out ask people
what they believe, with no further context, they tend to support
incompatbilist intuitions. But when they _test_ their responses to moral
questions, they _employ_ Compatibilist moral reasoning, and agree with claims
that are Compatibilist.

------
Veedrac
Is it just me or is the title not supported by the article?

~~~
majewsky
Just you. :) It probably refers to this part:

> Q: Your colleague David Chalmers has fretted that “there has not been large
> collective convergence to the truth on the big questions of philosophy,”
> such as God, free will and consciousness. Does this lack of convergence
> bother you?

> A: I disagree with Dave here. Overwhelmingly most philosophers are atheists
> or agnostics, which I take to be convergence to the truth. Most are
> compatibilist about free will and believe in it, which I also take to be
> convergence to the truth. Almost all believe in consciousness and most don’t
> have a clue how to explain it, which is wisdom. It is not that there isn’t
> convergence, it is that the outliers who do not converge get much more
> attention than the great mass of convergers, who don’t particularly stand
> out.

~~~
yters
When most ancient philosophers were theists and believed in libertarian free
will and an immaterial soul, was that a convergence to the truth, too?

~~~
canhascodez
I'm not sure what point you're making. When people believed in a flat Earth,
or geocentrism, or miracles, those things did not contradict empirical
knowledge of the world. Since then, we have established empiricism as the most
useful tool for examining the real world, and expanded the scope of human
knowledge considerably. I'm not sure what about that you might take issue
with.

~~~
yters
The idea that consensus entails convergence to the truth, when the best
thinkers have consensus on antithetical ideas in different time periods.

~~~
canhascodez
You're ignoring the different amounts of information those people had about
their environments. Do you happen to have issues with a particular scientific
consensus, is that where we're going here?

~~~
yters
It might be that our modern thinkers are missing the forest for the trees
because they are overwhelmed with information about their environment.

I don't have any issue with the current consensus, it just seems incorrect
reasoning to say consensus is convergence to truth. Why isn't consensus just
groupthink, a notoriously bad way to arrive at the truth?

~~~
canhascodez
The current consensus is the closest that science gets to "truth". Depending
on your definition of "groupthink" (which seems like a deliberately pejorative
term), either that describes most categories of knowledge, or we can suggest
that the difference is that there is a rigorous methodology and system of
verification for these beliefs.

~~~
yters
Consensus does not have the best track record in science. Much better is the
actual evidence and experimentation instead of what people who call themselves
"scientists" think about the evidence.

~~~
canhascodez
Consensus _is_ the track record of science. Observations are not theories.

------
nyc111
> Philosophy, in its purest form, contains the study of what it is to live a
> good human life.

I don't think this a properly general definition of philosophy (although he
says "contains",maybe he is not after generality). I would say philosophy is
the science of definitions. This is why it is fundamental.

~~~
charlysl
Bertrand Russell:

 _Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate
between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on
matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but
like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether
that of tradition or that of revelation. All definite knowledge—so I should
contend— belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge
belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man 's
Land, exposed to attack from both sides; this No Man's Land is philosophy_

~~~
nyc111
This seems a qoute from the Introduction of his History of western philosophy
[1]. But I think the next sentence is important too:

 _Almost all the questions of most interest to speculative minds are such as
science cannot answer, and the confident answers of theologians no longer seem
so convincing as they did in former centuries. [...]_

 _To such questions no answer can be found in the laboratory. Theologies have
professed to give answers, all too definite; but their very definiteness
causes modern minds to view them with suspicion. The studying of these
questions, if not the answering of them, is the business of philosophy._

But I’m surprised that he considers that “all definite knowledge ... belongs
to science.” Science, at least physics and astronomy, by definition, accept
that their type of knowledge is provisional, always, and not definite.

[1] [https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/51485/in-
whic...](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/51485/in-which-
publication-does-bertrand-russell-define-philosophy)

~~~
charlysl
You are right about the quote.

It seems that what Russell considers definite knowledge is _... answer can be
found in the laboratory_. It depends on what is the best available method for
proving, to the extent to which this is possible, a given hypothesis. Whenever
an experimental method in the scientific sense is possible, then he considers
that kind of knowledge definite. I agree that the fact that it is also
provisional is confusing, but I think that it's just a matter of language in
this case, maybe _definite_ is not the best word.

I agree that maybe his definition is not fully satisfactory. But this book's
audience is lay people like me, it is not as much an academic work as a book
of popular philosophy (like popular science). For this reason, he probably
preferred to write engaging prose, rather than being totally precise but dry.

I posted this quote because whenever there is an article about philosophy in
HN, people invariably enter a debate as to what exactly is philosophy. I find
that for the lay man his definition is very clear, simple, memorable and
beautifully written. I find it very useful in practice, for people like me it
is a powerful definition.

~~~
nyc111
Yes, I agree. He theologian's knowledge is definite in the sense of absolute.
But knowledge gained in the lab is definitely knowledge under given
circumstances, but absolute kndwledge.

This turned out to be a good example about the importance of clear definitions
of words in philosophical discussion.

------
myWindoonn
I can see why this guy is popular.

I wonder whether he'd be so quick to dismiss Gödel and Quine if presented with
an utterance like,

    
    
        "This sentence is true, but cannot be proven true by any human nor any human-crafted device."
    

I'm quite confident that this sentence is true, but cannot put forth a proof
which would convince anybody; at the same time, just like any other
mathematical object, its proof is generated by the observer, who convinces
themselves of its truth while simultaneously acknowledging the paradox.

Gödel's entire point was that this formulation was rigorous and could not be
escaped by a mere change of (syntactic _or_ semantic) venue. Turing's point
was that this formulation extends to computation and effective methods of
producing results. Quine's point was that it is the quotation mark, and not
the self-reference, that leads to the incompleteness/inconsistency.

I probably wouldn't mind so much, but he seems like the kind of guy who
believes in physical cause and effect.

~~~
naasking
> Gödel's entire point was that this formulation was rigorous and could not be
> escaped by a mere change of (syntactic or semantic) venue.

Well that's not true, because there exist logics that are both consistent and
complete, they simply don't have the expressive power of full arithmetic. This
is a syntactic or semantic change, depending on how you frame it.

~~~
jan888
Can you give an example of a consistent and complete logic?

------
08-15
> No amount of just grinding out the digits and checking will ever prove it:
> there are always more digits to check.

This guy doesn't know how mathematical proofs work. If the above was close to
reality, nobody could ever proof Fermat's major theorem, because there are
"always more triples of numbers to check".

> All Gödel did was find a clever way to construct a provably unprovable
> mathematical fact.

That not what Gödel did, and certainly not all he did. Gödel demonstrated that
number theory expressed in first order logic is incomplete, i.e. admits more
than one model. He did that by constructing a statement that is true in the
smallest model, but does not have a proof, because it is false in others.

With these ignorant statements, Maudlin just reinforced my opinion that
philosophers are simply professional bullshitters.

~~~
codeulike
You're taking that bit out of context. In that sentence he's talking about a
very specific thought experiment in which we constuct a theory that certain
digits in the root of 17 and the 27th power of pi match. I think his arbitrary
example is supposed to be an analogy of Godel's work.

 _Example: let’s say that the decimal expressions of the square root of 17 and
pi to the 27th power “match” just in case either they have the same digit in
the tenths place, or the same two digits in the next two places, or the same
three digits in the next three places, etc._

The point of his example here is that the 'match' is defined in never-ending
terms. If the 10th digit doesn't match, you check the next two. If they don't
match, you check the next three. And so on. You can go on comparing digits
forever, even though finding a 'match' becomes less and less likely.

~~~
08-15
Oh no, not at all. The context is the whole problem, because this is an awful
analogy. Maudlin confuses "I think this proposition is false, but I don't know
how to prove it." with "This proposition is neither true nor false and I can
prove it.", and he does it because he doesn't know what Gödel's work is about.

(Also, "I don't know a proof" is only equivalent to "There is no proof" if
you're a pompous asshole that thinks you're smarter than everyone else. Learn
some humility, Tim Maudlin.)

------
gbustomtv5
Interesting that he brings up the story of Er. Plato made all the arguments
when it comes to philosophy’s why and how. The story of Er is the
comprehension test at the end of the book. Sadly, Tim did not pass the Er’s
test.

~~~
AgentME
What is the intended interpretation of Er?

~~~
gbustomtv5
Not sure “intended interpretation” can be used to describe anything in the
Republic.

The Republic is written to guide human souls out of the cave. Can the curious
readers find the truth themselves in the story of Er upon careful examination?
Is Er a philosopher? Does a philosopher need rewards described by Er? Can a
philosopher choose an inconspicuous life (especally after the disussion of the
philosopher’s life earlier in the book)? Can you take a story given in a book
as the truth without examination after prose was denied place in the Republic?

All is up to the reader.

------
alister
Surprisingly, Ycombinator co-founder Paul Graham was a philosophy major for
most of his college years. He has a lot to say about it in one of his essays:

[http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html)

~~~
xamuel
From that article:

>Twenty-six years later, I still don't understand Berkeley. I have a nice
edition of his collected works. Will I ever read it? Seems unlikely.

This is like buying a book about React, putting it on your shelf, not reading
it, and then complaining that React is too difficult.

In my opinion, the lack of equations makes philosophy harder, because it's
easier to delude yourself. You can read a chapter, parse all the individual
words, completely miss the point, and say to yourself, "I read it, it was
pointless".

The only productive way to approach philosophy is as a paper-writer. Don't
just glaze your eyes over Berkeley, rather, read Berkeley with the
determination to go and write an original research paper in response. Now,
that paper might very well have a title like "Berkeley's Blunders", but you
have to be able to articulate it.

------
opaque
> So pure theory is not for everyone. But if you love theory, philosophy is
> the top of the heap of all the disciplines.

I think calling philosophy "theory" is a bit of a reach. Theories (Relativity,
Quantum, Evolution) draw on, and can be falsified by, direct evidence.
Philosophy is more argumentation on subjects that won't have scientific basis
(morality, meaning of life) or don't yet have one and may never
(consciousness).

~~~
n4r9
"Theory" is a much broader term than "scientific theory", which is what you're
defining. For example, in mathematics you have the "theory of natural
numbers", or in art you have the "anti-essentialist theory". These aren't
required to be hypotheses about the real-world. Rather they are like
frameworks or languages which enable us to discuss and explore complex
structures.

~~~
opaque
Perhaps I'm inclined to read it that way from working in physics, which is
divided into theory and experiment. He also refers to 'experimentalists' in
the preceding sentence, which adds to the effect.

Also if you take the fully general meaning, it's so vague I don't understand
how it's something you can 'love', but then maybe that's why I'm not a
Philosopher.

Edit: The author's work
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Maudlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Maudlin)
is all on the Theoretical Physics / Philosophy boarder, in which "theory" vs
"experiment" is the more common usage.

~~~
n4r9
I understand where you're coming from but I think a charitable (and perfectly
reasonable) interpretation is that he's making a generic theory/practice
distinction.

I'd disagree that theory is something you can love since I strongly identify
with this sentiment myself. I am not a practical man (as my wife is more than
happy to vouch for), but I'm in love with ideas, concepts and abstractions. I
love mulling them over and discussing them with like-minded people. It often
doesn't matter much to me whether an idea has physical grounding or _can_ be
put into practice.

> I want to start off by emphasising that I am not proposing to take sides on
> the propositions expressed in this book. I’m an intellectual. Ideas are my
> trade. Show me an idea and i’ll taste it. Belgians are foodies; my much-
> loved colleague Andre Petry lives out in the country. Once when I was
> staying with him the field opposite his house delivered overnight a vast
> harvest of a kind of particularly delicious toadstool called _coprina
> comatus_ , a delicacy regrettably of incontestably phallic appearance known
> to English country people as Old man’s tool. Most people I have met express
> shock and horror at being asked to eat it. Not so Andre. No Belgian will
> allow anything to get in the way of a new taste experience. It is the same
> with me and ideas.

[https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~tf/jaynes.pdf](https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~tf/jaynes.pdf)

------
Emma_Goldman
Interesting interview.

"Already in Republic (Plato again!) we have an argument—a clear and compelling
rational argument—that even the highest political office should be open to
women.'

What is not specified here is the sense of 'rationality' that is required of
moral realism. It is not enough that something be coherently deduced from
stated premises, because we can state different premises, use different
categories, and make different distinctions. What is required is that there is
a sense in which we can all be rationally compelled through argumentation to
adopt the same premises, categories and distinctions. And that is, frankly,
absurd and untrue.

'People are free when they are unconstrained and can act as they will to act.'

Again, the argument depends on (i) that you accept the post-Hobbesian account
of negative liberty, and not the Hegelian account of positive liberty, or the
neo-Roman account of liberty as freedom from domination, or the various
socialist accounts of liberty (and again, whether we do goes back to the first
point viz. what premises we start from, and what categories we use); (ii) and
upon specifying what it is to be 'constrained', especially whether this
involves mental, and not just physical, interference.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>What is not specified here is the sense of 'rationality' that is required of
moral realism. It is not enough that something be coherently deduced from
stated premises, because we can state different premises, use different
categories, and make different distinctions. What is required is that there is
a sense in which we can all be rationally compelled through argumentation to
adopt the same premises, categories and distinctions. And that is, frankly,
absurd and untrue.

I'd think that defining "rationality" as "a sense in which one can be
rationally compelled through argumentation to (verbally) adopt premises,
categories, and distinctions" is circular. You end up sorta just defining
"rational" as "the thing we do in the Agora".

~~~
Emma_Goldman
I don't follow. I meant to suggest that humans will never agree on the same
structure of premises and argumentation, and that we simply cannot get past
that, to a space above or beyond historical language, to an uncontested
consensus. But if not, on what grounds can we possibly say that one particular
conception of morality is True or Rational? That is what is required of moral
realism - which I take, as an atheist, to be as odd and implausible as theism.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>I meant to suggest that humans will never agree on the same structure of
premises and argumentation, and that we simply cannot get past that, to a
space above or beyond historical language, to an uncontested consensus.

So what? People don't have to _agree_ on the truth. It just has to be true.

>But if not, on what grounds can we possibly say that one particular
conception of morality is True or Rational?

Well partly that depends on how you define "morality", but first and foremost,
we can do it by the same means we use to determine that a particular
conception of "cream cheese" or "routing algorithms" is True and Rational.

------
lisper
"Popper was kind of an egocentric jerk."

Oh, the staggering irony of responding to the charge that philosophers don't
produce anything worthwhile with an ad hominem. Res ipsa loquitur.

~~~
FabHK
It wasn't ad hominem. He had addressed the argument, and refers to that,
before adding that Popper was an egocentric jerk. That might be abusive, but
it's not ad hominem (because it's in addition, not instead of, a rebuttal of
the argument).

See the excellent "Ad Hominem Fallacy Fallacy":

[https://laurencetennant.com/bonds/adhominem.html](https://laurencetennant.com/bonds/adhominem.html)

~~~
lisper
We'll just have to agree to disagree about that. It's pretty clear to me that
"egocentric jerk" was intended to impugn Popper's credibility and not just a
random insult.

But if it wasn't an ad hominem, then it was a non-sequitur. Either way, it's
not the most effective way to support the position the philosophy has made
progress IMHO. Hence: irony.

~~~
mattmanser
Being an egocentric jerk makes you no less credible, it just makes you
unpleasant.

------
tkyjonathan
A bit off-topic, but philosophy has a huge underground following now. Even I
started to get into philosophy of systems (general systems theory) as well as
pure topics like epistemology, ethics, aesthetics and logic.

If you are out of Uni and never learnt it while in Uni, I recommend looking
into Objectivism.

------
mapcars
Philosophy to me is a kind of fanciful thinking. Article mentions something
about being "purely theoretical", but is your life theoretical or real? If
it's real you can't approach it by pure theory. As well as there is much more
to life than just thinking.

~~~
jawns
> Philosophy to me is a kind of fanciful thinking.

Then you don't properly understand philosophy.

One thing philosophy does is help you construct valid arguments and to
recognize fallacies, which are very useful, practical skills.

I took a course on logic as part of my undergrad degree, and it was there that
I learned about De Morgan's laws -- which I use frequently when I'm
programming.

Moral philosophers confront some really big issues, but they're not all
bizarre hypotheticals. Many of them have real-world consequences, such as the
debate over euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Philosophy is not all about navel-gazing. It's unfortunate that so many people
hold mistaken views about it.

~~~
reeves23423
I am quite competent software engineer and good at math too. But never really
understand what Philosophy meant and what does it tries to study. To me
sometimes it sounds like too much of a fake stuff like religion. Any resources
or books that you can point to get a clear understanding of what philosophy
really tries to study about ?

------
aeneasmackenzie
Philosophy has made progress -- backwards. Most developments since the end of
the scholastic era have been failures.

~~~
MrCream
100%. I was cringing throughout this entire article - first off, Philosophy in
scientific journal. Those two domains are innately distinct from eachother.
When people start talking about science and intermixing philosophy I cannot
help but cringe. People need to really read and understand Aristotle before
attempting the enlightenment authors, then the postmoderns. This whole article
was nothing short of nonsense

