
Why Paul Graham is sort of wrong about philosophy - kmdupree
http://philosophicalhacker.com/2014/05/26/why-paul-graham-is-sort-of-wrong-about-philosophy/
======
bsirkia
What surprised me the most about PG's essay was his use of tiny small sample
size to make a broad statement about an entire field of study. He puts
together an interesting argument about the pros and cons of ancient Greek
philosophy and their discussion of metaphysics, and includes modern
perspectives, but then titles it "How to Do Philosophy". That's akin to
writing an essay called "How to do Computer Science", then only discussing the
shortcomings of COBOL, FORTRAN, and LISP and concluding that Comp Sci is still
a young field and has a long way to go.

Yes, Philosophy is still a young field, but there's at least 2000 years of
material not covered in his essay.

------
carsongross
Wittgenstein was certainly interesting, but he thought Godel was wrong,
precisely because Godel showed something interesting about logic itself:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_the...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems#Wittgenstein)

Paul is obviously right in criticizing the gaseous generalizations,
nonsensical pretentiousness and word games that much of the western
(particularly, the german) philosophical tradition fell into after the
reformation. But I also agree with the philosphical hacker that he is
overstating the case that word-confusion is the primary cause of conflict in
philosophical disagreement, and I think Godel showed why this is compatible
with an apparently deterministic and logical universe.

As near as my uneducated mind can tell, Godel is the most important
philosopher since Aristotle: he proved something practical, dramatic and
unintuitive about the world, using only words.

In as much as I understand it, it makes me laugh hysterically.

~~~
Balgair
"We can do philosophy better if we filter out thoughts that don’t meet a
usefulness criterion."

Yep, as soon as I read that, I knew someone on HN would point to Godel
somewhere in the comments. I'll agree with you as well on Godel and his
importance. His theorem is easily one of the most important things to come out
of the 20th century. I'd go: penicillin, atomic bomb, better farming tech and
chemistry, Godel.

I've not got the chops for the actual proof, but the many 'for the layman's'
books Ive read on it just point out how incredibly important it is. From AI
research to Turing's tape to the nature of reality itself, the proof is just
astounding. To put him up on Aristotle's level is obvious even to a math
layman like me. Likely because of the difficulty of the proof, it is not very
well known, and that is a shame. I'd love a torn-down proof easy enough for a
high schooler to understand. The best I've found is:
[https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/453503/can-
someone-...](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/453503/can-someone-
explain-godels-incompleteness-theorems-in-layman-terms)

~~~
peterashford
I have very often seen people criticise Philosophy from a point of ignorance
and then follow up by espousing their own very bad philosophy. It's kinda like
criticising a Mathematical proof without understanding Math. You can do it,
but you're highly likely to be off the mark.

It's not that Philosophy doesn't have areas worthy of criticism. I personally
believe that the best reason to study metaphysics is to learn why metaphysics
is useless. Ironically, understanding why it's useless is actually quite
useful :o)

------
csallen
_> > Suppose I’m wondering whether it is it right for me demand extra equity
because I’m the guy who came up with the idea for our startup. This is not a
question about the meaning of my words. If someone responded to my wonderings
by saying, “It depends what you mean by the word, ‘right’,” we’d probably
think they have missed something._

I haven't studied philosophy, so I may be naive here, but does this question
NOT depend on the definition of "right"? In a practical discussion, maybe both
parties would agree that "right" in this case means "fair, in accordance with
my contributions to this startup".

But in a philosophical debate, "right" would be quite ambiguous. One party,
for example, could posit that the ideas of "right" and "wrong" are completely
subjective. That, in the absence of some stated goal or constraints, what's
"right" or "wrong", "good" or "evil" is no more valid a topic of debate than
whether chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla. However, once you
introduce said constraints, the discussion is no longer philosophically
interesting.

~~~
memla
_But in a philosophical debate, "right" would be quite ambiguous. One party,
for example, could posit that the ideas of "right" and "wrong" are completely
subjective. That, in the absence of some stated goal or constraints, what's
"right" or "wrong", "good" or "evil" is no more valid a topic of debate than
whether chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla.However, once you introduce
said constraints, the discussion is no longer philosophically interesting._

So, what you're saying is that the problem of philosophy is that someone could
derail a discussion concerning ethics by simply asserting meta-ethical
subjectivism and that would be uninteresting or bad in some other way...

I don't quite understand this objection. Not to mention that this is exactly
the _opposite_ of what you would expect to find in a philosophical debate. The
whole point of the discipline is that every position must be argued for and
questioned and not just asserted. That of course includes subjectivism.

~~~
csallen
It's not that the discussion is simply derailed. It's that it can't even _take
place_ until both parties agree on the terminology. The word "right" is packed
with all sorts of assumptions on the speaker's part that the listener may not
agree with. If that is the case, the discussion devolves into a discussion
about those assumptions, which in turn devolve into more discussions about
more assumptions.

 _> > The whole point of the discipline is that every position must be argued
for and questioned and not just asserted._

That's the problem. Nearly every word is packed with meaning, which must be
unraveled and argued for with... more words. The cycle never ends.

~~~
memla
_> >It's not that the discussion is simply derailed. It's that it can't even
take place until both parties agree on the terminology._

On a theoretical level, this is true for every discussion in every discipline.
On a practical level, how would you know that this is a special problem in
philosophy if you admit that you haven't studied any?

 _> >That's the problem. Nearly every word is packed with meaning, which must
be unraveled and argued for with... more words._

Just for the record. I did say that arguments are required and of course those
arguments are composed of words (and symbols) but i never said that those
arguments are about the _meaning of words_.

~~~
csallen
I don't know. I only suspect based on what I've seen. Philosophy, it seems,
makes it difficult to use common language colloquially, because the meaning of
the words is the primary linchpin upon which many philosophical debates rest,
rather than external data or evidence.

In other disciplines, this is not the case. The two participants in a
discussion generally share the same goals, or at least agree on the measuring
stick (e.g. uncovering evidence to prove a hypothesis, making an app load
faster, improving a car's fuel efficiency, etc). Progress toward their goals
can be measured in straightforward and objective ways. Thus, it's much less
common for there to be disagreement about basic terminology.

Of course I could be wrong. Maybe there are many interesting philosophical
debates that don't simply devolve into semantics. Perhaps you could humor me
by providing examples?

------
bkoa
Why do people think that computer science gives them the authority to
pontificate on any topic of their choosing? Clearly the author has no idea
what they are talking about, as by their own admission, "I’ve only taken 1
metaphysics class" and has a "suspicion" about the entire field. And even
considering the question of "is all philosophy simply word confusion" would
get you laughed out of the room by any philosophy grad student. You wouldn't
like it if some philosophy student wrote blog posts about how P=NP without
having the slightest knowledge of the field, so afford other areas of study
the same respect.

~~~
kmdupree
Hey, bkoa. I actually just graduated with a master's degree in philosophy from
Tufts University, one of the top philosophy programs in the country. (I also
studied philosophy in undergrad.)

I'm perfectly happy with admitting that I don't know a lot about metaphysics
and I'm perfectly happy for people to call me out on this point. (In fact, I
call myself out on this point in a footnote in my post.) I just wanted to set
the record straight: I am not merely a comp sci person who feels that he has
the authority to "pontificate on any topic of their choosing."

------
kristofferR
To me it seems like this whole debate (Is philosophy useless or not in 2014?)
is suffering from the same debate over words which philosophy supposedly
suffers from. Nobody seems to agree what philosophy actually is.

The question can't be answered without that being clearly defined.

------
kenko
I have Ph.D. in philosophy and assert, with all the authority that grants me,
that Graham's essay is extremely ignorant and arrogant; this should, I
suppose, surprise no one intelligent.

~~~
pmelendez
"with all the authority that grants me, that Graham's essay is extremely
ignorant and arrogant"

I am sorry for the following comment, but isn't that comment actually
extremely arrogant as well? One should present ideas and arguments and not
credentials, but I guess this is only the opinion of some one not as
intelligent as a PhD holder.

~~~
kenko
Yes, it is also arrogant, and relies on a lot of presumed deference to the
holder of a degree. Freely granted! Would you prefer a full-length analog to
Dabblers & Blowhards?

------
jonsen
Another computer scientist's take on philosophy:

[http://www.naur.com/Antiphil.html](http://www.naur.com/Antiphil.html)

------
kmdupree
Hey, all. Thank you so much for the comments and criticisms on my post. I'm
glad you found it interesting. I'd like to respond to your comments, but
there's a lot here and there is some overlap in the points that people are
bringing up. If you are interested, I think I'll go ahead and respond to your
comments in a separate post that I'll have up by this Thursday.

~~~
mercer
I would definitely prefer another post over replying to individual posts. Good
luck!

------
peterashford
As someone with a degree in Philosophy, I would humbly suggest to PG that the
fact that many philosophical puzzles are entirely about what the words
actually mean is something that Philosophy as a discipline has been aware of
for at least centuries.

------
scotty79
I noticed there's a lot of people here on HN that strongly oppose any doubt in
utility of philosophy. Does opposing notion of utility of philosophy paint one
to be anti-intelectual?

------
mattmanser
I'm not sure he knows anything about philosophy, ethics and epistemology are
both ridden with word arguments.

Ethics - Are people really altruistic if they gain pleasure from it? What does
altruism mean?

Epistemology - what does know mean? (Yes, he's completely wrong, a whole chunk
of epistomolgy is about the meaning of what is a justified true belief)

I didn't read any more. No idea who he is, but he doesn't seem to have studied
first year philosophy.

~~~
johnchristopher
Let me goo... follow that about link on his website for you:

Formation de K. Matthew Dupree Tufts University Master's degree, Philosophy

2012 – 2013

University of Central Florida Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Philosophy and
Religious Studies

2007 – 2011

University of Central Florida Minor, Mathematics

2007 – 2011

~~~
jasode
If those are his credentials, I would have preferred he debate Wittgenstein
instead of PG.

In the article, he could have simply acknowledged PG's essay for re-igniting
his critique of Wittgenstein. And, as a bonus, a blog title of " _Why
Wittgenstein is sort of wrong about philosophy_ " might have attracted more
hits.

------
pdonis
I don't think the author's case for philosophy not being driven by confusion
over words holds up. His argument is basically that he knows what _he_ means
when he uses a word, so how can there be confusion? For example:

 _' When I ask, "How do I know I’m not in the matrix?," I'm asking, "Why
should I believe that I’m not in the matrix?"'_

Ok, fine, but is that what _everybody_ who uses the word "know" means by it?
And shifting to the word "believe", as the author does here, doesn't help;
there's just as much argument over what "believe" means, or should mean, as
over what "know" means, or should mean.

In some cases he doesn't even explicitly give his preferred meaning, but just
assumes that we all know what it is:

 _' Whether someone was "free to act" is something that we consider often in
legal settings, and I think it’s right for us to ask this question before we
lock someone up.'_

Which may well be true, but it still leaves open the question of _what,
exactly, we are asking_ when we ask if someone was "free to act". What do we
need to take into account in order to decide the legal case one way or the
other? And is the legal question the _same_ question as all the other
questions that are pointed at when we use the term "free will"? The author
seems to assume that we all agree on all these things, but the philosophical
literature makes clear that we don't.

In fact, as this example illustrates, the author mis-states Graham's point
about confusion over words. He says:

 _' To say that a question can be answered by saying, "Depends on what you
mean by X" is far from proving that the question is motivated by a confusion
over words.'_

But Graham didn't claim that we could _answer_ all philosophical questions by
just defining what we mean by X (and he certainly didn't claim that we could
answer them just by _saying_ "Depends on what you mean by X"). He only claimed
that the questions aren't _well-defined_ unless we specify what we mean by X.
What looks like one question could end up being three or four (or seven or
eight) depending on which definition we choose for X; so unless and until we
pin down the question more precisely, we end up talking past each other
instead of actually accomplishing anything. I tend to agree with Graham that
much of philosophy suffers from exactly this disease.

Finally, I would like to see some evidence for this claim of the author's:

 _' Graham seems to be saying that if a philosophy professor can’t distinguish
a “real” philosophy paper from a fake, placebo paper that is purposely filled
with nonsense, then the real paper is meaningless. If this is Graham’s
proposal, I think that many philosophy professors could pass this test for
many philosophical texts. There are definitely some charlatans posing as
philosophers out there, but that doesn’t mean that all or most of philosophy
is B.S._

------
jasode
PG was not the only one highlighting " _confusion over words_ ".

The more notable philosopher Wittgenstein also expressed this idea:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations#Pr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations#Private_language)

The TFA proposes that 2 other branches of philosophy 1) ethics and 2)
epistemology have not been affected by " _confusion over words_ ".

I think Wittgenstein would say that must be false because those 2 subject
areas also are discussed using the mechanism of words. You can't escape
"words" because philosophy (any branch) can't be discussed any other way.

I believe the TFA is arguing incorrectly because he thinks PG's criticism of
philosophy is _about_ "word confusion" when the higher meta-issue is that the
"words" themselves handicaps all of philosophy.

~~~
kristofferR
PG mentions that in his blog post:

 _" Wittgenstein is popularly credited with the idea that most philosophical
controversies are due to confusions over language. I'm not sure how much
credit to give him. I suspect a lot of people realized this, but reacted
simply by not studying philosophy, rather than becoming philosophy
professors."_

~~~
jasode
Ah yes, I see that now. I didn't notice that the TFA had a direct link to PG's
essay.

Since the author (K. Matthew Dupree) could see Wittgenstein was cited, I'm
wondering why he didn't address what the notable philosopher already said.

------
pmoriarty
pg's essay about philosophy is simply embarrassing.

He should just stick to essays about startups and lisp instead of
pontificating on something he clearly has very little understanding of.

~~~
WestCoastJustin
Since you seem to be relatively new to HN (based off when your account was
created), when commenting, it is common practice to give examples/links/proof,
ie. in this case; _why_ his essay is embarrassing. The reason, is that this
could lead to an insightful discussion, and offer paths to improvement. If you
give evidence then you will likely not get downvoted even for saying something
controversial [1]. After looking through your comment history, this style of
commenting seems to ring true, in that when you provide links and proof, you
have an improved comment score.

[1] Although, you are talking about PG (who is the founder of this forum), so
you might get downvoted just for the hell of it ;)

~~~
coffeecodecouch
> Although, you are talking about PG (who is the founder of this forum), so
> you might get downvoted just for the hell of it ;)

I'd like to add that while this may be true, it's not a good thing. Any act of
silencing someone in an act of fanboy revenge is an embarrassment to this
forum. It's a shame the downvote threshold doesn't rid of this type of
behavior, and I doubt raising it would help. I'm tired of seeing grayed out
controversial opinions.

~~~
larrys
Well though there were for sure "fighting words" in this comment.

And with anyone who is admired such as PG you would typically try to be very
careful (almost diplomatic) in how and what you said.

Statement was:

"He should just stick to essays about startups and lisp instead of
pontificating on something he clearly has very little understanding of."

or, suggested re-write (for someone who feels this way):

"PG's essays about startups and lisp are great|good|wonderful however in my
opinion, and based on my particular experience, I can't tell that he has any
particular expertise in Philosophy".

------
edanm
I don't think the article gives valid criticisms of Paul Graham's essay.

Let's take a few points: "Let’s start with ethics. Suppose I’m wondering
whether it is it right for me demand extra equity because I’m the guy who came
up with the idea for our startup. This is not a question about the meaning of
my words. If someone responded to my wonderings by saying, “It depends what
you mean by the word, ‘right’,” we’d probably think they have missed
something."

As another commenter has pointed out - of _course_ it depends on what we mean
by "right". Right as in "can I get away with it"? Right as in "what's best for
people if everyone does what I do"? Right as in "what's best for society"?

This is _exactly_ a case of being able to argue _a lot_ without people
defining what exactly they mean, and therefore their arguments are worthless.

Let's take another quote from the article: "Then there’s epistemology, the
study of knowledge. How do we know that we’re not in the matrix? How can we
know anything if all our beliefs rest on beliefs that are unsupported by
evidence? (We’ve got to have some “foundational beliefs.”)

Again, if someone responded to these questions by saying that we are confused
about the meaning of the word “know,” we’d feel that they have missed the
point."

But once again, this shows the problem with philosophy - there _are_ fields in
which people discuss what it means to "know things". We've come a long way in
certain respects, e.g. coming up with respected models like Bayesianism and
others. If someone says "no, but how can I really _know_ I'm not in the
Matrix", the answers he should be getting _should_ take into account modern
thought backed by _some_ kind of progress. If answers from 2000 years ago are
just as valid, we haven't _learned_ anything.

And once again, clarifiying that the actual argument isn't about the matrix at
all, but rather about the nature of knowledge, is _exactly_ the right approach
- trying to clarify what it means to know is what will solve this issue.

Paul Graham's essay isn't the best or most complete criticism of philosophy,
but it certainly makes a strong case in a clear way that's accessible to many
people, and that obviously many people connect with.

~~~
rquantz
_But once again, this shows the problem with philosophy - there are fields in
which people discuss what it means to "know things"._

That's not a problem with philosophy, it's a problem with the OP. Epistemology
is the study of what we can know, and what is required to make a claim to
knowledge. A side effect of that is that there are a lot of arguments and
questions surrounding what it means to know. The difference between me a PG
(er, one of many) is that I don't have a problem with that. If you're having
an informal discussion on the internet, yes maybe you'll spend a lot of time
talking in circles before you can say anything meaningful, but trained
philosophers have 3000 years of philosophical arguments to draw on, and can be
very specific about what they mean with a given argument or word.

Also, there are many forms of philosophy that people don't always think of
when they write dismissively about philosophy. Any field of study has a
surrounding philosophical discourse, including the hard sciences (Hello,
philosophy of research, hello materialism). Dismissing philosophy because it
includes arguments about the meaning of words misses the point. We argue about
the meanings of words because they form the basis for how we conduct our work,
how we transfer knowledge, and how we talk about what we do.

~~~
edanm
You're right - I was too broad in saying "the problem with philosophy" when I
should've said "the problem that PG talked about which the OP doesn't in any
way refute".

As for your thoughts on Philosophy, I'm not sure I agree - philosophers _have_
actually wasted a lot of time arguing over what is in essence semantics, and
even when they haven't, there has been plenty of (IMO) unimportant back-and-
forth without any evidence or really anything to back it up. (Years of arguing
over the mind-body problem without any shred of evidence supporting _anyone
's_ worldview).

I'm not sure if it's true, but I've heard it said that every field that ends
up being practically useful or meaningful turns into a specific field, and
Philosophy is all that's left. E.g. Mathematics, Physics, Economics, etc.
Arguably, the fields you mention are also specialized branches that are not
part of mainstream Philosophy (very arguably though).

------
scotty79
Philosophy is what you do when you don't have data. The other thing to do
would be to get data, but who would bother. Especially before lunch.

~~~
rfrey
How do you collect data about what constitutes a good life?

\- Study people who are leading a good life? Circular: how do you identify
them? \- Ask people if they are leading a good life? Begs the question, since
to decide they must have already answered it.

Do you believe the answer is unimportant? Self-evident? Relative to time and
place? Naturally dictated and discoverable by reason? Primarily decided by
social structure? Primarily determined by the individual?

All of those positions have been held by and forcefully defended, and all of
them have also been forcefully attacked. By people studying philosophy,
because that is at root what philosophy is.

It's a vital question because we can't measure the effectiveness of public
policy or personal decisions without some notion of "good" to apply as a
scale.

~~~
agildehaus
Has contemporary philosophy come up with an answer to "what constitutes a good
life?" or made measurable progress on this answer? Under what measure is it
progress?

Just coming up with arguments without answers is nothing more than "structured
pondering". It'd only seem useful to increasingly meta topics where data can't
be found.

~~~
memla
Well, holding fallacious beliefs prevents you from arriving at the correct
answer. Since philosophers have refuted many fallacious arguments concerning
that question they have, therefore, made some measurable progress.

~~~
scotty79
You can't refute an argument without data. If it was precisely defined you
could disprove it without data but that's math not philosophy.

~~~
memla
_You can 't refute an argument without data._

What if i point out that it commits a modal scope fallacy?

What data do you have to refute the statement: "A statement can be refuted
without data"?

~~~
scotty79
> > You can't refute an argument without data. > What if i point out that it
> commits a modal scope fallacy?

I tried to educate myself a bit to understand you. I've read:
[http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-
fallaci...](http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-
fallacies/128-modal-scope-fallacy) and failed.

First example claims that "(p => q, p) so q" is a fallacy by closely squinting
at word "must". Second example claims that p => q where ~q => ~p is assumed is
also a fallacy because they claim that one word that q consists of spills out
and covers whole statement.

From this brief brush I'd say "modal scope fallacy" is just about some fuzzily
defined semantic nuance of English language. So, no, I'd say you can't refute
anything except bad grammar with this.

If you can write it down and the thing you want to refute, with symbols and
prove their conjunction to be tautologically false with formal logic then I'd
say you've refuted the claim. But as I said that's math not philosophy.

> What data do you have to refute the statement: "A statement can be refuted
> without data"?

Are you asking because you think I claimed to have refuted or wanted to refute
that statement?

What refutation can you offer of the statement that data is needed to refute
the statement: "A statement can be refuted without data"?

That's exactly the chain of pointless self, and cross referential statements
that arise when you are trying to refute something without data and/or precise
definition (which would make it math).

~~~
memla
_First example claims that "(p => q, p) so q" is a fallacy by closely
squinting at word "must". Second example claims that p => q where ~q => ~p is
assumed is also a fallacy because they claim that one word that q consists of
spills out and covers whole statement_

No it doesn't. You've formalized it incorrectly.

Doesn't matter, i might as well have said that the argument is affirming the
consequent and we'd still have a problem since there is a deeper issue here.
What you're saying is that the simple acts of either formalizing your
arguments or precisely defining your premises somehow turns it into math and
precludes it from being philosophy. Yet philosophers do exactly that all the
time.

Is that the point you want to argue? Cause i am neither convinced or
interested in pursuing it. It would seem to me like a pointless argument about
definitions.

~~~
scotty79
> No it doesn't. You've formalized it incorrectly.

I haven't formalized anything, I just used notational short-hands.

Example goes:

If Debbie and TJ have two sons and two daughters, then they must have at least
one son. Debbie and TJ have two sons and two daughters. Therefore, Debbie and
TJ must have at least one son.

If I substitute string "Debbie and TJ have two sons and two daughters" with
"p" and string "they must have at least one son" with "q" and write relation
If ... then ... as ... => ... and implied conjunction between two first lines
as ( ... , ... ) and substitute string "Therefore" with "so" (for no reason, I
just like short syntax) I get what I wrote: (p=>q, p) so q

It's not formalization, it's just string substitution. What I implied later
(mainly that the author of the example claims that something tautologically
true is fallacy) assumes that we can agree to assign either true or false to
the strings denoted by p and q and we use conventional logic.

The only way this could be incorrect is if words in one line of the example
are defined to mean something else than exact same words in other line they
occur. It's possible but without explicit definition of such bizarre behavior
I won't be guessing what author had in mind.

> Doesn't matter

Oh, yes it matters. It's an excellent example of what remained of philosophy
when natural philosophers left. Thinking so fuzzy that it lacks not only
application but even meaning. Despite that appreciated and cited as a
marvelous tool for argumentation.

> affirming the consequent

Much better. But that piece of philosophy was swallowed by math long time ago.
Any statement about logic that philosophy can currently make is math, false or
semantically fuzzy. You won't be trying to refute many arguments using
reasoning of Zeno of Elea nowadays.

> What you're saying is that the simple acts of either formalizing your
> arguments or precisely defining your premises somehow turns it into math and
> precludes it from being philosophy. Yet philosophers do exactly that all the
> time.

Really? Could you point me to works of some, perhaps fairly modern,
philosopher that defines what he ponders with accuracy that could be
appreciated by a mathematician? But no cargo cult please. Preciseness and some
actual meaning is what I'm looking for.

~~~
memla
Look, i originally cited that identifying (P⊃◻Q, P) ∴ ◻Q as a fallacy in an
argument is an example of refuting that argument without any data. I don't
care about your struggles with some random article.

As i said, i don't really want to argue weather that is math or philosophy,
especially when i see statements to the effect that affirming the consequent
was once philosophy but math "swallowed" it so now pointing out that fallacy
means you're doing math and things like that. Talk about imprecise and
meaningless right there.

