
A Defense of Philosophy (against Paul Graham) - jsomers
http://jsomers.net/pg-philosophy.html
======
blader
It's funny that he cites the Chinese Room paper, because that's probably one
of the best examples of the kind of shoddy linguistic games that Paul pointed
out.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room#Speed.2C_complexit...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room#Speed.2C_complexity_and_other_minds:_appeals_to_intuition)

~~~
GavinB
The Chinese Room argument is wrong. That in itself does not make it useless.

It forces you to bite the bullet and really think about how systems must be
able to give rise to intelligence, regardless of their physical makeup.

The wikipedia article that you linked has this quote: "The sheer volume of the
literature that has grown up around it inspired Pat Hayes to quip that the
field of cognitive science ought to be redefined as 'the ongoing research
program of showing Searle's Chinese Room Argument to be false.'"

Incorrect arguments are an important step in establishing correct ones, which
is a central point of jsomer's argument.

~~~
jseliger
<i>The Chinese Room argument is wrong. That in itself does not make it
useless.</i>

It might be useless, but it's also not optimally useful. That is, I think, a
large part of the problem PG points out in his essay.

~~~
akkartik
"If everything you learned in philosophy class was useless, and other classes,
in addition to teaching you valuable truths, also used the same “process” as
philosophy, then it’d probably be Pareto optimal to jump ship. But I don’t
think that’s the case."

------
bigboote
James cites the law as a good example of drawing fine lines around difficult
issues, citing the definition for amounts of LSD. If you don't know about
this, 500 micrograms of LSD is a dose, but you can't see anything that small
so it's normally distributed on a chunk of blotter paper weighing 1000x as
much. So when the law says that possessing X amount of LSD is a felony, does
that include the blotter paper? The courts have said it does. Is this a
triumph of the law drawing fine lines around difficult issues, or were
lawmakers just ignorant of basic measurement techniques, prosecutors greedy,
and judges easily fooled?

An example consequence of this interpretation: having 0.5 oz of pot is a minor
crime. But if you mix it with 10 lb of lawn trimmings, you now have 10+ lbs of
material with a detectable amount of a controlled substance, and you're
theoretically guilty of a major crime. This is not a law written by science
majors.

Giving credit to the legal system for sorting out such a broken law is like
giving credit to Vista for having a stylishly designed BSOD.

~~~
straiberman
I think you're creating a straw-man here and end up proving jsomers's point.

You jump on the delicacy of the language and that's the point. jsomers doesn't
argue _about_ this particular law, he was only giving an example on how
pushing and pulling language can have direct pragmatic purposes and real
political ramifications.

The point is that since law is mired in language, exploring language becomes
an incredibly relevant task and pg's criticism seems to ignore this important
function.

~~~
qqq
You say jsomers is defending analytic philosophy in this section.

Later jsomers says philosophy was bad but has reformed.

So on the one hand he defends old philosophy. And on the other he claims
philosophy was bad, but is OK now because it has reformed. These defenses are
incompatible.

~~~
agentcoops
I think the reformation to which he refers would be the advent of modern,
analytic philosophy at the turn of the century through the works of Russell,
Moore, Frege, and Wittgenstein. If so, the two claims are equivalent.

~~~
qqq
You're saying Wittgenstein is part of reformed philosophy, not bad philosophy?

I don't know about that:

[http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~luke_manning/tractatus/tractatus-j...](http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~luke_manning/tractatus/tractatus-
jsnav.html)

1 The world is everything that is the case. * 1.1 The world is the totality of
facts, not of things. 1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by these
being all the facts. 1.12 For the totality of facts determines both what is
the case, and also all that is not the case. 1.13 The facts in logical space
are the world. 1.2 The world divides into facts. 1.21 Any one can either be
the case or not be the case, and everything else remain the same.

~~~
agentcoops
I'm saying that Wittgenstein /contributed/ to the advent of modern analytic or
formal philosophy; an indisputable claim. While I have a spot in my heart for
the Tractatus (if nothing else the method of truth tables in logic was co-
invented within its pages, not to mention "whereof one cannot speak, thereof
one must be silent"), I'm not defending it and its solipsistic
position/obfuscated style per se.

~~~
qqq
How did his nonsense contribute to other people writing sense? Who was
influenced by Wittgenstein then wrote sense?

~~~
gruseom
I have great respect for Wittgenstein, certainly far more than for the myriad
of analytical philosophers I read a long time ago who all "wrote sense"
(comparatively speaking) and all of whom I've forgotten.

~~~
qqq
That's wonderful. Perhaps you, as a Wittgenstein buff, would be so kind as to
explain how the Wittgenstein quote I gave above, which _at first glance_
appears to be nonsense, is in fact respectable and worthwhile thinking? I
don't get it; enlighten me.

~~~
agentcoops
"My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally
recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them,
over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up
on it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world
aright."

I think that's kinda the whole point of the Tractatus: much of philosophy
(metaphysics and ethics, particularly) has no sense. Strictly speaking, they
mean nothing.

Wittgenstein's early work inspired the development of modern analytic
philosophy both in its use of formal methods and its claim that much of what
was then considered philosophy was meaningless. The decades immediately
following Wittgenstein were concerned with linguistic analysis (what the
authors of these papers take fault with), while more contemporary philosophy
has conceded to a kind of naturalism, appealing to the sciences.

If you place any value on modern analytic philosopher (even as a Popperian),
you have to at least give Wittgenstein some historical credit even if the
philosophical travesties of the logical positivists can be attributed to
misinterpretations of the Tractatus.

With regards to decent philosophers with direct influence from Wittgenstein,
what's your take on Kripke and Anscombe?

~~~
qqq
OK looking them up. Kripke's wikipedia entry is full of stuff about logic. I
don't really have a problem with logicians. I don't think they are in the
primary philosophy tradition pg was criticizing (and which I don't like). If
he learned something about logic from wittgenstein, then great i guess.

Anscombe wiki has:

 _For years, I would spend time, in cafés, for example, staring at objects
saying to myself: "I see a packet. But what do I really see? How can I say
that I see here anything more than a yellow expanse?"_

I think that stuff is a dead end. We should solve problems we have, not
question all traditions simultaneously for no particular reason.

By the way, I do think there are good philosophers, who made useful progress,
but they are largely neglected. e.g. xenophanes, godwin, burke, feynman.
(neglected _as philosophers_ )

------
cschwarm
What a poor reply. Paul Graham's essay can easily be dismissed. Some examples:

1) Graham found philosophy not useful and didn't understand it. This is
basically a sample size of 1. Is this a meaningful sample or just a
confirmation bias (or suppressed evidence)?

2) Graham believes the early philosophers were encouraged by the progress in
maths. But was there really much progress before Euclid's Elements, written
around 300 BC, one of the "the most successful and influential textbooks ever
written"? Sokrates lived about 150 years earlier (c. 469 BC–399 BC), Plato 50
years earlier (428/427 BC–348/347BC) -- even Aristotle lived earlier
(384BC–322BC). One might as well argue that the Greek tradition in philosophy
encouraged Euclid to write his elements. The Elements might also have been
inspired by Aristotle's logic. But that was obviously useless, according to
Graham.

3) In hindsight, it's easy to say what's, for instance, the shortest way out
of a labyrinth. But one needs to go many false routes to find out. Are these
useless, then? Graham obviously thinks he could spot the shortest way out, by
studying "useful" goals. But who really knows? It's easy to say: "I know
what's the shortest way" but most people fail when put to a test. Even
Wittgenstein was first "wrong" and wrote a rather abstract -- and Graham would
probably say: useless -- treatment called "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus"
before he was able to articulate his critic of language. Sometimes you need a
ladder before you can throw it away.

4) Graham also forgets that philosophic thinking inspired or formed many other
schools of thought: for instance, the study of moral philosophy by Adam Smith
marked the beginning of modern economics -- indeed, a useless art --, the
study of natural philosophy and that of Malthus' work (an economist and
demographer) lead to the discovery of "natural selection" by Darwin -- truly
useless, I guess -- , the study of the philosophy of positivism by Comte
started modern sociology -- yet another useless art --, theories guiding
modern scientific thinking were formulated by philosophers (Popper, etc.) --
obviously useless, too --, even Russel and Whitehead's work was basically
inspired by philosophy. And these are just the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
Anybody who's a little bit careful can find these examples easily. Graham,
however, failed. What does this tell us about his essay?

In summery, what he wants philosophy to do -- namely concentrating on useful
stuff -- is already happening, for hundreds of years. It's called science.

~~~
trominos
1) I think you've confused logic with an experimental science.

2) I am having serious trouble figuring out how this dismisses PG's essay.

3) So this is the only item in your list that actually addresses Graham's
central point at all. I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to say but I
think you're circling around this idea: "Sure, pre-20th century philosophy got
a lot wrong, but it was that wrongness that allowed certain modern
philosophers to get stuff right. PG thinks he could've gotten through the
wrongness quickly, but I think he's wrong about that."

Well, okay... but let me give some evidence against that: I independently came
to the conclusion that most philosophy is bullshit before I encountered Paul
Graham. I think I'm smart, but I'm also pretty sure that there have been a
bunch of people in history who are just as smart as I am, and so I'm led to
the conclusion that there have been people in history who realized that
philosophy as it was being practiced was bullshit. Which implies that, yes,
all those pre-modern philosophers _were_ wasting their time, because we didn't
need their "false starts" to get to the root of the wrongness with philosophy.

4) I admit that I don't know enough about the origins of various disciplines
to talk about any of the things you brought up, but, to me, the fact that
philosophy helped nurture "useful" disciplines and ideas doesn't automatically
imply that philosophy itself is valid or useful. _Every_ kind of thinking,
even pretty dumb kinds, produces more thinking. And after more than two
thousand years, it's statistically likely that some of a discipline's
intellectual offspring will have merit, even if the discipline itself doesn't.

Also: "Anybody who's a little bit careful can find these examples easily.
Graham, however, failed. What does this tell us about his essay?"

First: this is really incredibly obnoxious. Second: why do you think that
attacking the construction or presentation of PG's argument is the same as
dismissing the argument itself?

~~~
cschwarm
Thanks for your critical thoughts. That's holds for you as well as
gambling8nt, straiberman and kragen.

I'll try to answer some of your objections.

(1) You're right that "sample of 1" is an expression found in experimental
science. But how do we know that a small sample is no sufficient reason to
accept a hypothese if not by using logic?

Also: Read PG's essay once more and tell me: What reasons did he present to
support his hypotheses, other than merely: "I didn't understand philosophy,
therefore all current philosophy is useless"? He's basically making an appeal
to authority, namely his own authority. Hardly a good reason.

2) PG asserts that early philosophy was inspired by maths. But was it, really?
How does PG know? In fact, both fields probably inspired each other. This is
one of the examples that makes some philosophy useful -- examples that PG
simply ignored.

3) Just because you agree with PG (or had a similar experience) doesn't make
any of you right. However, I agree that philosophy has had a quality problem
every now and then. But that doesn't render all philosophy (or its method)
useless.

Also: I'm wasn't trying to say: "I think he's wrong". I say: "Where are his
arguments to believe his assertions that he can find a quick way?" Even the
more practical sciences have had some really strange ideas when looking at
them in hindsight. If usefulness is such a good guide, why did they run into
these errors?

4) Indeed, all kind of thinking produces more thinking. Homo sapiens is about
40.000 years old. Then, what did they do the first 37.000 years if mere
thinking is sufficient to find the meaningful and true statements?

Finally, attacking the presentation is often the same thing as dismissing the
argument. For what are his arguments? PG can point to some bad philosophy,
granted. Everybody can do this for all kind of fields. I can point at some
really bad software. Is therefore all software engineering useless?

PG wants us to believe his assertions that the philosophical method is
inherently flawed. But he presents no arguments other than his own experience,
some selected examples and that's about it.

If you want to know what's useful about philosophy, look no further than
Socrates: His way to ask people critical questions about the meaning of words,
the reasons why they do have the believes they have, and his way to find the
differences between good and bad reasons (namely by debate) still is what
philosophy is all about. We need the bad thinking to find out why it's bad.
Philosophy proceeds by discussing and recording these issues.

You might call it as well critical thinking.

Our small discussion here hopefully shows why this is useful. Trying to
dismiss arguments makes you a better thinker.

~~~
gambling8nt
1) A "small" sample is often sufficient reason to accept a statement. If I
tell you that there exists a Turing machine that can solve SAT in polynomial
time, all I have to do to prove it is supply one (incidentally, if you have
one lying around, let me know :P ). If I tell you that ALL of something is
bad, then I have an uphill battle. But if I tell you SOME of something is bad,
I only have to provide a single example to be right.

Also, you may want to read PG's essay on essays
(www.paulgraham.com/essay.html); his goal in writing an essay isn't to
explicate every detail of a subject, it's to work through a subject to
understand it--it is only tangentially that any other audience is involved.
That I am convinced of the rough truth of his arguments is not solely based on
what he has written, and he does not have to personally supply me with every
bit of evidence to be right (although doing so would certainly make it easier
for the reader).

2) I would not question the fact that Greek philosophers influenced the
development of mathematics, and I expect PG would not do so, either
(particularly since the Greek philosophers were typically also mathematicians,
but even without that, it would seem an impossible claim to the contrary). A
claim I have made, however, is that the things that the Greek philosophers
wrote that could not now be seen as important in some other field currently
extant, or in cognitive science--which ought to be thought of as its own field
(although in many places it isn't yet)--were not themselves important to the
development of mathematics or any other field. These aspects of their writing,
when studied, critiqued, and emulated in modern times, are the only topic of
concern to PG in his essay, or myself in this particular discussion.

3) This is a fundamental problem. Just because we disagree certainly does not
make one of us right, and the only reason that at least one of us is
guaranteed to be wrong about something here is because I just asserted that we
disagree. An equally fundamental problem is your assumption that either PG or
myself is talking about all of philosophy.

With regard to "strange" ideas, every field has had strange ideas when looking
in hindsight. The fields for which those ideas are still in contention for
validity are the ones with the greatest problem of lack of substance, in
proportion with how many such ideas there are, and how "strange" they are
(where by strange I do not mean counterintuitive, but rather running against
other existing evidence).

4) Relatively little thinking. We got a lot better at it when we didn't have
to spend most of our time hunting and gathering. The course of human history
has been the process of freeing up more time to spend thinking; at this point,
we've freed up so much that we tend to use most of it in ways we typically
later label as non-productive.

You say you can do this for all fields. Can you point to some bad math for me?
That you would have much greater difficulty doing this than PG or I would have
for finding bad philosophy is precisely PG's point.

Is there some other form of argument that could possibly exist to support his
claim other than personal experience and selected examples? I'm not sure what
kind of evidence you would like to see in PG's essay, but feel it lacks. The
subject matter does not lend itself to effective experimental testing, and the
claim is not mathematical in nature.

PG's, and my, problem, is that modern philosophers still rarely identify the
fact that the bad thinking is bad. Understanding the utility of (and the
utility of understanding) effective but civil critical debate remains
unquestioned. The subject matter of these debates is what is under fire here,
precisely because it is typically pervaded by faulty reasoning. Even if you
want to use previous bad reasoning to learn why some reasoning is bad, this
doesn't mean you need to continually create more examples of bad reasoning;
surely those that already exist suffice.

~~~
cschwarm
Well, we seem to agree on some issues: Not all philosophy is bad or useless.
Some might be. So, let's say "Some philosophy is useless." PG presents a few
quotes and we may conclude, he proved his point.

But did he present any useless philosophy or just badly written philosophy? Or
does it just appear to be useless because we don't immediately understand it?

The latter case basically boilds down to an argument from ignorance: "We don't
understand some philosophers, therefore they must be useless (or bad or
false)." Many people don't understand much of contemporary maths either, but
that's hardly a good reason to call it useless (or bad or false). In contrast
to maths, though, many people assume to be able to understand it.

The former case is also hardly a good reason to call something useless. Kant,
for instance, is bloody complicated to read (at least, for me, and I'm
German). However, his arguments still make sense -- one just needs to read the
literature that explains Kant's ethics and meta-physics in a more accessible
manner. They were also quite useful for other philosophers.

You say you can find bad philosophy more easily than I can find bad maths.
Maybe, but since this is basically an empirical question, our small sample
won't be sufficient to prove anything. On a side note: It's easy to find
useless maths -- in the sense of published proofs that turned out to be wrong.
Since they didn't prove anything, why have they been published, at all? For
examples, look at the history to prove Fermat's Last Theorem. Quite a lot of
them failed or were simply wrong. What a waste of time.

However, your test to find useless philosophy also suffers from the lack of a
proper definition of "useless" and "useful". Just because you can't think of
any use, doens't mean you're right -- this is just another argument from
ignorance.

Let's consider ethics, for instance: It is basically useless concerning
empiricial results. However, it's still useful in many contemporary
discussions; for instance, animal's rights, abortion, women rights, death
penalty, justice, atheism, and many other issues.

Concerning your question whether some other form of argument could possibly
exist to support PG's claim? Sure, from an empirical point of view: A proper
definition of "useless" and a proper random sample concerning philosophical
works. This would at least support the conclusion that, say, 35% of philosophy
turned out to be useless.

But PG made two additional arguments:

(1) Any resulting number of useless philosophy is due to the current
philosophical method that is motivated by studying the most abstract problems.

(2) A different method that starts from studying practical problems and builds
up to abstract problems will result in a smaller number of useless philosophy.

To support (2), an argument from analogy would help: Study a model of the
proposed method (thankfully provided by science) and establish the empirical
fact that is produced a smaller percentage of useless results.

Of course, this can easily be refuted by attacking the analogy. The methods of
empricial science simply doesn't translate well to issues philosophers care
about; such as ethics.

To support (1), one would need to start from the premise of the current method
and deduce that it will lead to a certain number of useless philosophy and
that there is no other possible explanantion. I doubt that it can be done, but
I may be wrong.

Just to present a counter-example: to establish the habit of presenting
arguments in a more formal way could help to distiguish good and bad
philosophy much easier.

However, the point is that PG -- although his intention is apperently to "work
through a subject to understand it" -- fails badly. He hardly worked though
and he probably still doesn't understand it. Maybe, if he would have studied
philosophy more carefully he could have made better arguments for his case.

Which shows how careful one should be about certain words: From a
philosophical point of view, namely, PG's work was useless, indeed.

~~~
gambling8nt
PG presented a definition of useless that set the bar too high; I (in another
comment) presented a more reasonable definition of useless which accurately
applies to most of philosophy--something is useful insofar as it answers
questions asked by other fields (want empirical evidence of this? consider the
number of references to philosophical papers on papers from other fields,
excepting those related to cognitive science, which will, I believe, probably
be the last field to split off of philosophy). There, thus, is no question of
whether or not I understand a philosophical work; it's utility is measured by
reference of other fields, regardless of my personal attitude upon reading the
work. This definition accurately fits what is typically meant by the term
useful, and meaningfully explains why, for example, an incomplete proof, or a
result a given person doesn't understand might be useful.

That empiricism doesn't apply well to ethics is part of PG's point; he does
not believe that the philosophy of ethics is useful. From my definition, I
would say that the philosophy of ethics can conceivably be useful, but rarely
is in practice.

In vague support of argument one, you might try turning your other argument on
its head. Philosophy and science (and, before science, engineering and early
health care) developed in parallel over the course of human history; one of
them primarily studied abstract problems and tried to make them more useful,
one of them studied uses, and worked toward abstraction. Until the 19th
century, it appears that abstract study was better for developing new fields,
and concrete study was better for development of technology. After the
mid-19th century, philosophy lost its firm grip on most forms of abstract
study, and became (for the most part) the field that it is today; now other
fields tend to be the starting point for the spawning of new fields, and tend
to be better for the development of technology.

With regard to your counter-example, I will continue to present my counter-
counter-example: mathematics.

Your final sentence is nicely ironic. If, as you've said earlier, you need bad
philosophy in order to determine what the good philosophy is, yet PG's work is
useless, then PG's work must not be bad philosophy.

------
tsally
Well argued, although I am not well versed enough in Philosophy to make a
comment about its completeness.

One of the most interesting things I find about pg's essays is that they
always take such an interesting position on a problem or issue. I've always
thought that there is at least one interesting counter position for all of his
essays. We need to see more of these; I think it would lead to many fruitful
discussions.

~~~
qqq
How is it well argued? He _concedes_ that pg is right about most philosophy in
the conclusion section. He protests, protests, protests, then concedes. lol.
His conceding does come with an assertion that philosophy came clean recently,
but he doesn't bother giving some citations for _that_. Which philosophers
admitted philosophy was mostly junk? Who came clean? What did they do to fix
it?

~~~
tsally
Conceding that pg is right about most philosophy doesn't take away from his
argument. If I conceded that most programs written in the last 5 years are
garbage, would you conclude programming in general is also garbage?

~~~
qqq
The guy says:

"The simplest flaw in PG’s account is its scope: it implicates most
philosophers up to the present"

That's what he's trying to argue with, and that is PG's claim (not that _all_
philosophy is worthless). But then he simply concedes at the end, like he
forgot his own thesis.

~~~
jsomers
PG's "most" includes more than I'm comfortable with, which is why I wrote the
essay -- to defend those parts of the subject that I thought were unfairly
called a waste of time.

My "most," in other words, includes less than his.

~~~
mnemonicsloth
Abel, 1824. Not Galois, 1829. Your favorite joke a bout proto-emo math geeks
here.

Also, while I'm sympathetic to the intent of this essay -- easy criticism of
the humanities goes back to Aristophanes -- it falls flat because it reads
like a philosophy paper. A philosophy paper written in defense of academic
philosophy is going to lose in the gut regardless of how correct it is to the
reasoning mind (this is also why we still love Aristophanes).

------
trominos
"Paul Graham said that most philosophers have been wasting their time. Now
I'll refute the statement that _all_ philosophers have been wasting their
time. Also, speculation about neuroscience counts as philosophy as long as the
people involved call themselves philosophers."

------
Prrometheus
The author mentions several ways that philosophy, and especially philosophy of
the mind, have contributed to Computer Science and AI in particular. If that
is the case, then why don't we see CS teams collaborating with philosophers?

He mentions that one particular philosopher of the mind generated some
testable hypotheses about how the mind works. Why not, then, test them? Why
don't we see many philosophers flitting back and forth between thought and
action? In other words, where are the Hofstadters?

~~~
agentcoops
You do. Have you read any of the literature on multi-agent systems design? Or
the literature on belief-revision/database updating?

There's a significant community of modern philosophers/logicians actively
contributing to developments in CS. Also, check out the Philosophy department
at CMU: they've got someone employed full-time to work on implementations of
philosophically-inspired causal inference systems.

~~~
Prrometheus
Thanks! I actually thought your essay was pretty interesting, but I didn't
know how to include that nuance in my comment without making my comment less
readable. Perhaps I am too much of a Grahamite!

------
sadfsa
Asking a philosophical question like "what does X really mean" is akin to
asking "what data structure would best represent X in a program?" They could
even be considered to be the same question. So philosophy is as central to
programming as mathematics.

~~~
kragen
Maybe, instead, programming is as central to philosophy as mathematics is.

------
agentcoops
Something both of these papers miss is that most modern disciplines have their
origins in philosophy and, in moments of foundational crisis, often return to
their roots. While I do find pure philosophy to often be garbage (most
metaphysics, ethics, and epistemology), I think one of its most important
contributions is in multi-disciplinary pursuits and its concern with
foundational matters. Not to mention that so much of modern, theoretical
computer science (particularly logic and type theory) have its origins in the
works of philosophers.

------
gambling8nt
The argument in this essay relies heavily on, among other things, the idea
that extraordinarily abstract mathematical discussions are similar to
extraordinarily abstract discussions in philosophy or literary theory. This
premise (among the others refuted throughout this post) is flawed; while some
of mathematics is not yet related to any applied field, that is because
applied fields develop by using the mathematics available. Furthermore, unlike
the linguistic gymnastics of much of philosophy and literary criticism, the
abstractions used in mathematics have meanings that can be explained
concretely in simpler terms. Anything published in a mathematical paper is
either incontrovertibly true, contains some equally incontrovertible flaw, or
is a conjecture after such a result. That mathematics contains this level of
rigor is precisely why it avoids the contention against which fields such as
literary criticism and philosophy fall--namely, that of containing form
without substance.

~~~
chill
<cheap shot>And what is this substance of mathematics?</cheap shot>

Calling mathematics "incontrovertibly true" and stating that abstractions used
in mathematics can be explained concretely in simpler terms are philosophical
positions and the justifications for and against these positions are debated
outside mathematics in philosophy. You praise the rigor of mathematics while
ignoring the rigor in which philosophy searches for the justifications of
assumptions for all fields of human knowledge including mathematics and
science.

~~~
gambling8nt
The substance of mathematics is figuring out what is still true when one
applies the highest standard for rigor that still permits the possibility of
determining things not yet known to be true.

That any philosopher might continue to debate this issue is, while sadly true,
irrelevant. A logical system without modus ponens can either define modus
ponens, or is clearly not extensible enough to define anything. A logical
system with modus ponens is either inconsistent, or at most as general as
mathematics. Thus, there can be no extensible system of truth in which
mathematics is false, validating my claim that it is incontrovertible.

As to whether or not mathematics can be explained in simple terms, I will
suggest that this appears to be the case empirically, since some people become
mathematicians, and they all seem to use the same terminology, more or less.
To prove that every mathematical result in existence can be explained simply
would require that I actually explain every mathematical result simply, and
that is beyond the scope of an HN comment.

Finally, philosophers do not "search for the justifications of assumptions for
all fields of human knowledge including mathematics and science" with the
level of rigor I specified in my comment; indeed, the entire point of this
discussion is that they tend not to use any level of rigor at all. Insofar as
philosophy actually does anything to "justify the assumptions" for any field,
it occasionally achieves useful results; however, much of philosophy is
focused solely on a continuing failure to agree on semantics.

~~~
chill
Yet this failure to agree on semantics is in part because of the difficulty in
providing solid, incontrovertible justifications for these meanings. Consider
the new branches of mathematics that were [created|discovered] when Euclid's
definition of a straight line were questioned.

That mathematics corresponds so well to the world we perceive is amazing. Why
should this be the case? How can we be sure that mathematics and science holds
for all cases which we do not observe or that they will continue to do so? Can
rigorous justifications be given for these questions that do not rely on
circular arguments and blind faith?

~~~
gambling8nt
We can't guarantee anything about the world. Empirically, science seems to
work, and that is all we can ever get from it. Math is true regardless of its
utility in science, and we use it in science because it is convenient to do
so.

There are no solid, incontrovertible definitions. Only solid incontrovertible
proofs (even there, we don't generally actually know whether or not a proof is
incontrovertible, because proofs are rarely verified on that level...but,
within mathematics, it is at least POSSIBLE to either verify a proof on that
level, or provide a verifiable flaw). Definitions are a matter of convenience.

That the semantics of mathematics sometimes change does not imply that any of
its terminology are ever inherently complex in the sense that those who don't
understand it, "Don't get it." Indeed, since semantics in mathematics are only
ever a shorthand, every mathematical construct could conceivably be expanded
into the language of logic, and every mathematician (modulo human error) would
agree that the expansion was valid. This underlying agreement on meaning is
precisely what is missing from fields like much of literary criticism and
philosophy.

------
smakz
I studied philosophy on the side of my computer science degree, and I have to
say it's been immensely useful.

Before studying philosophy I was a green idealist, but after studying
philosophy I centered on a pragmatic philosophy.

Also it enhanced my ability to argue immensely. If I have an argument with
someone I can easily detect logical flaws and shady arguments in general.

Also I like to think my study of multi-modal logic systems has enhanced my
ability to suggest alternatives and question assumptions (where reasonable).

In short, a philosophy degree might not be all that useful full time, but to
compliment something more practical, like CS, I've found it to be valuable.

~~~
gambling8nt
The study of mathematics is both more useful, and carries most of the same
benefits (although it typically lacks the forced experience with communicative
writing).

~~~
smakz
I think the statement that math is more useful then philosophy is debatable,
especially at the university level.

Advanced calculus and "pure math" courses had precious few uses in the day to
day grind of many jobs. Pure math might teach logic in some way, but
philosophy tends to focus on argument itself, which lends itself to more
obvious practical uses.

~~~
gambling8nt
As a programmer, you don't see obvious practical use in understanding results
in number theory? These have importance in a wide variety of computer
applications.

What about linear algebra? Do you really think that understanding its
applications in computer graphics doesn't/wouldn't improve your employability?

Certainly, if you're a janitor, having studied philosophy vs. mathematics does
not significantly affect how you do your job (though it probably does affect
how easy it is for you to get a different job). But mathematics--even advanced
mathematics--has more and more obvious applications than philosophy.

------
GavinB
The problem with philosophy now is that students spend so much time slogging
through the old incomprehensible junk. A philosophy degree (I have one) should
be a separate entity from a degree studying the history of philosophy. Psych
majors don't have to take classes on Phrenology.

It's very frustrating to be told to write in a concise style and then asked to
read some really obfuscated nonsense.

~~~
agentcoops
While I agree that slogging through Aristotle and Kant is incredibly painful
(and many departments definitely over-emphasis), I think it's undeniably
useful for one pursuing a career or even hobby in philosophy to have some
knowledge of the discipline's history. If nothing else, it demonstrates
exactly what not to do and how vital clarity and a rigorous, logical
methodology are.

~~~
GavinB
I just think that a succinct summary of their views by a clear modern writer
would have been sufficient for my purposes. For others who are more
interested, it's great to have.

~~~
andreasvc
The problem with this idea is that the jury is still out on the interpretation
of a lot of ancient texts. Anyone summarizing them will either put their own
spin on them or will tediously have to expound on all the possible
interpretations.

------
jjguy
With his essay, I believe jsomers has proven PG's point.

~~~
ntoll
prove it.. :-)

~~~
evilneanderthal
"Problematizing a purely syntagmatic critique of postmodern critical theory"

Plus ten style points for irony. Minus a thousand for writing that sentence at
all.

~~~
ntoll
A single example of something _you think_ is of poor quality does not mean
everything within that field _is_ poor. This is simply lazy (and prejudiced)
thinking. :-(

------
hellobrandcom
The problem is that philosophy is thought to provide us with the truth. When
in fact the truth of philosophy is that it shows us there is no truth. It
helps us break down the illusions not create them.

------
nazgulnarsil
interesting philosophy didn't come around until hume and kant. post hume and
kant hasn't been all that interesting either.

------
akkartik
I found the writing style and visual design most.. PG-esque.

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qqq
Claims philosophers do useful stuff but doesn't mention the best example: Karl
Popper (who most philosophers don't like because he had the audacity to
actually solve a philosophical problem!)

Meanwhile, fails to distance himself from Wittgenstein, and responds to pg's
claim that philosophers argue semantics by defending it! (BTW Popper is one of
the philosopher who does _not_ argue semantics.)

~~~
agentcoops
What philosophical problem did Popper actually solve? I hope very much you
aren't referring to his verificationist approach to confirmation in science.

~~~
andreasvc
His approach was decidedly not verificationist, but falsificationist. I do
share your sentiment that he didn't really solve the problem "once and for
all." I think it's wrong to neglect the context of discovery. Peirce had some
nice ideas about the logic of science.

------
hsmyers
If a philosophy is valid it doesn't need a defense.

~~~
tsally
Tell that to all the significant ideas in the last several thousand years that
were ridiculed and suppressed.... starting with evolution.

