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I agree that there is no such thing as a "state of the art" in a subject such as philosophy... but you can read a lot of stuff from e.g. Plato or Aristotle that is just refuted nowadays. For example, I studied linguistics and whenever I had to read Plato about language I was reminded that he really had no idea what he was talking about.

I also personally don't like Plato (he always creates these absolute strawmen as opponents), but that's more personal. I agree though that it's valuable to read at least some of it and to see whether it speaks to you or whether you find the method of inquiry interesting.

>For example, I studied linguistics and whenever I had to read Plato about language I was reminded that he really had no idea what he was talking about.

You don't read Plato for empirical science though (or Aristotle for that matter). You read him for the philosophical ideas.

Whether language is X or Y for example is still debated, and while a modern linguist might know X research results or new theories, Plato still sets off many questions that are still dividing sides and are under debate. E.g. from a Stanford website breakdown:

"The positions of Hermogenes and Cratylus have come to be known to modern scholarship as ‘conventionalism’ and ‘naturalism’ respectively. An extreme linguistic conventionalist like Hermogenes holds that nothing but local or national convention determines which words are used to designate which objects. The same names could have been attached to quite different objects, and the same objects given quite different names, so long as the users of the language were party to the convention. Cratylus, as an extreme linguistic naturalist, holds that names cannot be arbitrarily chosen in the way that conventionalism describes or advocates, because names belong naturally to their specific objects. If you try to speak of something with any name other than its natural name, you are simply failing to refer to it at all. For example, he has told Hermogenes to the latter’s intense annoyance, Hermogenes is not actually his name".

But philosophy of language is a thing and IMHO, Plato is mostly useless there. What is described in the quoted excerpt as "naturalism" is... simply not a position that any modern linguist (at the very least since Saussure) would take, because it is plainly ridiculous and flies in the face of basically all evidence.

Generally, I don't think that philosophical ideas exist in a vacuum, they are informed by the real world and by science (hence why e.g. quantum mechanics plays such an important role). Plato bases his ideas off of specific premises (that's the whole point of the socratic dialogues), but I find the premises often very flawed. For example, how does Platonism and the idea that there is "an ideal horse" make sense in the context of evolution? It doesn't, IMHO, and cognitive science seems to give much better answers to such question as how we can recognise the concept of "horse".

But people who didn't study linguistics can still be impressed by Plato, and then quote him to impress others.

So, it's ultimately a question of why do you even want to study philosophy in first place. I suspect that for most usual purposes, Plato is perfectly okay.

>But people who didn't study linguistics can still be impressed by Plato, and then quote him to impress others.

Same way people that studied science X (including linguistics and CS), but are philosophically naive, can have a coarsed-grained view of very nuanced situations, and adhere to naive assumptions...

As an American philosopher noted, "An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing".

This is true for a scientist with expertise in whatever X.

Philosophy and epistemology (along with history and art) are ways to not be a simpleton with a narrow field of view who can't put together two coherent sentences outside their field (and doesn't even understand the second and third order implications of what he studies, its possible societal impact, its relevance and so on), but to get a wider picture.

Whch is not the same as "impressing others", except in the sense that intelligence and education do impress others sometimes...

> And, like in art, the formulation matters, and more often than not the best formulation is the original (because its closer to their source, the thinker who came up with those ideas).

This is sometimes true, but I think it depends on who you're reading. The skill of philosophizing, and of carrying on a discourse with other philosophers, is very different from the skill of bringing a novice up to speed. Not everyone who's great at one is great at the other. There's also value in what the grandparent post mentioned about establishing historical and biographical context before jumping into primary sources. It helps you understand what you're reading and what the community thinks is important about it.

That said, I definitely agree that primary sources are valuable to read, and to appreciate as works of art in their own right. Yes Wikipedia can give you the big ideas, but it's just not the same. But hitting Wikipedia first can give you context to get more out of the primary.

> The concept of "state of the art" exists for engineering not art

I don't understand this. Yes philosophy is not a linear progression of ideas, but the iterative process of people building on one another's ideas is definitely present, as it is in music or mathematics or poetry. Philosophy responds to current events, to art, to science, and to itself.

To put it another way, it's totally valid to ask "what was up with philosophy in X decade". You can look at the ideas that were floating around, how they interacted with each other, how they built on the past and led to future ideas. As I see it, that's the "state of the art". It's more a question of "what were top minds in the field working on", or maybe "what ideas were most influential", than anything else, but that's true if you ask that question of technology too.

> Smartphones or cars change messaging methods and habbits, not philosophy.

Philosophy (or philosophers) respond to what's around them. The conversation around whether the brain is a computer, for example, is very different today (and probably more interesting to most people) than it would have been 200 years ago.

But there is a state of the art to music, and it’s fair to say that classical music is dead as it’s basically a fossil now. Hence Lady Gaga.

Dead?

Have a look at Adam Neely on Youtube.

> Science is a tool, we don't ask tools for their opinions or for our goals or for what to do with them. We use them to make things or to examine things, no to think about what we want to make, or to think about what is best to make. That's for philosophy.

And yet philosophy is utterly incapable of telling us what to make or do. People often come to philosophy with the hope that studying philosophy will help them live a better life or help them make sense of life. The truth is, it won't. They can devote their life to studying philosophy and they won't squeeze a single drop of utility from that parched rock.

>And yet philosophy is utterly incapable of telling us what to make or do.

Actually it is perfectly capable.

In fact, nothing has been made or done without a philosophy guiding it.

It's just that for most people this is usually a self-made, uninformed, ad-hoc (and usually bad and unfit for the purpose) philosophy, or some low-tier second hand pop philosophy.

If you mean "philosophy can't tell what X exactly everybody should make or do" that's true. But that's also true for science and everything else. We are individuals, in different situations, different problems, and different goals.

Philosophy teaches us how to think about our problems, goals, etc, and how to put them in perspective, value them, examine them, etc.

It doesn't hand them out to us. Philosophy is not an oracle telling you what to do and absolving you from thinking (and that's true whether some philosophers treated theirs as such or not).

In its totality, philosophy is the exact opposite, a set of prior observations, discussions, hypotheses, thinking tools and approaches, to make you think better and to give you the benefit of the insight of others.

You get that insight on technical matters from science.

You get that insight on meta-matters (thinking about thinking, morals, etc) from philosophy.

I don't think that there's a universal truth about what you should be making or doing. It's up to each person to decide that for themselves. Philosophy exposes you to different ideas and ways of thinking, showing that there isn't a single correct answer to the questions people have in life. What you make of that is up to the person on the receiving end of those ideas.

I basically agree with this. My suggestion to OP would be to take this comment to heart. If they are looking to develop a personal philosophy, any amount of study of formal philosophy will not get them further than this.

"philosophy is utterly incapable of telling us what to make or do"

Take a look at the enormous popularity of Stoicism on HN. I think quite a few people here would disagree with you about philosophy being "utterly incapable of telling us what to make or do".

And yet most philosophers aren't Stoics. Physics will tell you how fast an object will fall. You can ask a dozen physicists and they will all give you the same answer. Philosophy only tells you how to live if you ask exactly one philosopher. Ask a second, and you will be no better off than when you started.

"And yet most philosophers aren't Stoics"

You're moving the goal posts.

First you said:

"philosophy is utterly incapable of telling us what to make or do"

I gave you an example how philosophy is in fact capable of doing that, and it does so for many people (philosophers and non-philosophers alike).

Instead of granting the point, you move the goal posts.

Suddenly, philosophy being capable of telling us what to make or do is no longer good enough for you. Now you want answers to satisfy "most philosophers".

"You can ask a dozen physicists and they will all give you the same answer. Philosophy only tells you how to live if you ask exactly one philosopher. Ask a second, and you will be no better off than when you started."

Philosophy is not physics. There is no consensus on many of the problems that concern it.

Philosophy, by the way, is far from the only academic discipline that lacks such a consensus.

Harry Truman said "If you laid every economist in the country end to end, they would all point in different directions."

There are also many disagreements on fundamental issues in psychology, and probably many if not most other "soft sciences".

But philosophy is not a science, so why are you holding it up to scientific standards?

Art and music aren't sciences either, but most people recognize they have tremendous value anyway.

By the way, I've noticed that you're laser-focused on this consensus issue, while completely being unable to acknowledge that philosophy has value apart from the issue of whether it gives you answers that everyone can agree on.

How about philosophy's value in training the mind?

Please answer if you find that valuable.

How about philosophy's value in letting people question their own assumptions?

Do you find that valuable?

Or philosophy's value in letting you see things from a different perspective?

Can you specifically address these points instead of endlessly returning to the one point of philosophy not having answers that everyone can agree on?

You've misunderstood me if you think I'm arguing philosophy has no value. I'm only arguing that studying it will not help someone develop a personal philosophy.

I will make this one concession on reflection. It may help immunize one from simplistic explanations and just-so stories. It will not give one truth, but perhaps it will reveal the lie. The study of philosophy is a great way, for example, to disabuse someone of religious faith.

The point of philosophy is to teach you how to think so you can formulate your own answer. Apparently you expect everything to be 1+1=2, which really is kind of sad.

You are a person who desperately needs philosophy, yet you seen incapable of understanding why you would need it. Science seems to have ruined you.

> The point of philosophy is to teach you how to think so you can formulate your own answer.

This canard has been raised several times in this thread. Yes, who will teach the physicists how to think? Who will teach the engineers how to put two and two together?

> Apparently you expect everything to be 1+1=2, which really is kind of sad.

If by this you mean I reject irrational thought, then yes, guilty as charged. This has nothing to do with my views on philosophy, though. Philosophy is a type of rational inquiry.

> Science seems to have ruined you.

Or perhaps math has ruined me, expecting everything to be 1+1=2? But isn't math an extension of logic, and logic a part of philosophy? Maybe philosophy has ruined me.

> Science seems to have ruined you.

This is a very interesting thought. Is this something you came up with, or are you quoting any specific philosopher? I’d love to read more about this topic.

It's basically the idea of "scientism".

Scientistm being to science what nationalism is to patriotism.

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/science-versus-scie...