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Comment by b450 | Hacker News Reader

The argument is sometimes made that philosophy is the mother of all other academic traditions - once a philosophical idea reaches a sufficient level of promise or maturity, it spins off into its own discipline, as in the speciation of "natural philosophy" into specialized hard sciences. One might even point to psychology (or even more contentiously and partially, computer science) as a 20th century offshoots of philosophy.

That story seems excessively tidy and flattering, and in any case, its pessimistic corrolary is that most of today's philosophy is a junk drawer of dead-end intellectual projects that never yielded anything useful. The shoe certainly seems to fit most philosophical sub-disciplines, like metaphysics and ethics.

Anyway, the article is a fairly (though maybe inevitably) partisan read on the crisis of philosophy. The author pretty casually dismisses some views which are pretty popular among philosophers - examples include the idea that philosophical theories are rival, and can be disproven; and the view that philosophy is supposed to be therapeutic (the rejection of this view is especially surprising given that it was pretty much universal among the archetype philosophers, the Ancient Greeks). The author appears to favor the view that the point of philosophy is to "articulate cultural self-understanding" (or, "[promoting] cultural self-consciousness"). Seems reasonable enough I guess, but I'm not sure what it means.

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I wouldn't say it's pessimistic because philosophy continues to spin off new disciplines. Linguistics and economics were considered subdomains of philosophy a century ago.

Sociology is still heavily laden with philosophy. Right now artificial intelligence is informed by things that were called "cognitive science" when they were in the philosophy department.

It may be that one day philosophy is reduced to re-treading metaphysics and ethics as insoluble problems. But we're not there yet, so I don't think it can be rightly called pessimistic just now.

> today's philosophy is a junk drawer of dead-end intellectual projects that never yielded anything useful

I hold multiple degrees in philosophy and this is a correct description (for >95% of what happens in academic philosophy).

And that's OK. It's not expensive, and it's useful to have a place for off-the-wall notions that probably won't pay off.

It's always going to be contentious, because even that small pot of money will attract many different grasping hands. But it seems a worthwhile tradeoff, Just In Case. At least as much as, say, the more abstruse areas of theoretical physics and mathematics.

What's an example of a philosophical notion that did pay off?

Physics

Absolutely not

It didn’t pay off?

It's not a philosophical notion.

The book "Physics" was written by Aristotle, who is so much of a philosopher that he's often called "The Philosopher". He's also the author of a book called "Metaphysics", pretty much the quintessential field of philosophy.

The entire point of this conversation was that some fields, including physics, get split off from philosophy, leaving behind a mishmash. But many scientific fields absolutely began as aspects of philosophy, and it's only because they're so successful that people deny that.

Aristotle's actual writings are lost. The books attributed to Aristotle are comprised of lecture notes collected by his students, later compiled according to topic, so you get the Ethics, the Politics, the Physics and Metaphysics.

They didn't quite know how to name the last book since its contents were so abstract and unrelated to the everyday world, so they simply called it "the book that comes after the Physics," which eventually became known as the Metaphysics. It is worth noting that the title is a specific reference to the book, not to any notion of the subject matter somehow transcending physics. After all, why physics, in particular?

In the light of that, it is even more jarring to see the term 'metaphysics' being used to describe spiritualism and new age mysticism.

That "book" whoever wrote it, is utterly useless for practicing modern physics.

Not at all, quantum mechanics is based on Aristotle's ideas. The postulate of wavefunction collapse is proposed ad hoc solely to explain one observed phenomenon and not connected to the rest of the theory. It's similar to Aristotle's postulate that stars are made of aether which naturally tends to move in circles around the heavens, this nicely explains motion of stars in geocentric model, and is postulated just for this. The postulate of wavefunction collapse is justified as directly observable phenomenon, anything else is thus not supported by observation. Aristotle used the same argument: that geocentrism is directly observable, thus heliocentrism is not supported by observation.

You're right that science can be done better, but that's the state of modern science.

Rubbish. It isn't remotely true that quantum mechanics is based on Aristotle, but even if it were true it wouldn't address the fact his ostensible book "Physics" is utterly useless for practicing modern physics.

I mean Aristotle's approach to physics is gold standard of modern science. Some even argue you don't need anything better, as Popper commanded. Also geocentrism is still used, because it gives correct numbers. Next question is whether correct numbers are everything needed from science. If yes, then geocentrism is perfectly good, because it gives correct numbers.

Another example: black hole information paradox. Solid modern science. It begins with "suppose we have a black hole defined as such and such". It has structure similar to many philosophic ideas, e.g. solipsism: "suppose we have solipsism defined as such and such".

> I mean Aristotle's approach to physics is gold standard of modern science.

I don't consider Aristotle's approach to physics to be the gold standard of modern science, but I'm willing to entertain the notion if you spell out exactly what you mean by "Aristotle's approach to physics."

> Also geocentrism is still used, because it gives correct numbers. Next question is whether correct numbers are everything needed from science. If yes, then geocentrism is perfectly good, because it gives correct numbers.

This makes zero sense to me.

> Another example: black hole information paradox. Solid modern science. It begins with "suppose we have a black hole defined as such and such". It has structure similar to many philosophic ideas, e.g. solipsism: "suppose we have solipsism defined as such and such".

OK. What, if anything, does the study of the philosophical notion of solipsism contribute to resolving the black hole information paradox?

In 1687 Isaac Newton wrote a book "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica", where he describes laws of motion and gravitation.

Yet today the branch of physics that bears his name and still embodies his ideas and methods is typically taught within the physics department but not the philosophy department.

Which in no way negates the claim that physics answers the question of

    What's an example of a philosophical notion that did pay off?

FWiW modern physicists that have been short listed as replacements to Hawking for the Lucasian Chair have studied philosophy as part of their education and found it useful in advancing their ability to reason.

eg: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/j.gauntlett

> which in no way negates the claim [about physics and philosophy]

Whether that claim is true or not depends on the meanings people assign to the terms "physics" and "philosophy." Newton may have called himself a philosopher but we're not obliged to follow suit. If the fruits of his labor today are taught as physics but not as philosophy, that supports the argument that today we should regard him as a physicist by today's standards and not a philosopher.

Are you claiming that modern physics is not a branch of past philosophy?

Myself and a number of others who have studied and work in physics|mathematics regard it as such and thus regard physics as an example of something worthwhile that arose from philosophy.

Similarly one can regard modern 20th century logical philosophy in the same light and embarce the work of Russell, Godel, Turing, Church, et al as worthwhile developments of philosophy.

No. Among other things I'm claiming Newton, for instance, would typically be classified by modern standards not as a philosopher but as a physicist. I further claim that regardless of their historical provenance, modern physics is very distinct from modern philosophy. This claim is supported if we accept that a training in philosophy alone does not equip a person at all to work as a professional physicist. Moreover, I make these claims and arguments without reference to our personal biographies, yours or mine, which I regard as irrelevant. After all, you don't know what my experience with physics is anymore than I know what yours is.

As for Godel, Turing, and Church, if they were philosophers they were also mathematicians, which means we can't rule out the possibility that their contributions owe more to the latter than the former. It doesn't help us evaluate philosophy in isolation, as distinct from math, physics, or computing. To do that, we would be helped by examples of laudable contributions from people who were ONLY philosophers.

The argument I advanced was that physics is an offshoot, a product, of philosophy.

You haven't negated that claim in any form that I recognise.

> As for Godel, Turing, and Church, ...

Interestinglly I have a degree in mathematics, I was present when Tao met Erdős in Australia, and while I studied Group Theory, Functional Analysis, and other such things as part of the mathematics curriculum I had to go to the Philosophy department to study 20th Century Logical Philosophy under Graham Priest alongside fellow students one who now heads a Physics Department, another who heads a Philosophy Department (and, incidently also studied undergraduate mathematics alongside myself and the physicist).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Priest

> Moreover, I make these claims and arguments without reference to our personal biographies, yours or mine

Sadly I only have my own personal experience of the world, informed to a degree by the thoughts of those I've met and worked with.

> It doesn't help us evaluate philosophy in isolation, as distinct from math, physics, or computing.

Why on earth would you want to do that, these things are all intertwined.

> To do that, we would be helped by examples of laudable contributions from people who were ONLY philosophers.

We should then also reject papers on black holes by physicists that also studied philosophy?

I fear you're advancing your own private Idaho by means of a True Scotsman Philosopher whom I've not personally met.

> The argument I advanced was that physics is an offshoot, a product, of philosophy. You haven't negated that claim in any form that I recognise.

I haven't tried to since I don't find the question that argument addresses very interesting.

> Sadly I only have my own personal experience of the world

Not only that, but also ONLY you have your own personal experience. No one else does, including me. That's why when you tell me the biographical detail as you did earlier, "Myself and a number of others who have studied and work in physics|mathematics" as if to somehow strengthen your argument, I'm here to tell you that I'm no more interested in your biography than I would expect you to be in mine, which is not at all, because they don't strengthen our arguments.

> Why on earth would you want to do that, these things are all intertwined.

Why would I want to evaluate philosophy in isolation from physics? I dunno. Maybe because that's "analysis", whose definitions according to Webster's includes "suggests separating or distinguishing the component parts of something (such as a substance, a process, a situation) so as to discover its true nature or inner relationships." After all, perhaps physics and philosophy AREN'T so intertwined. You haven't established that they are anyway. If they aren't and they can be teased apart from one another, then that helps us reason about and understand each better in isolation and with respect to each other.

> We should then also reject papers on black holes by physicists that also studied philosophy?

No, that's a non-sequitur. That doesn't follow from "we would be helped by examples of laudable contributions from people who were ONLY philosophers." "We" refers to us here in this Hacker News thread on the subject "Wither philosophy?" in general, and on the subject of distinguishing philosophy from physics in order to understand both, in particular.

> I fear you're advancing your own private Idaho by means of a True Scotsman Philosopher whom I've not personally met.

I have no idea what this means.

>I further claim that regardless of their historical provenance, modern physics is very distinct from modern philosophy.

There are many things in modern philosophy. You don't make claims based on ignorance, do you? How modern physics is different from such a modern philosophic idea as compatibilism?

>This claim is supported if we accept that a training in philosophy alone does not equip a person at all to work as a professional physicist.

There are many kinds of professional physicists too. Some can live without philosophy, some can live without much math too: the computer will do math for them. Arguably philosophic ignorance delays development of fundamental physics.

Name one branch of physics that can't do without philosophy, in the following sense: at a typical American university with a graduate physics program that prepares its doctoral students for a successful professional career in that branch of physics, philosophy classes are a required part of the graduate curriculum.

That's survivor's bias. You can be ignorant about anything until it becomes a problem. Insurance against it IRL is polymorphism: some people won't be ignorant, but you suggest uniform ignorance.

> That's survivor's bias. You can be ignorant about anything until it becomes a problem.

I choose to believe that if you could name a branch of physics that can't be done without philosophy, you would have named it. Therefore, I take your comment to mean that you can't name a branch of physics that can't be done without philosophy. That's consistent with the possibility that no such branch exists. Put another way, philosophy is utterly useless for physics, which is something I wrote elsewhere in this thread

Previously laws of motion were proposed by Aristotle, Newton only did better quantitative analysis of observation and proposed more precise laws.

You forgot about Galileo, whose laws of motion superseded Aristotle's and did more to inform Newton. You also forgot about Copernicus and Kepler. Meanwhile, Newton formulated laws of motion that are still used today, a law of gravitation that is still used today, a theory of optics that is still used today, and a branch of mathematics that is still used today. Naturally, he had help in these triumphs, as all giants do. Nevertheless, I consider your use of the diminishing word "only" to be grossly unfair to Newton and his accomplishments.

I mean work done on it was steady evolution of knowledge started as philosophy. Newton himself called it philosophy.

> I mean work done on it was steady evolution of knowledge started as philosophy. Newton himself called it philosophy.

I addressed this already when I wrote above, "Newton may have called himself a philosopher but we're not obliged to follow suit." I don't care what Newton called it. By today's standards, it would be called "physics" and if he was teaching at a university today Newton would be in that department, not the philosophy department.

As for a "steady evolution of knowledge", however steady it was (I don't think it was steady at all), surely it was less steady than it would have been had there not been an eclipsing of classical antiquity and a thousand years of stunted progress in Western Europe. If it was more steady than it was, we would need more than two hands to count the important individuals punctuating scientific advancement. No, Isaac Newton was a towering giant. His Wikipedia page has this to say on the subject:

"It is held by European philosophers of the Enlightenment and by historians of the Enlightenment that Newton's publication of the Principia was a turning point in the Scientific Revolution and started the Enlightenment. It was Newton's conception of the universe based upon natural and rationally understandable laws that became one of the seeds for Enlightenment ideology"

Evidently the philosophers THEMSELVES have spoken and assigned Newton an outsized role in history. As for "Whither philosophy?" itself? However important it was in history and in the progress of civilization, I think now it's a museum piece that's outlived its usefulness. We've long since moved on from any need for philosophy.

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

If you want to continue the matter, you can find me here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCitvgwzEn5__bR6qIeMSZ0g

comment on any video, I'll reply, and we can take it from there

In a literal sense it is no longer considered philosophy because it did pay off.

The field is somewhat doomed to only contain the good ideas of the future and the bad ideas of the present, because as soon as they are identified as good ideas they get their own branding and are no longer part of philosophy.

For example, my current distraction is homotopy type theory which is a way to reason about computable functions without error, amenable to machine checked proof. That is, it's a credible path to building software that actually works. Here is is under the philosophy department of Cornell. https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/philosophy/hott/

That's Carnegie Mellon University, not Cornell.

The number 0?

Indian astronomers and mathematicians have a stronger claim to that invention than anyone recognizable as a classical European philosopher. I rate this claim as "false."

I didn't realize we were limiting ourselves to Western philosophy. Also, many mathematicians and astronomers have been philosophers--more so in elder days.

Every philosopher mentioned in the original article is Western, so I propose that we do limit ourselves Western philosophy, but if you want to argue in favor of a different proposal then I'd love to hear your reasoning.

Also, any philosopher who was also a mathematician and astronomer could have his or her contributions assigned to "mathematics" or "astronomy" which these days are whole other departments from philosophy, in whole other colleges. In that case, "philosophy" remains in the position of not having much to show for itself.

Human rights. It's a metaphysical spook with no grounding in the natural world, but the idea catching on is a net positive.

Consider John Locke. He didn't create the idea of "human rights" any more than any one individual can be solely credited with any accomplishment in history, but I think it's fair to say he contributed a lot to the idea and is suitably emblematic of it. Locke trained as a physician, not as a philosopher. He worked largely as a physician and a bureaucrat. If he was a philosopher, he was an empiricist who wrote more about politics and economics than about metaphysics (to which he was somewhat indisposed). And, he was largely ignored until his writings became useful to American revolutionaries who arguably were again occupied more by the grubby business of politics than by the airy theories of metaphysics. Based on this one example, I would argue that Locke was as much if not more-so a political theorist than he was any kind of metaphysical philosopher and that therefore the claim that human rights is a metaphysical notion rather than a political idea, is weakened.

> Human rights. It's a metaphysical spook with no grounding in the natural world

human rights has no grounding anywhere but the natural world

And its grounding is quite solid. It's been talked about for many millennia. And for example, saying that slaves or serfs have no rights is itself an acknowledgement of human rights, an indication that it makes sense to consider that humans might be worthy of rights. There isn't really any definition of the word "rights" except that it starts with human rights.

The entire enlightenment?

Already this claim fails to withstand scrutiny. I already treated John Lock elsewhere in this thread, so for variety let's consider another crucial figure from the Age of Enlightenment: Francis Bacon. Was Bacon a philosopher? Maybe. But, before we concede that he was, what else was he? He was: a bureaucrat, a politician, an attorney, an architect, a scientist, an author, a political theorist, and a theologian, at least. He read Latin at Trinity, not "philosophy", which can't be identified as a distinct discipline at this time. He rejected Aristotelianism which elsewhere in this thread has been described as "the gold standard" of physics, so ponder that for a second.

If "the entire enlightenment" is primarily a PHILOSOPHICAL notion that did pay off, then surely Francis Bacon as one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment was himself PRIMARILY a philosopher, and yet was he? He was many things: a bureaucrat, a politician, an attorney, an architect, a scientist, an author, a political theorist, a theologian, and yes I suppose a philosopher. But being so many things, can we really say that he was primarily a PHILOSOPHER, thus contributing to the claim that the entire enlightenment was primarily a PHILOSOPHICAL notion? Let everyone judge for themselves.

Modern methods of scientific enquiry. Most scientists no longer look to the bible or tea leaves.

How did you establish that was a philosophical notion?

> It's not expensive.

There are evidently ~10k philosophy professors in the US and the average salary is ~100k. That's ~$1 billion. I think college is already an expensive waste but if it has to exist and if those professors are mostly entertaining undergraduates I suppose ~0.004% of GDP to pay camp counselors at a playground that's going to exist anyway, isn't all that expensive. I rate your coment as "mostly true."

I am not particularly knowledgeable about philosophy as a modern discipline, but taking philosophy courses as an undergraduate taught me a lot, particularly about the limits of knowledge and scientific enquiry. I'm happy to argue that there are a lot of courses taught at university that are considerably less useful than philosophy -- but I'm sure there are lawyers (classics and rhetoric) and screen writers (comparative literature) who can point out how those disciplines contribute.

The trouble is, we have to take your word for it that philosophy taught you a lot that the rest of us find useful, as there's little Independent verification. At least with math, or physics, or engineering, there are some fairly standard means for independent verification (tests, job interviews, work product, etc.)

That doesn't look like an independent verification: it's done by humans engrossed in math. If math was verified by someone who doesn't believe in math, that would be independent. But such things don't happen, naturally stuff are verified by people already interested in the topic. If you don't believe in math, you won't bother to verify it.

Do you think non aircraft engineers who fly in airplanes would tend to have their confidence increased, or decreased, if they discovered their airline had hired mechanics without checking their qualifications?

That's trust based on belief that qualification checking is supposed to work. Again layman here can't be bothered to verify anything, belief is enough.

I think you're forgetting how we got here. fastaguy88 wrote

> I am not particularly knowledgeable about philosophy as a modern discipline, but taking philosophy courses as an undergraduate taught me a lot, particularly about the limits of knowledge and scientific enquiry.

to which I replied

> The trouble is, we have to take your word for it that philosophy taught you a lot that the rest of us find useful, as there's little Independent verification

Personally, I don't trust anyone to certify that someone else has learned "a lot...about the limits of knowledge and scientific enquiry" the way I trust the FAA to certify (indirectly) that someone has learned aircraft mechanics, or the State Bar of California to certify that someone has learned California law. Do you?

I don't think I said that philosophy taught me things that the "rest of us" find useful. I said it taught me things that I found useful. And I'm happy to argue that many non-technical subjects that I might not consider useful are useful to people in other disciplines (including disciplines that measure success by income levels).

I don't know you personally, so I'm not interested in what you personally find useful about what you know. If I'm interested in anything you know, it's only in those things that are recognized to be useful to other people in the society we both live in: medicine, law, art, agriculture, engineering, science, etc. If you find someone else personally enriching for you, that's great and I'm happy for you, but it's got nothing to do with anyone who doesn't know you personally.

When you look for knowledge, you aim for the best, not for the average. Also science has crackpots too, they are just underfunded.

Whereas in philosophy, ALL the crackpots are overfunded.

Just as you must distinguish between philosophers and philosophy professors, you must distinguish between philosophy and academic ersatz. We all know what guides and drives academia. It's not always the love of wisdom (philo + sophis).

Why should metaphysics be a dead end? Given the facts of observation, what must be true of reality so that such facts can obtain? Metaphysics is tacit within the facts, and a metaphysical stance is tacit in one's claims. Everyone here would agree (except in some artificial, dishonest, rarefied moment of academic detachment from reality) that something cannot both be and not be the case. We could not possibly reason about reality otherwise. But why should logic take this position? Logic is concerned with correct reasoning, but reasoning is about reality. So the justification for the logical principle of contradiction can only be found in the metaphysical, that is, in the reality (or being) that we are reasoning about. It must be that reality (being) is such that it cannot both be and not be. It is the only way to maintain the faithfulness of reason to the real. Any attempt to undermine this correspondence undermines the very attempt to undermine this correspondence, as you would would no doubt be reasoning to such a conclusion. Thus we have the first methodological principle of first philosophy, that our conclusions cannot undermine the very means by which we reason to those conclusions. We are condemned to reason, so we better do it well as there is no other alternative, other than doing it poorly. This rules out skepticism and relativism off the bat (and incidentally, this is why even academic philosophers generally do not take these positions seriously). And ethics, of course, entails metaphysical propositions like anything else.

That these are difficult subjects often executed poorly does not mean they are bullshit as such.

I put it to you that most of us did not need a paragraph of ten-dollar words to dismiss skepticism and relativism, and that serious academic study of philosophy puts one at higher, not lower, risk of embracing such nonsense. Metaphysics may not be inherently bullshit, but empirically the study of it seems to be so in practice.

Relativism is much more common among non-philosophers than philosophers.

Do you have a reference for this claim?

Probably refers to statistics that many philosophers in USA are moral realists. My pet theory is that they are afraid of cancellation, because layman realists have very negative reaction to criticism. Or it's inspired by Hollywood morality.

I hope we can all agree that science works reasonably well in gathering knowledge. Because we can use it to do things.

You are saying metaphysics is about the "why" of this.

I agree.

I disagree that there has been a way or method of producing metaphysics that seems to work well. The evidence is that we have so many incompatible systems that all claim to be true.

> The evidence is that we have so many incompatible systems that all claim to be true.

Imagine the mess science would be if it brought this level of accuracy and epistemology to the table when thinking.

I probably don't understand clearly enough. Physics, chemistry, biology, even psychology have textbooks. Pick one, it doesn't matter much. It will teach you roughly the same basic things.

Philosophy on the other hand. Pick Searle or Derrida, pick Quine or the late Heidegger, and it is hard to conceive that they are even doing the same thing ("philosophy").

Philosophy used to include all of physics, chemistry, biology, etc.

What it retains is everything that hasn't gotten pulled out into its own named discipline. Which is something of a jumble, sure.

>I probably don't understand clearly enough. Physics, chemistry, biology, even psychology have textbooks. Pick one, it doesn't matter much. It will teach you roughly the same basic things.

And generally speaking, the practitioners of these disciplines tend to assert that their findings are true, in fact. Whether they are actually true....well, interest in that tends to drop off quite rapidly.

Welcome to Planet Earth, 2023, please enjoy your stay.

>Philosophy on the other hand. Pick Searle or Derrida, pick Quine or the late Heidegger, and it is hard to conceive that they are even doing the same thing ("philosophy").

Investigating the mysterious extremes of a system is a lot harder than investigating the known to be (now, after many decades of very hard work and dedication) deterministic middle ground.

At the end of the day, everyone is doing their best, and Mother Nature will award us with the fruits of our collective activities...unfortunately, our (projected) rewards seem to be taking a steeply downward trajectory with this whole climate change thing. Shame there seems to be not much we can (actually) do about it, despite our over-abundance of surely fantastic ideas.

It certainly looks like philosophers use genetic search algorithm to make better ideas, so there are many mutants, but the method is known to perform well in the situation when the result can't be deduced straightforwardly.

>Philosophy on the other hand.

Filter it by the tag "naturalism". Where's semantic web, again?

Apparently you assume that reality is subordinate to reason. But there's no need for that assumption, we have empirical data: every scientific revolution (and some social) featured conflict between reality and contemporary reason, and every time reason changed and adapted to the new picture of reality. New facts just drop and reason adapts to them. Slowly and painfully, but adapts. This means reality is primary and reason is secondary - a reflection of reality, subject to the anthropic principle.

Ethics is far from useless. It has important connections to open issues in society and e.g. birthed the effective altruism movement.

Metaphysics is useless similar to any foundational research. Theoretical (as opposed to applied) mathematics is also largely useless. Nobody expects to use transfinite set theory in practice. Or the cosmology of the early universe, for that matter. Or an interpretation of quantum mechanics. A lot of non-foundational research is also useless. Research on the evolutionary origins of the ichthyosaurs. Or the surface properties of Pluto.

The problem with Ethics is largely the same as the problem with the church that cost it all moral authority: despite being held up as the source of morality/ethical behavior it fails at actually promoting it. With that failure the open secret is that they are a side-show or distraction from actual power where the decisions, dodgy or otherwise get made.

Ethics professor scandals in particular are a case which highlights the problem. While there may be sincere examples the scandal ridden ones are like cynical constitutional law professors: they clearly studied it to try to find loopholes around it instead of to uphold it.

Despite that the field of Ethics has vast theoretical potential in one subarea: understanding of incentives, including perverse ones and how to properly craft systems of them. "Alignment" is the buzzword for the latest moral panic about AI. One of the many problems with it aside is that humans sure as hell aren't aligned. See corruption for an example of what bad systems get you.

> Ethics is far from useless. It has important connections to open issues in society and e.g. birthed the effective altruism movement.

That's not a great track record.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/sam-bankman...

>The elementary tenet of effective altruism - that privileged Westerners could be doing considerably more good in the world than most of us do

Unironically privileged Westerners could be doing considerably more good in the world by protecting their freedoms in their own lives, egoism would be much more effective there.

Hogwash. Egoism isn't what's in short supply. EMPATHY is what's in short supply.

It's the case when good intentions pave the road to hell. Intentions are fine, but what's really in short supply are good outcomes.

> the view that philosophy is supposed to be therapeutic

I think this is what is missing from most modern philosophy, that makes it so easy to dismiss as useless. In Ancient Greece most of the philosophers were strong people, that had personally done great things, or endured incredible hardships with the aid of their philosophy, and these real world tests stood as evidence of its value.

People strove to become a Stoic because the people they admired most in life had been guided by it.

I think philosophy ideas can and do have the ability to prove their own utility in the real world. To the extent that modern philosophy has mostly failed to do so, is probably because it is either wrong and/or useless, OR is just not developed far enough to get to that point.

> In Ancient Greece most of the philosophers were strong people, that had personally done great things, or endured incredible hardships with the aid of their philosophy, and these real world tests stood as evidence of its value.

Are you just describing Stoicism here? The only "strong man" ancient philosopher I can think of is Marcus Aurelius (not Greek, incidentally). Plato's Republic didn't come from his experience as a statesman. Aristotle's Metaphysics wasn't "proven to have utility in the real world." These people were very much "ivory tower" figures.

Yes, I am mostly talking about Stoicism, but the older philosophers that the Stoics revered like Socrates were often discussed or admired by Stoics more in the context of their personal lives, rather than their philosophy.

Socrates, Xenophon, and Plato were all soldiers or military leaders. Epictetus was a slave that was crippled from abuse. Viktor Frankl and James Stockdale are both fairly modern people that survived extreme hardship using stoic ideas.

That seems to be an argument also for religion. Plenty of people also survived extreme hardship using their beliefs.

Not saying there is anything wrong with this thesis, but I want to point out that this is not what philosophy usually thinks of itself, and it may not transfer. The philosophy the helped X may not help Y under similar circumstances.

I think the lines between a practical philosophy, a religion, and a psychotherapy technique are pretty blurry. In ancient Greece and Rome, people would often identify with a philosophical school in the same way people identify with religions nowadays, choose them based on the practical benefits, and practice them as a lifestyle or religion (instead of just conceptual understanding).

I don't think it's mysterious or hard to predict where techniques from a philosophy or religion will be useful in real life, and where they will not... it's pretty easy to understand what they are, and how they apply. Modern therapy techniques like CBT, ACT, and Mindfulness therapy are pretty much just extracting these ancient ideas and practices in a systematic way, so they can study the effects clinically and actually be able to say in which real world context they are reliably useful.

Wasn't Plato a wrestler who would occasionally win arguments by just flexing? Or have I been mislead by internet pop culture...? :P

He was a wrestler of some renown in his youth and his coach nicknamed him 'Platon,' after his size or big shoulders (depending on who's telling it). Winning arguments by flexing is apocryphal, as far as I know.

It also doesn't really sound out of character, in a general sense. It's not like being an ancient philosopher also meant you didn't have a sense of humour (assuming the flexing was humour, if true).

I don't think there are philosophic problems that require strength. There are pessimistic misconceptions indeed, but therapy here is finding optimistic truth, then there's no reason for pessimism anymore.

I hold the minority position that philosophy is a useful means of getting information about the world around us and it's only cultural factors that happened in the 1700s (movement against rationalism) that makes us blind to it.

That's hard to see when we talk about more recently popular philosophical topics like ethics or existentialism.

But hacker News also had an interesting discussion recently on Popper and the philosophy of science ( what counts as science). There was another discussion a while back in the philosophy of math - what is math, what if anything separates mathematical knowledge from other types of knowledge.

Viewed from this framework, I think most people would agree that philosophy is useful and an important means of ascertaining valuable knowledge.

I have a genuine question that seems to fit here. It's bugging me for a long time, so any feedback is very welcome.

I can see that the scientific method works well in producing knowledge. Because we can do something with it. Like fly to the moon, cure diseases, build nuclear weapons.

Philosophy however claims usually to also find knowledge. There are several methods, but none of them seems to have any evidence of working in any other circumstances than everyday heuristics. On the contrary, the lack of convergence in opinion seems to indicate that they do not work well.

There are plenty of takes what math "is" philosophically, and there are so many opponents and overcomers of Popper.

I agree that philosophy is nice to have, a playground for ideas, a collection of possibilities of systems of concepts. But I fail to see what points to it being a source of knowledge.

It's one thing to state "These systems are possible", and another to state "this system is the real one", specifically in ethics.

Yeah, philosophy isn't a means to know more. I would describe it as a means to sharpen your mind to better understand with and process the world.

> I can see that the scientific method works well in producing knowledge.

In domains where it is suitable/adequate (be mindful of ambiguous, potentially misinformative language when engaged in study and communication, lest other humans pick up the bad habit and humanity becomes confused).

>Because we can do something with it. Like fly to the moon, cure diseases, build nuclear weapons.

Philosophy can be used to have interesting conversations, at least.

>Philosophy however claims usually to also find knowledge. There are several methods, but none of them seems to have any evidence of working in any other circumstances than everyday heuristics.

Things are not always what they seem, because seems itself is a heuristic.

>On the contrary, the lack of convergence in opinion seems to indicate that they do not work well.

It could also suggest that the entirety of reality isn't deterministic like the physical realm (which is mostly only what science studies, and most people have the impression that science studies everything (they even have a Theory of "Everything"!)).

>I agree that philosophy is nice to have, a playground for ideas, a collection of possibilities of systems of concepts. But I fail to see what points to it being a source of knowledge.

I would say that via philosophy, one could develop a proposition that science uses the planet as its playground. For example: without science, could we have achieved this level of global warming?

>It's one thing to state "These systems are possible", and another to state "this system is the real one", specifically in ethics.

I've encountered many thousands of people who claim with extreme certainty that science is essentially or even literally the only game in town when it comes to the acquisition of knowledge.

It's a source of knowledge because you can extract an idea that works and in hindsight is expected to work. Consensus doesn't happen because consensus is easily dominated by social factors, science suffers from this too, though it has only one case of encouragement of a lack of consensus.

> That story seems excessively tidy and flattering, and in any case, its pessimistic corrolary is that most of today's philosophy is a junk drawer of dead-end intellectual projects that never yielded anything useful.

I think it is a matter even worse than being a junk drawer. It seems to be actively opposed to practicality and regards referencing the real world with scorn. That is frankly an ancient form of stupidity that goes back a very long time, to Ancient Greece at the very least. And it continues to today: any time that something becomes practical it gets banned from philosophy and philosophers stop writing on it.

> The shoe certainly seems to fit most philosophical sub-disciplines, like metaphysics and ethics.

But everyone asks questions from metaphysics. "Who am I?" "What is reality?" Everyone asks those questions, and everyone develops answers. (If you're claiming that the conclusions of philosophy on the topic are part of the junk drawer, I'm not necessarily going to argue. But the field itself is really relevant.)

And (almost) everyone asks questions from ethics. "What is the right thing to do? How do I tell? What is moral, and what is immoral?" (I say "almost" because some sociopath types may not in fact ask such questions, or ask them only as a smokescreen to advance an agenda.) And if you look at the world, we could really use a clear consensus on what is moral and how to tell. Again, though, I'm not saying that philosophy's answers aren't stuck in the junk drawer.

> But everyone asks questions from metaphysics. "Who am I?"

What do people even mean by this question? Because I don't think I was ever very concerned about that.

> "What is reality?" Everyone asks those questions, and everyone develops answers.

I guess I'm a bit of an oddity, because I was never that interested in the "big questions", and over time I developed the view that the answer to the questions most people seem to ask isn't really important or useful, but the useful part can be found in a physics textbook.

> I guess I'm a bit of an oddity, because I was never that interested in the "big questions", and over time I developed the view that the answer to the questions most people seem to ask isn't really important or useful, but the useful part can be found in a physics textbook.

Have you any concerns about things like war, climate change, etc? Because physics has been quite useful for bringing these things into our reality, but seems less so for making them go away.

Granted, it is extremely easy to dismiss such things with one of the many handy memes our culture has been trained to think in, but dismissing things doesn't make them go way, though it does tend to make it seem like it (which in our culture tends to mean it "has" gone away).

> Have you any concerns about things like war, climate change, etc? Because physics has been quite useful for bringing these things into our reality, but seems less so for making them go away.

Sure. But I highly doubt that philosophy holds the answer.

Like take the current conflict in Gaza. Can you imagine solving it by having both sides read books about I don't know, stoicism? I can't.

Now I'm not one of the people that thinks that technology is going to magic up a solution to that either by inventing some sort of wonder tool, or way to usher nirvana.

I think if we have a social solution to make things quiet down it's going to be more in the realm of psychology, neuroscience and behavioral studies. Meaning, using propaganda and social manipulation to convince people to stop fighting. And I think at this point we've got the track record to say that works to start a war, so maybe it can also be used in reverse.

But I don't think that's quite in the field of philosophy.

>Sure. But I highly doubt that philosophy holds the answer.

Do you have any interest in the truth of the matter though? Can you have any, and how much? Might you have some unrealized limitations imposed upon not just your beliefs, but your forms of thinking?

Perhaps considering what's at stake could offer additional motivation.

>Like take the current conflict in Gaza. Can you imagine solving it by having both sides read books about I don't know, stoicism? I can't.

Can science solve it, limited to Grade 10 scientific curriculum, or at all? They've certainly helped with the weaponry part.

And yes, I certainly can.

>Now I'm not one of the people that thinks that technology is going to magic up a solution to that either by inventing some sort of wonder tool, or way to usher nirvana.

Good to hear, but I know for a fact many people think very differently. Faith in science is strong.

>I think if we have a social solution to make things quiet down it's going to be more in the realm of psychology, neuroscience and behavioral studies. Meaning, using propaganda and social manipulation to convince people to stop fighting. And I think at this point we've got the track record to say that works to start a war, so maybe it can also be used in reverse.

Agreed! At its best, mysticism is extremely powerful.

>But I don't think that's quite in the field of philosophy.

Some possible explanations:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture

> Do you have any interest in the truth of the matter though?

Truth of which matter?

> Can science solve it, limited to Grade 10 scientific curriculum, or at all? They've certainly helped with the weaponry part.

I mean, a conflict certainly can end if everyone on one side of it dies, but I don't think that's quite the sort of solution one expects in a discussion about philosophy.

> And yes, I certainly can.

Do tell.

> Truth of which matter?

Whether philosophy holds the answer. I literally quoted the text above my reply.

> I mean, a conflict certainly can end if everyone on one side of it dies, but I don't think that's quite the sort of solution one expects in a discussion about philosophy.

No need to answer the question if you find it uncomfortable.

> Do tell.

Loose lips sink ships.

So special.

But really, however you supposedly feel about it, if you haven’t understood that very many people concern themselves with this question, what even have you been doing ?

That's why I'm posting! I've argued quite a lot on such subject matters and not yet reached the needed understanding.

The way I see it, most big questions fall prey to the is-ought problem. Even if God came from the heavens and delivered my purpose to me, to me that'd mean nothing. That merely is an "is".

> But everyone asks questions from metaphysics. "Who am I?" "What is reality?"

Everyone also wipes their butts. But that doesn’t mean we need Departments of Butt Wiping and tenured professors who have spent their whole life time studying techniques of butt wiping.

On the contrary: I think you actually make a good argument for why we SHOULD have a Department of Butt Wiping with tenured professors who have spent their whole life time studying techniques of butt wiping.

If everyone does it (and often multiple times a day to boot) then there's actual material improvements to the human condition that could be identified and implemented. That improvement requires study, rigor, and people who stand to materially benefit for conducting that study. You'd generally end up in a university-like framework for that study (even private research is structured similar to university research, with some key differences).

I feel like probably all the major questions that might still remain about butt-wiping, would be solved before it had time to be established as a long-standing field of study? Not that there isn’t anything left to investigate about it (questions about soreness, quantifying effects of standing vs sitting, etc.) but, I don’t think any of these questions seem that hard? So much as just, no one has really been motivated to prioritize studying them, and if they were, it would be mopped up pretty quickly?

I think distinction should be made between academic tradition of philosophy and personal need/practice of philosophy. My favorite essay on this topic is https://courses.aynrand.org/works/philosophy-who-needs-it/ .

It is based on a lecture given by Ayn Rand to the graduating class of West Point Military Academy in March 1974. Some people will be alarmed by the name, Ayn Rand, so I will post few snippets and then you can choose to ignore or read the ~10 minutes essay.

The assignment I gave myself for tonight is not to sell you on MY philosophy, but on philosophy as such.

The best way to study philosophy is to approach it as one approaches a detective story: follow every trail, clue and implication, in order to discover who is a murderer and who is a hero. The criterion of detection is two questions: Why? and How? If a given tenet seems to be true - why? If another tenet seems to be false - why? and how is it being put over? You will not find all the answers immediately, but you will acquire an invaluable characteristic: the ability to think in terms of essentials.

Now some of you might say, as many people do: "Aw, I never think in such abstract terms - I want to deal with concrete, particular, real-life problems - what do I need philosophy for?" My answer is: In order to be able to deal with concrete, particular, real-life problems - i.e., in order to be able to live on earth. You might claim - as most people do - that you have never been influenced by philosophy. I will ask you to check that claim. Have you ever thought or said the following? "Don't be so sure - nobody can be certain of anything." You got that notion from David Hume (and many, many others), even though you might never have heard of him. Or: "This may be good in theory, but it doesn't work in practice." You got that from Plato. Or: "That was a rotten thing to do, but it's only human, nobody is perfect in this world." You got that from Augustine. Or: "It may be true for you, but it's not true for me." You got it from William James. Or: "I couldn't help it! Nobody can help anything he does." You got it from Hegel. Or: "I can't prove it, but I feel that it's true." You got it from Kant. Or: "It's logical, but logic has nothing to do with reality." You got it from Kant. Or: "It's evil, because it's selfish." You got it from Kant. Have you heard the modern activists say: "Act first, think afterward"? They got it from John Dewey. Some people might answer: "Sure, I've said those things at different times, but I don't have to believe that stuff all of the time. It may have been true yesterday, but it's not true today." They got it from Hegel. They might say: "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." They got it from a very little mind, Emerson. They might say: "But can't one compromise and borrow different ideas from different philosophies according to the expediency of the moment?" They got it from Richard Nixon - who got it from William James.

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