Comment by Homunculiheaded | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Homunculiheaded | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Homunculiheaded

As someone with a BA in English and wrapping up an MS in Computer Science, I really think anyone who considers themselves an "intellectual" should know both the theory of probability and Foucault. I'll be the first to agree that probability will land you more jobs, but from a purely intellectual angle I woulds say these have equally helped me undertand the world around me.

I've been in rooms of really smart technical people who have a child-like understanding of social and cultural issues that effect them (discussion about gender on HN can be a great example of this). At the same time I've been in rooms of extremely well read humanists who cringe at any attempt to understand the world through mathematical models. Both of these groups exhibit a clear intellectual poverty that limits their overall understanding of the world.

The worst part isn't merely that each group has such ignorance of the other's domain, but that each will proudly defend this ignorance. The "enjoy working at starbucks" and "buzzes like a fridge" comments are equally anti-intellectual. The first thing that needs to change is this attitude.

How does one determine whether Foucault's statements are true or not? At any rate, why should I accept them?

If the answers to these questions are negative, then in what way can Foucault be put on the same level as the theory of probability, so that it is a shameful thing not to know anything about what Foucault says?

See, this is exactly the sentiment that the parent was talking about. And this crops up repeatedly on HN. It seems incredibly presumptuous to go to other fields and demand that they produce answers in the way that you were trained: "philosophy doesn't yield data like hard science, so it's not as important!" Why should they listen to an outsider who doesn't even take the time to learn the field?

More to the point, why should one be proud of a reductionistic and truncated worldview?

But how do you tell the difference between something which is important and something which is idle noodling?

Subject it to critical thought, like you should be doing with everything else. If it is sound, it will hold up to being logically dissected, and wrestled with in your mind. If we're talking about something that could change one's worldview, then you also need to evaluate whether it resonates with your own belief system.

For example, I liked Thus Spoke Zarathrusta's concept of the Ubermensch as a goal for aspiration, but realized I would never want to deify myself as much as Nietzsche espoused.

> you also need to evaluate whether it resonates with your own belief system.

The universe has never asked my input into anything before. Why should it care whether any aspect of itself resonates with my belief system?

I've seen what happens when people evaluate new ideas based largely on whether they resonate with their belief systems. The world doesn't need any more votes on whether the sea level is rising or whether the human genome is similar to the chimp genome because Jesus.

If you question whether this has any relevance to morality, for example, ask yourself why morality shouldn't be evaluated empirically. Might yield better results than channeling a mythologized goatherd.

As I understand, Foucault does a great deal of questioning of philosophy and formal institutions. Why is Foucault above the same kind of questioning?

There's a difference between questioning something having taken the time to understand it on its own terms and questioning something because it hasn't gotten around to expressing itself in yours.

Why must I accept Foucault's terms at all? Probability theory does not require me to buy into some closed system of beliefs in order to justify itself. Only certain things like critical theory and some religions seem to require that...

lesswrong?

You've just repeated more or less exactly what you initially said in this thread. This probably indicates that you're not making enough effort to understand why people are saying what they're saying.

Yes, it also indicates, perhaps, that people aren't really understanding _you_. But if you find yourself repeating the same button, you're still not doing any additional work in the conversation.

Going back to your initial post:

>How does one determine whether Foucault's statements are true or not?

Thinking about them. Talking about them with others. All of the obvious answers.

>At any rate, why should I accept them?

You should accept them _conditionally_--i.e., not necessarily incorporate them into your actual beliefs--because if you want to have conversations with the loads of people that take Foucault seriously, _you will have to play nice_.

All the dude said was that he really felt Foucault was important. You pretty much just disagree with him, which is, you know, fine; but instead of saying "I find Foucault to be less useful for such-and-such a reason"--a statement I suspect you cannot construct because you actually don't know anything about Foucault--you are pointedly and obviously resisting the idea that Foucault could have any value.

The only tenet of Smilism is that you don't understand it.

Even I don't understand it. (It's very deep.)

However, why should you question it just because it hasn't bothered to explain itself to you on your terms? Why should it explain itself to you at all? Who do you think you are all of a sudden?

You seem to be making two contradictory points that both miss the spirit of what I was saying.

Certainly there are fields that are intentionally obfuscated and impenetrable. That doesn't mean the manner in which they are tangled is not outside comprehensibility, as your simple constructed example demonstrates.

The spirit of what I was saying is, if lots of people are talking about Smilism, then if you want to have a conversation with those people you will have to examine Smilism on its own turf.

No one's saying you have to play with other people, but if you do, you better play nice.

On the other hand, people that wish to spread or communicate their ideas are well motivated to translate them into other peoples' terms. So it's not that I'm some VIP, it's that--for instance--Democrats want to explain Obama's health bill in clear but simple terms.

Now, with Foucault, there is less motivation to do so. Partly because Philosophy is one of those fields in which thinkers can benefit from obfuscation, and partly because Philosophy is one of those fields that relies on the self-motivation of its students.

> Partly because Philosophy is one of those fields in which thinkers can benefit from obfuscation

This isn't true in physics. Why is it true in philosophy? Do philosophers see this as a problem?

> Philosophy is one of those fields that relies on the self-motivation of its students.

So do all fields.

> philosophy doesn't yield data like hard science, so it's not as important!

This is deliberately misstating the position, something a philosopher should be acutely aware of and avoid entirely.

The problem with philosophy is, where is the falsification? How can a philosophical position be refuted and discredited in the way phlogiston has been?

The problem with this line of thinking is that you expect philosophy to offer predictive, objective power. This does not need to be the case - the same reason why a good piece of literature need not have an objective moral lesson.

Philosophy postulates interesting questions, and the mass of previous philosophers provides some direction in the exploration of said questions - the expectation that these questions even have an answer, much less a falsifiable one, is unreasonable.

> The problem with this line of thinking is that you expect philosophy to offer predictive, objective power. This does not need to be the case - the same reason why a good piece of literature need not have an objective moral lesson.

So if philosophy is art, why do some philosophers think it needs to be respected on the same level as physics when it comes to understanding the world?

Because art deserves to be respected as much as physics when it comes to understanding the world.

What does it even mean to provide an "understanding of the world" if you're not offering predictive, objective power? As far as I know, understanding the world---by definition---means building a mental model of it that has predictive power.

> Because art deserves to be respected as much as physics when it comes to understanding the world.

Is there any evidence or argument that could possibly change your mind about this?

> Because art deserves to be respected as much as physics when it comes to understanding the world.

"Because religion deserves to be respected as much as physics when it comes to understanding the world."

Is that statement still true?

Philosophical arguments should be just as evaluable as arguments in any other field. Many do depend on some empirical premises, but even the ones which don't should make sense, make sense out of things and be defensible.

Philosophy was the field that told you that falsification was a useful criterion in the first place!

How does one determine that the value of a discipline is dependent upon the boolean verifiability of it's conclusions? Why should I accept this conclusion?

In your very question you assume the existence of an ethical system which distributes values to systems of knowledge and yet that ethical system cannot be verified or tested the way that you demand all meaningful such systems should be.

The answer to why Foucault is important is the same as the answer to why you hold a belief system which itself denies it's own value.

It is curious that Foucault's questioning of other fields cannot be sustained by Foucault himself.

If I can't reliably determine that what he says is actually true or applicable to anything then there is no more reason for me to buy into his opinions than those of the Catholic church or the guy next door. Possibly less. I don't have to live with Foucault and I can't hurt his feelings, at any rate.

if you could fit foucault into that box, he would no longer be foucault, yes? Just another piece of science. perhaps there is a single box of knowing--explicit, falsifiable knowing--and everything else is noise. this is attractive: learn a set of rules, apply them rigorously, yield knowledge, repeat. clearly productive, many fruits.

alternately, perhaps this box is a subset of knowing. it's conceivable. and necessarily, the whole wouldn't follow the same rules as the part. it could be a challenge to leave our box, like learning a foreign language without cognates. i mean, it does all sound like noise, doesn't it? gives me such a headache.

> if you could fit foucault into that box, he would no longer be foucault, yes? Just another piece of science.

This grossly misunderstands science. If you think science is just everything we can fit in a box you've missed the past few centuries and still think everything is ultimately down to which religious leader has the most followers who haven't died of religion yet.

If you demand pithy quotes, here's one: Science is the process by which we gradually learn to stop fooling ourselves about things.

Remember, asking why the sun rises in the East was once a moral and philosophical question.

> If you think science is just everything we can fit in a box...

no, I don't. you misunderstand. willfully? or just hubris?

box == frame of reference == paradigm == system of thought == set of axioms, habits, etc, that fit together into a semi-cohesive whole.

you may, or course, not be able to perceive the box as a box, and invert the negative space into something substantial. that is, you may not be smart enough to understand, to avoid the wrong questions.

> box == frame of reference == paradigm == system of thought == set of axioms, habits, etc, that fit together into a semi-cohesive whole.

Science is the process of changing boxes based on new evidence, without being constrained by preconceptions.

I can explain the broad value of probability: Cox's theorem, in theory, and broad use in mathematical sciences, in practice. What makes Foucault comparable? (Honest question from the ignorant. Though I'd be less skeptical if you'd said something like 'postmodern critical theory' instead of a name.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com