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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

(BA Philosophy here) The biggest problem is that philosophy courses, all too often, are actually "History of Philosophy" courses. Regurgitating Plato or Descartes becomes the objective, rather than applying logic and philosophical methods to modern problems.

Everyone really should take class in Symbolic Logic.

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I'm currently taking the History of Philosophy podcast [1] and my major takeaway is this: even a cursory understanding of the history of philosophy deepens your understanding of Western thought as everything from art and literature to religion and politics has its roots in philosophy. Not that I would have anything against people learning symbolic logic, of course.

[1] www.historyofphilosophy.net/

Oh no, I agree, knowing the history of philosophy is critical. But general education classes tend to focus too much on it, probably because it's easier for a TA/teacher without philosophy background to recite Plato than to engage in philosophy.

Doesn't the teaching of just about any subject at the beginning and even intermediate level really resemble teaching the history of that subject? Physics and mathematics teaching could be described that way: only very advanced students tackle current problems (at which point they are hardly students any longer).

In Physics, you typically do practice problems as you're learning (non-current) concepts. Philosophy usually isn't the same. You learn what Descartes thought about the mind, but you never really learn the logical methods he used to get there, nor do you learn what anyone else thinks about the topic (philosophy of mind and dualism, in Descartes' case)

Oh, I think I see your point. It has to do, perhaps, with teaching the logic of discovery along with the particular ideas as they developed historically. And in physics, for example, it is really impossible to internalize the ideas without doing problems, which steeps you in the logic of discovery, or at least some of its methods (it doesn't really teach you how to discover new knowledge, but there may be no way to teach that).

The philosophy 101 course I took actually did go into great detail regarding arguments various philosophers have made (and counter-arguments that other philosophers have given), including Hume, Descartes, Socrates, and a few others. Only the very beginning was spent on the history of the topics, and of the people. I definitely came out of the class with a better grasp on philosophy and argument construction than I did before it.

So, your experience may have just been limited to your university or area.

Sort of yes. But the dead ends are usually (almost) ignored. Also, what you study is the modern refinement of things people came up with long ago. People don't usually read what Gauss wrote; instead they read a modern text-book.

Excellent points. In physics we don't trudge through the details of phlogiston theory or Aristotelian mechanics because those are really dead ends. Only specialists in the history of science bother with the real details of those things. But in philosophy it seems that students spend huge amounts of time on anything that ever gained traction. This leads some physicists (maybe Feynman) to conclude that philosophy has no criteria to separate valuable developments from useless stuff; since there are no real standards, they can't distinguish the essential content of their subject matter from its tortuous history.

It's not about teaching the history of a subject; it's about teaching from the questions the subject attempts to answer. In physics, it might be as simple as, "What is the concept of reversibility?" Or in mathematics, "How can you compute the area of any triangle?"

In philosophy, the questions being asked don't have an absolute answer. Something as vague as "Who am I?" is difficult, just as something as specific as, "What is property?" is quite challenging. This makes it all the more important to discuss the method of answering because it's really the most concrete thing you can take away from a class: exploring a particular thinker's ideas can result in your agreement or disagreement (or better yet, a tangential exploration of your own) and they're all valid consequences.

(MA Philosophy here) You're right that most philosophy that's taught to people not majoring in it is really more about literature and culture than it is about philosophy proper. I also agree that it might make sense to focus more on logic and philosophical methods, or on philosophical problems and how different philosophers approach them.

But do you really believe that mastering e.g. basic predicate logic is going to make anyone smarter? The same argument is often made for mathematics but invariably without proof.

It genuinely might. Some very basic notions of various logics (e.g., the difference between sufficiency and necessity, a careful analysis of conditionals, validity versus soundness) are absolutely worthwhile subjects of sustained formal study; knowing about them makes you a better thinker in many disciplines and careers.

Well, exactly. It genuinely might, or it genuinely might not. We don't know.

Yeah, perhaps a straight logic course isn't the answer. The solution might be a new type of course; something that explains a philosophical problem, shows how philosophers have approached the problem, and then show students how to use logic and argumentation to approach the problem in a modern context.

Or, just forget the ancients and talk about every day issues, eg abortion, gay marriage, gun rights, etc. etc. I just lament the fact that most students get a negative impression of the field from their required "History of Ancient Philosophy" course, which usually focuses on Plato's metaphysics, completely independent of context. Most students think, "This guy is completely insane and this has no relation to my life whatsoever, time to tune out."

It's hard to talk about philosophy. I liked my philosophy classes in college (one overview, mostly with a Hume/Kant/Wittgenstein/modern analytic bent, and a philosophy of quantum mechanics class), and I like reading Peter Singer, but the older stuff just gets very woolly-headed seeming. It feels like they always try to hide some equivocation under fancy text, starting with "we define X as Y", then jumping through a natural-language use of X to get Z, then assert "Z is Y".

For example, I may just be a heathen, but Nietzsche's whole style seemed to be boldly asserting things, making fun of anyone who thinks otherwise, yet rarely bothering to make an actual argument.

I like the idea that everyone should take a semester's worth philosophy course somewhere along the way, but I don't know if it would do most people any good. An actual rhetoric course, with a focus on logical argument, may do better.

The thing about Nietzsche is, he thought himself less a logician and more an artist. In other words, read him like literature and not like argumentation. He's trying to inspire people, not build foolproof arguments.

This is probably also why Nietzsche is (at least to me) infinitely easier to read than most philosophers.

"It feels like they always try to hide some equivocation under fancy text, starting with "we define X as Y", then jumping through a natural-language use of X to get Z, then assert "Z is Y"."

This is precisely what I often found irritating. One of my friends once asked me, "You seem to like philosophy -- why don't you do any?" My response was essentially that certain parts of philosophy are simply TOO HARD for me in the sense that it is often all to easy lose objectivity, logically reason about ethics, etc.

"I'll just stick to math, thanks, where I at least know how to systematically approach and think about problems under the framework of accepted mathematical logic."

I'm a part-time student in the Philosophy and Mathematics program at the university where I work, and the level 1 philosophy courses I've taken have had a significant number of 20th and 21st century selections in the course readers. We've read some Rawls, Dworkin, Singer, Sartre, Camus, a debate between Andrew Sullivan and William Bennett on gay marriage, a debate on hate speech on university campuses (can't remember the authors), etc, but also some Kant, Descartes, Plato, Hume, Mill...it's been a good mix IMHO.

I'm actually taking Intro to Logic in the second term of summer classes and looking forward to it!

> But do you really believe that mastering e.g. basic predicate logic is going to make anyone smarter?

Well, I think understanding the difference between things which are empirically true and logically true is valuable - experiment versus symbol manipulation.

Apart from logic or math, I'm not sure where else you could really learn the distinction.

Of-course a website full of programmers would recommend Symbolic Logic. I've never ever found it useful.

On the other hand classes on ethics (which illustrate how not black and white the world is) and social philosophy (which present ethical models on which to base our society) both have been invaluable.

Courses in symbolic logic (usually titled "Logic I & II" - propositional logic and predicate logic ) are good for mathematical thinking. But usually the instructor will also take time to go through the common fallacies of argumentation [Edit: See "fallacies" in Google]. Often this is the only explicit exposure to coherent argumentation that a student gets in his college career.

Had I to do it over again I would have started by studying rhetoric (the art of persuasion), a larger field of study that seems (to me) more relevant.

Not sure if you were trying to be snarky with the lmgtfy but that didn't actually bring anything up.

Look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

I quickly looked through them and didn't find anything directly relating to symbolic logic. Most of symbolic logic was trying to understand what was at first pretty confusing notation and then trying to figure out how to represent things like sets without using Venn Diagrams.

At the end of the day I don't think you start to understand any larger truths about logic. Knowing how to write out De Morgan's law with symbols is frankly kinda useless.

Maybe it helps with mathematical thinking, but that's not relevant to most people.

I didn't mean to imply that the fallacies have anything in particular to contribute to symbolic logic. It's just that, when one takes a logic course, one expects to leave the class with better logical skills, both formal and informal. Gracefully, most logic teachers and books take the time to briefly cover some additional topics such as the fallacies.

This is an excellent introductory book to argumentation: http://www.amazon.com/Thank-You-Arguing-Aristotle-Persuasion...

I'd be interested to hear where you did your BA. In my experience in the UK and US, the focus is much more on using philosophical arguments than regurgitating them (sometimes even to the exclusion of understanding the context, which makes Plato and Descartes just seem like they are making terrible arguments). I've heard that in France the focus is much more historical, though.

University of Pittsburgh, USA. It's a top-5 program internationally, so I take it to be quite good.

I'd say that the program on a whole doesn't focus too much on historical philosophy, although it can, if you want. The problem is that the majority of the intro classes are historical. Philosophy is a gen ed requirement there (similar to France's secondary school system), so the average non-philosophy student's exposure to philosophy is obscure Aristotelian metaphysics.

> It's a top-5 program internationally, so I take it to be quite good.

Most of the international rankings are heavily biased in favour of English speaking countries and particularly the USA (especially ARWU). It's mostly fine in sciences where all the important publications are in English. It's clearly dubious in the humanities. Beware this kind of claim.

I also vote for ethics and civics. Extra credit for "personal" economics (what is money, compound interest, budgeting, buy/lease/rent, etc).

I actually firmly believe that we have a pisspoor civics education in the US. Here's the main suggestion I have to correct this:

- Give student senates power. That means (1) a significant amount of money and (2) the permission to spend it. There are some definite limits on what they can do, though I'm not sure where to put those limits, but for the most part, give them experience in actually handling the budget for a heterogenous group that exceeds their Dunbar's number. That experience includes consequences. I'd absolutely expect to see dictatorships, rebellions, and anarchies all arise without adult input, too.

Of course, this will never happen, since there isn't any such money available. I actually wonder if it'd be feasible to get someone wealthy do just donate a chunk down at some primary schools in order to try it out.

For those no longer in school, do you have a recommended book for Symbolic Logic?

Understanding Symbolic Logic by Klenk is bar none the best book I've come across. It starts at zero knowledge of logic and moves up from there. Get an older edition (it's not worth $111!)

Can you recommend any online resources for learning about Symbolic Logic?

Honestly the best source I've come across is a book, Understanding Symbolic Logic by Klenk. But here are some decent online resources:

http://vimeo.com/album/2262409/format:detail

http://twentytwowords.com/2012/03/03/6-short-videos-to-teach...

https://www.coursera.org/course/intrologic

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