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Comment by stdbrouw | Hacker News Reader

(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.

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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.

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