it really irritates me when people say something like "philosophy is useless"
i mean they very statement "philosophy is useless" is itself an act of philosophy
academia is fraught with poor communication and intellectual elitism, but that is no excuse for anti-intellectualism
one could at least say "the current field of academic philosophy as it is institutionalized is useless"
i'd still disagree but at least it's not a hopelessly broad generalization
Well, lets get down to basics. Most other departments or faculties at a University consider the Philosophy people to be a bunch of wankers. It may be the one thing that brings English, Business, and Engineering majors together.
it really irritates me when people say something like "philosophy is useless"
i mean they very statement "philosophy is useless" is itself an act of philosophy
academia is fraught with poor communication and intellectual elitism, but that is no excuse for anti-intellectualism
one could at least say "the current field of academic philosophy as it is institutionalized is useless"
i'd still disagree but at least it's not a hopelessly broad generalization
Well, lets get down to basics. Most other departments or faculties at a University consider the Philosophy people to be a bunch of wankers. It may be the one thing that brings English, Business, and Engineering majors together.
Hell, one of my philosophy professors seems to spend half his time slagging off the rest of the philosophy department.
it really irritates me when people say something like "philosophy is useless"
i mean they very statement "philosophy is useless" is itself an act of philosophy
academia is fraught with poor communication and intellectual elitism, but that is no excuse for anti-intellectualism
"Philosophy degrees are useless"
not if you want to have a position within a philosophy department in a University.
Also, "transferable skills". Many employers like degrees such as philosophy and classics 'cos of the whole thinking outside of your realm of experience thing and other reasons they have been taught to think they need.
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DynagripBreak me a million heartsHoustonRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited February 2009
i'm tempted to read some gutenberg project available philosophy at work. I dunno. No Kant. I can't stand that motherfucker.
it really irritates me when people say something like "philosophy is useless"
i mean they very statement "philosophy is useless" is itself an act of philosophy
academia is fraught with poor communication and intellectual elitism, but that is no excuse for anti-intellectualism
"Philosophy degrees are useless"
a philosophy degree is better than not having a philosophy degree, despite the meme about liberal arts degrees being useless
i think the way philosophy is taught at, say, my university, is horrible shit. but philosophy is really important as a cultural item.
contrary to what Feral says, i find that grounding in older philosophers is really productive. i can't tell you how many people i hear arguing about epistemology or ethics or ontology without knowing that someone has had this argument before, and codified it, and done a really good job of it. If you learn that fundamental stuff, you can move forward and either come to a resolution or at least pin down exactly what the source of disagreement is.
it really irritates me when people say something like "philosophy is useless"
i mean they very statement "philosophy is useless" is itself an act of philosophy
academia is fraught with poor communication and intellectual elitism, but that is no excuse for anti-intellectualism
And your post is a very good example of why I find philosophy majors frustrating.
As I mentioned before, there's no clear notion of scope. Apparently, any inference, any application of logic, any statement testable or not is "philosophy."
I shouldn't have to explain why that's absurd.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
contrary to what Feral says, i find that grounding in older philosophers is really productive. i can't tell you how many people i hear arguing about epistemology or ethics or ontology without knowing that someone has had this argument before, and codified it, and done a really good job of it. If you learn that fundamental stuff, you can move forward and either come to a resolution or at least pin down exactly what the source of disagreement is.
This. The point of philosophy study is to keep us from having the same arguments over and over again.
it really irritates me when people say something like "philosophy is useless"
i mean they very statement "philosophy is useless" is itself an act of philosophy
academia is fraught with poor communication and intellectual elitism, but that is no excuse for anti-intellectualism
one could at least say "the current field of academic philosophy as it is institutionalized is useless"
i'd still disagree but at least it's not a hopelessly broad generalization
Well, lets get down to basics. Most other departments or faculties at a University consider the Philosophy people to be a bunch of wankers. It may be the one thing that brings English, Business, and Engineering majors together.
Philosophers are quite often wankers. That doesn't mean that they are wrong or useless, though.
Learning about philosophy is really valuable. I really can't stress how much it has enriched my life. My university has a terrible curriculum for it, and so do many institutions, but that doesn't diminish the fact that when I pursue learning about stuff like Descartes or Locke or Hume or Derrida or Marx or whatever, it's really helpful in coming to terms with ethical, social, political issues.
Basically I think all the liberal arts are really valuable just in themselves, and people should be exposed to them.
contrary to what Feral says, i find that grounding in older philosophers is really productive. i can't tell you how many people i hear arguing about epistemology or ethics or ontology without knowing that someone has had this argument before, and codified it, and done a really good job of it. If you learn that fundamental stuff, you can move forward and either come to a resolution or at least pin down exactly what the source of disagreement is.
This. The point of philosophy study is to keep us from having the same arguments over and over again.
if thats the point, then it hasn't succeeded yet.
philosophy as taught in college is supposed to give you an insight into what other people reasoned and argued about important subjects. you can repeat or rework whatever arguement you want. people don't study descartes so that they can stop wondering what the essence of existence is.
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
edited February 2009
I don't see what's so useless about showing why A =/= ~A
As I mentioned before, there's no clear notion of scope. Apparently, any inference, any application of logic, any statement testable or not is "philosophy."
I shouldn't have to explain why that's absurd.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
it really irritates me when people say something like "philosophy is useless"
i mean they very statement "philosophy is useless" is itself an act of philosophy
academia is fraught with poor communication and intellectual elitism, but that is no excuse for anti-intellectualism
And your post is a very good example of why I find philosophy majors frustrating.
As I mentioned before, there's no clear notion of scope. Apparently, any inference, any application of logic, any statement testable or not is "philosophy."
I shouldn't have to explain why that's absurd.
That's why saying "philosophy is useless" is absurd, though. Philosophy is literally just thinking about stuff, trying to figure things out. It's been systematized, formalized, gathered into schools, etc, but that's what philosophy is.
A six year old kid who's asking "Why?" is doing rudimentary philosophy.
If you want to talk about the academic field of philosophy, institutionalized and formalized as it is, you still have to be more specific, because you're including political philosophy, ethical philosophy, literary and social philosophy, formal logic, etc etc, all sorts of modes of thinking that are very disparate but also often intimately linked. How can you possibly dismiss someone like Marx or Descartes? How could you think that learning about these things is useless?
And by the way, this is [chat] and I'm usually a lot sloppier and from-the-hip with my language in [chat] than in general.
I don't think all philosophy is useless.
I have found that in dealing with philosophy classes, philosophy professors, and philosophy majors in their element (as in, in seminar classes and group discussions) that the majority of philosophy is wankery.
There are a number of concepts and terms coined by famous philosophers that are very useful for simplifying discussion in other fields. It is not strictly, or necessarily, useless.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
contrary to what Feral says, i find that grounding in older philosophers is really productive. i can't tell you how many people i hear arguing about epistemology or ethics or ontology without knowing that someone has had this argument before, and codified it, and done a really good job of it. If you learn that fundamental stuff, you can move forward and either come to a resolution or at least pin down exactly what the source of disagreement is.
This. The point of philosophy study is to keep us from having the same arguments over and over again.
if thats the point, then it hasn't succeeded yet.
philosophy as taught in college is supposed to give you an insight into what other people reasoned and argued about important subjects. you can repeat or rework whatever arguement you want. people don't study descartes so that they can stop wondering what the essence of existence is.
people study descartes and his successors so that they don't have to argue about the semantics and basic concepts of existence, consciousness, self and identity. Have you ever tried to argue about that kind of shit with someone who has no grounding in philosophy whatsoever, who doesn't have any knowledge of "I think therefore I am" and what that means? Quite often you can get something productive and valuable - after two hours (or twenty forum pages) of semantic bickering and attempts to explain the abstract concepts you're working with.
contrary to what Feral says, i find that grounding in older philosophers is really productive. i can't tell you how many people i hear arguing about epistemology or ethics or ontology without knowing that someone has had this argument before, and codified it, and done a really good job of it. If you learn that fundamental stuff, you can move forward and either come to a resolution or at least pin down exactly what the source of disagreement is.
This. The point of philosophy study is to keep us from having the same arguments over and over again.
if thats the point, then it hasn't succeeded yet.
philosophy as taught in college is supposed to give you an insight into what other people reasoned and argued about important subjects. you can repeat or rework whatever arguement you want. people don't study descartes so that they can stop wondering what the essence of existence is.
people study descartes and his successors so that they don't have to argue about the semantics and basic concepts of existence, consciousness, self and identity. Have you ever tried to argue about that kind of shit with someone who has no grounding in philosophy whatsoever, who doesn't have any knowledge of "I think therefore I am" and what that means? Quite often you can get something productive and valuable - after two hours (or twenty forum pages) of semantic bickering and attempts to explain the abstract concepts you're working with.
It tends to devolve into arguments about definitions.
then again most philosophy is arguing about definitions too.
Does anyone else think "Its about time" when it comes to this? I know 9/11 changed everything, but I've gotten so tired of the invoking of it and use of terror.
contrary to what Feral says, i find that grounding in older philosophers is really productive. i can't tell you how many people i hear arguing about epistemology or ethics or ontology without knowing that someone has had this argument before, and codified it, and done a really good job of it. If you learn that fundamental stuff, you can move forward and either come to a resolution or at least pin down exactly what the source of disagreement is.
This. The point of philosophy study is to keep us from having the same arguments over and over again.
if thats the point, then it hasn't succeeded yet.
philosophy as taught in college is supposed to give you an insight into what other people reasoned and argued about important subjects. you can repeat or rework whatever arguement you want. people don't study descartes so that they can stop wondering what the essence of existence is.
people study descartes and his successors so that they don't have to argue about the semantics and basic concepts of existence, consciousness, self and identity. Have you ever tried to argue about that kind of shit with someone who has no grounding in philosophy whatsoever, who doesn't have any knowledge of "I think therefore I am" and what that means? Quite often you can get something productive and valuable - after two hours (or twenty forum pages) of semantic bickering and attempts to explain the abstract concepts you're working with.
it is also hard to debate rocket mechanics with a philosophy major.
assume that there is equal knowledge on both sides, there is no reason to take descartes arguements as gospel, no reason to not rehash his arguements with what you now know or believe.... in fact thats what alot of people have already done.
Dunadan019 on
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
edited February 2009
Rocket mechanics really have no bearing on my day to day life.
it really irritates me when people say something like "philosophy is useless"
i mean they very statement "philosophy is useless" is itself an act of philosophy
academia is fraught with poor communication and intellectual elitism, but that is no excuse for anti-intellectualism
one could at least say "the current field of academic philosophy as it is institutionalized is useless"
i'd still disagree but at least it's not a hopelessly broad generalization
Well, lets get down to basics. Most other departments or faculties at a University consider the Philosophy people to be a bunch of wankers. It may be the one thing that brings English, Business, and Engineering majors together.
Philosophers are quite often wankers. That doesn't mean that they are wrong or useless, though.
Learning about philosophy is really valuable. I really can't stress how much it has enriched my life. My university has a terrible curriculum for it, and so do many institutions, but that doesn't diminish the fact that when I pursue learning about stuff like Descartes or Locke or Hume or Derrida or Marx or whatever, it's really helpful in coming to terms with ethical, social, political issues.
Basically I think all the liberal arts are really valuable just in themselves, and people should be exposed to them.
Oh, I'm in favour of liberal arts. I did a BA in History with a minor in urban/human focused Geography. Its just that the attitude and especially the language used by most Philosophy folks is atrocious.
Feral, what is the scope of biology? What is the scope of physics? What is the scope of music?
These things are difficult to define, which gives me trepidation about offering a definition, because if I offer one that is inaccurate or incomplete you could catch me in a 'gotcha' moment. However, that does not mean that we can't easily distinguish what is and is not biology, or physics. If I'm calculating the trajectory of a satellite, nobody in their right mind would claim that I'm doing biology. If I'm measuring the change in a certain allele frequency between generations of bacteria in a petri dish, while physics might be applicable to some degree, it's clear that I'm not really a physicist, but a biologist. That implies that biology and physics have definable scopes, even if we could spend hours hammering those definitions out.
As far as I can tell, nothing in academia is not philosophy, if philosophy is "thinking about things, trying to figure things out."
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Posts
Well, lets get down to basics. Most other departments or faculties at a University consider the Philosophy people to be a bunch of wankers. It may be the one thing that brings English, Business, and Engineering majors together.
Hell, one of my philosophy professors seems to spend half his time slagging off the rest of the philosophy department.
Yep.
not if you want to have a position within a philosophy department in a University.
Also, "transferable skills". Many employers like degrees such as philosophy and classics 'cos of the whole thinking outside of your realm of experience thing and other reasons they have been taught to think they need.
Or I'll just get back to Moby Dick.
a philosophy degree is better than not having a philosophy degree, despite the meme about liberal arts degrees being useless
i think the way philosophy is taught at, say, my university, is horrible shit. but philosophy is really important as a cultural item.
contrary to what Feral says, i find that grounding in older philosophers is really productive. i can't tell you how many people i hear arguing about epistemology or ethics or ontology without knowing that someone has had this argument before, and codified it, and done a really good job of it. If you learn that fundamental stuff, you can move forward and either come to a resolution or at least pin down exactly what the source of disagreement is.
hmm...
how could you be ontopic?
hey i just went to your site and ordered some psoriasis medication just in case?
And your post is a very good example of why I find philosophy majors frustrating.
As I mentioned before, there's no clear notion of scope. Apparently, any inference, any application of logic, any statement testable or not is "philosophy."
I shouldn't have to explain why that's absurd.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
oh hey, pre steroids McGwire. Or at least drastically smaller dosages.
Also true. I also adore the bit from :51 to 1:12.
Uh, you don't follow the news at all? Massive quantities of performance enhancing drugs.
This. The point of philosophy study is to keep us from having the same arguments over and over again.
Steam | Twitter
but then you can understand how he has systematically arranged what may be the clearest, most coherent and founded philosophy ever thought of
Philosophers are quite often wankers. That doesn't mean that they are wrong or useless, though.
Learning about philosophy is really valuable. I really can't stress how much it has enriched my life. My university has a terrible curriculum for it, and so do many institutions, but that doesn't diminish the fact that when I pursue learning about stuff like Descartes or Locke or Hume or Derrida or Marx or whatever, it's really helpful in coming to terms with ethical, social, political issues.
Basically I think all the liberal arts are really valuable just in themselves, and people should be exposed to them.
if thats the point, then it hasn't succeeded yet.
philosophy as taught in college is supposed to give you an insight into what other people reasoned and argued about important subjects. you can repeat or rework whatever arguement you want. people don't study descartes so that they can stop wondering what the essence of existence is.
I disagree with everybody about something.
uh, baseball players don't use drugs.
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
That's why saying "philosophy is useless" is absurd, though. Philosophy is literally just thinking about stuff, trying to figure things out. It's been systematized, formalized, gathered into schools, etc, but that's what philosophy is.
A six year old kid who's asking "Why?" is doing rudimentary philosophy.
If you want to talk about the academic field of philosophy, institutionalized and formalized as it is, you still have to be more specific, because you're including political philosophy, ethical philosophy, literary and social philosophy, formal logic, etc etc, all sorts of modes of thinking that are very disparate but also often intimately linked. How can you possibly dismiss someone like Marx or Descartes? How could you think that learning about these things is useless?
My supe today was asking what this site is I'm always on, referring to this one. I told him it's a site where people bitch about Comcast all day.
oh, you were joking.
I don't think all philosophy is useless.
I have found that in dealing with philosophy classes, philosophy professors, and philosophy majors in their element (as in, in seminar classes and group discussions) that the majority of philosophy is wankery.
There are a number of concepts and terms coined by famous philosophers that are very useful for simplifying discussion in other fields. It is not strictly, or necessarily, useless.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
people study descartes and his successors so that they don't have to argue about the semantics and basic concepts of existence, consciousness, self and identity. Have you ever tried to argue about that kind of shit with someone who has no grounding in philosophy whatsoever, who doesn't have any knowledge of "I think therefore I am" and what that means? Quite often you can get something productive and valuable - after two hours (or twenty forum pages) of semantic bickering and attempts to explain the abstract concepts you're working with.
It tends to devolve into arguments about definitions.
then again most philosophy is arguing about definitions too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm3WvDpPBac
Does anyone else think "Its about time" when it comes to this? I know 9/11 changed everything, but I've gotten so tired of the invoking of it and use of terror.
later [chat]
it is also hard to debate rocket mechanics with a philosophy major.
assume that there is equal knowledge on both sides, there is no reason to take descartes arguements as gospel, no reason to not rehash his arguements with what you now know or believe.... in fact thats what alot of people have already done.
I don't care if it's not on the course, Fehling's Solution is used to detect the presence of aldehydes.
Oh, I'm in favour of liberal arts. I did a BA in History with a minor in urban/human focused Geography. Its just that the attitude and especially the language used by most Philosophy folks is atrocious.
These things are difficult to define, which gives me trepidation about offering a definition, because if I offer one that is inaccurate or incomplete you could catch me in a 'gotcha' moment. However, that does not mean that we can't easily distinguish what is and is not biology, or physics. If I'm calculating the trajectory of a satellite, nobody in their right mind would claim that I'm doing biology. If I'm measuring the change in a certain allele frequency between generations of bacteria in a petri dish, while physics might be applicable to some degree, it's clear that I'm not really a physicist, but a biologist. That implies that biology and physics have definable scopes, even if we could spend hours hammering those definitions out.
As far as I can tell, nothing in academia is not philosophy, if philosophy is "thinking about things, trying to figure things out."
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
plenty of bearing on mine.
of course philosophy is pretty useless to small children too.