This is one of those moments when you sigh and don't bother. If you've done an undergrad in philosophy and still don't think there are parts which aren't very sophisticated and difficult, we'll... Sigh.
This is one of those moments when you wonder why someone bothered to reply without mentioning a single one of these "sophisticated and difficult" parts of philosophy that we could then happily explain in simple terms. You only had to mention a single name or sub-discipline.
For example one of my modules was philosophy of mathematics. It was sophisticated and difficult, but not complicated or meaningful.
It was just a fairly pointless thought experiment. The actual important bits are just called "mathematics".
It's like today's social science. It's an extension of moral and political philosophy. But moral and political philosophy are fairly pointless and get bogged down by fairly meaningless arguments about the meaning of "self" or "altruism", while social science attempts to make people's lives better.
You know, I studied 3 separate modules on formal logic. I did 36 hours worth of lectures, wrote various essays and read multiple expensive philosophy text books.
I learnt more about logic from a single 1 hour high school electronics lesson than I ever did from all that.
"You know, I studied 3 separate modules on formal logic.... I learnt more about logic from a single 1 hour high school electronics lesson than I ever did from all that."
Can you say more about that? I can't make any sense of it. In a 1 hour electronics lesson, you'ld presumably cover the gates, i.e., propositional calculus. In a first logic module, you'ld learn that and another, richer, form of logic, the predicate calculus. You'ld also learn about the proof procedures for both, which ought to lead on to learning the (to my mind, interesting and important) fact that there's a mechanical procedure that's guaranteed to prove or disprove any argument in propositional calculus, but there's no such procedure for predicate calculus. Later logic courses would probably include some formal semantics, so you'ld learn about the (again, to my mind significant) distinction between what makes something true, and how we prove that something is true. Did you learn all these things in your one hour high school electronics lesson? Or are they somehow not "meaningful" or "complicated"?
"It's like today's social science. It's an extension of moral and political philosophy. But moral and political philosophy are fairly pointless and get bogged down by fairly meaningless arguments about the meaning of "self" or "altruism", while social science attempts to make people's lives better."
That's not an error in the subject, that's an error in how the field is being practiced. There is also plenty of social and political philosophy that had nothing to do with what you said bogs it down. Writing off an entire field for a few bad pieces would be like saying program design is useless because look at how many people use bad design.
Additionally, a field's effect on people's lives doesn't have anything to do with its level of complication, which was your original claim.
I see no evidence for the idea that any philosophy is simple in any way.
The idea that you are trying to flaunt your credentials downthread but really fail to address any points relating to most of what philosophy studies and the questions it asks (ones I am sure you don't have the answer to, which would seem odd for someone who finds the subject to be uncomplicated.) is why many commentators don't think you understand what philosophy about, myself included. You're taking an incredibly objective approach with a subject that isn't. If you're looking to say that philosophy does little to nothing for society, there's an argument to be had there and valid arguments on both sides. I think a decent number of philosophers would even agree. That still doesn't make the subject uncomplicated. Your original posts seem incredibly ignorant of the subject you studied.
Did you have any exposure to the Continental tradition or did you entirely study analytic philosophy? I can't square what you're saying, with someone who has studied and at least partly understood the work of people like Nietzsche or Heidegger.
Even my math books admit that math is less subtle than human interaction. A single mathematician can nail down a truth for all eternity, but that'll never be the case for ethics.
mattmanser|9 years ago
For example one of my modules was philosophy of mathematics. It was sophisticated and difficult, but not complicated or meaningful.
It was just a fairly pointless thought experiment. The actual important bits are just called "mathematics".
It's like today's social science. It's an extension of moral and political philosophy. But moral and political philosophy are fairly pointless and get bogged down by fairly meaningless arguments about the meaning of "self" or "altruism", while social science attempts to make people's lives better.
You know, I studied 3 separate modules on formal logic. I did 36 hours worth of lectures, wrote various essays and read multiple expensive philosophy text books.
I learnt more about logic from a single 1 hour high school electronics lesson than I ever did from all that.
pg has a good essay about why he doesn't particularly rate philosophy: http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html
voyou|9 years ago
Can you say more about that? I can't make any sense of it. In a 1 hour electronics lesson, you'ld presumably cover the gates, i.e., propositional calculus. In a first logic module, you'ld learn that and another, richer, form of logic, the predicate calculus. You'ld also learn about the proof procedures for both, which ought to lead on to learning the (to my mind, interesting and important) fact that there's a mechanical procedure that's guaranteed to prove or disprove any argument in propositional calculus, but there's no such procedure for predicate calculus. Later logic courses would probably include some formal semantics, so you'ld learn about the (again, to my mind significant) distinction between what makes something true, and how we prove that something is true. Did you learn all these things in your one hour high school electronics lesson? Or are they somehow not "meaningful" or "complicated"?
adjkant|9 years ago
That's not an error in the subject, that's an error in how the field is being practiced. There is also plenty of social and political philosophy that had nothing to do with what you said bogs it down. Writing off an entire field for a few bad pieces would be like saying program design is useless because look at how many people use bad design.
Additionally, a field's effect on people's lives doesn't have anything to do with its level of complication, which was your original claim.
I see no evidence for the idea that any philosophy is simple in any way.
The idea that you are trying to flaunt your credentials downthread but really fail to address any points relating to most of what philosophy studies and the questions it asks (ones I am sure you don't have the answer to, which would seem odd for someone who finds the subject to be uncomplicated.) is why many commentators don't think you understand what philosophy about, myself included. You're taking an incredibly objective approach with a subject that isn't. If you're looking to say that philosophy does little to nothing for society, there's an argument to be had there and valid arguments on both sides. I think a decent number of philosophers would even agree. That still doesn't make the subject uncomplicated. Your original posts seem incredibly ignorant of the subject you studied.
defen|9 years ago
n72|9 years ago
1. There's something you missed along the way and thus you fail to appreciate the complexity of the issues.
2. You're considerably more intelligent than the hundreds of thousands of very intelligent people who struggle with the issues.
ianai|9 years ago