has philosophy lost its way?

[iambiguous]

Has Philosophy Lost its Way?
Massimo Pigliucci

Such tendency to self-examination, and even a good dose of self-criticism, is one of the first things I noticed moving (academically speaking) from science to philosophy, and it is a very refreshingly welcome one. A good example is a series of essays ran by the New York Times’ Stone blog focusing on whether the profession has an issue with gender diversity (it does, though I hardly think it is unique among academic fields, not to mention in society at large). In part as a response, the American Philosophical Association has stepped up its efforts to address the problem at an institutional level (a response that is still mostly in other fields).

Gender norms? Are there members here who actually do believe that the APA can examine an issue like gender diversity, equality, justice etc., and provide mere mortals with the most rational assessment? Or, instead, philosophers or not, are attitudes about gender relationships [gay and straight] rooted more in ever evolving historical and cultural dynamics awash in contingency, chance and change. Political prejudices, in other words.

Then again, self-criticism can become a fashionable attitude in and of itself, or can lead to shooting oneself in the (metaphorical) foot. That thought crossed my mind while reading an essay (also in the Stone) by Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle, entitled “When philosophy lost its way” (it didn’t help that the link to the essay was immediately and thoughtlessly tweeted around by well known philosophy “critics,” such as author and expert-on-everything Sam Harris and “the world came from nothing as long as I get to define nothing in my own way” physicist Lawrence Krauss).

Self-criticism regarding what particular behaviors? Who in regard to things like gender roles, abortion and gun control are the ones shooting themselves in the foot? Then those like Sam Harris making his own argument as though he could have freely opted to argue any other conclusion...and yet "somehow" his is, what, still the most rational frame of mind?

[Iwannaplato]

Why do you pick 2019? It seems like it's been pretty much the same for the most part at least since I joined. I haven't seen anything remarkably different. People come and go and some stay. I mean, maybe it was different before I joined and I'm the one who killed Philoosphy Now. I suppose we'll have to ask Iwannaplato since he's been here the longest between the three of us.

I joined a long time ago, but I didn't post here regularly until fairly recently. I have no memory of what it was like back then.

Well, as far as my recollection goes there's been plenty of back and forth and people who come and go. Stuff like that seems to happen on the Internet. If I had control of the forum, who knows, maybe I'd ban everyone except for people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. All you darned sane people don't make much sense.



j/k

So, the lack of moderation leads to a kind of culture. People here would get banned in other forums for the same behavior. This has pluses and minuses but it seems clear that most people here appreciate something about the lack of moderation, since there are options where there is greater moderation.

You end up with a place where the personalities and behavior of the posters is more central. Arguments and discussions move back and forth between on point discussion and critique of the people speaking. Sometimes the latter is based on what people are doing in-forum. Sometimes it is about the group the other person is in.

There are gray areas and overlaps. For example this thread has criticism of objectivists built into it, not just objectivism.

But how can anyone really deem their self to be a "deep thinker" if the stuff they post here is ever and always up in the intellectual clouds? Read what they write and then ask yourself, "how is this applicable to the life I live?"


No Stooges please.

So, from the start there is a focus on people, judgments of people, including people here. For example, the thread could have focused just on the texts themselves. Given an examples of the two kinds or ends of the spectrum of what is considered deep thinking and not, by the author.

There's also a mix of objectivism and anti-objectivism in the way the OP text is written. A sentence like

And, sure, up to a point Buddhism, Taoism and lots and lots of other isms are able to offer insights that many have made applicable to their lived lives.

Suggests strongly that those approaches to life only work up to a point, in general. It is simply stated as a truth and it seems a universal one. This is ambiguous ( ) Given that after that sentence the author goes into more subjectivist language.

So, we can look at the OP as being ad hom and objectivist, while also requesting no Stooges participate (who may bring the behavior of the OP writer into question - or perhaps simply just disgree with the OP - and judging people who do not do what the OP writer prefers.

One further odd thing about the OP is that it treats the situation as binary. There are philosophers who write texts/books/articles where it is not easy to see how what they write might be useful in everyday life. So, it seems to argue, philosophy has lost its way. Whereas it could be viewed as some philosophers, or even most have lost their way, but there are other philosophers who haven't. Or the objectivist 'philosophy has lost its way' could be taken off the board and the focus could be more subjectivist-friendly: I wish there were more philosophers who X. Or 'why I prefer philosophers who do X.

The advantage of that is it avoids the ad hom approach and the objectivist approach it is itself bemoaning.

Further it could lead more directly to criteria for what makes these texts better for the OP writer.

[phyllo]

But how can anyone really deem their self to be a "deep thinker" if the stuff they post here is ever and always up in the intellectual clouds? Read what they write and then ask yourself, "how is this applicable to the life I live?"


No Stooges please.

So, from the start there is a focus on people, judgments of people, including people here. For example, the thread could have focused just on the texts themselves. Given an examples of the two kinds or ends of the spectrum of what is considered deep thinking and not, by the author.

Well, if you're a nihilist, every argument is based on what you want and like and naturally your opponent is stating what he/she wants and likes.
People are going to be central.

The problem or inconsistency arises when you forget that that your wants and likes are equal to those of others. You post is if your wants and likes carry more weight and more true than others. You say others have "a condition", or their wants and likes are ridiculous, or their wants and needs are dangerous, ...

You've become an objectivist. You're not directly saying that everyone must think as you do, but you're implying it.

[phyllo]

I also have say that I have yet to see the OP bring anything down out of the "intellectual clouds".

[Iwannaplato]

Well, if you're a nihilist, every argument is based on what you want and like and naturally your opponent is stating what he/she wants and likes.
People are going to be central.

In a sense yes. Or perhaps, they should be. Given that you can't be talking about objective values as a nihilist. In practice many nihilists give mixed messages about this.

The problem or inconsistency arises when you forget that that your wants and likes are equal to those of others. You post is if your wants and likes carry more weight and more true than others. You say others have "a condition", or their wants and likes are ridiculous, or their wants and needs are dangerous, ...

I'm not sure if you mean me or Iambiguous, though I would guess I give mixed messages as well, so this could be aimed at me.

You've become an objectivist. You're not directly saying that everyone must think as you do, but you're implying it.

For me it's his direct aiming of judgments at objectivists or people he considers objectivist or people he considers immoral. 'Shameless' is a moral judgment. And sure he has made disclaimers. But that doesn't mean he's consistent. And I suppose my main point was that he opened a thread with judgments of individuals, judgments of groups, implicit objectivism - Buddhism and Taoism are good up to a point, how does he know and/or universalize this?
but
then considers it shameless if other people focus on what he is doing - which is not the same as focusing on what we think he is, though this can happen also.

The irony for me is that he has a continuous complaint that people don't want to come down out of the clouds, but if we react to interpersonal behavior on his part in the forum, which is as close to concrete as we can get online and where the behavior is 'set in stone' and can be examined, this is shameless. When in fact it application on the ground. Add to this that his post is judging people both at the individual and group levels, the irony only gets deeper.

[Iwannaplato]

I also have say that I have yet to see the OP bring anything down out of the "intellectual clouds".

Yes, a concrete set of examples of precisely what is good or unlost philosophy, what the criteria for it are, would be more on the ground.

I think we are supposed to pretend that the thread has the goal of answering this question about whether philosophy has lost its way. Or perhaps finding philosophy that hasn't lost its way.

But the actual content of the OP and posts after that seem not to have those purposes. It's taboo to point this out. One is a Stooge.

[iambiguous]

Let's just say that, over the years, I've brought some a lot closer to being fractured and fragmented themselves than others.

[Gary Childress]

Let's just say that, over the years, I've brought some a lot closer to being fractured and fragmented themselves than others.

You've brought people closer to being "fractured and fragmented"? Are being "fractured and fragmented" bad things to be or are they good things to be?

[iambiguous]

Let's just say that, over the years, I've brought some a lot closer to being fractured and fragmented themselves than others.

You've brought people closer to being "fractured and fragmented"? Are being "fractured and fragmented" bad things to be or are they good things to be?

That's no less rooted existentially in dasein, in my view.

Still, if you are a moral objectivist and you do believe your very own One True Path to Enlightenment does reflect either the optimal or the only rational moral philosophy, how could that not comfort and console you?

Again, from my own rooted existentially in dasein frame of mind, it's not what any number of folks here...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

...are convinced is the essential truth regarding the human condition, but that their own comfort and consolation revolves entirely around it, in fact, being their own.

What I call the "psychology of objectivism".

It's just that some here up the ante. They insist that your fate on this side of the grave is hardly what matters most. No, instead, it's the fate of your very soul for all of eternity on the other side of it that is on the line.

Whereas for those who do believe that being fractured and fragmented is a reasonable frame of mind in a No God world, they at least have many more options from which to choose from day to day because they are not anchored to one or another rendition of what would Jesus do?

Or what would Plato or Descartes or Kant do?

Or what would Nietzsche do?

Also, given an entirely determined world as some understand it, good and bad behaviors are entirely interchangeable .

[Gary Childress]

Whereas for those who do believe that being fractured and fragmented is a reasonable frame of mind in a No God world, they at least have many more options from which to choose from day to day because they are not anchored to one or another rendition of what would Jesus do?

When you say "fractured" and "fragmented" what specifically do you mean? The word "fractured" seems to imply "broken" or perhaps "worse for the wear" as the saying goes. "Fragmented" seems to me to have a sense of being in pieces that were once a whole but are now detached or perhaps scattered haphazardly about.

When I think of myself I generally think of myself as vexed or conflicted on things, uncertain, unable to fully commit to things that others might commit wholeheartedly to. Heidegger's word "thrown" resonates with me in various ways, though I may have an incorrect understanding of Heidegger's use of the world. In any case, when I think of the word "thrown" I think of finding myself in the midst of existence confined to particular circumstances that are beyond my control, including a sense of history that is perhaps unique to individuals living in the 21st century.

It's perhaps not quite the way Heidegger uses the word "thrown", however, it's not like he owns the word and no one else can use the word to mean something similar but not quite the same thing, I suppose.

In what way does "fractured" and "fragmented" capture your state of being? Or how do you relate those words to your state of existence?

[Iwannaplato]

Let's just say that, over the years, I've brought some a lot closer to being fractured and fragmented themselves than others.

You've brought people closer to being "fractured and fragmented"? Are being "fractured and fragmented" bad things to be or are they good things to be?

That's no less rooted existentially in dasein, in my view.

Still, if you are a moral objectivist and you do believe your very own One True Path to Enlightenment does reflect either the optimal or the only rational moral philosophy, how could that not comfort and console you?

Again, from my own rooted existentially in dasein frame of mind, it's not what any number of folks here...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ideologies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... philosophy

...are convinced is the essential truth regarding the human condition, but that their own comfort and consolation revolves entirely around it, in fact, being their own.

What I call the "psychology of objectivism".

It's just that some here up the ante. They insist that your fate on this side of the grave is hardly what matters most. No, instead, it's the fate of your very soul for all of eternity on the other side of it that is on the line.

Whereas for those who do believe that being fractured and fragmented is a reasonable frame of mind in a No God world, they at least have many more options from which to choose from day to day because they are not anchored to one or another rendition of what would Jesus do?

Or what would Plato or Descartes or Kant do?

Or what would Nietzsche do?

Also, given an entirely determined world as some understand it, good and bad behaviors are entirely interchangeable .

So, is this a post that is up in the clouds and part of lost philosophy or it is a role model of the application of philosophy in everyday life.

But how can anyone really deem their self to be a "deep thinker" if the stuff they post here is ever and always up in the intellectual clouds? Read what they write and then ask yourself, "how is this applicable to the life I live?"

If this elicits 'pick a contentious moral issue' type request from you, this is a request for others to take on a moral issue. It's not actually text, on your part that is showing up what you think philosophy looks like when it is applicable in everyday life.

It could also be a new thread: Example of applicable philosophy.

[iambiguous]

Whereas for those who do believe that being fractured and fragmented is a reasonable frame of mind in a No God world, they at least have many more options from which to choose from day to day because they are not anchored to one or another rendition of what would Jesus do?

When you say "fractured" and "fragmented" what specifically do you mean? The word "fractured" seems to imply "broken" or perhaps "worse for the wear" as the saying goes. "Fragmented" seems to me to have a sense of being in pieces that were once a whole but are now detached or perhaps scattered haphazardly about.

Again, in regard to an issue like abortion, I encompass this in the OPs here:
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/back- ... lity/30639

In other words, I am pulled and tugged, drawn and quartered in conflicted, ambivalent directions. I recognize that those on both sides of the issue -- https://abortion.procon.org/ -- make points that the other side is never really able to make go away.

Also, that our own individual value judgments are derived more from the existential parameters of our lived lives rather than anything that philosophers and ethicists can provide us in the way of a deontological assessment/resolution.

All I can then do is to ask the moral objectivists among us to note how their own convictions are derived from a different set of assumptions. Given a moral conflagration that is of particular importance to them.

When I think of myself I generally think of myself as vexed or conflicted on things, uncertain, unable to fully commit to things that others might commit wholeheartedly to. Heidegger's word "thrown" resonates with me in various ways, though I may have an incorrect understanding of Heidegger's use of the world. In any case, when I think of the word "thrown" I think of finding myself in the midst of existence confined to particular circumstances that are beyond my control, including a sense of history that is perhaps unique to individuals living in the 21st century.

Or, as I encompass it...

1] we are all thrown at birth adventitiously -- beyond our control -- out into a particular world historically, culturally and in regard to our own uniquely personal experiences
2] we are all indoctrinated -- for literally years -- as children to think about the world around us as others tell us to
3] our individual lives -- experiences/relationships/access to information and knowledge -- as both children and adults can be vastly different, predisposing us to come to vastly different moral, political and spiritual value judgments
4] that though philosophers have been around now for thousands of years there is still no consensus regarding behaviors said deontologically to be the most rational and virtuous

[Gary Childress]

Whereas for those who do believe that being fractured and fragmented is a reasonable frame of mind in a No God world, they at least have many more options from which to choose from day to day because they are not anchored to one or another rendition of what would Jesus do?

When you say "fractured" and "fragmented" what specifically do you mean? The word "fractured" seems to imply "broken" or perhaps "worse for the wear" as the saying goes. "Fragmented" seems to me to have a sense of being in pieces that were once a whole but are now detached or perhaps scattered haphazardly about.

In other words, I am pulled and tugged, drawn and quartered in conflicted, ambivalent directions. I recognize that those on both sides of the issue -- https://abortion.procon.org/ -- make points that the other side is never really able to make go away.

Well, I agree with you. There don't seem to be clear cut answers out there to some things.

[iambiguous]

Has Philosophy Lost its Way?
Massimo Pigliucci

[Frodeman and Briggle] begin by observing that philosophy has become an academic field toward the end of the 19th century, and argue that “this institutionalization of philosophy made it into a discipline that could be seriously pursued only in an academic setting. This fact represents one of the enduring failures of contemporary philosophy.”

As with other "soft sciences" -- sociology, psychology, political science, etc. -- the discipline can become more or less academic. I merely suggests that in regard to human interactions revolving around moral, political and religious value judgments, the theoretical arguments/assumptions either eventually get around to the lives that we live or remain largely irrelevant to them. In other words, dueling definitions and deductions.

Why did this happen? According to Frodeman and Briggle philosophy simply reacted to the surge of importance of the natural sciences, which led to “the placing of philosophy as one more discipline alongside these sciences within the modern research university…"

Only philosophy is not a natural science. Instead, the "hard sciences" pertain far, far more to the either/or world. Physics, chemistry, biology and the like. And here reality is objective for all of us. Then back to noting all of the astounding progress that science has achieved over the centuries compared to the utter lack of consensus among ethicists.

Philosophy seems to come closer to the natural sciences in regard to things like logic and epistemology. Exploring the rules of language and examining what we can and cannot know. And here too I make that crucial distinction between knowledge applicable to all of us and personal opinions rooted in dasein.

Also, the part where dasein plays a far more significant role in regard to value judgments. Whereas physicists and chemists and biologists can, existentially, be either liberal or conservative, gay or straight, male or female, religious or atheist, capitalist or communist. That part doesn't make their own disciplines any less objective.

"If philosophy was going to have a secure place in the academy, it needed its own discrete domain, its own arcane language, its own standards of success and its own specialized concerns … Philosophy adopted the scientific modus operandi of knowledge production, but failed to match the sciences in terms of making progress in describing the world.”

Don't agree with this?

Okay, in regard to a particular moral conflict and a particular set of circumstances, let's explore this further.

[iambiguous]

Has Philosophy Lost its Way?
Massimo Pigliucci

Frodeman and Briggle continue: “We, too, produce research articles. We, too, are judged by the same coin of the realm: peer-reviewed products. We, too, develop sub-specializations far from the comprehension of the person on the street. In all of these ways we are so very ‘scientific.’”

And those, too, here? On the other hand, my main interest revolves around taking any research involving this specialized language down out of the theoretical clouds and attempting to explore how "for all practical purposes" it is applicable to the lives we live.

Just as scientists take what they have discovered to be true about the material world around us and turn it into such things as new engineering feats or new technologies.

Now, it's certainly true that most of us don't have a clue regarding the specialized jargon scientists often use to accomplish this. On the other hand, it's not like it is necessary to. Women go to Planned Parenthood assuming that the doctors there are fully qualified to perform abortions. So, what is the equivalent of that in the philosophical community? Can women go to the APA in order to determine if their particular abortion is reasonable, is ethical?

This, apparently, is really bad, because philosophy ought to be understood as Socrates did: as “a vocation, like the priesthood … [because] the point of philosophy [is] to become good rather than simply to collect or produce knowledge.”

This reminds me of Will Durant's conjecture regarding what he called the "epistemologists"...

"In the end it is dishonesty that breeds the sterile intellectualism of contemporary speculation. A man who is not certain of his mental integrity shuns the vital problems of human existence; at any moment the great laboratory of life may explode his little lie and leave him naked and shivering in the face of truth. So he builds himself an ivory tower of esoteric tomes and professionally philosophical periodicals; he is comfortable only in their company...he wanders farther and farther away from his time and place, and from the problems that absorb his people and his century. The vast concerns that properly belong to philosophy do not concern him...He retreats into a little corner, and insulates himself from the world under layer and layer of technical terminology. He ceases to be a philosopher, and becomes an epistemologist."

They conclude: “Like the sciences, philosophy has largely become a technical enterprise, the only difference being that we manipulate words rather than genes or chemicals … The point of philosophy now is to be smart, not good. It has been the heart of our undoing.”

Isn't that basically my own point in regard to the dueling definitions and definitions that often sustain the "worlds of words" assessments here? As for smart and good...given what context?

Or, perhaps...

Well, not exactly. Let me first say where I agree with Frodeman and Briggle: yes, philosophy ought to be relevant outside of the academy; yes, philosophers ought to talk about things that matter; and yes, philosophical dialogue ought to take place in society at large.

But none of that is mutually exclusive with philosophy (also) being an academic discipline, with its own technical vocabulary, and in pursuit of its own specialized problems.

Yes, this makes sense. And that is why I merely suggest, for those here who are interested, that we take theoretical conjectures, assumptions, conclusions down out of the realm of abstractions and attempt to illustrate the text more substantively.