/lit/ - Literature

I think Philosophy is kind of lol.

sounds like OP failed their last PHIL 101 exam

>A bunch of people who would like to be intellectuals but aren't smart enough to do real science arguing about the same vague questions people have been arguing about for thousands of years all in an effort to use the appearance of superior intelligence to get laid and feel better about their total inability to contribute to human knowledge or society in any significant way.
>/lit/

Two related Wittgenstein quotes:

>the same vague questions people have been arguing about for thousands of years
People say again and again that philosophy doesn't really progress, that we are still occupied with the same philosophical problems as were the Greeks. But the people who say this don't understand why is has to be so. It is because our language has remained the same and keeps seducing us into asking the same questions. As long as there continues to be a verb 'to be' that looks as if it functions in the same way as 'to eat' and 'to drink', as long as we still have the adjectives 'identical', 'true', 'false', 'possible', as long as we continue to talk of a river of time, of an expanse of space, etc., etc., people will keep stumbling over the same puzzling difficulties and find themselves staring at something which no explanation seems capable of clearing up. And what's more, this satisfies a longing for the transcendent, because, insofar as people think they can see `the limits of human understanding', they believe of course that they can see beyond these."

>philosophers aren't smart
"Philosophers often behave like little children who scribble some marks on a piece of paper at random and then ask the grown-up 'whats that?` It happened like this: the grown-up had drawn pictures for the child several times and said 'this is a man', 'this is a house', etc. And then the child makes some marks too and asks, 'what's this then?' "

>>1571863
>People say again and again that philosophy doesn't really progress, that we are still occupied with the same philosophical problems as were the Greeks. But the people who say this don't understand why is has to be so. It is because our language has remained the same and keeps seducing us into asking the same questions. As long as there continues to be a verb 'to be' that looks as if it functions in the same way as 'to eat' and 'to drink', as long as we still have the adjectives 'identical', 'true', 'false', 'possible', as long as we continue to talk of a river of time, of an expanse of space, etc., etc., people will keep stumbling over the same puzzling difficulties and find themselves staring at something which no explanation seems capable of clearing up. And what's more, this satisfies a longing for the transcendent, because, insofar as people think they can see `the limits of human understanding', they believe of course that they can see beyond these."

tl;dr: philosophy = word games.

You know most early scientists were also in fact philosophers? We owe a great deal to early philosophers who thought maybe this world isn't simply random or created by God(s). Questions that philosophers ask are important ones and ones that most people have to deal with at some parts in their life. Philosophy has made many actual real world contributions that continue to effect the way the world works. (Logic)

~2500 years ago:

Math: a^2+b^2=c^2
Physics: Any object, wholly or partially immersed in a fluid, is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object.
Philosophy: ZOMG WHY ARE WE HERE? O_o

~1000 years ago:

Math: Solution of cubic equations, Pascal's triangle.
Physics: Concepts of inertia and momentum discovered.
Philosophy: ZOMG WHY ARE WE HERE? O_o

~200 years ago:

Math: Use of complex numbers and non-euclidean geometry starts to become common.
Physics: Newtonian physics, conservation of momentum and energy.
Philosophy: ZOMG WHY ARE WE HERE? O_o

Present day:

Math: Proofs of Poincare's conjecture, Fermat's Last Theorem. Serious attacks on problems like P=NP.
Physics: String theory, study of quantum structures.
Philosophy: ZOMG WHY ARE WE HERE? O_o

Philosophers have always done the real, difficult, intellectual work, and then left the busy work of applying it to the scientists and mathematicians.

>>1571896
>implying philosophy gets credit for everything any mathematical logician's accomplished just because a philosopher invented the word "logic".

>>1571897

I know it hurts to realize that philosophers like Frege, Russell, Whitehead and Godel were responsible for the most important discoveries in the history of all mathematics, but there's no point hiding from the truth.

>>1571894

Hey, motherfucker, least I can get my dates right.

>Pascal's triangle
>not 1000 years ago
>400 actually
>only off by like-- what?-- 150%.

>Newtonian physics
>not 200 years ago
>more like 400
>only off by like-- what?-- 100%.

Brotip: In no scientific field will you pass with a margin of errors of 150%.

Good night.

>>1571894
2500: What is Justice? How Should We Live?
1000: Lots of stuff about Religion. Founding modern logic on the side.

200: How do we know the outside world exists? ZOMG WHY ARE WE HERE TYPING IN CAPS MAKES QUESTION SEEM STUPID

Present day: Can we escape the limits of our language? Can we create Utopia? Do objects have their ontological force? Why are we here etc.

>>1571894
Present day philosophy is actually less concerned with discovering underlying truths as much as elucidating and applying the cultural symbols and values we already have.

Comparing it to science is kinda naive. They're different ballparks with different epistemologies (although philosophy does show up in the soft sciences here and there). Philosophy doesn't "produce" anything; it makes us think and re-evaluate. Like literature.

>>1571894

MAXIMUM TROLLING


you'redoingitright

>>1571899
>Russell, Whitehead
>implying a book called "Principia Mathematica" is really about philosophy, not math.

>Godel
The incompleteness theorem was published in a journal called "Monatshefte für Mathematik", nuff said.

I won't bother verifying that all these people worked in the Mathematics departments of their respective universities, and not the philosophy departments.

>>1571909
whatevs. symbolic logic is philosophy, not mathematics--or philosophy of mathematics.

Anyone can be philosoraptor. Not everyone can be an extraordinary philosoraptor.

inb4WhatIsYourDefinitionOf"extraordinary"

>>1571900
>>Pascal's triangle
>>not 1000 years ago
>>400 actually

"Pascal's" triangle first appears in Iran and India in the 10th century.

>Newtonian physics
>not 200 years ago
>more like 400

A bit over 300, but I didn't want to leave it off the list completely.

>>1571910
>A philosopher invented logic
>Mathematicians use logic all the time
>Therefore Math is really Philosophy

try again, tard

>>1571916
Just because math is applied symbolic logic doesn't mean symbolic logic isn't philosophy.

>>1571918
For (most) mathematicians, logic is a tool, not the end goal. It's like saying art is really chemistry because all painters use paints that have to be carefully mixed.

>>1571909

Are you seriously suggesting that Russell was a member of Cambridge mathematics department and not their philosophy department? And Whitehead? You don't realize that Godel was a member of the Vienna Circle? Are you really this ignorant?

You know what's funny? MIT's set theory course is taught by someone in their philosophy department (see: http://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/24/sp07/24.243/index.html))

I wonder why that is?

>>1571924
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_of_mathematics

>>1571928
>>1571927
Set theory/"Foundations" isn't proper math anyway. It's working backwards from the basic axioms of arithmetic instead of forwards. Sort of like ripping apart your laptop to find out how it works instead of actually using it to create something.

>>1571927
>Are you really this ignorant?

Are you really this ignorant to believe that someone can be both a mathematician AND a philosopher, and that comparing "logic" as used in Principia Mathematica to "logic" as used in philosophy is completely apples-to-oranges?

>>1571936
>to believe that someone can be both a
*can't

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_logic

>Mathematical logic (also known as symbolic logic) is a subfield of mathematics

</thread>

>>1571934

>classical set theory is not mathematics

"Set theory is commonly employed as a foundational system for mathematics, particularly in the form of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice. Beyond its foundational role, set theory is a branch of mathematics in its own right, with an active research community. Contemporary research into set theory includes a diverse collection of topics, ranging from the structure of the real number line to the study of the consistency of large cardinals." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_theory))

You /sci/ducks really ought to learn something before you try to pick on people's intellectual weaknesses.

>>1571936

OP claimed that philosophers were too stupid to do real science/math. The fact that a philosopher wrote Principia Mathematic proves him wrong: philosophers were smart enough to completely revolutionize mathematics.

Furthermore, the style of logic developed in the Principia (or a more modern version thereof) is commonplace in contemporary (analytic) philosophy. You would know this if you weren't so ignorant.

>>1571939
>ignores that the phrase "symbolic logic" has two different meanings on wikipedia.

>>1571943
I said it isn't "proper" math. Most mathematicians (i.e. not set theorists) take the basic axioms of math as givens and work *forwards*, inventing new branches of mathematics and creating new things.

Set theorists take the basic axioms and work backwards to make them even more complicated and obscure, doing nothing of any real value to anyone. Sure it's interesting in its way, but it's not really important to the rest of the mathematical world, unless someone discovers that arithmetic is inconsistent or the Axiom of Choice is false or something. Even Godel's theorem isn't really important mathematically.

>>1571951

>basic axioms of math

You people really are stupid. I guess you probably mean the axioms of arithmetic, since math as such has no axioms (I don't even know what that would mean).

You know, set theory also has axioms, so whether "set theorists take the basic axioms and work backwards" just depends on which axioms you're talking about. You're right that set theorists try to derive the axioms for other branches from the axioms of set theory, so maybe that's what you're grasping for.

Either way, I guess I better call up the Harvard mathematics department and tell them to stop teaching set theory, since they're obviously wasting their time with this "improper" form of mathematics!

>>1571947
Russell was *both* a mathematician and philosopher.

>(analytic) philosophy.
Same vague crap dressed up in math-y clothes. Props for eliminating one more way for philosophers to confuse themselves with language, though, I guess.

>>1571963

>Russell was *both* a mathematician and philosopher.

Congratulations! You finally understand what I've been saying this whole time. And you know what this means? It means that OP is wrong when he says that philosophers are "a bunch of people who would like to be intellectuals but aren't smart enough to do real science." Some philosophers clearly are intelligent enough to do real science and math.

>>1571962
>You people really are stupid. I guess you probably mean the axioms of arithmetic, since math as such has no axioms (I don't even know what that would mean).
I was being vague because there was no need to be precise to make my point.

>You're right that set theorists try to derive the axioms for other branches from the axioms of set theory, so maybe that's what you're grasping for.
Right. Set theorists take the axioms that regular mathematicians use, create new, more complicated ones, and then spend their careers proving that the more complicated ones are equivalent to the old ones they've been using all along, thereby basically going around in circles.

>Either way, I guess I better call up the Harvard mathematics department and tell them to stop teaching set theory, since they're obviously wasting their time with this "improper" form of mathematics!
Anyone's got a right to study whatever they find interesting, and I personally do find it interesting, it's just that it's not particularly useful to the other 99% of mathematicians in the world.

>>1571971

OP
>all horses have 4 legs

You
>NUH-UH
>*pulls out gun*
>*BLAM*
>See, that horse only has three!

/thread

>>1571978

Except Russell is not an exception. I could also have mentioned Aristotle (contributed to pretty much every branch of science/math), Descartes (geometry, Cartesian coordinates, etc.), Leibniz (invented calculus), Kant (astronomy/cosmology), Frege (set theory, mathematics in general), etc.

Not the greatest scientists by contemporary standards, but all of them made huge contributions to either science or math in their day, and all of them important philosophers.

Of course, your average philosopher or philosophy student won't make any such contributions, but the same is true of your average scientist or mathematician.

>>1571978
That's how the word 'all' works, buddy. It has to be all, or else its just 'most.'

>>1571986
>Except Russell is not an exception. I could also have mentioned Aristotle (contributed to pretty much every branch of science/math), Descartes (geometry, Cartesian coordinates, etc.), Leibniz (invented calculus), Kant (astronomy/cosmology), Frege (set theory, mathematics in general), etc.

Name one "philosopher" who's made important mathematical contributions in the last 100 years in a field without the word "logic" or "set" in the title.

>Of course, your average philosopher or philosophy student won't make any such contributions, but the same is true of your average scientist or mathematician.

At least a math/science PhD has the mental capacity to understand cutting-edge science and math.

>>1571990

>last 100 years

Why the arbitrary restrictions? Name a scientist who made a contribution on the scale of Newton's to physics in the last 2 weeks!

Even with the restrictions I can name one: Saul Kripke, whose semantics for modal logic was hugely important for computer science.

>At least a math/science PhD has the mental capacity to understand cutting-edge science and math.

Many philosophy PhDs have the "capacity" to as well, though they don't, of course, know that much about science and math because (surprise!) they studied philosophy and not science and math. Why would you expect anything different? Does the average biology PhD know everything about cutting edge physics?

Maybe you should focus on the claim I'm arguing against, namely that philosophers are too stupid to do math and science. Seems pretty clearly false at this point, doesn't it?

I view philosophy as the great moral counterbalance to the hard sciences, can't have one without the other, lest you end up with an extreme.

>>1571971

>Why the arbitrary restrictions?
Because the development of science (and math especially) has been such that it's much more difficult for someone who isn't purely a mathematician to make contributions today than it was in the days of Leibniz or Descartes when not much more math was known than what modern kids learn in high school.

>Even with the restrictions I can name one: Saul Kripke, whose semantics for modal logic was hugely important for computer science.

>Saul Aaron Kripke (born November 13, 1940) is an American philosopher and logician...Kripke has been a central figure in a number of fields related to mathematical logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, metaphysics, epistemology, and set theory.

perhaps you missed the "without the word "logic" or "set" in the title." part of my last post.

>Maybe you should focus on the claim I'm arguing against, namely that philosophers are too stupid to do math and science.
So your putting forth all this effort to prove that an anonymous poster who offhandedly made a huge generalization about *all* philosophers isn't strictly logically correct?

Lol loser.

Philosophy can be good, provided it can be turned into something practical that will feasibly improve individual conditions, which may in fact give science a leap forward in the end. If our only philosophy is work, obey, consume, die, then we are fucked.

/sci/ boasts fat pay checks for all their degrees (legitimate or not)
/lit/ boasts of its own (unappreciated) intelligence

And yet, why are they both losers?

/thread

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2YsJVF-920
This guy got me into philosophy.

>>1572002

>Because the development of science (and math especially) has been such that it's much more difficult for someone who isn't purely a mathematician to make contributions today than it was in the days of Leibniz or Descartes when not much more math was known than what modern kids learn in high school.

Yeah, this speaks in favor of my position. Why, given what you've said, would you expect philosophers to make great contributions to fields outside their own specialization? Why is that your standard, given that you admit it's an unreasonable expectation?

>perhaps you missed the "without the word "logic" or "set" in the title." part of my last post.

Perhaps you missed the phrase "computer science" in my last post.

>So your putting forth all this effort to prove that an anonymous poster who offhandedly made a huge generalization about *all* philosophers isn't strictly logically correct?

Yeah, pretty much. Except I don't know what "strictly logically correct" means; I'm just saying it's false. Also the emphasis on "all" is a moot point. I've refuted the weakened generic claim as well as the strict universal.

I don't really care if this makes me a loser, I'm just killing time. But you are looking a little desperate their buddy, falling back on the old "internet arguments are stupid" line after engaging in a lengthy internet argument.

>>1572012
>Why, given what you've said, would you expect philosophers to make great contributions to fields outside their own specialization?

I wouldn't... That's kind of the point. You've been arguing that they do by listing either philosophers-in-name-only or people who lived when "mathematician" wasn't even a proper job. It takes a lot more work and ability to become a trained mathematician today than it did in ancient greece.

>Perhaps you missed the phrase "computer science" in my last post.
>thinks computer "science" is really science

>I've refuted the weakened generic claim as well as the strict universal.

Yes, you've proven that of the X philosophers that have ever lived, at most (X-10) or so of them were actually pseudointellectuals as OP claims. Congrats.

OP is a troll. Do not respond to his posts. Even with a sage. Yes, I know you know he's a troll. Yes, I know I'm a hypocrite. He is trying to get a rise out of you, and every post, including this one, feeds his ego. Yes, I know you know this. I know you want, innocently and unironically, to correct the error in his reasoning. I know you think you're getting something out of this, but you're not. It's only going to leave you feeling empty and frustrated. You're giving him something to respond to as a bump to his thread. Do not respond to him. Do not respond to me. Just close the thread, hide it, and go on with your evening/morning. Thank you for your time.

>>1572022
>Do not respond to me.

ok

>>1572019

>I wouldn't...

But you would, since apparently for you the only way to avoid being a pseudo-intellectual is to make contributions to math and science, a standard that is, by your own admission, unreasonable.

>Yes, you've proven that of the X philosophers that have ever lived, at most (X-10) or so of them were actually pseudointellectuals as OP claims. Congrats.

What do you expect, that someone prove that everyone who studies philosophy could be a great scientist? I've shown that many of the most famous philosophers were also very important scientists and mathematicians (much more important than your average science student). That's a reasonable response to OP's claim, though you can keep moving the goal posts all you like.

>>1572022

I appreciate the effort, but whether he's trolling or not, I've got nothing better to do and don't feel empty or frustrated, so whatever.

Shouldn't the question be when did philosophy contribute to humankind and did something relevant outside of purely academic discourse which in turn is only relevant to academic philosophers?

>>1572048
John Stuart Mill, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and the Continental Congress would all like a word with you.

>>1572011
any feedback on this? Seriously no one ever wants to talk about anarchism and atheism.

>>1572053
Arguably yes from an academic standpoint philosophers influenced the political realities of people in this time.

Yet if we talk about the French Revolution and the time on enlightenment as a whole as well as the following events in the USA which academic philosophers hold as one of the prime achievements of their art I beg to differ.

First of all these philosophers were often politicians as well and that was the field they worked in most and achieved something.
Inb4 they were driven by the ideas learnt during their philosophical studies. Everyone acts on one's beliefs regardless of origins.

Secondly the developments in America as well as revolutionary France were not caused by John Locke's crazy writings or Rousseau's keen thought experiments but the events were driven by political and economic factors not the writings of the wealthy and well to do upper class intellectuals.

Especially in France after the revolution the philosophy of enlightenment helped the people exactly jack. it was the same shit all over again.

>>1572033
>I've shown that many of the most famous philosophers were also very important scientists and mathematicians (much more important than your average science student).
Your using outliers to try to prove (or refute) a general claim.

>though you can keep moving the goal posts all you like.

IMO think a better-phrased version of the question would be:

1) Is it true that most philosophy majors choose their major to achieve an image of intelligence and not out of a true love of the subject?
2) Is it true that, on average, it requires less intelligence to get a PhD in Philosophy than a PhD in a hard science field?

My answers:

1) Probably not most, but many.
2) Almost obviously yes.