/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17404823]

Hold on... You're telling me philosophy professors and academic DON'T learn German to read Kant, Hegel and other Germans? And they are to be considered authority on said authors?

[Anonymous No.17404827]

>>17404823
You are an intellectual, anon...not an academic

[Anonymous No.17404828]

>>17404823
If your philosophy professor doesn't know german to read Kant Hegel and other germans you've got a shitty professor. Nothing more to it.

[Anonymous No.17404830]

>>17404823
At least here they do. Usually they learn whatever language is convenient for the object of their study.

[Anonymous No.17404838]

>>17404823
OP, every single one of my professors know the lenguage of the authors they deal with. Be it french or german. Maybe you're just poor.

[Anonymous No.17404849]

>>17404823
They mostly learn German to read untranslated academic materials, mostly philological/philosophical ones. I had an acquaintance, who spent 3 years in Germany for his phil phd, tell me that even the krauts read Kant in English translations since it is a lot more simplified and comprehensible.

[Anonymous No.17404875]

>>17404823
Hold on... You're telling me you think it's important understand and read Kant, Hegel and other Germans?

[Anonymous No.17404990]

>>17404823
Anybody who chooses to focus on the Germans or even sees the Germans as important to their research will absolutely learn German. Find any major Kant scholar, I promise you they have at least a reading fluency in Germany.

The only exception is with Marx, there are an awful lot of so called Marx scholars who can’t read German. But you can tell the best ones bc they can, and I’m thinking of Moishe Postone.

But most Anglo American philosophers aren’t really focused on historical issues so they don’t learn other languages. But a lot more scholars have at least reading fluency than you’d think.

At my school if you wanted to do even a master in music or art history it was a requirement to learn one of French Italian or German, and that was a mandatory requirement for getting the degree.

[Anonymous No.17405033]

Wait until you find out how few "intellectuals" today can read Latin.

[Anonymous No.17405043]

>>17405033
Everyy good philosophy department teaches Latin.

[Anonymous No.17405216]

Don't a lot of philosophy departments make you take a reading comprehension test in 1 or 2 foreign languages during graduate studies? I know the one at my university does.

[Anonymous No.17405243]

>>17404849
i hate this Anglofication.

[Anonymous No.17405248]

>>17405043
doing a mandatory course as a freshman and being able to read it are different things. People used to write their dissertations in Latin not too long ago

[Anonymous No.17405252]

>>17404823
my philosophy professors can speak all sorts of languages, Ive learnt so much from them and it makes me feel very grateful than I've gotten to meet them. I am way too much of a brainlet to do this stuff on my own :)

[Anonymous No.17405261]

>>17404823
people in academia literally dont even read books. they do not read a philosophy book front to back like you or me. they just read excerpts. it's hilarious. these are the "authorities"

[Anonymous No.17405271]

>>17405248
People wrote their dissertations in Latin when the student body was like 0.01% of its current size, made up of men who had studied Latin since they were kids, and had to pass rigorous entrance exams to get into school at all.

[Anonymous No.17405272]

>>17405248
If 1800 is "not too long ago."

[Anonymous No.17405274]

>>17405271
sounds epic

[Anonymous No.17405276]

>>17405252
Do they interject every other minute to explain the exact meaning of a Greek word and how else it could be translated?

[Anonymous No.17405282]

>>17404823
This thread just exposed /lit/.
Holy shit I need to leave this shitty place. You autodidact pseuds disgust me.

[Anonymous No.17405289]

>>17405243
It's more due to modern uni students/profs weren't brought up with ultra elite requirements like >>17405271 points out. Kant was writing to a much more learnèd audience, who would have no problem following his demanding prose, than the one that exists today.

[Anonymous No.17405295]

>>17405276
Are you in my classes? Literally constantly. I have one gentleman whose tangents go from being a neat fact that reflects something interesting about Greek culture to an active detriment taking away from the subject at hand.

[Anonymous No.17405299]

>>17405282
>I paid a shitload of money to circlejerk in an old building
You do you but don’t walk around like that’s something to be proud of.

[Anonymous No.17405307]

>>17405289
I have heard this constantly. PLEASE do not leave the thread. I have heard people say that the academic class of previous centuries have been far more intelligent than those today. I need more information on this at it interests me to death. On a general scale people have only been getting smarter, a la Flynn effect, and I always assumed that extended to the upper classes. Yet I heard forever ago that the upper class (from the average wealthy person to academics) has slowly been getting dumber since the Victorian Era where they peaked. I dismissed this as mere conjecture, finding no basis for it when I searched for the information myself. Do you know something that can help me find out more? It certainly feels the case, but I have know actual reason to think it so.

[Anonymous No.17405325]

>>17404823
>Hold on... You're telling me philosophy professors and academic DON'T learn German to read Kant, Hegel and other Germans? And they are to be considered authority on said authors?
They do here and I'm in a shitty latin american country. Wouldn't surprise me from anglos, though.

[Anonymous No.17405331]

>>17405289
>Kant
>demanding prose

[Anonymous No.17405333]

>>17405282
>You autodidact pseuds disgust me.
yeah, we read entire books. it disgusts you that going beyond the Curated Excerpt is possible

pic related is a Kant reference; it will go over your head

[Anonymous No.17405349]

>>17405333
God that was a good thread.

[Anonymous No.17405356]

>>17405282
>autodidact pseuds
autodidact chads*

[Anonymous No.17405365]

>>17405331
Have you read Kant in German? Some of his sentences are a paragraph long

[Anonymous No.17405367]

>>17405282
lol you wasted thousands on a worthless degree. swallow your pride and get over it

[Anonymous No.17405373]

>>17405307
It should be fairly obvious that academia as an institution changed dramatically about a century ago, and this change has accelerated since the 60s. I'm not saying that it doesn't select for smart people anymore, your average prof is still likely a smart and knowledgeable person, but it doesn't only select for them, there are now many other concerns, especially political ones. This was inevitable once the role of university educated 'experts' became a powerful force within and adjacent to government, which dynamic increased with the enormous growth of bureaucracy in the 20th century liberal democracies.

[Anonymous No.17405395]

>>17405373
Certainly and especially in certain institutions. My experience has been biased though as I go to a school notorious for resisting the mainstream in being devoured to its religious principles. As such, most of my professors have been intelligent to the point of tangibility. What I am desperate to know is if there is any sort of empirical demonstration for a wholesale intellectual degradation of the upper echelons of society.

[Anonymous No.17405411]

>>17405395
Did you not find the correlation between reaction times and IQ, along with the decrease in reaction times from the Victorian era, credible? That's the main study I know about which asserts that fact. Apart from that, due to the nature of a bygone era, there's not much more empirical evidence you're going to get.

[Anonymous No.17405434]

>>17405261
This is true. The vast majority of professors have only read a few relevant books front to back and even then they rarely read relevant materials outside of their realm of research. In my opinion, to teach Kant one should be familiar with most of western canon irrespective of its direct relation to, for example CPR. They read a hell of a lot of articles though

[Anonymous No.17405447]

>>17405395
>empirical demonstration
Not really, there are IQ scores, but it's only in recent decades that these have become reliable, and the data are scarce for earlier periods. You could do a test, eg. see how many undergrads, or even profs, could pass the entrance exams of over a century ago, but nobody would fund this, and there would be the problem of primary education no longer preparing people for those subjects specifically. There are some studies about brain size and reaction time that indicate a slight decrease, but this is too indirect a measure to be of much use imo.

Also the upper echelons of society are not really uni profs. Whoever are running all these financial games are probably very smart people. The universities serve various purposes, but they are not the head of the beast.

[Anonymous No.17405448]

>>17405411
I have never heard of the study you are referencing.

[Anonymous No.17405460]

>>17405447
>Also the upper echelons of society are not really uni profs. Whoever are running all these financial games are probably very smart people. The universities serve various purposes, but they are not the head of the beast.
You are probably right, I am thinking too colloquially I suppose

[Anonymous No.17405493]

>>17405448
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1080.5946&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Let me know what you think

[Anonymous No.17405496]

>>17405395
A simple sociocultural analysis of the aristocracy of the 17th or 18th century relative to the intellectual "aristocracy" of modernity should suffice. An individual such as Liebniz is an absolute impossibility in modernity as a result of stimulus overload and the paradoxical constraints in terms of freedom and information access civilization has placed on society. Spengler touches upon the systemic issues, for example

[Anonymous No.17405519]

Damn, in my university we all read the works translated. German? Hard, nah. Latin? That's a dead language so who cares? Greek? More like Nah. I just know one teacher who loves and specialized on semiotics and yeah, she reads in French, since much of the works are in French.

[Anonymous No.17405529]

>>17405493
will read and reply now
>>17405496
See I was about to reply to another anon regarding the difference between the academic class of today and aristocrats of the past when I suddenly thought "wait, were aristocrats of the previous century(s) intellectuals unto themselves anyway?". I thought of Kierkegaard immediately, dying penniless and regretting running out on his marriage. This was accompanied by a second realization that I am not sure of the socioeconomic status of any of the intellectuals of last century. Certainly they were hardly of the serfdom, but being a freeworking person does not necessarily put them in an analogous position to today's technocrats.

[Anonymous No.17405545]

>>17404823
>programmer only ever learned C
>is somehow supposed to be an authority on a specific algorithm
Language is used to communicate ideas, ideas exist outside of language.

[Anonymous No.17405546]

>>17405307
This is a personal belief of mine which I do not extend to every field of academic inquiry. Naturally, those studying in STEM today fare better than the ones in previous centuries. Those in the humanities, however, have an inverse relation with their past colleagues. For a quick example, a 20 y/o Voltaire could write a far better analysis of the Greek tragedians in his ex tempore letters than a middle aged academic today who drowns his professional analysis with 20th ce literary theory jargon. Here are a few snippets by a french classics scholar who admits how he felt like he was a fraud after getting his phd in ancient Greek yet read it at a snail's pace.
>The evolution of classical studies over the last fifty years has nevertheless made such study difficult. Up until the middle of the 20th century the cultural elite in the west was able to read Latin and Ancient Greek fluently.
>In France, for instance, from the age of twelve till the end of their secondary studies pupils majoring in literature devoted eight hours per week to Latin and Greek.
>Today, many students who choose to study the classics only begin learning those ancient languages in university. Education programs are now preventing students from reaching the same level in classical languages as former generations had done.
>Some twentieth century works, which freely quoted Greek or Latin sentences without translation, are now very difficult to read even for scholars.

>>17405331
>The difficulties which Kant's style presents to the translator into English need not be dwelt upon with those who are familiar with his works. My main endeavor has been to produce a readable translation. I have, therefore, laid stress on the faithful and lucid representation of the author's thought, while the preservation of the periodic constructions of the original was of secondary interest. I am, however, conscious that I have not in all places succeeded in sailing with even keel between the extremes of strictly literal translation and paraphrase.
Yes. Like Cicero, he wrote in very long sentences with a ton of sub clauses and, like in Latin, German usually saves the main verb until the end of the sentence.

[Anonymous No.17405559]

>>17405493
I read it an am blown away. Practically an entire standard deviation! That is insane. If true, the study seems to imply that this was hardly a trend of the elite, but of Victorian society broadly.

[Anonymous No.17405639]

>>17405546
>by a french classics scholar
what's his name?

[Anonymous No.17405679]

>>17405493
>http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1080.5946&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Some reasons to be skeptical:
> -1.16 IQ points per decade
One, all our other data (c.f. Flynn) suggests that, in fact, g has been increasing since the early 20th century at least up until 1990, and roughly stagnant since. Any such drop would have to be a drop that occurred immediately between the Victorian Era and the era we have data on for the Flynn effect, and would have to be even more dramatic than a drop of 13 points; it would have to be on the range of 20-30 points. There is no plausible mechanism for this. Certainly, dysgenic selection against intelligence couldn't explain it; even with a very generous imbalance of fertility rates by social class (or a moderately generous imbalance by intelligence bracket), more generous than almost certainly existed, you could barely get more than -0.3 IQ points per decade (I forgot where I saw this number, I'll see if I can find a source or remember the derivation; I remember it following rather strictly from basic math about the heritability of intelligence, however). So any explanation for such a drop must be environmental, and there is no plausible mechanism to explain such a massive drop.

Overall, this is very, very weak evidence for a conclusion we have much reason to disbelieve.

[Anonymous No.17405716]

>>17405679
Did you read the paper, it discusses Flynn effect.

[Anonymous No.17405737]

>>17405679
g is not affected by education. The Flynn effect explains heightened rates of formal education, but not the underlying dysgenic effects of the Industrial Revolution (or any other cause, we're just assuming the cause is industrialization here because of circumstantial evidence). In other words, the Flynn effect only explains increases in IQ scores, it doesn't necessarily reflect differences in g. There is virtually no reason to assume the g factor of intelligence has been increasing due to the Flynn effect, it just doesn't make sense any way you look at it.
https://web.archive.org/web/20060516151409/http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/rushtonpdfs/PAID-1999.pdf

[Anonymous No.17405745]

>>17404823
>>17404827
You mean HACKademics?

[Anonymous No.17405773]

>>17405737
The Flynn effect is in part about childhood nutrition as well isn't it? Which actually would be g it would just be phenotypic rather than genotypic.

[Anonymous No.17405780]

You positivists genuinely sicken me

[Anonymous No.17405805]

>>17405737
Again, dysgenic effects simply cannot reduce g by that much unless intellectually disabled people are almost universally having like 5 kids and geniuses having 1. The level of dysgenic pressure required for such a quick drop is *insane*.

>>17405737
You're right, I was speaking loosely. General cognitive ability, in the sense of cognitive ability across many different domains, rather than g, in the sense of the latent variable lying behind the positive manifold. The Flynn effect is entirely general, but its causes are separate from the causes of the positive manifold.

[Anonymous No.17405826]

>>17405805
>unless intellectually disabled people are almost universally having like 5 kids and geniuses having 1.
I mean that is sort of exactly what is happening, except many geniuses actually just have none. HIgh IQ women are especially infertile

[Anonymous No.17405837]

>>17405773
That's possible, but less convincing to me, mainly because we don't have reason to think people were that malnourished back then. And even if they were, it's still representative of environment in the same way that education is rather than dysgenics.
>>17405780
I'm not a positivist. One doesn't have to be to acknowledge the validity of empirical evidence to its domain. You would probably be highly surprised if you found out my true leanings, for starters I'm by no means one of those people who think IQ is the ultimate judgement of the worth of a person (and I also dislike reductionist types who try to enforce this viewpoint).
>>17405805
>Again, dysgenic effects simply cannot reduce g by that much unless intellectually disabled people are almost universally having like 5 kids and geniuses having 1.
Is that such a stretch? Most geniuses, eg Isaac Newton, barely had kids, if any. Most poor people, prior to the invention and popularization of contraception (especially the Irish due to Catholic dogma), have been reproductively incontinent. Either way, it's possible that the result is exaggerated and it's not that extreme. My only contention is that it is a meaningful trend, not so much the strength of the trend.

[Anonymous No.17405848]

>>17405837
>we don't have reason to think people were that malnourished back then.
Uh yes we do, look at the average height increase

[Anonymous No.17405850]

>>17405559
Lol this study is stupid, did anyone read the paper?

First of all, anyone that thinks reaction time is positively correlated with IQ must be a room temperature IQ academic. Go to your local MMA gym and spar with people...want to know who has the fastest reaction times? The dumbest strikers in the gym (typically black or Hispanic, but most people good at striking are typically retards).

Anyways, from the beginning the paper is attempting to prove (or perhaps disprove) the narrative that society has been dysgenic for a while. The paper basically says "yeah, there's a paper that shows a negative correlation between RT and IQ, but we don't like it so we chose another paper that fits our narrative".

Frankly, the paper itself is better proof of dysgenics (academia is now filled with PhDs in pseudoscience).

[Anonymous No.17405879]

>>17405365
Why is German language so retarded bros? What's the point of long sentences?

[Anonymous No.17405913]

>>17405850
I don't think you know what reaction time is, blacks have lower RT, whites higher, east asians highest, as with IQ.

being able to strike fast with a punch is something else.

[Anonymous No.17405919]

>>17405879
>Why is German language so retarded bros?
Too much Latin influence.
As for long sentences, that was the norm back then. Educated people didn't have ADHD induced by the internet and could think in and read them with ease.

[Anonymous No.17405932]

>>17405879
In a language like Latin or German where you can withhold the main verb until the end of a sentence. the periodic style (like in Cicero) is more satisfying than in a language like English. It's like in music where you can build tension by recycling dominants and avoiding the tonic.

[Anonymous No.17406196]

>>17405850
>The dumbest strikers in the gym (typically black or Hispanic, but most people good at striking are typically retards).
Not only is this an anecdote, >>17405913 is correct. They're not measuring "practical" reaction times, they're basically measuring the processing speed of the central nervous system. Have you ever seen doctors tap someone's knee with a little mallet? That's what they're measuring.
>>17405879
It's not so much the language itself as it was the style at the time for people like Kant. If you learn modern German, you'll practically never see it unless you try to read newspapers from decades to a century ago. The worst you'll see is the normal rule of verbs being put to the end in subordinate clauses

[Anonymous No.17406863]

>>17404823
All Kantian scholars learn German, you won't ever get accepted in a Kant-related PhD program without being very proficient in it.
This is also always the case for every other thinker. If you want to be an Habermasian scholar you have to know German, if you want to be a Spinoza scholar you have to know Latin, if you're a Vico scholar you have to know Italian, if you're a Plato scholar you have to know Ancient Greek, etc

[Anonymous No.17406868]

>>17405299
>not living in Europe
Americans really got the short end of the stick

[Anonymous No.17406876]

>>17404823
Most philosophy phds require language fluency in at least one foreign language, and most Kant/Hegel scholars probably choose german

[Anonymous No.17406885]

>>17405289
Read Kuhn's Kant biography. Students in his time were not much better compared to our times. Surr thry studied Greek and Latin, but for the most part they studied like people today study Math and Physics in High School, which is to say, very badly.
I'll also add that the works of Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel were mostly unintellegible to virtually all of their contemporaries. Keep in mind that Kant got famous only after Reinhold wrote simplified guides for his work (in his famous Letters). Before that he was harshly criticized for being too obscure and scholastic. When Hegel wrote the Phenomenology, not even Schelling (an erudite scholar who knew intimately Hegel himself and his terminology) could make head or tail of it.

[Anonymous No.17406888]

>>17405282
>exposed /lit/
What do you mean, this thread has destroyed the credentials of a Gue'ez anonymous wanking parlor known for its association with hackers and pedophiles? Surely you didn't expect much of us, did you?

[Anonymous No.17406892]

>>17404823
But they do, in most cases.

[Anonymous No.17406923]

>>17405373
Imho that's a meme. Sure, in phil department you'll find some affirmative actions here and there, but all in all the academic world is still not diverse at all. Almost all of your professors will be white men with an excellent educational pedigree.
I also suspect, after having read so many biographies of past thinkers, that censorship is at an all time low. Sure, you cannot bash on trans people or minorities, but do you have any idea of how much tighter censorship was in, let's say, Kant's time? He could not publish his works on religion. Notice, it's not (like it happens nowadays) that he could not publish them by respected publishers: he could not publish them full stop. Even a nazi nowadays can get published by far-right publishers, and thisnis not s privilege Kant had. In the same way he could not talk freely about politics (good luck saying that monarchy is not good in 1790s Konigsberg) or ethics (when it was literally illegal to say, for example, that women deserved the same civil rights as men).

Compared to this, our current censorship is a joke.

[Anonymous No.17406933]

>>17406923
Are you fucking retarded? Kant talked about how universal democracy needed to be established in the final political parts of his work, and he directly criticized religious institutions throughout his work

[Anonymous No.17406948]

>>17406933
He literally had to wait for the death of Frederick the Great to publish the censored parts of his Religion Within the Bounds of Bare Reason (and he was still harshly criticized for it).
Perpetual Peace is not a democratic program, nor it is against monarchies. All individual states are to mantain their power structures: there can be monarchies in a cosmopolitan society. If that were not the case, he could have not published his text without beihg accused of Jacobinism, losing therefore his academic position

[Anonymous No.17406949]

>>17406923
The post wasn't about affirmative action, which really just affects who gets into undergrad, apart from some token profs, it was about university becoming a different sort of institution from what it once was. University now produces credentialed workers for middle class positions and 'experts' who advise or become government bureaucrats. The change in selective pressures combined with the orders of magnitude of growth in population who go to university are the point here.

Also I'm not quite sure about your claims of censorship but that's a complicated topic.

[Anonymous No.17406955]

>>17406948
Criticizing the state religion is always dangerous if not illegal. Today in Germany no professor could promote Holocaust Denial or certain forms of racism.

[Anonymous No.17406958]

>>17406949
All the claims I made baout censorship can be confirmed by reading the last chapters of Kuhn's biography on Kant. I picked him an example, but I could have also used (without even having to leave this time period) Fichte and Schelling.

Regarding the first part of your post, notice that I was only talking about Philosophy departments.

[Anonymous No.17406959]

Hold on. . . you're telling me that philosophy professors don't actually put effort into their degree. . .

[Anonymous No.17406967]

>>17406958
It applies to philosophy departments as well, they are in fact closer to the politicized end of the spectrum, with I suppose math or something being on the other side. And every department has been affected by the credentialist bubble.

[Anonymous No.17406976]

>>17406955
Sure, but you'll also see the difference between these prohibitions, right? Not being able to criticize monarchic power structures is a much stringent constriction than not being able to affirm that a (real, let's not forget it) historical fact did not happen. In the second case you're not allowed to spread historical misinformstion, in the second you're not allowed to do political philosophy unless you're already a monarchist (every other option would have been the end of your career).
I'm not even saying that it's a good thing that holocaust deniers (for whom I have no respect) are censored, I'm just saying that it's not comparable to the censorship of the past
>>17406967
How is philosophy politicized in current academia, in your view?

[Anonymous No.17406985]

>>17406948
>and he was still harshly criticized for it
Criticism != censorship, plus it was already relatively acceptable to critique religion since before Kant's time. It wasn't anything that new. Frederick the Great himself was not much of a believer, I don't know if you've seen some of the things he personally stated about Christianity. He was also a Freemason.
>Perpetual Peace is not a democratic program
Yes it was. Monarchy is not mutually exclusive with democracy, in case you didn't realize.

[Anonymous No.17406990]

>>17406976
>historical misinformstion
Well who decides what is misinformation and what is not? But anyway I think they are comparable when you consider the reasons behind the two bans, which both have to do with a concern that allowing alternate opinions into the public could disrupt the social and political order.

[Anonymous No.17406994]

>>17406976
Philosophy has no objective manner of determining who is right, and has a giant host of political implications in various areas. This is a recipe for politicization, especially when an 'ethics expert' can advise the state on policy.

[Anonymous No.17407046]

>>17406985
>Criticism != censorship, plus it was already relatively acceptable to critique religion since before Kant's time. It wasn't anything that new. Frederick the Great himself was not much of a believer, I don't know if you've seen some of the things he personally stated about Christianity. He was also a Freemason
No, it was censorship=censorship. Kant was literally not allowed to publish the last chapters of Religion Within the Boundaries of Pure Reason, as in: it was illegal for him to do so. He managed to publish them only after the death of Frederik, and he managed to do so only because when he published it Frederick William III had not yet chose the new institutional line for censorship. The beliefs of Frederick II are irrelevant, what is relevant is what he did at an institutional level. It should not surprise that his censorship line was called "bigotism".
>>17406990
Unless you're a relativist regarding historical studies, then it's a pretty definitive fact that the holocaust happened. Denying it is a bit like those hack mathematicians who try to prove that 1*1=2.
Regarding the second point, I think there's lots of alternative opinions in modern academia. Pretty much every respectable department will have conservative thinkers, and some od the most famous political philosophers of our time (one among many, Jason Brennan) are right wingers who actively argue against democracy.
>>17406994
I don't agree with your relativist notion of philosophy, which woulld turn all knowledge (including scientific knowledge, since we would not be able to interpret it conceptually) into a sham.
That said, I think the limitations of contemporary philosophers are pretty limited. Anything short of advocating for racism or genocide is permitted. Even misoginy is fair game, given how many religious unis are present in Western countries.

[Anonymous No.17407054]

>>17407046
>which woulld turn all knowledge (including scientific knowledge, since we would not be able to interpret it conceptually) into a sham.
Oh boy, he still doesn't know.

[Anonymous No.17407069]

>>17407046
>Unless you're a relativist regarding historical studies
How can you not be? Different countries have totally different interpretations of the same historical events.

And yes advocating for racism is forbidden because antiracism is a central tenet of the state religion now.

[Anonymous No.17407075]

>>17406923
>>17407046
This is what you said:
>Even a nazi nowadays can get published by far-right publishers
How did Kant get published? By directly diverting from the publishing apparatus of the Prussian state and using publishers who WOULD publish his work.
What is the difference between far right writers and Kant in this respect? Both of them have to subvert the mainstream system to get their works published.

[Anonymous No.17407102]

>>17407054
Skepticism is not a tenable position.
>>17407069
Holocaust deniers do not disagree on the interpretation of the Holocaust, they disagree on it being a fact. The truth of that fsct is, historically speaking, beyond dispute.
>And yes advocating for racism is forbidden because antiracism is a central tenet of the state religion now.
While I, for the most part, disagree with what this state religion is (I have my whole share of problems with the common sense of our time), antiracism is not one of the things I would criticize it for. I'd put it at the same level of people advocating for child rape. That said, I'm still extremely skeptical of these censorship practices, if not downright opposed to them. Not because I think that racism is a tenable and respectable position, but because I dom't trust these people to monitor what is good and what isn't.
>>17407075
No, that's not what Kant did. Reread the last post you quoted, and if you're still skeptical, read the related chapter in Kuhn's biography. Kant had no access to minor publishers, he had to wait for a power vacuum in the monarchy in order to publish it.

[Anonymous No.17407110]

desu though, halfway through learning Japanese and Mandarin I heard that even mandarin-speaking intellectuals prefer to read Chinese new left intellectuals in English translation.

[Anonymous No.17407124]

>>17407102
>Skepticism is not a tenable position.
Skepticism is irrelevant. There is not a single philosophy in existence that can prove its claim to objectivity (the ones that come closest are either Aristotle or Aquinas, but even they have their problems as were highlighted extensively). It's not so much being skeptical as it is simply realizing that truth doesn't exist. Philosophy ended with Neech. If you think otherwise, please demonstrate the truth right now.
>Reread the last post you quoted
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_Within_the_Bounds_of_Bare_Reason
>The First Piece originally appeared as a Berlinische Monatsschrift article (April 1792). Kant's attempt to publish the Second Piece in the same journal met with opposition from the king's censor. Kant then arranged to have all four pieces published as a book, routing it through the philosophy department at University of Jena to avoid the need for theological censorship. Kant was reprimanded for this action of insubordination. When he nevertheless published a second edition in 1794, the censor was so irate that he arranged for a royal order that required Kant never to publish or even speak publicly about religion.

[Anonymous No.17407125]

>>17407102
Historical 'facts' are just records some people wrote, they can't be proven, states have incentives to lie about all sorts of events. As to racism, it doesn't matter whether you agree with it or not, it clearly has reached the level of taboo/sacred.

I also have trouble believing you really think the IQ crowd are on the level of rape advocates.

[Anonymous No.17407148]

>>17407124
>It's not so much being skeptical as it is simply realizing that truth doesn't exist.
How is this different from skepticism.

The passage you quoted from wikipedia is wrong. Kant published the last two (out of four) chapters of his book only in 1797, after the death of Frederick II.

[Anonymous No.17407170]

>>17407125
>Historical 'facts' are just records some people wrote, they can't be proven, states have incentives to lie about all sorts of events.
You're talking as if historians recognize certain events as factual without any reflection. The amount of independent sources concerning the Holocaust make it so sure that it happened that claiming otherwise would discredit once and for all history as a legitimate discipline. At that poimt we might as well doubt that there has been an American War of Independence.
>I also have trouble believing you really think the IQ crowd are on the level of rape advocates.
I guess you have trouble believing it because you can't imagine being treated as a subhuman. I'm willing to oppose it on moral grounds, regardless of wether it is true or not, but that's a personal opinion. Regardless, if I don't even trust people to censor racists, do you think I'll trust them when it comes to establishing racial hierarchies? That would lead to harsher forms of censorship, and worse abuses of power.

[Anonymous No.17407175]

>>17407148
>How is this different from skepticism.
Because I'm not the one who is actually skeptical of the philosophy coming out of academia. They admit themselves they don't know what is right or wrong. Thus, one concludes that there is no truth there without having to even engage in skepticism.

[Anonymous No.17407186]

>>17407175
Academics are by and large not skeptics. I've basically spent thr last 2 years of my life reading contemporary philosophers and I can't think of any philosopher who is genuinely skeptical about truth. Even pragmatists like Rorty presuppose true normative criteria (like solidarity).
And even if this were to be the case (it is not), it still would not prove that skepticism is tenable.

[Anonymous No.17407195]

>>17407170
I don't really know much about the Holocaust so I can't speak about that, but one can certainly question eg. the causes of the American Revolution or how exactly it went down, there is a fair amount of ambiguity there.

As for race that is too long a conversation and I get where you're coming from. It is in any case I think quite comparable to older prohibitions on heresy, there are actually certain ways in which it is a bigger deal, because there are direct implications for political analysis and policy that follow from what people believe about things like IQ.

[Anonymous No.17407214]

>>17407186
>Academics are by and large not skeptics.
I'm not talking about whether they themselves are considered skeptics (realistically, they are skeptics whether they admit it or not). I'm talking about whether they admit their philosophy is not grounded in anything substantial, which they never do, ergo leading one to conclude that their philosophy is baseless, and does not even try to provide a base like Aristotle or Aquinas.
>And even if this were to be the case (it is not)
You are genuinely dumb. Shouting "truth is objective" while holding your fingers in your ears proves absolutely nothing. You are either that or willfully ignorant. And what does "tenable" even mean? Who decides whether a position is tenable or not? This word is a spook used to dogmatically assert your idea of what is right or wrong, which you only derive ultimately from your feelings. You may not realize it, but you are the modern equivalent of a Christian dogmatist who asserts that their belief in God and God's morals are objectively valid because anything else is "untenable." The only difference with you is that you get rid of "God" and replace it with "social justice", "egalitarianism", or whatever other spook you come up with to justify your pretension to moral imperatives.

[Anonymous No.17407231]

>>17407214
>whether they admit their philosophy is not grounded in anything substantial, which they never do
which they always do*

[Anonymous No.17407268]

>>17407195
>but one can certainly question eg. the causes of the American Revolution or how exactly it went down, there is a fair amount of ambiguity there.
I do agree, but again, if we are talking about holocsust deniers we are talking about wether a fact happened or not, not how this fact is to be interpreted. My point is that what you cannot do (unless you're fine with absolute historical relativism) is to claim that the American Revolution did not happen at all. That would be absurd, given all the independent sources we've got.
>>17407214
>I'm talking about whether they admit their philosophy is not grounded in anything substantial, which they never do, ergo leading one to conclude that their philosophy is baseless, and does not even try to provide a base like Aristotle or Aquinas.
What do you have in mind when you say "substantial"? To mention some analytic philosophers: Chalmers grounds his philosophy of mind on the datum of phenomenical experience; Lewis grounds his ontology on modal realism; Dennett grounds his epistemology on what can be asserted from a third-personal point of view. All these three positions have a cosmic significance (insofar as they determine the universe as a whole in a very specific way, i.e. Chalmers determine it as not being a solely physicsl universe, and he does so by starting from a fact, so it's not even baseless). What do you have in mind when you characterize these position as non substantial?

Regarding the second paragraph, first of all there's no reason to be so polemical (so far I've treated you with respect, I wish you did the same). Secondly, when I say that skepticism is not tenable, I mean that it is literally an incoherent belief, as countless philosophers have already noticed. Either your skepticism is groundless, and at that point you have no reason to believe it, or it is grounded, and at that point you just contradict yourself, because whatever proposition you will use to ground your skepticism will be itself refuted by the same skepticism. This is why I regard absolute skepticism as absolutely incoherent.

[Anonymous No.17407269]

>>17407186
>presuppose true normative criteria
Presupposing truth does not equal truth also, this is what I mean. If you have to presuppose principles which aren't true per definition, then you're implicitly admitting you don't know what the hell is going on. It's equivalent to scientific hypothesis, but that can never be verified by any possible results.

[Anonymous No.17407284]

>>17407269
Sorry, "presuppose" was maybe the wrong term. I meant they presuppose it for their more advanced argument, I did not want to imply that they did it irreflexively. For example Rorty wrote an entire book to justify solidarity as a normative principle.
Now, maybe these philosophers are wrong. What I'm contesting is just that they're still not skeptical about truth, and that they still strive for it through rational argumentation. This idea of philosophers as skeptics strikes me as completely implausible: in fact, my impression is that some of these philosophers (among the one I've mentioned, definitely Rorty and Dennett) are not skeptical enough (hence their commitment to physicalism)

[Anonymous No.17407328]

>>17407268
>What do you have in mind when you say "substantial"?
I said in the second post, basically anything that does not require some sort of leap of faith, generally axiomatically. It rests on one's inclination to take a presupposition as a given.
>Secondly, when I say that skepticism is not tenable
Firstly, I already told you I am not a skeptic, that is to say I do not rest my own thought, ultimately, on nothingness. Secondly, every single belief system which utilizes reason is ultimately incoherent, so it's virtually a matter of choice as to which philosophy most suits one's inclinations. I see as true what is true for me, and in this sense I am not a skeptic. The reason this topic becomes polemical is because I deal with people like you all the time who try to enforce their arbitrary conceptions of what is true or real onto me, and may times even so much as to use force or exclusion, all in modern society. Maybe you aren't pretentious, but the kinds of people your thought represents are, so I hope that explains it.
>>17407284
>What I'm contesting is just that they're still not skeptical about truth, and that they still strive for it through rational argumentation
Sure, I didn't deny that much. I consider them unwilling, and unadmitted, skeptics, which was my point. The desperate clinging to truth in the face of truthlessness, in my eyes, is the first step on the path to dogma. This ties into what the other anon said about philosophy being used as a tool for state ethics, politics, and so forth.

[Anonymous No.17407392]

>>17407328
>I said in the second post, basically anything that does not require some sort of leap of faith, generally axiomatically. It rests on one's inclination to take a presupposition as a given
Then Chalmers' is an excellent example of substantial philosophy. It offers, on a factual and rational basis, a definitive proof that physicalism is false.
>Secondly, every single belief system which utilizes reason is ultimately incoherent, so it's virtually a matter of choice as to which philosophy most suits one's inclinations.
How is that so? And again, this is skepticism, dunno why you're distancing yourself from it, even by your own definition, unless I am misunderstanding you. A subjective inclinstion is, philosophically speaking, nothing: if that's the only ground for philosophical thought, then philosophy is impossible and skepticism is true (I have already given a summarized argument against this possibility). Maybe you weren't talking about philosophical skepticism in particular? Maybe I should have used the term "relativist" instead, since it makes it clearer that I am talking about skepticism specifically concerning philosophical reasoning.
>Sure, I didn't deny that much. I consider them unwilling, and unadmitted, skeptics, which was my point. The desperate clinging to truth in the face of truthlessness, in my eyes, is the first step on the path to dogma. This ties into what the other anon said about philosophy being used as a tool for state ethics, politics, and so forth.
I guess I get your point. Still, I radically disagree due to what I've said earlier. To be more precise, I think that even to say something as relativistic as "I see as true only what is true for me" already entails lots of presupposed philosophical propositions which must be true for your interpretation to be meaningful (or even correct). For example, I guess, you probably positively presuppose some objectively true knowledge concerning the limits of our reasoning fsculties. In this sense, I think that skeptics and relativists are pretty much always unadmitted dogmatists.

[Anonymous No.17407410]

>>17407392
>It offers, on a factual and rational basis, a definitive proof that physicalism is false.
Well, that's only an example of a use of skepticism to prove something is wrong. I've already said anything and everything can be proved false on a purely rational basis. I suppose you could argue some systems are less rationally coherent than others, but that doesn't really mean much to me.
>A subjective inclinstion is, philosophically speaking, nothing
How so? Look into yourself, why do you feel the need to assert this? You have a deep belief about the nature of truth, which is that truth has to be agreeable between people. You say philosophy isn't possible subjectively; I say philosophy is only possible subjectively. I say anyone who claims their truth is valid for others is a skeptic in denial, and anyone who knows for themselves, and only for themselves, has succeeded in philosophy.
>Maybe I should have used the term "relativist" instead
Perhaps that would be a better term to denote me.

[Anonymous No.17407442]

>>17407410
>>17407392
Ignore my use of skepticism here, I made a mistake. It is just a general negative proof however, rather than a positive proof.

[Anonymous No.17407484]

>>17407410
>Well, that's only an example of a use of skepticism to prove something is wrong. I've already said anything and everything can be proved false on a purely rational basis. I suppose you could argue some systems are less rationally coherent than others, but that doesn't really mean much to me
I take most refutations to have a positive side too. If physicalism is false as a world-theory, and correct as a picture of the physical world, for example, then dualism (or pluralism) is true. Or, to use an hypothetical, if someone refutes the negation of free will, then he has also affirmed the existence of free will.
Maybe this is why I'm more optimistic than you when it comes to philosophy. I think that genuine refutations of past philosophers don't hinder the philosophical project: rather, it is genuine philosophical progress, since they must entail some positive principle that must be true, if past philosophical theories are to be truly refuted. Basically, it would take one refutation to justify the value and objectivity of philosophy.
>How so? Look into yourself, why do you feel the need to assert this? You have a deep belief about the nature of truth, which is that truth has to be agreeable between people. You say philosophy isn't possible subjectively; I say philosophy is only possible subjectively. I say anyone who claims their truth is valid for others is a skeptic in denial, and anyone who knows for themselves, and only for themselves, has succeeded in philosophy
I don't assume that my deep belief in truth cannot be grounded by something other than this deep belief. If I can justifiably ground it in something else (that is true) then this deep belief is not a mere tendency, rather it would be a natural consequence: I would have a deep belief in truth because I discovered something to be true, which is true independently of this belief of mine (and at that point I would have to be crazy not to strongly believe that something that is true is, in fact, true).

[Anonymous No.17407581]

>>17407484
>If physicalism is false as a world-theory, and correct as a picture of the physical world, for example, then dualism (or pluralism) is true.
That's not really how speculative logic or metaphysics works. For example, what if the guy who was disproved was merely poor at logic and argumentation, or used presuppositions which were particularly weak (as in, they're still presuppositions which I have already discussed, but even so they don't lend themselves to a credible argument built upon them). This means his particular system of argumentation is refuted on logical grounds, but not that another one doesn't exist which could not be refuted, or at least not so easily. I've looked into this topic a little bit, and from a purely speculative perspective, it does seem that physicalism generally lacks strong support. But still, what I've said above applies regardless.

If you're claiming he has proved physicalism false by proving a mutually exclusive positive, then the arguments I've already made before this post apply equally, because there have to be positive (affirmative) presuppositions in order to affirm the positive, which refutes the mutually exclusive claim. A positive proof cannot be built on a pure logical contradiction in the field of metaphysics, due to the nature of the subject matter (non-logical predicates must exist for metaphysical reasoning to have any meaning, so by proving one system (dualism/idealism) one necessarily introduces positive predicates which are subjectively asserted, likewise one cannot refute physicalism without certain deductions that are introduced after reasoning from physicalist assertions, and which are then "refuted" by claiming contradiction with reality, which implies a positive assertion about the subjective reality).

>I don't assume that my deep belief in truth cannot be grounded by something other than this deep belief. If I can justifiably ground it in something else (that is true) then this deep belief is not a mere tendency, rather it would be a natural consequence: I would have a deep belief in truth because I discovered something to be true, which is true independently of this belief of mine (and at that point I would have to be crazy not to strongly believe that something that is true is, in fact, true).
Maybe I don't understand exactly what you're referring to here, but the subjective element is introduced in every philosophy that has any meaning whatsoever (ie, beyond mere empirical facts).

[Anonymous No.17407629]

>>17407581
>That's not really how speculative logic or metaphysics works. For example, what if the guy who was disproved was merely poor at logic and argumentation, or used presuppositions which were particularly weak (as in, they're still presuppositions which I have already discussed, but even so they don't lend themselves to a credible argument built upon them).
That's why I talked about Chalmers' definitive refutation. Of course if what was refuted was merely a logical fallacy (so that maybe there are better formulations of physicalism that are not refuted), then I would assume that no philosophical progress has been made.
>A positive proof cannot be built on a pure logical contradiction in the field of metaphysics
This is also why I picked Chalmers as an example, since his refutation of physicalism is derived from a fact (the fact for which we have a phenomenical experience), rather than a mere logical contradiction. Physicalism is refuted insofar as it is proven to be absolutely incompatible with that fact.
I agree with you on what you say concerning building philosophies over purely logical propositions. None of the attempts at doing so I've read (one among all, Hegel) convinced me. So, I am assuming that there are certain immediate facts, from which philosophies can be built. Later on these facts could even be grounded too, by looking, if it's possible, for their conditions of possibility (so, it is a fact that we have a phenomenical consciousness, and although I do not take it to be evident, it could be the case that we could say even more about phenomenical consciousness by looking for what has to be true in order for phenomenical consciousness to take place).

[Anonymous No.17407910]

>>17407629
>the fact for which we have a phenomenical experience
I can guarantee that there are either additional synthetic presuppositions added within the concept of phenomenal experience (which, considered by itself analytically, in Kant's terms, has no relationship to matter or lack thereof, and ergo some synthetic combination is necessary according to principles), or they are added in the course of the argument. If you think otherwise, then I'm happy to view the argument if you want to post it (ideally in a refined form, but with important details left in - I will take your word that the logic is sound for the sake of this discussion).

On another note, have you seen the strongest argument by Aquinas for an unmoved mover? I have a succinct version saved, which basically required Hume's skepticism, and then Kant's follow-up philosophical reconstruction, in order to attempt to "fix" metaphysics without allowing God back into the picture. I can post it if you want it, perhaps in exchange for your anti-physicalist argument. Aquinas's fundamental presuppositions were the existence of phenomenal change (similarly simple to your phenomenal experience) and the objectivity of cause-and-effect. Many people don't seem to realize the pains that were gone through in order to refute this relatively simple argument, which culminated in Kant's transcendental aesthetic and analytic.

[Anonymous No.17408531]

>philosophy professors

Imagine going into higher education just to stay in higher education, never even advancing a field of practical significance, forever

Just one big infinite cycle of failure, standing on the shoulders of giants and thinking you're the giant