I’m terrible at picking words. Can’t stand the popular notion of “debate,” internet or in person; so much uncharitable interpretation, obtuseness and deflection, and being held to a standard of angelic impeccable speech when trying to express something.
Intellectual consistency can be vastly overrated. I don’t pretend to have answers, I still have convictions that can’t be proven. I get by to a fair extent on vibes and faith—and the faith that if I continue re-examining myself, I might hope to approach truth, and might be a better person.
I'd argue that most useful non-trivial things we have figured out how to do have required thinking precisely about complex truths, language is a big part of that.
Sure of course, vibes are enough for operating decently as a human, which is all we need most of the time. But that's a very low bar, we are trying to do much harder things in science, engineering and business.
I agree that there tends to be a lot of pointless discussion on semantics in debate, which is why we tend to rely more on structured languages like maths notation or programming languages to make it practical to operate on really complex ideas. But natural language is all we have for many fields of thought, so some discipline is required to use it properly if you are trying to figure out something serious.
You made an important point though. If we want to do philosophy more seriously we reach for formal logic, at which point it becomes maths, or we do experiments, which is science. To an extent what call philosophy is the attempt to figure out complex truths using ill-defined language and no experimental verification, which is a loosing battle and quite annoying indeed.
Big fan of Agnes Callard, and ofc, Socrates. I know many people dislike philosophy because they consider it to be a form of intellectual gymnastics, but at its best it's almost spiritual activity, a concern with the whole purpose of life, a desire to not live as an unthinking automaton, impelled by instinct or social pressure. Socrates is the ultimate and prototypical embodiment of this, a refusal to take anything at its word, a man who interrogated the deepest things and pointed us to the abundant fruits of a life of inquiry.
I do think that philosophy fundamentally is intellectual gymnastics, in the sense that it is a game or an art that shouldn't be expected to have any "productive/practical/useful" output.
I also think that philosophy is an extremely valuable human activity worthy of lots of respect, likewise generally with any kind of gymnastics (sports), games or art.
Productivity is not the only reason to live for humans, and many productive people are not driven by productivity. Most scientists and engineers are much more driven by curiosity, mastery, morality or aesthetics (not just visual, but intellectual beauty and elegance). It's generally the same with most ambitious people, sure they may be superficially driven by power or money, but I think it's much more about realizing a certain aesthetic vision of who you want to be as a person.
All of these activities lead to productive outcomes as side-effects. Games are not qualitatively much different, they may just be quantitatively less efficient. And, even if it shouldn't be expected (shouldn't be the reason to do them), they do tend to have some great productive output now-and-then.
I suppose that this has a parallel cynical interpretation:
- Humans tend to be selfish, in the sense that they tend to prioritize activities that develop their ego. Well generally activities that have pleasurable outcomes, and developing one's ego tends to be pleasurable due the heuristics evolution has baked into us. I guess that those that get more pleasure out of developing their ego are called ambitious.
- Productivity is fundamentally about being selfless: doing things that are useful for others.
- These aims align to different degrees for different activities, and I suppose that they align less for things that we call games, and I think that philosophy is closer to this category than otherwise.
- The most obvious and consistent productive side-effect of games might be as entertainment for expectators. I honestly think that the main value of philosophy is that it is just engaging and entretaining to read, which is also worthy of respect. Games and philosophy also tend to have other more substantive productive outputs, but much less frequently.
I'm not a big fan of this perspective, but I do think that it is somewhat equivalent to my thoughts above.
I agree wholeheartedly. I think many readers here will be among the type to feel that philosophy is not 'practical' enough, myself included. But there is something to be said for humoring (some) philosophy from time to time, it really does engage the mind in a way you wouldn't find elsewhere.
If we set up a ladder of abstraction, going from the most practical to the most abstract discipline, I think we'll arrive to something like: Engineering -> Physics -> Math -> Philosophy
We progressively move from the How to the Why, Philosophy being the ultimate Why?
Then again, I'm but a humble engineer so why would my opinion matter :D
i like to think about how the influences flow in all directions.
for example at one time there were a bunch of weirdos arguing over some abstruse philosophical question about the fundamental nature of true logical statements, and one of them came up with the “Turing machine”.
then once it was actually built (by engineers, by way of physical and mathematical advances), it started to cause all kinds of confusion in philosophy of mind and other areas.
Absolutely. It's difficult as someone on the former end of that scale to reorient your mind short term and enjoy philosophy, I think we get grounded into practicality / do things / get results mode, and it's a great exercise to try and engage wonder / analyze / enquiry mode.
My problem with Socrates isn't that it's mental gymnastics. My problem with Socrates is that he was an anti-democratic totalitarian and that he was disingenuous and manipulative (that's literally, explicitly what sophistry is).
Defenders of Socrates are generally enamored with his reputation, retreating into appeals to authority rather than any logical or empirical defense of his ideas.
In a larger sense, my problem with philosophers is generally that they are still talking about outdated figures like Socrates. What little he got right has been refined over the last few millenia, and by continuing to obsess over him we're continuing to propagate his (numerous!) mistakes along with what little good he had to say. Philosophy is a really interesting and even important area of study, but the ideas are what matter, not the people, and the obsession with the people really holds the field back by keeping stupid ideas alive long past their expiration date.
The "Tolstoy Problem" is an interesting phenomenon that occurs to me from time to time.
Paraphrased, if I know I am close to death, maybe an hour away, and I know there's no time left to change things, how will I feel about my legacy or net outcome of my existence?
I find it a useful contemplative exercise that everyone could do from time to time, especially a few world leaders IMHO.
It's easy for one's subconscious to feed the line that, yes, I'll sort it all out tomorrow. But it's the "no time left" constraint that focuses the mind.
The review complains about exhaustive enumeration, but (sorry) sampling is required for analysis.
And the "Tolstoy" problem was expressed (better?) in Socrates' time via Ecclesiastes (~ even kingdoms turn to dust) and Silenus (~ better not to be born), the dual perils of materialism and spirituality.
So it's pretty hard to tell if a review of a book about dialogs about Socrates hasn't lost all connection to relevance, but there's good reason to believe that understanding Socrates now is relevant, and the book might help.
Philosophy is just taking responsibility for our unavoidable phenomenological fictions to avoid the delusions and violence of their blind spots and projections -- good science and good ethics. The alternative is not science or realpolitik but obliviousness (which is nevertheless often required in the practice of both).
Socrates as an ugly stonemason would have been ignored in Athenian society - not even given an ear, regardless of any wisdom.
But Socrates was a war hero. You can imagine how effective a strong, squat stonemason would be in a melee. In the midst of particularly horrible defeat and retreat, he managed to save some of the elites (and their armor/honor) by not freaking out.
Imagine how conflicted he might feel about society after seeing friends die horribly, and brutally bashing so many enemies, and then being celebrated for it.
On Socrates' return from that war, he meets the beautiful young Charmides, and they discuss the untranslatable virtue "sophrosyne". Think of it as the virtue appropriate to retreat and peace, by comparison to courage as the virtue of attack and war.
At the time the dialog was written, Charmides had grown up to become one of the democratic tyrants that destroyed Athens. It was the youth flocking to Socrates (for his critique of received wisdoms?) that led to Socrates' condemnation and death after his students grew up to ruin Athenian society.
Tech is experiencing a similar turn in the public mind, for many of the same reasons. Through careful analysis and opportunism, it effectively displaced scleric systems, but with exploitative ones beyond society's control.
There's as much value to be saved in a calm peace as to be taken in deploying every new weapon as soon as it's available. But there seem to be far fewer such leaders.
A good reminder that philosophy can be enjoyable. Shout out to Stephen West and his wonderfully dense and thought provoking Philosophize This! podcasts. The Socrates episode is number 3 and he was still working things out, but excellent nonetheless.
Socrates probably would have annoyed me too.
I’m terrible at picking words. Can’t stand the popular notion of “debate,” internet or in person; so much uncharitable interpretation, obtuseness and deflection, and being held to a standard of angelic impeccable speech when trying to express something.
Intellectual consistency can be vastly overrated. I don’t pretend to have answers, I still have convictions that can’t be proven. I get by to a fair extent on vibes and faith—and the faith that if I continue re-examining myself, I might hope to approach truth, and might be a better person.
I'd argue that most useful non-trivial things we have figured out how to do have required thinking precisely about complex truths, language is a big part of that.
Sure of course, vibes are enough for operating decently as a human, which is all we need most of the time. But that's a very low bar, we are trying to do much harder things in science, engineering and business.
I agree that there tends to be a lot of pointless discussion on semantics in debate, which is why we tend to rely more on structured languages like maths notation or programming languages to make it practical to operate on really complex ideas. But natural language is all we have for many fields of thought, so some discipline is required to use it properly if you are trying to figure out something serious.
You made an important point though. If we want to do philosophy more seriously we reach for formal logic, at which point it becomes maths, or we do experiments, which is science. To an extent what call philosophy is the attempt to figure out complex truths using ill-defined language and no experimental verification, which is a loosing battle and quite annoying indeed.
Big fan of Agnes Callard, and ofc, Socrates. I know many people dislike philosophy because they consider it to be a form of intellectual gymnastics, but at its best it's almost spiritual activity, a concern with the whole purpose of life, a desire to not live as an unthinking automaton, impelled by instinct or social pressure. Socrates is the ultimate and prototypical embodiment of this, a refusal to take anything at its word, a man who interrogated the deepest things and pointed us to the abundant fruits of a life of inquiry.
I do think that philosophy fundamentally is intellectual gymnastics, in the sense that it is a game or an art that shouldn't be expected to have any "productive/practical/useful" output.
I also think that philosophy is an extremely valuable human activity worthy of lots of respect, likewise generally with any kind of gymnastics (sports), games or art.
Productivity is not the only reason to live for humans, and many productive people are not driven by productivity. Most scientists and engineers are much more driven by curiosity, mastery, morality or aesthetics (not just visual, but intellectual beauty and elegance). It's generally the same with most ambitious people, sure they may be superficially driven by power or money, but I think it's much more about realizing a certain aesthetic vision of who you want to be as a person.
All of these activities lead to productive outcomes as side-effects. Games are not qualitatively much different, they may just be quantitatively less efficient. And, even if it shouldn't be expected (shouldn't be the reason to do them), they do tend to have some great productive output now-and-then.
I suppose that this has a parallel cynical interpretation:
- Humans tend to be selfish, in the sense that they tend to prioritize activities that develop their ego. Well generally activities that have pleasurable outcomes, and developing one's ego tends to be pleasurable due the heuristics evolution has baked into us. I guess that those that get more pleasure out of developing their ego are called ambitious.
- Productivity is fundamentally about being selfless: doing things that are useful for others.
- These aims align to different degrees for different activities, and I suppose that they align less for things that we call games, and I think that philosophy is closer to this category than otherwise.
- The most obvious and consistent productive side-effect of games might be as entertainment for expectators. I honestly think that the main value of philosophy is that it is just engaging and entretaining to read, which is also worthy of respect. Games and philosophy also tend to have other more substantive productive outputs, but much less frequently.
I'm not a big fan of this perspective, but I do think that it is somewhat equivalent to my thoughts above.
I agree wholeheartedly. I think many readers here will be among the type to feel that philosophy is not 'practical' enough, myself included. But there is something to be said for humoring (some) philosophy from time to time, it really does engage the mind in a way you wouldn't find elsewhere.
If we set up a ladder of abstraction, going from the most practical to the most abstract discipline, I think we'll arrive to something like: Engineering -> Physics -> Math -> Philosophy
We progressively move from the How to the Why, Philosophy being the ultimate Why?
Then again, I'm but a humble engineer so why would my opinion matter :D
i like to think about how the influences flow in all directions.
for example at one time there were a bunch of weirdos arguing over some abstruse philosophical question about the fundamental nature of true logical statements, and one of them came up with the “Turing machine”.
then once it was actually built (by engineers, by way of physical and mathematical advances), it started to cause all kinds of confusion in philosophy of mind and other areas.
Absolutely. It's difficult as someone on the former end of that scale to reorient your mind short term and enjoy philosophy, I think we get grounded into practicality / do things / get results mode, and it's a great exercise to try and engage wonder / analyze / enquiry mode.
My problem with Socrates isn't that it's mental gymnastics. My problem with Socrates is that he was an anti-democratic totalitarian and that he was disingenuous and manipulative (that's literally, explicitly what sophistry is).
Defenders of Socrates are generally enamored with his reputation, retreating into appeals to authority rather than any logical or empirical defense of his ideas.
In a larger sense, my problem with philosophers is generally that they are still talking about outdated figures like Socrates. What little he got right has been refined over the last few millenia, and by continuing to obsess over him we're continuing to propagate his (numerous!) mistakes along with what little good he had to say. Philosophy is a really interesting and even important area of study, but the ideas are what matter, not the people, and the obsession with the people really holds the field back by keeping stupid ideas alive long past their expiration date.
The "Tolstoy Problem" is an interesting phenomenon that occurs to me from time to time.
Paraphrased, if I know I am close to death, maybe an hour away, and I know there's no time left to change things, how will I feel about my legacy or net outcome of my existence?
I find it a useful contemplative exercise that everyone could do from time to time, especially a few world leaders IMHO.
It's easy for one's subconscious to feed the line that, yes, I'll sort it all out tomorrow. But it's the "no time left" constraint that focuses the mind.
I already know, and I hope I'm not close to death. Happiness is the net outcome of my existence. Ashes to ashes is my legacy.
This doesn't seem to work for me. I'm slightly convinced that when I'm an hour away from dying, I won't have to care about anything anymore very soon.
It just seems to make me care even less. I wouldn't be surprised if the new techno-oligarchs have similar or even worse wiring.
The review complains about exhaustive enumeration, but (sorry) sampling is required for analysis.
And the "Tolstoy" problem was expressed (better?) in Socrates' time via Ecclesiastes (~ even kingdoms turn to dust) and Silenus (~ better not to be born), the dual perils of materialism and spirituality.
So it's pretty hard to tell if a review of a book about dialogs about Socrates hasn't lost all connection to relevance, but there's good reason to believe that understanding Socrates now is relevant, and the book might help.
Philosophy is just taking responsibility for our unavoidable phenomenological fictions to avoid the delusions and violence of their blind spots and projections -- good science and good ethics. The alternative is not science or realpolitik but obliviousness (which is nevertheless often required in the practice of both).
Socrates as an ugly stonemason would have been ignored in Athenian society - not even given an ear, regardless of any wisdom.
But Socrates was a war hero. You can imagine how effective a strong, squat stonemason would be in a melee. In the midst of particularly horrible defeat and retreat, he managed to save some of the elites (and their armor/honor) by not freaking out.
Imagine how conflicted he might feel about society after seeing friends die horribly, and brutally bashing so many enemies, and then being celebrated for it.
On Socrates' return from that war, he meets the beautiful young Charmides, and they discuss the untranslatable virtue "sophrosyne". Think of it as the virtue appropriate to retreat and peace, by comparison to courage as the virtue of attack and war.
At the time the dialog was written, Charmides had grown up to become one of the democratic tyrants that destroyed Athens. It was the youth flocking to Socrates (for his critique of received wisdoms?) that led to Socrates' condemnation and death after his students grew up to ruin Athenian society.
Tech is experiencing a similar turn in the public mind, for many of the same reasons. Through careful analysis and opportunism, it effectively displaced scleric systems, but with exploitative ones beyond society's control.
There's as much value to be saved in a calm peace as to be taken in deploying every new weapon as soon as it's available. But there seem to be far fewer such leaders.
I had to do a double take, I thought this was a side project of the head of Amnesty International, but no, just similar names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnès_Callamard
> The thrust of the book is that, in the figure of Socrates, we can find a way through that Tolstoy couldn’t
It's ironic that she holds up Socrates, a man who was murdered by his own fellow citizens, as a figure who managed to "find a way through".
A good reminder that philosophy can be enjoyable. Shout out to Stephen West and his wonderfully dense and thought provoking Philosophize This! podcasts. The Socrates episode is number 3 and he was still working things out, but excellent nonetheless.
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/socrates-98cdl?rq=S...
wonder what socrates would think about dating his students - oh wait
http://web.archive.org/web/20250111022130/https://www.newyor...