Favorite Approaches and Paradigms in Philosophy

[Ren]

What's that, Pinny? Are you a paradigmatic anarchist now?

 

[Deleted member 16771]

I think that when I'm finished with the Magic Mountain (honestly not my favorite book ever, pace @Rowan Tree) I'm going to read more about Neo-Kantianism. For too long I've just been kind of thinking, "well it's kinda like Kant" but without really exploring the schools in question with that much attention. I particularly like the idea of macro-scale thinking as applied to the humanities and which seems to influence your own thinking and research quite a bit. I know that Dilthey was an important influence on Heidegger, so I've had him bookmarked for quite a while. Interestingly, I'm pretty sure Rudolf Carnap, a ferocious positivist who hated Heidegger, also initially emerged from the Neo-Kantian mold.

Do you think you were also attracted to Neo-Kantianism for the bridge it seemed to offer with other disciplines?

Well initially I happened upon them by pure chance. I'm not sure you could really 'seek them out' as such, unless you had a really broad survey-knowledge of philosophy anyway, since I think now they're pretty obscure.

I think I was reading a book about historical method about 10-11 years ago which mentioned the terms 'idiographic' and 'nomothetic' and thought, 'wtf is that?'. At the time I was a bit of a jargon collector so I investigated and came across Windelband and his Strasbourg address (I think Strasbourg? I want to say 1897), and from there I was hooked.

I'm trying to explain what attracted me to them, but it's something like their efforts to really think about knowledge-creation reflexively, somewhat in the mould of Hume I suppose. I want to call it 'practical epistemology' or something like that.

Really there is so much treasure in German philosophy in the nineteenth century that is now overlooked. Its related to hermeneutics, the emergence of new disciplines and the whole urge to taxonomise, type and classify knowledge in really rigorous ways, from foundations to practical applications. It was like a second blossoming of epistemology I think, which led to some very different ways of seeing the world (E.g. Weber's antipositivism) and, crucially, reflexive understanding of how we were seeing the world.

Related endeavours to me are:

Gestalt psychology
Modern complexity/emergence theory
Network analysis
Holism generally
Moreno's Sociometry I suppose
Various ideas of Geist (Superstructure, definitely episteme, noosphere, meme pool, field, 'downward causation' - that's Popper, paradigm, Searle's Background, &c.)

At bottom I'm interested in something like 'immaterial causal structures' and the efforts of philosophy to adequately capture them; the 'objects' we create which are entirely epistemic, and often invisible, but which nonetheless are very real.

The foundations of this, to me, are the Neo-Kantians, because it was they who really started to think on a 'civilisational scale', and to ask: 'what kinds of knowledge do we seek, and how can we come to know it?'

I'm kind of rambling, so maybe I'll have to clarify one day.

 

[wolly.green]

The title of this thread may sound like it is directed at specialists, but I would like to keep it very broad, so that everyone may contribute their insights.

I’m wondering if you guys have preferences when it comes to particular approaches, paradigms, and/or schools of philosophy, as well as associated methods. Do you lean more towards works that are very logical and technical; works that are more critical; or works that are more based on creativity and insight, at the price of possibly forgoing commitment to scientific method?

I think each approach comes with advantages and drawbacks. Logical works might be more secure about having “truth in sight”, but they might be (though by no means always) dry and not particularly thought-provoking. More literary approaches might be very well-written and inspiring, but their foundation in truth might be less obvious. Yet other approaches, like the so-called postmodern school, question the concept of truth itself.

Whether you write or read philosophy, you probably gravitate towards certain approaches and paradigms, broadly speaking. For my part, I think that in terms of method, I am particularly drawn towards existential phenomenology, in the vein of Martin Heidegger. I tend to favor philosophy that is creative and thought-provoking. I would be willing to forgive a certain degree of logical nebulosity in return for exciting new insights.

What about you, friends?

"We are students of problems, not of diciplines."
Karl Popper

I'm with Popper on this. There is no such thing as a standard method, or paradigm or school of thought. There are only philosophical problems and solutions.

 

[Deleted member 16771]

"We are students of problems, not of diciplines."
Karl Popper

I'm with Popper on this. There is no such thing as a standard method, or paradigm or school of thought. There are only philosophical problems and solutions.

The interesting thing about that quote is that needing to say it means that it isn't true, and of course I think what he's saying is that 'we ought to be students of problems, not of disciplines'.

Otherwise I don't know what you're getting at here when you say that 'there is no such thing as... school of thought'.

There obviously is such a thing, and it's probably beneficial that there is such a thing (if you mean that there 'ought' not to be schools of thought, &c.). When a new approach is discovered, it enters a period of vogue whereby its potential is explored until it's exhausted.

In the case of something like 'the linguistic turn' in the humanities, that might only be a few decades, while in the case of 'the experimental method', that's probably going to last until we figure out something incomprehensibly superior.

So, you must have an approach which you 'prefer' over the others.

 

[Pin]

What's that, Pinny? Are you a paradigmatic anarchist now?

Oh no, I firmly fall between centre-left and centre-right.

 

[wolly.green]

The interesting thing about that quote is that needing to say it means that it isn't true.

Wow, do you actually believe that? I certainly don't.

There obviously is such a thing, and it's probably beneficial that there is such a thing (if you mean that there 'ought' not to be schools of thought, &c.). When a new approach is discovered, it enters a period of vogue whereby its potential is explored until it's exhausted.

In the case of something like 'the linguistic turn' in the humanities, that might only be a few decades, while in the case of 'the experimental method', that's probably going to last until we figure out something incomprehensibly superior.

So, you must have an approach which you 'prefer' over the others.

"The belief that there is such a thing as physics, or biology, or archaeology, and that these 'studies' or 'diciplines' are distinguishable by the subject matter which they investigate, appears to me to be a residue from the time when one believed that a theory had to proceed from a definition of its own subject matter. But subject matter, or kinds of things, do not, I hold, constitute a basis for distinguishing disciplines. Disciplines are distinguished partly for historical reasons and reasons of administrative convenience, and partly because the theories which we construct to solve our problems have a tendency to grow into unified systems. But all this classification and distinction is a comparatively unimportant and superficial affair." (Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations)

I believe the same is true in Philosophy. 'Schools of thought' and 'paradigms' are superficial and unimportant. Despite the convenience of organising philosophical problems into distinct categories, there is plenty of evidence that shows these problems tend to cut across 'paradigms'. In fact, paradigms have a tendency restrict progress because their followers mistake them for universal foundations. Which is not only wrong, it is also incredibly harmful.

 

[Deleted member 16771]

Wow, do you actually believe that? I certainly don't.



"The belief that there is such a thing as physics, or biology, or archaeology, and that these 'studies' or 'diciplines' are distinguishable by the subject matter which they investigate, appears to me to be a residue from the time when one believed that a theory had to proceed from a definition of its own subject matter. But subject matter, or kinds of things, do not, I hold, constitute a basis for distinguishing disciplines. Disciplines are distinguished partly for historical reasons and reasons of administrative convenience, and partly because the theories which we construct to solve our problems have a tendency to grow into unified systems. But all this classification and distinction is a comparatively unimportant and superficial affair." (Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations)

I believe the same is true in Philosophy. 'Schools of thought' and 'paradigms' are superficial and unimportant. Despite the convenience of organising philosophical problems into distinct categories, there is plenty of evidence that shows these problems tend to cut across 'paradigms'. In fact, paradigms have a tendency restrict progress because their followers mistake them for universal foundations. Which is not only wrong, it is also incredibly harmful.

Wow, great, this is actually a really interesting disagreement.

So in essence it's about how we structure human problem solving/the quest for knowledge and the utility of dividing this into more or less arbitrary 'disciplines'.

Your position right now seems to be that the division into disciplines is at most 'incredibly harmful', and at least counter productive.

My position is that this has some utility; in fact, a critical utility.

I tend to see this problem as similar to the way most people see government bureaucracy. 'Bureaucracy' tends to be used in a negative sense, conjuring images of 'red tape', inefficiency and over structure, however it is the defining feature of civilisation, without which it wouldn't be possible. Of course, as with everything the problem is one of balance or degree rather than a simple good/bad dichotomy.

You could certainly cite historical examples from periods of great, let's say, 'epistemic advancement', where it seems that a lot of progress is made by polymathic individuals working in unstructured environments - the Renaissance, for example, or perhaps ancient Greece.

But equally you could point to periods of advancement which are characterised by increasing specialisation (and therefore technical sophistication) and a certain prevailing typology of knowledge and disciplines. This happened in the Renaissance of the twelfth century, and you coukd argue the Enlightenment, too, and of course that incredible engine of progress we have now - the 20th century.

Again, however, there is typically some interplay between both approaches - some cyclical revolution-systematisation-revolution-sytematisation dynamic pretty much how Kuhn describes to be honest.

The truth is that one cannot function properly without the other - even Popper had to make use of the advanced knowledge of a specialist neuroscientist in The Self and Its Brain. Here we see how advanced, specialised knowledge is combined with a holistic approach.

In terms of social epistemology, the measure of a society's 'knowledge systematisation' is called discourse synthesis, and we see examples where advances did not happen because of a lack of discourse synthesis, just as we see many examples of where advances did happen as a direct result of it.

The twelfth century had scholasticism with the trivium, Canon law, &c. and the resultant creation of what you might call 'the science of government'.

This was a necessary precondition for the Renaissance and its humanist specialists as well as its polymaths.

The Enlightenment had a lot of discourse synthesis - which is why it became so powerful - encapsulated in the work of the encyclopedists and the professionalisation of medicine, &c.

And as knowledge became more and more advanced - eventually reaching a point where it was just not possible for one man to have read 'every book that had ever been written', Western civilisation found that it had need of more and more systematisation and discourse synthesis.

We owe a lot to the work of German academia in the nineteenth century for the creation of many new disciplines dedicated to ever more specialist and advanced knowledge. In fact, you could say that the endless technical progress of the twentieth century is entirely due to that.

Look at what a modern physicist knows, to take one example.

And of course there is always the opportunity for interdisciplinary crossover and holistic projects - we do not exist in a system of 'non-overlapping magisteria'. Indeed, that such advanced knowledge in diverse fields can interact is the result of such processes of specialisation.

Here I think Popper was making a small point and missing the larger one (like when he said that holism was a trivial observation), as he was often want to do, being the drama queen and contrarian he was (which is why we love him).

The vast weigh of historical evidence simply bears down on the conclusion that specialisation has been incredibly fruitful; that professionalisation and the division of the Academy into distinct disciplines has been a singular and monumental innovation of the most profound benefit.

The only times this has not been the case, in fact, are the rather rare situations whereby dogmas dictate that such disciplines are not allowed to interact or overlap - the whole Gallileo thing, for example (who, by the way, was acknowledged to be right by the Church: they just asked him to keep a lid on it until they could figure out a doctrinal solution).

So that's my argument for, I suppose, 'academic bureaucracy'. The truth is that 'problems', thus far, have generally tended to break down rather easily into the disciplines we have created to solve them - and where they don't, we create more holistic disciplines for that, too, or instigate interdisciplinary projects. But ultimately, the foundation of the success of this system has been ever-increasing specialisation (up to and including, 'specuslusation in the holistic').

 

[John K]

Wow, great, this is actually a really interesting disagreement.

So in essence it's about how we structure human problem solving/the quest for knowledge and the utility of dividing this into more or less arbitrary 'disciplines'.

Your position right now seems to be that the division into disciplines is at most 'incredibly harmful', and at least counter productive.

My position is that this has some utility; in fact, a critical utility.

I tend to see this problem as similar to the way most people see government bureaucracy. 'Bureaucracy' tends to be used in a negative sense, conjuring images of 'red tape', inefficiency and over structure, however it is the defining feature of civilisation, without which it wouldn't be possible. Of course, as with everything the problem is one of balance or degree rather than a simple good/bad dichotomy.

You could certainly cite historical examples from periods of great, let's say, 'epistemic advancement', where it seems that a lot of progress is made by polymathic individuals working in unstructured environments - the Renaissance, for example, or perhaps ancient Greece.

But equally you could point to periods of advancement which are characterised by increasing specialisation (and therefore technical sophistication) and a certain prevailing typology of knowledge and disciplines. This happened in the Renaissance of the twelfth century, and you coukd argue the Enlightenment, too, and of course that incredible engine of progress we have now - the 20th century.

Again, however, there is typically some interplay between both approaches - some cyclical revolution-systematisation-revolution-sytematisation dynamic pretty much how Kuhn describes to be honest.

The truth is that one cannot function properly without the other - even Popper had to make use of the advanced knowledge of a specialist neuroscientist in The Self and Its Brain. Here we see how advanced, specialised knowledge is combined with a holistic approach.

In terms of social epistemology, the measure of a society's 'knowledge systematisation' is called discourse synthesis, and we see examples where advances did not happen because of a lack of discourse synthesis, just as we see many examples of where advances did happen as a direct result of it.

The twelfth century had scholasticism with the trivium, Canon law, &c. and the resultant creation of what you might call 'the science of government'.

This was a necessary precondition for the Renaissance and its humanist specialists as well as its polymaths.

The Enlightenment had a lot of discourse synthesis - which is why it became so powerful - encapsulated in the work of the encyclopedists and the professionalisation of medicine, &c.

And as knowledge became more and more advanced - eventually reaching a point where it was just not possible for one man to have read 'every book that had ever been written', Western civilisation found that it had need of more and more systematisation and discourse synthesis.

We owe a lot to the work of German academia in the nineteenth century for the creation of many new disciplines dedicated to ever more specialist and advanced knowledge. In fact, you could say that the endless technical progress of the twentieth century is entirely due to that.

Look at what a modern physicist knows, to take one example.

And of course there is always the opportunity for interdisciplinary crossover and holistic projects - we do not exist in a system of 'non-overlapping magisteria'. Indeed, that such advanced knowledge in diverse fields can interact is the result of such processes of specialisation.

Here I think Popper was making a small point and missing the larger one (like when he said that holism was a trivial observation), as he was often want to do, being the drama queen and contrarian he was (which is why we love him).

The vast weigh of historical evidence simply bears down on the conclusion that specialisation has been incredibly fruitful; that professionalisation and the division of the Academy into distinct disciplines has been a singular and monumental innovation of the most profound benefit.

The only times this has not been the case, in fact, are the rather rare situations whereby dogmas dictate that such disciplines are not allowed to interact or overlap - the whole Gallileo thing, for example (who, by the way, was acknowledged to be right by the Church: they just asked him to keep a lid on it until they could figure out a doctrinal solution).

So that's my argument for, I suppose, 'academic bureaucracy'. The truth is that 'problems', thus far, have generally tended to break down rather easily into the disciplines we have created to solve them - and where they don't, we create more holistic disciplines for that, too, or instigate interdisciplinary projects. But ultimately, the foundation of the success of this system has been ever-increasing specialisation (up to and including, 'specuslusation in the holistic').

I think I'm forced to see a spectrum of attitudes between each end of this line of thought, and place myself slightly towards @wolly.green 's end of it. Any process of individuation of something as abstract as science or philosophy has got to be biased by the existing knowledge and the prejudices of its creators (including messy cross-disciplinary issues like their income sources, or their feeling of high status). On the other hand, without the separation, there are no boundaries on the conceptual frameworks or the processes of learning and expoiting the content - but violence is always done in the separation that locks in the eventually out-of-date perspectives of the original individuations. You see the problem most clearly in science when cross-disciplinary opportunities are stifled by artificial disciplinary boundaries - it took a long time for biologists to accept the value of biochemistry, or the value of computing and mathematics in genetics. Or look at poor old Wegener with his theory of continental drift - laughed out of court by his contemporary geologists for 50 years, but he was right! How many profound insights are going down the pan today because of these sort of prejudices rooted in the arrogance of pride that is founded on over-attachment of individual experts to a discipline?

We obviously can't just treat all knowledge as a monolith, because it would be impossible to teach or apply - and there are great rafts of integrated thought and knowledge that cluster together within the disciplinary boundaries as we know them, with relatively limited day to day overlap into their most closely related adjacent disciplines. I guess the problem of locked in paradigm syndrome is most critical for the pioneers who are exploring on or across the edges of what is known and accepted, and for the established gurus and high priests who have responsibility for maintaining disciplinary excellence and integrity. Maybe the high priests should be put out to grass every 10 years and forcibly replaced with iconoclasts to stop the disciplinary boundaries from ossifying?

I'm not sure the problem is as severe in philosophy as in science. The relationship between the way the physical world behaves and the scientific models we use to explain and predict it is immediate and obvious. A false model crashes pretty quickly, so that does a lot of weeding, though there can be false negatives that are very damaging. With philosophy, it is much more possible for pretty conflicting views to each retain a measure of professional respectability - that suggests to me that the individuation process is less damaging because it doesn't lock things out as dramatically as with science. I think perhaps more serious in philosophy is the process of lower level individuation into sophisticated specialised vocabularies that prejudice the very thinking mechanisms that we bring to bear on the concepts.

 

[John K]

The title of this thread may sound like it is directed at specialists, but I would like to keep it very broad, so that everyone may contribute their insights.

I’m wondering if you guys have preferences when it comes to particular approaches, paradigms, and/or schools of philosophy, as well as associated methods. Do you lean more towards works that are very logical and technical; works that are more critical; or works that are more based on creativity and insight, at the price of possibly forgoing commitment to scientific method?

I think each approach comes with advantages and drawbacks. Logical works might be more secure about having “truth in sight”, but they might be (though by no means always) dry and not particularly thought-provoking. More literary approaches might be very well-written and inspiring, but their foundation in truth might be less obvious. Yet other approaches, like the so-called postmodern school, question the concept of truth itself.

Whether you write or read philosophy, you probably gravitate towards certain approaches and paradigms, broadly speaking. For my part, I think that in terms of method, I am particularly drawn towards existential phenomenology, in the vein of Martin Heidegger. I tend to favor philosophy that is creative and thought-provoking. I would be willing to forgive a certain degree of logical nebulosity in return for exciting new insights.

What about you, friends?

This is where I am -

Experience is all - the words are a means to an end, not the end in itself, and though they are great fun, they can confuse and divert as much as point the way. Experience is direct, though it can be triggered by a work of fiction or from art or from a work of scholarship as well as from external or internal perception in every day life. Second hand experience - a description of someone else's - is interesting but ultimately unsatisfying unless it becomes a shared experience. When I strip everything else away, I don't want logic, I want to see. But ....

"There is no speaking of it, nor name nor knowledge of it. Darkness and light, error and truth - it is none of these. It is beyond assertion and denial. We make assertions and denials of what is next to it, but never of it, for it is both beyond every assertion, being the perfect and unique cause of all things, and, by virtue of its preeminently simple and absolute nature, free of every limitation, beyond every limitation; it is also beyond every denial."

"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery"

​

In ordinary everyday life I find positive skepticism works for me. I explore the labyrinth of possibilities with an open mind on the whole, accepting and rejecting nothing - unless there is a breakthrough experience for me in one of the aspects. This too is experiential rather than theoretical. I love theory of course but it's just something I find in some of the more interesting aspects. Of course some of the clothes fit better than others, but that's not the same as the rare aspects that mark me with a sort of baptism. Those are more precious than life itself.

​

 

[socks]

Great thread, @Ren

I suppose for myself I prefer writers with positions that are fresh and creative myself, writers such as Bookchin, Ocalan, de Saussure, even Heidegger as you mentioned.

My problem with the critical writers is that in writing their arguments or critiques of other’s methods, they take for granted a first principle, almost axiomatically. And I guess for me there’s a difference between refuting a first principle and not even considering its existence.

I really struggled to write that last paragraph, I hope it makes sense haha.

 

[Ren]

Great thread, @Ren

I suppose for myself I prefer writers with positions that are fresh and creative myself, writers such as Bookchin, Ocalan, de Saussure, even Heidegger as you mentioned.

Thank you, socks! I appreciate it

Also very happy to hear that you consider Heidegger to be a fresh and creative writer/philosopher. I most definitely agree, and yet so many people seem to disagree... I don't understand these people! Heidegger has made me look at the world and being in a whole new way. Many of his ideas have actually left me with my jaw hanging on the floor, and that's not something that happens to me often.

My problem with the critical writers is that in writing their arguments or critiques of other’s methods, they take for granted a first principle, almost axiomatically. And I guess for me there’s a difference between refuting a first principle and not even considering its existence.

I really struggled to write that last paragraph, I hope it makes sense haha.

I'll tell you what I understood: critics make use of an implicit set of axioms they take for granted when they criticize, instead of also criticizing that set of axioms. Am I close? And if so, does that mean that you don't think it's possible to be critically "neutral", so to speak? (Just being curious, I don't mean to put you on the spot!)

 

[John K]

My problem with the critical writers is that in writing their arguments or critiques of other’s methods, they take for granted a first principle, almost axiomatically. And I guess for me there’s a difference between refuting a first principle and not even considering its existence.

I'll tell you what I understood: critics make use of an implicit set of axioms they take for granted when they criticize, instead of also criticizing that set of axioms

This is a great point. I really dislike closed-mindedness - it's exactly why I like the attitude of positive skepticism so much. People close down on ideas too quickly and if we don't give ourselves time, suspend judgement and live inside the skin of a philosophical approach (or any other complex of ideas for that matter) we can miss the whole point of it, and truncate our personal experience and understanding of the world. In particular, and strangely, we seem to live in a world where profound insight can be built on error, using it as a stepping stone to (relative) insight. Science is very much like this - Newtonian views of space and time are just plain wrong, but his mechanics is an essential foundation of the modern world's engineering capabilities and the precursor to electromagnetic theory, relativity and quantum mechanics.

 

[Ren]

This is a great point. I really dislike closed-mindedness - it's exactly why I like the attitude of positive skepticism so much. People close down on ideas too quickly and if we don't give ourselves time, suspend judgement and live inside the skin of a philosophical approach (or any other complex of ideas for that matter) we can miss the whole point of it, and truncate our personal experience and understanding of the world. In particular, and strangely, we seem to live in a world where profound insight can be built on error, using it as a stepping stone to (relative) insight. Science is very much like this - Newtonian views of space and time are just plain wrong, but his mechanics is an essential foundation of the modern world's engineering capabilities and the precursor to electromagnetic theory, relativity and quantum mechanics.

I agree about the fact that insight built on error can be a stepping stone to other very fruitful insights. Look at Hegel: he was wrong, but influenced Marx, who... was also wrong Okay, your Newtonian example was much more convincing! But there are lots of other examples, of course. The fact that error in itself, on the condition that it be recognized as such, can also cast a light on truth is truly one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring things about science. I think that philosophy can still learn a great deal from that. I think too many systems have suffered from their authors' fear of the possibility of error.

 

[John K]

I agree about the fact that insight built on error can be a stepping stone to other very fruitful insights. Look at Hegel: he was wrong, but influenced Marx, who... was also wrong Okay, your Newtonian example was much more convincing! But there are lots of other examples, of course. The fact that error in itself, on the condition that it be recognized as such, can also cast a light on truth is truly one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring things about science. I think that philosophy can still learn a great deal from that. I think too many systems have suffered from their authors' fear of the possibility of error.

Yes of course. I’m suggesting suspending judgement long enough to see where the ideas go, but there’s no point jumping down a pit with them if that’s where they lead. By their fruits and all that. And an error that leads to great insight is special - there’s going to be feedback from the insights that leads to a modification and correction of the error that leads to even greater things potentially.

 

[Ren]

There is no such thing as a standard method, or paradigm or school of thought. There are only philosophical problems and solutions.

There is no standard method, but there are lots of different methods/approaches, and you might lean towards some more than others? For instance, to speak at the very broadest level, you strike me as being of a critical temperament - and I mean this positively - prior to having either an idealistic, spiritual, mystical or insight-based temperament. This is not my case. I don't have a particularly critical temperament, though of course I have my baseline of criticality.

The vast weigh of historical evidence simply bears down on the conclusion that specialisation has been incredibly fruitful; that professionalisation and the division of the Academy into distinct disciplines has been a singular and monumental innovation of the most profound benefit.

I believe this to be fairly difficult to deny.

And of course there is always the opportunity for interdisciplinary crossover and holistic projects - we do not exist in a system of 'non-overlapping magisteria'. Indeed, that such advanced knowledge in diverse fields can interact is the result of such processes of specialisation.

You make a great point about the fact that interaction is actually facilitated by processes of specialization. This seems obvious to me, too. Disciplines are not silos, and it is actually quite rare to come across mathematicians who are "just mathematicians", philosophers who are "just philosophers", or historians who are "just historians". I think we can agree that the different disciplines are ultimately aimed at explaining different facets of the world, and that the world has definitely different facets seems to be unquestionable.

The holism that Popper defends actually holds even in our current era when we look at things macroscopically. If it didn't, we would have silos.

 

[Ren]

sophisticated specialised vocabularies

A simple rule of thumb I've adopted a while back: if a philosopher is super difficult to understand, they're very likely bogus.

If so, they belong to the school of Obscurantist Terrorism, which I don't identify with.

But let's resist the temptation towards cheap Derrida bashing.

 

[Deleted member 16771]

A simple rule of thumb I've adopted a while back: if a philosopher is super difficult to understand, they're very likely bogus.

If so, they belong to the school of Obscurantist Terrorism, which I don't identify with.

But let's resist the temptation towards cheap Derrida bashing.

Damn it, Ren! Your last paragraph ruined my comeback

On that point, there's a class of philosophers that are super easy to understand that I do enjoy reading for their grandfatherly homliness - I feel like a six-year-old being taught quantum physics with colouring books or something. John Searle is a classic example. I recall John Locke being like this, too.

 

[Ren]

Damn it, Ren! Your last paragraph ruined my comeback

On that point, there's a class of philosophers that are super easy to understand that I do enjoy reading for their grandfatherly homliness - I feel like a six-year-old being taught quantum physics with colouring books or something. John Searle is a classic example. I recall John Locke being like this, too.

Haha! Yeah, I see what you mean about the grandfatherly homeliness. I guess Roger Scruton is a bit like that, too.

 

[John K]

A simple rule of thumb I've adopted a while back: if a philosopher is super difficult to understand, they're very likely bogus.

If so, they belong to the school of Obscurantist Terrorism, which I don't identify with.

But let's resist the temptation towards cheap Derrida bashing.

There’s also the vocabulary that is so powerful and useful that it seeps into our unconscious and prejudices us without our realising it. ‘Substance’ is a good example and of course ‘introvert’ is another from the world of psychology. Just using these words in everyday language can commit us to a viewpoint that is immediately in conflict with any set of ideas that does not fit with the original sources of these words. Our resistance to those new ideas may be rational of course, but it may be that we haven’t the energy or wish to abandon or redefine vocabulary to which we have been habituated - this is not likely to be a conscious resistance but more visceral.

 

[Deleted member 16771]

There’s also the vocabulary that is so powerful and useful that it seeps into our unconscious and prejudices us without our realising it. ‘Substance’ is a good example and of course ‘introvert’ is another from the world of psychology. Just using these words in everyday language can commit us to a viewpoint that is immediately in conflict with any set of ideas that does not fit with the original sources of these words. Our resistance to those new ideas may be rational of course, but it may be that we haven’t the energy or wish to abandon or redefine vocabulary to which we have been habituated - this is not likely to be a conscious resistance but more visceral.

Well-argued.

On that point, how do we all break down on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (that language structures thought)? It was kind of discredited up to a few years ago when people like Daniel Casasanto started bringing it back.

Personally I think there is a real effect there, but I'm not sure it can be generalised as much as the original hypothesis does - I think it depends to a large degree on the individual, E.g. Whether he/she is multilingual, &c.

Curiously, @Puzzlenuzzle and I were talking about this recently, and she firmly came down on the prelinguistic side - that concepts have an existence separate from their words, and crucially, this is how she subjectively experiences thought. She is multilingual.

I am pretty much monolingual apart from some Latin learned in adulthood, and I was much more open to the idea of linguistic determinism.

My instinct is that there is a whole idiographic dimension to this based upon individual cognition, &c.

What about you guys?