Are Philosophers Qualified To Determine What Quality Content Is?
Here's a thread in response to discussion regarding who is a quality writer, what is quality content, who or what does or doesn't meet a quality standard etc...
As a rough ballpark start, quality philosophical content might be defined loosely as a marriage of skilled reasoning and articulate expression. In my reading most professional philosophers, and many amateurs too, are capable of articulate expression, so I'm going to grant them that and keep moving on to the skilled reasoning part.
Are professional philosophers capable of skilled reasoning, of philosophy? It is typically assumed that they are, but in the spirit of philosophy we might probe that assumption a bit.
So what is philosophy? There will be many definitions, and no way to settle any conflicts, so all I will attempt to do here is express my own personal preference. I like a definition of philosophy such as...
Philosophy: The application of disciplined thought to the advancement of human welfare.
I'm sure this definition can and will be debated, which is entirely appropriate, but in the expression of my own answer to the thread question this is the definition I will be using.
And so I might rephrase the question of this thread as, are philosophers capable of applying disciplined thought to the advancement of human welfare? And I will argue that to a very significant degree, they are not.
Here's a thought experiment to illustrate my claim.
Imagine that I show up for the philosophy club meeting at your house with a loaded gun in my mouth. You're naturally concerned about this and try to talk to me about the gun. But I roll my eyes at your "hysteria", dismiss your concerns, and keep changing the subject to traditional philosophy topics.
So as I sit there on your couch with the loaded gun in my mouth, only one small mistake away from self annihilation, how would you evaluate my ability to apply disciplined thought to the advancement of human welfare? Would you take anything I have to say seriously, or would you be quietly dialing 911 so that the funny farm people would come and take me away?
My argument is that this is pretty much exactly the situation professional philosophers are in. And so I'm questioning whether they, or lesser educated amateur philosophers, are really in a position to determine what quality content is.
I'm guessing some of you will know where this is going, so I will leave the popping of the suspense bubble to you. :-) If you can't figure it out, I will continue...
As a rough ballpark start, quality philosophical content might be defined loosely as a marriage of skilled reasoning and articulate expression. In my reading most professional philosophers, and many amateurs too, are capable of articulate expression, so I'm going to grant them that and keep moving on to the skilled reasoning part.
Are professional philosophers capable of skilled reasoning, of philosophy? It is typically assumed that they are, but in the spirit of philosophy we might probe that assumption a bit.
So what is philosophy? There will be many definitions, and no way to settle any conflicts, so all I will attempt to do here is express my own personal preference. I like a definition of philosophy such as...
Philosophy: The application of disciplined thought to the advancement of human welfare.
I'm sure this definition can and will be debated, which is entirely appropriate, but in the expression of my own answer to the thread question this is the definition I will be using.
And so I might rephrase the question of this thread as, are philosophers capable of applying disciplined thought to the advancement of human welfare? And I will argue that to a very significant degree, they are not.
Here's a thought experiment to illustrate my claim.
Imagine that I show up for the philosophy club meeting at your house with a loaded gun in my mouth. You're naturally concerned about this and try to talk to me about the gun. But I roll my eyes at your "hysteria", dismiss your concerns, and keep changing the subject to traditional philosophy topics.
So as I sit there on your couch with the loaded gun in my mouth, only one small mistake away from self annihilation, how would you evaluate my ability to apply disciplined thought to the advancement of human welfare? Would you take anything I have to say seriously, or would you be quietly dialing 911 so that the funny farm people would come and take me away?
My argument is that this is pretty much exactly the situation professional philosophers are in. And so I'm questioning whether they, or lesser educated amateur philosophers, are really in a position to determine what quality content is.
I'm guessing some of you will know where this is going, so I will leave the popping of the suspense bubble to you. :-) If you can't figure it out, I will continue...
Comments (46)
I'm genuinely interested to see if anyone here can paraphrase your position correctly.
Could you elaborate a little on your reasoning towards the end? I’m not sure what I should be picking up from the scenario with the gun, and what bearing it has on whether philosophers are well equipped to judge quality content.
It can’t be that the scenario is a counter example to advancement of human welfare, since we could exchange the philosopher with some other person we’d grant as sharing this goal, like an oncologist, maybe a philanthropist, or whatever fits your idea of someone advancing human welfare. None of these people would be better equipped to resolve the situation, but it doesn’t seem like that’s grounds to say that oncology and philanthropy are bad at advancing human welfare.
I apologize for being somewhat mysterious. I'm attempting, however ineptly, to lure readers in to thinking this through for themselves to some degree. And perhaps a little puzzle will make this more entertaining? Not sure, we'll see how this goes.
To address your question, let's try editing the scenario a bit. Let's imagine that you show up for the philosophy club meeting with a gun in your mouth, and the rest of us barely notice and make little to no comment because we want to get on to the topic of the evening, Aristotle's views on something or another. How might a fly on the wall evaluate our ability to do philosophy, if that is defined as the application of disciplined thought to the advancement of human welfare?
BTW, I do grant that nobody including me owns the definition of philosophy. So if someone were to define philosophy as the articulate expression of arcane abstractions which few people are interested in, :-) then I would have to come to a very different evaluation of professional philosophers. I do agree that how one evaluates the professional philosopher's ability to do philosophy depends a great deal on how one defines philosophy.
Back to your question, my claim is that professional philosopher's literally have a gun in their mouth which, generally speaking, they aren't rational enough to focus on. And thus, upon that conclusion, I further reason that they therefore wouldn't be qualified to determine what quality philosophy is, because by my definition, they aren't really doing that themselves.
I think I'd try and turn the gun into a research program, rather than try and persuade you to take it out of your mouth.
Ok, we might research why I have the gun in my mouth, and why my fellow philosophers generally don't wish to discuss the gun, and what such a lack of interest might say about one's ability to reason, and therefore evaluate quality content.
BTW, in case anyone is wondering, I don't own a gun. Just aiming for a colorful hypothetical, nothing more.
I'm still a bit confused how you could contribute to the discussion with a gun in your mouth. It'd make your words a bit muffled, no?
Syllogism = th-ho-gh-thm. Symbolism=th-bo-gh-thm.
They really do sound much the same with a something filling your mouth!
Thanks for the thoughtful (and quick!) response.
Yea I recognize that the definition you gave is, let’s say, controversial – I wouldn’t use it to describe my goals when doing philosophy.
However, even granted that definition I think there are issues. Human welfare is a multifaceted thing, and what I was hoping to illustrate when replacing the philosopher with an oncologist was that different people can work at different ends of it. I think that this is very relevant because it seems that, in order for us to swallow this definition of philosophy, we need to grant that human welfare is enhanced by abstract work like theories of truth/meaning/good et cetera (what else would motivate this conception of philosophy?) And if this holds, it’s not obvious why it’s irrational for philosophers to focus on the subject matter of their discipline over other things.
To really secure your argument you’d do well to show that your critique of philosophers don’t end up applying to all people as well, since if it does the conclusion that philosophers are somehow less capable of evaluating quality falls flat.
To make matters worse, my mouth is so big I could probably fit 7 guns in there. :-)
Fortunately I don't have a gun, I just put my fist in my mouth. The empirical method at its finest.
I moved this thread to the Lounge btw.
Yes, it's my definition, not "the" definition, agreed.
Yes, human welfare can be enhanced through abstract theories as you suggest, but in order for the value to be extracted don't the theories have to be somehow translated in to practical action? So to edit the scenario again.....
If I have a sophisticated theory about death from which it follows that suicide is a mistake, but I am so focused on articulating my theory that I ignore the gun in your mouth which is in plain view, do I even believe my own theory? Am I rational?
If a meeting of philosophers were focused on the subject matter of their discipline, and the building caught on fire, and they failed to leave the building, are they rational?
Myself, I prefer my foot. It's bigger, and fills the cavity in a more efficient manner. Very rational!
I can't deduce the distinction between the two (fists, feet). So perhaps they're the same thing.
Professional philosophers, amateurs too, seem quite close to being completely uninterested in nuclear weapons, which as you know stand ready to erase modern civilization without warning in just a few minutes. The gun in the philosopher's mouth, which they almost always find too boring to discuss.
My argument is that any intellectual elite who can't or won't focus on an imminent existential threat to the entire civilization is not qualified to make credible determinations about quality philosophy content.
The exception would be that if we define philosophy as having nothing to do with human beings and life in general.
I'm aiming this charge primarily at intellectual elites, and particularly professional philosophers, as it would seem to be their job to focus on big picture topics.
For the average man and woman in the street, I could agree that their primary responsibility is to their children. So if they're working around the clock so they can get their kids in to college, and thus don't have the time or energy for such a large topic, ok, I can see the rational basis for that.
I don't see the argument for why ignoring nuclear weapons is evidence of a professional level understanding of reason.
Do you have the same intuition in this scenario?
“If I believe that high-cholesterol food is bad, but I’m so focused on articulating this that I ignore you eating a greasy burger, do I even believe it?”
Of course this scenario differs in one important respect, even if you eat the burger I can convince you to not do so going forward, and while you are unlikely to shoot yourself again, the ill is already done. Perhaps we can fix that with the following:
“If I believe that removing your pinky is bad, but I’m so focused on articulating this that I ignore you chopping off your pinky, do I even believe it?”
Again, there’s not, to me, an obvious contradiction in granting the belief – I might think it’s a bad thing to do, but I have additional beliefs about personal responsibility/agency/etiquette or whatever else might come between my belief and my preventing you from removing your pinky. I don’t share your intuition about rationality and normativity in either of the gun scenarios. Could you develop, in some detail, what you take rationality to be and why?
I don’t think that this changes when we move the question to existential threats. Is it irrational for the oncologist to focus on treating his patients instead of solving the control problem in AI, or any other large-scale existential threats? Philosophers work with theory, sometimes it ends up being useful, and sometimes not – whether it’s irrational, I think, depends on their reasoning for working on this over that; perhaps they think that it’s being solved by others; perhaps they think that it’s unsolvable; perhaps they think that their engagement will make it less likely to be solved; perhaps they’re hard-nosed anti-natalists; perhaps they don’t think there’s a genuine risk; perhaps they think that something like the right theory of truth will help – there’s any number of possibilities, and to accuse them of irrationality without a comprehensive address of those is premature.
Philosophy pros are irrational because they don’t focus enough on existential threats.
Quoting praxis
Quoting Judaka
I thought it was about the pragmatic distinction between theory and praxis rather than the theoretical one. You know, doing relevant things vs theorising about what things are relevant to do.
According to Hippyhead, philosophy is "the application of disciplined thought to the advancement of human welfare," so that kinda-sorta answers what things are relevant to do and if philosophy pros were to theorize about such things it would kinda-sorta be an indication of irrationality.
Quoting Hippyhead
It's rational to work around the clock to fund your children's education, with a gun in your mouth?
Good question, thanks. The definition of philosophy which I offered above is perhaps a good place to start. "The application of disciplined thought to the advancement of human welfare."
Disciplined thought which has no bearing on human welfare could be labeled rational in the absence of any compelling threat to human welfare. But if the philosophy club meeting hall catches on fire during the meeting, ignoring the fire so as to continue an abstract discussion doesn't seem rational, to me. I doubt it would seem rational to most people.
This point of view is admittedly based on the premise that the purpose of rational thought is to serve the thinkers in some manner. I agree this is an opinion and not a law of nature.
To the degree this principle is ignored it seems we'll see support for professional academic philosophy drying up, because those funding such departments would like to feel they are receiving something in return for their investment. It is often argued that the purpose of such departments is to teach young people how to think, which is indeed a noble cause. But if the teachers can not sustain an interest in a key existential threat to the entire civilization, are they qualified to be teaching young people how to think? That is, are they qualified to pass judgment on quality philosophy content?
If your house catches on fire while you're writing your next philosophy post, which would be more rational? Continuing to write? Or dealing with the fire? I don't see why we need a comprehensive review when common sense seems sufficient.
This thread was inspired by discussion among the mods in the banning thread regarding which posters were producing low quality content. I'm happy to leave that discussion and decisions to the mods. Not my job, not the point of this thread.
I'm not a mod, but a poster, and my job is to make a good faith effort to contribute content which is worth a reader's time. And so in that role I'm attempting to elevate a local management discussion on to a larger stage by evaluating the ability of the philosophy world as a whole to determine what quality content is.
Perhaps it's helpful to add that it's entirely possible to discuss nuclear weapons in a manner which would be familiar to philosophers. Nuclear weapons arise out of our relationship with knowledge, surely a suitable topic for philosophers, right?
Yes, that's normal behavior here which I've come to expect and accept. No problem, your forum, your rules.
Wouldn’t ethics be most suitable?
I don't understand your question, can you elaborate a bit?
A suitable topic for philosophers to discuss in regards to nuclear weapons.
I don't object to an ethical conversation, but I wasn't that inclined to head in a moralistic direction. I was more interested in the question of whether philosophers have the ability to think rationally, as I defined that above.
That said, I welcome an approach to the topic from any direction.
Nice attempt, don't feel bad, I said what I said because I don't think anyone had a chance.
First, a thank you to the mods for hiding this thread in the Lounge, thus providing a real world example of my thesis. We continue now with the regularly scheduled programming....
Is it true that, generally speaking, philosophers are largely unable to make a distinction between that which is important, and that which is merely interesting?
How do we determine what is important? Do we accept the well being of the human race as a reasonable standard? The greatest good for the greatest number? Is there some standard unrelated to human beings which we should consider?
If we feel that the potential near instant destruction of everything built over the last 1,000 years is important, who do we expect to speak to that?
Politicians? Well, politicians are typically followers and not leaders. We can be cynical about this, but it isn't such a bad thing really when you consider that we hire politicians to represent our views.
The People? Well, the people are asleep on this subject, and for some pretty understandable reasons. There is a seemingly endless list of problems which generate actual real world victims every single day, and nuclear weapons haven't been used since before almost all of us were born. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Scientists? Well, I used to think this, but then I (finally) realized that scientists are like highly educated car mechanics. We hire them for a specific mechanical job, developing knowledge, and they do the job we're paying them for very well. And, scientists created nuclear weapons in response to instruction from the politicians, so that's where they will point should we raise this subject.
The Media? Well, the media is not a public service, but a business. Their business model is the use of drama to build audience, and thus ad sales revenues. They will show us the Twin Towers falling down 34 billion times because that's dramatic footage which serves their business model. Where is the dramatic footage or story about nuclear weapons? Where is the news?
And so we arrive at philosophers. Why them?
Because the real threat to humanity arises less from nuclear weapons specifically, and more from our relationship with knowledge in general. As example, if we could push a button and immediately get rid of all nuclear weapons, that would be great, but um...
The knowledge explosion would still continue to generate ever more powerful tools at an ever faster pace and such tools will inevitably fall in to the hands of those who are evil, stupid, or perhaps just unlucky. Once this is seen it becomes apparent that the threat to humanity is not really a technical issue so much as it is a philosophical one.
What is our relationship with knowledge? What should it be?
If we ignore all this by say, hiding threads like this in the Lounge :-) and then by default pass the giant ticking time bomb on to our children as their inheritance, can we be said to be rational?
I think your confusion centers around the blurry vision you seem to have between morality and rationality, generally speaking.
Other than that, I don’t see why you hesitate to inform us what our relationship with knowledge should be. I can’t speak for anyone else but I for one am fully prepared to have my mind blown.
I didn't bring up the subject of morality, and was attempting to side step it, as such directions often lead to unproductive conflicts. But, I'm agreeable to discuss morality if that is what interests you. If you lead such a discussion I will join.
If you merely snark, I will ignore. Yes, this thread in now in the lounge, but I didn't put it here.
As discussed above, it really does depend on what one's definition of philosophy is.
If one believes that the purpose of philosophy is to serve human beings, then philosophical activity which almost entirely ignores what is arguably one of the most dangerous threats to human beings is fairly labeled not very rational.
If on the other hand one believes that philosophy has some purpose other than service to human beings, then philosophical activity would have to be measured against how well it is serving that purpose.
You have a prescription for what our relationship with knowledge should be. What is that and why do you believe it would be efficacious in preventing a nuclear holocaust or other man-made existential threat?
Quoting Hippyhead
I'd say that philosophical activity generally promotes wisdom and that's how it is "service to human beings." Not sure how evidence could be gathered to support this belief.
This is an understandable statement given what you know about me, but to be more precise I have a vision of what our relationship with knowledge should not be, that is, simplistic and childlike. That part is pretty easy, so even I can see and say it.
What our relationship with knowledge should be is rather more difficult. Which is presumably why we have professional philosophers. I would like them to play this role, I would like them to be far more qualified to address this all important subject than I am, but I fear that may not be the case. And I have that fear because I don't see them addressing a very easily understood, easily shared, dramatically dangerous example of where a simplistic and childlike relationship with knowledge can take us.
Quoting praxis
I'd say that philosophical activity attempts to promote wisdom. I don't doubt that it succeeds in some cases, but when leading practitioners of the art can't seem to focus on a double barrel shotgun aimed right at their face, it seems reasonable to question at least the profession, and perhaps the medium itself.
Anyway, my prescription for our relationship with knowledge is that our best minds should be laser focused on it in a hurry, or they should at the least admit they can't, and find other jobs.
If you'd like to share any thoughts you have on this subject, please do. I'm only dominating the microphone because I can't find many others to share it. If you are a mod (sorry, can't remember) and would like to help to fix that, I would welcome the assistance.
Right, so what's there to philosophize about?
If I understand you correctly, you essentially believe that 'knowledge' is dangerous. If that's your belief then the most straightforward action to take is knowledge regulation, similar in principle to the regulation of firearms or nuclear weapons.
Campaigning for knowledge regulation may not be the best career move for an aspiring philosopher, or the best use of their time.
I don't understand your question here. Expand a bit?
Quoting praxis
It's more complicated than that. Knowledge is also very beneficial. If it was just dangerous it would be far easier to manage. What I see as dangerous is a simplistic "more is better" relationship with knowledge. That was a rational paradigm for a very long time, but it has been made outdated in our time by an ever accelerating knowledge explosion.
Food is beneficial. Food is essential. But eating as much as one can as fast as one can is not.
Quoting praxis
I was a nuclear weapons activist for awhile, but I let it go when I came to the realization that nothing meaningful is going to happen on that front until after the next detonation. Reason is simply not enough, pain is going to be necessary. That's probably true for our relationship with knowledge more generally as well.
Knowledge regulation seems a logical direction to head, but there is very little interest currently, and plenty of out right opposition. It's worse than that really, most people don't take the threat seriously enough to bother to object to any proposed solution.
So writing on this subject may be pointless. Posting on this forum certainly is. But, that's all I know how to do, so... At least when I'm writing I can enjoy the illusion of doing something constructive.
At this point, I think a glass of wine is in order. :-) On to that! See ya tomorrow.
You wrote:
This is quite simple and straightforward, as you've said, so what use is a philosophy pro in this or a similar case?
Enjoy!
Perhaps a "professional philosopher" would comment on this. Heloooo out there . . . do any such members exist? Please speak up. :meh:
Well, such pros, and we amateurs too, could perhaps turn our attention to questions like...
- Is it true that a "more is better" relationship with knowledge is outdated and dangerous?
- What does our general lack of interest in nuclear weapons tell us about our relationship with the generations of our ancestors who built the civilization we enjoy, our descendants who might enjoy it as we do, and each other?
- Is it possible to manage the pace at which knowledge is generated by human beings?
- If not, what is the most likely outcome of human beings acquiring ever more power at an ever faster pace?
And so on.
To answer your question another way...
Philosophy pros can lend their cultural authority, such as it is, to a process of elevating such discussions to a level where ever more people will pay attention to them.
Which reminds me, I have a question for you too.
Whatta I gotta do to break this thread out of Lounge jail? :-)
That would be great, good suggestion. Do we even know if there are any working or retired academics on the forum, and who they might be?
I've attempted to get this conversation going on quite a few philosophy and science blogs and forums, and not much has come of it. Brief summary, the more credentials someone has it seems the less likely they are to engage this topic.
Example, I spent months every day on a leading academic philosophy group blog which has been publishing multiple articles a week from their members (mostly PhDs, and some undergrads) for years. Last time I checked, they had a single page about nuclear weapons, and that existed only because the exasperated editor published it to shut me up. Nice people, with no clue, imho.
However, I don't claim to be well read, and I would sincerely like to be wrong about this. If there is a secret club of philosophy academics somewhere who has been working on this issue for years, happy to learn about it.
The "more is better" relationship with knowledge has been working great for at least hundreds of years, and continues to deliver more glorious benefits than our ancestors could have even imagined. This is what we're up against should we wish to point to the dangers inherit in such a relationship.
If you’re as serious as you claim to be I suggest that you start a new topic, arguing that the “more is better" relationship with knowledge is outdated and dangerous. That would be a good place to start, I think, and if done well could generate a good amount of interest. By done well I mean constructing an OP following a guideline such as this:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7110/how-to-write-an-op
Been there, done that already.
And, I'm doing it again, right here, right now. If you want more, move the thread. If you want less, do nothing. I'm agreeable either way.
In fact, you are not, and this significantly relates to the issue that you've brought up in this topic. I believe that any of the current moderators (I'm not a moderator, by the way) could write a strong OP argument that is consistent with the guidelines that I've pointed out. It appears that you could not, and your failure to produce one SCREAMS the point that their tossing your topic to the lounge dustbin in entirely justified.
Yes, I know that, which is why I brought it up. You're trying to lecture me, when I've already demonstrated that my understanding of these particular issues exceeds yours by a wide margin. But, you at least tried to participate, so thanks for that much.
Quoting praxis
My apologies, I could have sworn that just yesterday I read something that indicated that you are a mod, or perhaps were. In any case, thanks for setting the record straight.
Quoting praxis
Honestly, what a total load of complete nonsense. You've contributed very little to this thread, and now you want to lecture me as if you know the subject well enough to be my teacher. If you and the mods are such geniuses, where are YOUR threads on these all important subjects? They don't exist.
Never mind. Thanks for playing, and let's just forget this thread, complete waste of time.
There are several issues that you're trying to juggle, but the heart of it seems to be about forum moderation. The only practical way to deal with that is to raise the level of your contributions. You can whine, moan, and rationalize til the cows come home but it won't help.
There's also the fact that you've been deliberately obfuscating from the start. Your OP concludes with the following.
Quoting Hippyhead
Silly, and yet you claim to be serious. I honestly can't tell if you're goofing or serious.