immediate effectiveness must remain foreign to all essential thinking,
It's an . . . unusual claim. Does anyone know whether another philosopher besides Heidegger ever said something similar? Reminds me of Beethoven saying that his final music was "for a later age." — J
Without agreed-upon constraints, philosophical debates become dominated by style, authority, and local jargon—each little sub-school operating as a fiefdom, each debate carried out on terms untranslatable to others. Sound familiar? has a point. It was rather neatly described elsewhere asWhen law and order break down, the result is not freedom or anarchy but the capricious tyranny of petty feuding warlords — p. 17
It captures a recurring phenomenon in both contemporary philosophy and in this forum: the appearance of rigour—complicated argument-mapping, textual scaffolding, with little real pressure placed on foundational assumptions or cross-framework intelligibility....people building drone view pyramids of arguments... — Ansiktsburk
Indeed, and this requiers agreement, convergence. This is Williamson’s minimalist prescription: no methodological revolution, just a re-commitment to being explicit. What logic are you using? What counts as evidence? What assumptions are you allowed to make? These are, in a sense, procedural constraints, shared norms that allow for adversarial argument without descending into chaos.We can reduce it by articulating and clarifying the constraints. — p.17
I agree with Leontiskos that one particularly appealing way to figure out what philosophy is, is to look at Socrates and Plato. Whatever they're trying to do, it's what we call "philosophy". — Srap Tasmaner
So I'll give a simple definition of what they were trying to do, which I hope is not controversial: philosophy is thinking well about what it is important to think about. — Srap Tasmaner
The work of philosophers lands somewhere in a space measured by these two axes. Those most concerned with the "thinking well" part tend to focus on logic and language, moving a bit along the other axis into metaphysics and epistemology. All of this together is the territory most strongly associated with academic analytic philosophy. If it's technology, it's the technology of philosophy.
Does it leave untouched important areas? Morality, politics, spirituality, art, culture? Of course. But thinking poorly about those important areas of human experience doesn't deserve the name "philosophy". — Srap Tasmaner
Indeed, and this requiers agreement, convergence. This is Williamson’s minimalist prescription: no methodological revolution, just a re-commitment to being explicit. What logic are you using? What counts as evidence? What assumptions are you allowed to make? These are, in a sense, procedural constraints, shared norms that allow for adversarial argument without descending into chaos.
Williamson isn’t pushing a single method (e.g., scientific naturalism or conceptual analysis), but calling for transparency: if you’re doing verificationist semantics or paraconsistent logic or metaphysical grounding, say so. And make it intelligible. — Banno
The systematic philosophers people continue to read generations after their passing are the ones that stand up to such scrutiny, if not quite entirely then more than enough to credit their discipline. — Srap Tasmaner
Nietzsche consistently positioned his philosophy as being ahead of his time, written for future generations who would be capable of understanding and implementing his ideas about value creation, self-overcoming, and the rejection of traditional moral systems. He saw himself as preparing the ground for future philosophers and cultural creators who would build new foundations for human flourishing. — Joshs
Willed into existence, yes, but not on some "imagined neutral playing ground", so much as by the hard graft of making oneself clear and explicit.All this assumes procedural constraints and shared norms can be willed into existence on the basis of some imagined neutral playing ground. — Joshs
Except . . . do you really believe he didn't want to be understood by his contemporaries? that, indeed, if he had been, he would have felt he hadn't done worthwhile philosophy? That doesn't sound like him, except when he's in a very bad mood.
For that matter, Heidegger did not exactly shy away from praise, or conversation with peers. — J
But is that admirable? It could also be seen as a mere dog-whistle to those who would think of themselves as part of an intellectual elite, pretending to understand words that were hollow.
Is he a radical voice ahead of his time, misunderstood because of the profundity of his insight? Or is he a clever ironist, whose appeal to future generations flatters the vanity of self-anointed "deep thinkers," regardless of the actual content? — Banno
They wanted desperately to be understood, tried every way they could to be understood, but also knew that fundamentally new ways of thinking are not commodities whose communication is guaranteed by use of the right words. — Joshs
precisely this misinterpretation of all my work (e.g., as a “philosophy of existence”) is the best and most lasting protection against the premature using up of what is essential. And it must be so, since immediate effectiveness must remain foreign to all essential thinking, and because such thinking, in its truth, must be prevented from becoming “familiar” and “understandable” to contemporaries.
who would think of themselves — Banno
elite, pretending — Banno
vanity of self-anointed "deep thinkers," — Banno
He is showing us again what is beautiful in philosophy, and what isn't. — Banno
What is philosophy for?
That's the question that will decide what you think philosophy is, and how you will do philosophy. — Banno
Still, I was trying to be more conservative and say <If someone's definition of philosophy excludes Socrates and Plato, then it is a bad definition>. — Leontiskos
I don't think "thinking well" has any need to leave untouched areas of importance. — Leontiskos
True. But surely Williamson's is proposing no such definition, is he? — Srap Tasmaner
Not "has to", no, but might. Not everyone writes about everything, or even thinks about everything. — Srap Tasmaner
But I should add that your insistence on pulling the object of the verb into your interpretation of the adverb sails right past the distinction I was trying to offer.
It's a somewhat tenuous distinction, but I think if used cautiously it could be useful. — Srap Tasmaner
So I'll give a simple definition of what they were trying to do, which I hope is not controversial: philosophy is thinking well about what it is important to think about. — Srap Tasmaner
That's not crazy and reminds me that when talking about Plato I wanted to point out that changes in technology, and especially in expertise and "know how", are well known as social factors driving the dialogues.
These experts and artisans have a new sort of authority based on their specialized knowledge. Well, what sort of knowledge is that? What kinds of specialized knowledge are there? Can you have special knowledge of wisdom? Of goodness? Etc etc — Srap Tasmaner
in much the same way that a beautiful and intelligent man will want to marry a beautiful and intelligent woman — Leontiskos
I would say that the quality of thinking will naturally correlate to the importance of the object — Leontiskos
I actually want to say that if someone thinks well about some subject, then their "thinking" can be transposed into other areas. — Leontiskos
and it seems to be a distinction Williamson believes in, so there's that. — Srap Tasmaner
Not to be "Mr Woke" but do you want to try another simile here? — Srap Tasmaner
Is this to say that the most important objects of thought are only accessible to the best thinking? — Srap Tasmaner
Maybe I get where you're headed, but maybe you have another way you could explain it. — Srap Tasmaner
(1) this is almost literally the goal with spending time on logic — Srap Tasmaner
but people who work on "logic" are actually mostly people who work on metalogic, which to me is, well, a different thing. — Srap Tasmaner
(2) The other way round is important too, maintaining exposure to other fields or at least subfields, other disciplines and pursuits entirely. — Srap Tasmaner
This is vague, but one way it cashes out would be in my claim that someone will improve their own thinking in their own particular field just by reading an excellent philosopher who is speaking to a different field, though they may not know exactly how the improvement came about. — Leontiskos
The bolded statements are kind of criticism-proof, aren't they? Reading them as a literary editor (which I am, partially, IRL) they also seem defensive and self-consoling in the face of lack of acceptance. Why couldn't he just say, "My stuff is hard. It'll take a while," instead of making it a hallmark of "essential thinking" or "genuine philosophy" or whatever — J
I think life is more important than philosophy. If philosophy cannot help us to live better, then what use can it be beyond being an interesting diversion? — Janus
The term 'help' may be ambiguous, but surely it is possible for indivduals to know what helps, and what hinders, them? — Janus
I am thinking of the male/female synergy — Leontiskos
Anyone who thinks well about one thing also thinks well about other things. — Leontiskos
Nicely put. I have no real sense what philosophy is for and as far as the average person is concerned, I think we inherit presuppositions, and even our reflections on these are based on sets of presuppositions. — Tom Storm
Not sure if that helps. To a Marxist help is going to look very different than to a Randian. I'm not convinced we all inhabit the same world, see the same things, recognise the same barriers or enablers of good practice (for want of a better term). — Tom Storm
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