Philosophical Cartography

Streetlight

This is an oblique response/reaction to @Csalisbury's thread on 'Stating the Truth’, though the rough idea is one I’ve been entertaining for a while so I’d thought I’d give it some space of it’s own.

One way of approaching philosophy which has been resonating with me for some time now is as a cartography - the art of map making. There are a few caveats to this, but the main import is to distinguish philosophical cartography from philosophical systematizing. If systems are static, self-relating Wholes, which each part playing a role in a larger, overarching program, cartography is both far looser, and in some sense, a lot more precise than system-building. For one, maps can be maps of all sorts of different things: terrain, air pressure, vegetation density, and so on. None of these maps are more true than the other, and maps are useful to the extent that they are used for some purpose or another. There’s a comment from Raymond Geuss on Nietzsche’s perspectivism which captures this nicely:

"The Nietzschean perspectivist holds that human beliefs are like maps. There may be different maps of a given area: Ordnance Survey-style maps that mark topographical features like elevation through the use of contour lines, maps that specifically mark the birthplaces of literary figures, maps that show differences in population density, income, rates of unemployment or diabetes, by using a colour code. There is nothing to prevent the perspectivist from claiming that some of these maps are definitely better than others. If I am tracking the incidence of goitre, a map that marks occurrences of the condition is much better than one that does not, regardless of how complete and exact it is in other respects. Equally, however, a map that locates Aberdeen north of Edinburgh is (other things being equal) ‘better than’ one that places it south of York, although it is also the case that if I am really intending to use the map only to orient myself in East Anglia this will not matter much to me”. (Geuss, Systems, Values, and Egalitarianism)

But aside from this, maps have the advantage of being tailored, of necessity, to local conditions: features on some terrain may simply not exist in other areas; that you have drawn an excellent map of the tundra - or series of maps - will not guarantee that you will have drawn an excellent map of the Amazon: each has distinguishing features that may require entirely new methodologies, entirely different tools, and even new vocabularies. What is significant in one area will not be of significance in another. In a book that’s become quite important to me recently, Anne Sauvagnargues argues for an approach to reading philosophy she calls ‘cartographic reading’, readings which attend to the specificities of philosophical problems as they arise, and which are not likely to converge into a neatly homogenous ‘system’:

"A system must be defined by its challenges, impacts, appropriations, and external contacts, as well as its variations, wandering lines, speeds, and paces that are not at all homogeneous. Texts are freed from such determinations and gravitate toward concrete problems and textual references that they put into play. Sticking to a static conception of a system would end up eliminating the becomings of thought for the sake of teleology in the work; observing the kinetic transformation of concepts does not result in historical disintegration, but is interested in paths and discloses the concepts’ movements… Thus, it is necessary to move from a static, abstract concept of a system, which ignores chronology and contextualization, to a dynamic concept of a system whose problems map their successive variations.” (Sauvagnargues, Deleuze and Art).

One important thing that Sauvagnargues does is not to discard ‘system’ altogether, but to attempt to think systematicity in a different way, as something that may not always be entirely coherent, and with parts which may not be at all commensurate with each other on a drawn-out scale. And again, what interests me is that this makes the ‘system’ in question more and not less robust: it makes it responsive to local conditions, it puts a premium being a 'better fit’ to whatever problem is at hand, than it does on making sure each and every part fits in nicely with the other. Yet - maps do not admit of absolutes. So: to think philosophy as a question of cartography, and not systematisation; this I think can be fruitful.

Pseudonym

None of these maps are more true than the other, and maps are useful to the extent that they are used for some purpose or another. — StreetlightX

So, as with other vaguely relativist meta-philosophies I fail to see how this integrates with any form of judgement. If a philosophical investigation can be considered a kind of map, no more true than any other and no less valuable than its specific utility, then how does one go about judging such an investigation? How could a professor say of his student's thesis anything other than "Well, it's not of any terrain I recognise, and it has no utility to me", which is hardly the level of critique philosophy aspires to.

Also, how would this approach apply to meta-philosophy itself. The phrasing in the section you quote does not sound very "none of these maps are more true than the other" with regards to meta-philosophy. "A system must be defined by...", "it is necessary to move from a static, abstract concept of a system...". These do not sound like maps of meta-philosophy which are no more true than other maps, they sound like absolute edicts about what must be, what is necessary.

If philosophical investigations are themselves maps no more true than any other, then what is it about the investigation of philosophy itself which places it apart from such relativism into the camp of things which 'must be' a certain way?

Streetlight

How could a professor say of his student's thesis anything other than "Well, it's not of any terrain I recognise, and it has no utility to me", — Pseudonym

This seems a silly question and symptomatic of your post in general. Any good thesis clearly and convincingly sets out the stakes upon which it turns; that they may not be stakes that you - or anyone else in particular - are interested in is, of course, entirely irrelevant. Is this something that really needs to be explained to you?

These do not sound like maps of meta-philosophy which are no more true than other maps, they sound like absolute edicts about what must be, what is necessary. — Pseudonym

This, in turn, trades on a simplified and unreflective opposition placed between necessity and the dynamism of cartographic practice. Any cartographer knows that map making is driven - absolutely - by the necessities of what is being mapped, along with what is aimed at by such mapping. Yet this does not imply, in the slightest, that a topographic map is somehow more true than a pressure gradient map. Even the most basic understanding of necessity recognizes that it can operate at varying levels of generality that leaves plenty of room for creativity and pragmatics - which in turn operate according to constraints appropriate to their own orders. It's very tiring to hear you bang your relativist drum over and over - your failure to think beyond first year distinctions is no one's problem but your own.

Number2018

↪Pseudonym

I fail to see how this integrates with any form of judgement. If a philosophical investigation can be considered a kind of map, no more true than any other and no less valuable than its specific utility, then how does one go about judging such an investigation? — Pseudonym

One's judgment related to this project cannot be separated from one's movement generated by a creation of the new cartography, and this movement is similar to autopoietic
self-establishment of aesthetic becoming.

fdrake

Perhaps this kind of thing is suggestive.

Sensory and motor homunculi.
The Wound Man
91AXNm1hrwL._SL1500_.jpg

The first pair of images are sensory and motor homunculi. They take an anatomically correctly proportioned human body then scale the body parts to the proportion of sensory/motor brain functionality devoted to that body part. You can see that there are a lot of similarities between them, but there are some differences. For example, the sensory (left) and motor (right) homunculi both have giant hands; lots of brain effort is concerned with hand movement and the sense of touch in the hands, but the legs on the motor homunculus are quite a lot thinner than those on the sensory homunculus. In terms of bodily movements, this corresponds to the comparatively more constrained movements afforded to the human legs than to the human hands.

You can also use each homunculus in turn, the sensory capabilities of the hands facilitate greater tactile location sensitivity than those on the legs. If you want to see this yourself, close your eyes and touch your knuckle with one finger, then touch just below the knuckle on either side. It's very easy to tell on which side of the knuckle the touch occurred. Close your eyes and try the same thing on the front of a quadricep on the legs, take roughly the same distance and compare the sensations; it's a lot harder to discern the relative locations of the touch points on the quadricep than on the hand.

The motor homunculus has similar comparative information; hand movements are a lot more versatile and need to be more precise than leg movements, and this is shown by how big the hands are.

You can also take both homunculi and see that the sizes of the body parts in both of them are strongly correlated; which is suggestive of the fact that sensory processing and the possible variations in movement and the required precision in movement go hand in hand. A hand needs to discriminate on at least a centimetre scale for most tasks, a leg doesn't have to for its usual load bearing and walking.

These maps have different functions again to the archetypical 'wound man', which is a labelled roughly anatomically correct catalogue of wounds and surgical interventions for them. Which differ again from the muscular and skeletal structures.

None of these are 'more correct' than any other, and they provide a different lens with which to view the objective features of a human body.

Streetlight

↪fdrake

Yeah, anatomical maps are particularly apropos because they are largely for the sake of medical interventions: the point isn't really to create the most adequate map of the human body - as if some hobbyist's completionist project - but rather to draw attention to features that would serve in the diagnosis, treatment and care of this and that disease, of this and that health problem. And such maps may require elements of massive exaggeration - in the case of the blown out proportions of the homunculi - or else efforts at stripping away and paring down, as with the skeletal system.

I was once at a talk by an anatomist who lamented the fact that we are not thought, in general, about just how variable the human body can be on in the inside: that the standard representations of skeletons hide massive differences in even very small groups of people (she pointed out a simple example where about half the room had particular bumps on their wrists, and others not; this, she said, barely scratched the surface of those differences just in that room itself). So one can imagine the variability in maps as well, each of which may need to be tailored to particular bodies, each with their own particular problems.

And contrary to the intellectually stunted who would see this as a mere relativism ('relative', one imagines, to some abstract ideal that in fact exists nowhere in reality), it would instead demand that one pay closer attention to things, that one hews more closely to the facts as they present themselves to our attention.

One thing the cartographic emphasis somewhat doesn't capture though, is the historicity of philosophical analysis. Unlike terrain or bodies, the formations of which are relatively stable in the medium term, the terrain of philosophy - that is, sense - mutates at far faster paces. The problems which call for analysis change far faster than the usual objects of maps.

Pseudonym

Any good thesis clearly and convincingly sets out the stakes upon which it turns; that they may not be stakes that you - or anyone else in particular - are interested in is, of course, entirely irrelevant. Is this something that really needs to be explained to you? — StreetlightX

I wasn't talking about 'interest' I was referring to the claim that they are useful insofar as they are used for some purpose or other. We're not talking about theses about how to build bridges here, where the purpose is well-established. A prospective engineering student could make no reasonable claim on producing a failed bridge design that he 'intended' it to fall down all along. The purpose to which his thesis is to be put is obviously to carry traffic. No such purpose exists for philosophical investigations and as such if any map is useful to the extent that it is put to some purpose, then it's utility cannot be external judged can it?

Any cartographer knows that map making is driven - absolutely - by the necessities of what is being mapped, along with what is aimed at by such mapping. — StreetlightX

I'm questioning the applicability of the cartographic metaphor, so your claim that it is obvious to any cartographer that Map-making is constrained by some necessities is irrelevant. You haven't demonstrated how philosophy is similarly constrained by a similar set of necessities. That is what I'm disputing.

Even the most basic understanding of necessity recognizes that it can operate at varying levels of generality that leaves plenty of room for creativity and pragmatics - which in turn operate according to constraints appropriate to their own orders. — StreetlightX

The fact that necessities exist at different levels of any hierarchy does not constitute a proof that the necessities within a proposition exist at the level of heirachy claimed, only that they could. You've yet to provide any justification for the claim that philosophical investigation is constrained by some particular set of necessities sufficiently well-known to yield universal judgement. Arguing only that necessities can exist at different levels is like arguing that I am six foot tall because some people are six foot tall.

As usual you've failed to examine the meta-philosophical assumptions behind your position. You're presuming that some new map (last time it was a new 'frame') or whatever alternative is next, is equally legitimate and so immune from criticism, but in order to preserve your antagonism to those world-views you dislike, you set up this second order certainty. Any philosophy you wish to promote becomes just a 'different map' and immune from analytical critique. Any philosophy you don't like can be safely dismissed by reference to this second order 'what philosophy really is', about which there is apparently so much certainty that even second years student all agree on it. A remarkable achievement considering 2000 years of debate among seasoned professors has yielded not a single agreement on any other subject.

One's judgment related to this project cannot be separated from one's movement generated by a creation of the new cartography, and this movement is similar to autopoietic
self-establishment of aesthetic becoming. — Number2018

And in English?

Streetlight

No such purpose exists for philosophical investigations... — Pseudonym

Then I suppose you're unfamiliar with philosophical investigations.

Pseudonym

↪StreetlightX

Great, well why don't you enlighten me now then. The universally agreed on purpose of philosophical investigation is...

Streetlight

The universally agreed on purpose of philosophical investigation is... — Pseudonym

Who said anything about universal? Every investigation defines its own object and stakes; any competent reader can assess how well it goes about doing that, and if cashes out those stakes well. And philosophies fail and succeed at this at varying degrees at this all the time. The idea that what I'm saying renders anything immune to criticism is another silly non-sequitur.

Pseudonym

... any competent reader can assess how well it goes about doing that, and if cashes out those stakes well. — StreetlightX

How do you know that to be the case? Competent readers are the ones whose judgement you agree with and incompetent ones are the ones you disagree with?

philosophies fail at this all the time. — StreetlightX

What examples would you give of such 'failed philosophies'?

The idea that what I'm saying renders anything immune to criticism is another silly contention. — StreetlightX

It's not the immunity from criticism that bothers me, it the simultaneous relativism within philosophical investigations but certainty verging on fundamentalism about what constitutes such an investigation and what does not, and how to judge how well those lucky few who pass your test have done.

Streetlight

How do you know that to be the case? — Pseudonym

It's generally something most people learn in the course of an education.

What examples would you give of such 'failed philosophies'? — Pseudonym

Oh, philosophical 'therapeutics', say.

Number2018

↪Pseudonym

One's judgment related to this project cannot be separated from one's movement generated by a creation of the new cartography, and this movement is similar to autopoietic
self-establishment of aesthetic becoming.
— Number2018

And in English? — Pseudonym

"We are not in the presence of a passively representative image, but of a vector of subjectivation. We are actually confronted by a non-discursive, pathic knowledge, which presents itself as a subjectivity that one actively meets, an absorbent subjectivity given immediately in all its complexity... This pathic subjectivity, before the object-subject relation, continues to self-actualize through energetico-spatiotemporal coordinates, in the world of language and through multiple mediations..." Guattari,
"Chaosmosis"

Pseudonym

It's generally something most people learn in the course of an education.

What examples would you give of such 'failed philosophies'? — Pseudonym

Oh, philosophical 'therapeutics', say. — StreetlightX

Well that's odd. Paul Horwich, for example, is a strong advocate of therapeutic philosophy and yet has held tenures at UCL, MIT, and New York University, institutions one would have thought made up of reasonably 'competent readers'. But then I suppose any 'competent professor' knows which universities are good and which aren't?

Streetlight

↪Pseudonym

Ah, sadly the academy isn't perfect. They'll let any old dolt through once in a while. Somtimes, rooted agape by a series of shiny letters, people even look up to them.

BrianW

↪StreetlightX

Thanks for this cartographic inspiration!

Thanks to you, I'm actually trying to re-orient my perspective into seeing the various branches and distinctive features of philosophy as maps with the hopes of ultimately being able to consolidate them all mentally into a coherent whole. It's something I've been attempting to do in an amateur capacity but now, thanks to you, I believe I can get a clear outline of what it might be.

Streetlight

↪BrianW

Heh, no worries! I wouldn't worry too much about the consolidation though! One nice way of thinking about studying philosophy is in building a personal map collection: some will be more accurate than others, some will be outdated, others obsurce and specific, and yet others still faded and forgotten. Most will be half finished, or have borders that simply fade off at some point. Perhaps a certain theme would run through them (both Heidegger and Bergson said that philosophers over really ever pursue one burning question in their lives...). The point would be to make the collection robust and interesting; and if a handful helped you and others navigate the world somrwhat more sucessfully, then that'd be something to be proud of.

John Doe

Ah, sadly the academy isn't perfect. They'll let any old dolt through once in a while. Somtimes, rooted agape by a series of shiny letters, people even look up to them. — StreetlightX

Uh...are you actually suggesting that therapeutic philosophy is such a bad idea that its practitioners are dolts that don't deserve tenure? What do you say of Wittgensteinians who take up a concomitant interest in the idea of philosophy as therapy, folks like Conant and McDowell? Would you call them dolts? Or am I misreading you entirely?

Streetlight

↪John Doe

Eh, don't read too much into it. I'm not replying with much seriousness or interest to the windbag I'm responding to there. But if I were to try and fit therapeutics into the picture I'm painting here, I do think they have an incredibly flawed understanding of philosophy: they treat philosophical cartography as a matter of collecting pretty things; they have a dilettante's understanding of philosophy, even if, in the end, they may produce some very good instances of it.

John Doe

Eh, don't read too much into it. I just couldn't care less about the posts of the windbag I was responding to. — StreetlightX

Yeah, sorry, I'm a little loathe to get into the middle of an extended debate on this forum between two members, especially when it seemingly supports one side of that debate. It's just that I've seen you rail against this idea a few times (including supporting Russell's (in my opinion very bad) idea that Wittgenstein's interest in therapy was him copping out because he could no longer do real work) and I've been wondering why someone I respect is so dismissive of the idea.

I do think they have an incredibly flawed understanding of philosophy: they treat philosophical cartography as a matter of collecting pretty things; they have a dilettante's understanding of philosophy. — StreetlightX

Using the cartography metaphor, I think it's more akin to seeing a map as a tool for getting you where you want or need to go. The point of working on your own map or adopting somebody else's is that you might need to call on it many times in your life, that you might desire or feel compelled to go many places with philosophy. Or, as in any activity, you might become deeply fascinated by the nature of the activity--you might have fun making maps, learning about how maps are made, the history of their various uses, the blunders that led us to perfect our current techniques. But when map-making becomes a sort of compulsion for its own sake, or (since you seem to prefer Nietzsche) an ascetic ideal, then you've lost the point of what it means to be engaging in cartography.

Streetlight

I think it's more akin to seeing a map as a tool for getting you where you want or need to go. — John Doe

Mmm, and I have serious qualms about this. This 'use' - in the instrumental sense, like a bureaucrat's - doesn't seem to me to respect the autonomy of philosophy's problems. Any philosopher knows that problems impose themselves upon you, that they worm their way into you so its not a simple matter of submitting philosophy to one's whim and fancy, even if that is a 'therapeurics of the soul'; to engage in philosophy is to be driven where the problem takes you: to submit to necessity, as one does to a landscape which one maps out. Deleuze once wrote that the only use of philosophy is to sadden and shame and these are affects I think far more appropriate to philosophy than the self-gratifying attempts to make it some bourgeois weekend retreat in the Caribbean.

Therapeutics makes use of philosophy as one makes use of another without regard or respect for their autonomy. It prostitutes philosophy.

creativesoul

What is the territory existentially dependent upon?

John Doe

This 'use' - in the instrumental sense, like a bureaucrat's - doesn't seem to me to respect the autonomy of philosophy's problems. — StreetlightX

Come on now, this is pretty strawman. If not against my quick post then at least against the notion of philosophy as therapy. I have read you say many times that what marks or characterizes a philosopher - one who engages meaningfully with philosophy - is a set of problems that need to be worked through, that gnaw away at one. There's nothing instrumental or bureaucratic about raising the further issue to one's self about why precisely these problems gnaw away, why one works at these problems and what one hopes to achieve by working through these problems. This is how we keep philosophy from spinning in a void, both publicly and privately -- by making sure that we remain committed to mapping out the physiography of our problems and the nature of what we're doing when engaging in our philosophical investigations.

Any philosopher knows that problems impose themselves upon you, that they worm their way into you so its not a simple matter of submitting philosophy to one's whim and fancy, even if that is a 'therapeurics of the soul'; to engage in philosophy is to be driven where the problem takes you: to submit to necessity, as one does to a landscape which one maps out. — StreetlightX

I don't see how this runs counter to therapeutics. It's not either be driven where the problem takes you or do some namby pamby chicken soup for the soul. Problems take you down lots of twists and turns and wrong paths so it's important to be vigilant about the nature of the problem you're engaging, how you're engaging that problem, why you're engaging it.. there's a reason you wouldn't feed this quote to Csalisbury in his/her thread, because Csalisbury clearly needs to change the way s/he's approaching problems. That's therapy. In a thread like that we engage in a discussion with someone in order to better understand the nature of the problems that have wormed their way in, why s/he's not getting what s/he wants from the activity of engaging these problems in the way s/he is, and what changes in her life, her meta-philosophy and her understanding of these problems might get her feeling right again. This all seems quite natural to me, so I'm having trouble seeing why you want to pit therapy over/against the autonomy of philosophical problems.

Deleuze once wrote that the only use of philosophy is to sadden and shame and these are affects I think far more appropriate to philosophy than the self-gratifying attempts to make it some bourgeois weekend retreat in the Caribbean. — StreetlightX

Not sure what to do with this. The stance that either we respect the full autonomy of philosophy and submit ourselves to it in the practice of philosophy or we're engaging in a bourgeois Caribbean retreat seems like a failure of imagination. Just as you have "serious qualms" about therapy I have pretty serious qualms about a statement that appeals to "the only use of philosophy...", even rhetorically. I'm pretty sure that you don't want to detach philosophy from life, immanence, joy, etc. so you seem to me to be following into a trap when you fetishize some ideal notion of philosophy's autonomy and set it against a meta-philosophy that stresses the importance of clarifying the physiognomy of our philosophical problems, why we seek out these problems, and what we seek to do in engaging with these problems. (Just as it doesn't invalidate another's autonomy by seeking therapy in order to better understand one's relationship with that person.)

Therapeutics makes use of philosophy as one makes use of another without regard or respect for their autonomy. It prostitutes philosophy. — StreetlightX

This sort of statement reads like you're getting carried away rhetorically with your personal distaste for a position you've got your heart set on opposing. How can we reason about this view of philosophy if we heedlessly set to work with a polemic that appeals to our moral sentiments? This view of autonomy would have that applied physicists make use of physics as one makes use of another without regard or respect for their autonomy, as though applied physics prostitutes physics.

Just as it seems reasonable to ask the physicist "Should we keep on doing physics?" when this work threatens to destroy the earth, so too it seems reasonable to ask the philosopher similar questions when this work threatens to destroy.

creativesoul

The map/territory distinction is inherently inadequate for taking account of that which is neither. A philosophy which captures what's missing from the map/territory distinction cannot be adequately accounted for by the framework itself.

It is for this reason that I would shun looking at doing philosophy in such terms. Those terms will inevitably delineate one's ability to take account of some things, and as a result will render one incapable of understanding some of what philosophy has had to offer. That said...

If we're looking to understand all of the famous historical philosophers' positions, then it could be useful. I wouldn't call that doing philosophy though.

creativesoul

Philosophy can be very therapeutic in several different ways. That doesn't make it(being therapeutic) a good thing.

Pseudonym

↪Number2018

Ah, thanks, that all makes perfect sense now. It was the 'autopoietic self-establishment of aesthetic becoming' I was stuck on, but now you've explained it in terms of 'pathic subjectivity' which 'continues to self-actualize through energetico-spatiotemporal coordinates' that's cleared things up beautifully.

Streetlight

That's therapy. In a thread like that we engage in a discussion with someone in order to better understand the nature of the problems that have wormed their way in, why s/he's not getting what s/he wants from the activity of engaging these problems in the way s/he is, and what changes in her life, her meta-philosophy and her understanding of these problems might get her feeling right again. — John Doe

I agree - this kind of thing is therapy. Even philosophical therapy, if you will. But it sure as hell isn't philosophy, even if it is parasitic upon it. When you speak of "raising the further issue to one's self about why precisely these problems gnaw away, why one works at these problems and what one hopes to achieve by working through these problems" - this is a totally legitimate manner of inquiry, sure, but it is, as you've said yourself 'a further issue'. What I despise - and what I thinks merits all the scorn it can get - is the hopeless confusion of this with or as philosophy.

Perhaps, and this is all the concession I'll grant, there might even be a outcrop of philosophy that treats such problems as themselves problems of philosophy: but this too would be to place it in a long line of other problems of which 'problems of therapeutics' would be but one. The reduction - a reductive, psychologizing diminution - of philosophy itself to therapeutics really does make of it a carcass to psychologizing crows; its true that seeking therapy in order to better understand one's relationship with that person doesn't invalidate that other person: but to treat the other as nothing but the result of that relationship is intellectual violence of the worst kind, and I will never stop denouncing it.

Just as a physicist would resent, rightly, the idea that science is just a nice panacea for a bunch of intellectual neurotics - that it is, in fact, nothing but such a panacea, so would anyone who cares one jot for philosophy reject the impoverished and impoverishing idea of 'philosophy as therapeutics'. None of this, by the way, despite certain far-fetched claims here, constitutes a particularly exclusionary vision of philosophy. While it certainly entails a rejection of a fringe position that developed in some European backwater and popularized by a small cabal of contemporaries, the rest of the Western canon is more or less fair game.

Pseudonym

I'm a little loathe to get into the middle of an extended debate on this forum between two members, especially when it seemingly supports one side of that debate. — John Doe

Obviously you must feel free to engage (or refrain from engaging) in whatever way you see fit, but isn't it rather the point of a public Internet forum, that you get to take part in a debate between two members on one side or another? It would be a poorer forum I think, if we all withheld our input in these circumstances, so please do get into the middle of extended debates. Your input has certainly been interesting here and I'm sure would be equally so in other such debates.

That said, you seem to straddle both sides of this one, so perhaps you might have some insight into those areas about which I'm still in the dark.

The interest for me here is the psychology and how it interacts with philosophy, how people hold and maintain ideological beliefs. In this instance, it's in how the belief about what philosophy is (and crucially how it's quality is judged in the face of such seemingly extensive relativism). So StreetlightX is wanting to put that judgement at a second order of heirachy it seems. Within the set {all things which are philosophy} each investigation is to be judged by its own standards, whether it achieves what it set out to, but an investigation's membership of that set is judged by some objective (or at least widely agreed on) measure such that certain investigations can be readily dismissed with a waive of the hand, easily spotted by first years, or 'any competent reader'. The trouble is that the questions "what is philosophy for, what does it do, and why do we do it?" seems to have no place other than in the set {all things which are philosophy} and so must be judged by its own objectives, yet that judgement relies on an answer to its own question.

So how do we judge the merits of an investigation into the means by which we judge the qualities of such investigations as this one? I hope its not too much of a leap for you to understand from a social psychological perspective, how difficult it is to avoid the obvious conclusion that this construct is simply created to help people support belief systems. Half the structures in society are created for that express purpose and this looks exactly like one of them, so I don't think it's excessively cynical of me to at least start with that explanation as my default?

Pseudonym

↪StreetlightX

But alchemy, on examination, turned out to be, not the study of transmutation, but a complete misunderstanding about the difference between elements and compounds. Phrenology turned out, on examination, to be just a misreading of statistical anomaly. The overreach of neuroscience, psychology even physics have all been heated topics of discussion here. I'm sure the alchemists and phrenologists were mightily pissed of to have their subjects revealed to be something other than they thought. I'm sure the neuroscientists, psychologists and physicists have occasion to become riled at having the reach of their investigations circumscribed. The offense taken at the examination of the presumptions in one's own field is not an adequate defence against any issues thereby raised.

Streetlight

The offense taken at the examination of the presumptions in one's own field is not an adequate defence against any issues thereby raised. — Pseudonym

Would it be that you had anything of substance to offer as an 'issue thereby raised'.

Pseudonym

↪Πετροκότσυφας

I don't understand the link you're making. Chapter 2.8 is about why seemingly theories about philosophy do not necessarily suffer from the same problem as T-theories of philosophy. I don't see how this links up to what you quoted, perhaps you could explain a bit more?

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