The assumption seems to be that if an idea, or concept, is not easily comprehended it is therefore dishonest — Wheatley

Not necessarily dishonest, just easily misunderstood or unhelpfully veiled.

While some of your points about context, language and effort may be true and play a role on occasion, there is still the matter of writing which is lucid versus writing which is convoluted.

Getting the right reading of a given philosopher can be hard enough - take Nietzsche - easy to read, hard to understand. Even harder if the writer is verbose, uses neologisms and writes unclearly with interminable sentences which have an abundance of sub clauses.

The real question is what counts as obscure writing? For me Heidegger. For others Wittgenstein. People have different brains and respond differently to a writer's thoughts and style.

The other issue is one of the interested dilettante. If you are not an academic or a philosophy hard case you may simply not wish to pursue the more recondite writers because life is too short. This is not laziness, it is prioritizing.

Not necessarily dishonest, just easily misunderstood or unhelpfully veiled. — Tom Storm

That's included because the general idea is that your debating opponent is deceiving you.

there is still the matter of writing which is lucid versus writing which is convoluted. — Tom Storm

True, but I have the feeling that there are more variables.

True, but I have the feeling that there are more variables. — Wheatley

Yes, you listed these so I added this one. :smile:

Yes, you listed these so I added this one. — Tom Storm

Fair enough.

There's also the issue of oversimplification. One can be dumbstruck because what was written appears inefficient, vague, inadequate, strange, odd, and/or just plain stupid.

However, there can also be false allegations of oversimplification. It's frustrating. Thise who look down on you, for example, will automatically perceive anything you say inadequate.

I a lot folks dismiss ideas because they claim it lacks "clarity". The assumption seems to be that if an idea, or concept, is not easily comprehended it is therefore dishonest. — Wheatley

I am a deep skeptic about most philosophy, especially western. You are much, much, much too kind to and understanding of most philosophers. Science has difficult ideas. It needs to describe complicated things that haven't been seen before. There are lots of unfamiliar moving parts. There need to be new words to describe the things that are discovered. Learning and understanding some aspects of science requires education and experience. Even so, talented writers can make the general ideas and many of the details clear to intelligent non-scientists. I've read original work by great scientists - Darwin, Einstein, Schrodinger, Heisenberg. These guys could write in very clear and understandable ways. Usually, when I would read a paper, the first couple of pages would be really interesting and clear. Then, it would rapidly get over my head. That's how I knew that their writing was clear but my understanding wasn't.

Philosophers don't have that excuse. The things they are talking about are not hidden away in the microscopic and subatomic worlds or billions of years ago soon after the big bang. Everything they write about is right out in the open for everyone to see. Every time I've come up against an idea wrapped up in dense verbiage and unnecessary jargon, when I've finally fought my way through I've found ideas that I have no trouble explaining in relatively normal language. Sometime those ideas are wonderful, but they are often not worth the trouble.

There are philosophers who can express complex ideas in clear understandable language. The world is complex, but it's not that complex. If you can't say it in words I can understand, you don't understand it.

You are much, much, much too kind to and understanding of most philosophers. — T Clark

Oh c'mon. :grin: I could just as well be playing devils advocate. :smirk:

It's person dependent. Some people have an innate capacity to understand certain ideas better than others, perhaps the topic at hand resonates with a specific individual.

Having said that, on the "negative side", I do think that some of classical figures are very obscure. I very much think Kant was extremely profound, but the dense verbiage used and the fact that he (often) did not refer to ordinary objects to elucidate a conceptual difficulty, makes it harder.

Then there are cases in which I have to strongly suspect that, despite finding a few ideas of some interest, the verbiage is intentionally dense for appearance of profundity.

I think the prime example here is Hegel. Even secondary literature on Hegel is just overwhelmingly complex and dese. And once I unpack the ideas, to the extent that I can, I don't see much that excuses his vocabulary.

On the "positive side", there are plenty of philosophers who wrote clearly and said interesting things. Plato, Descartes, Hume, Reid, Schopenhauer, James the popular side of Russell and so on.

Even when they are clear, which some of them are very clear, the ideas are complicated, because speaking about say, mental phenomena is extremely complex and multifaceted and nuanced. So that may be an important reason as why philosophers are "hard". The topic is very hard in a special sense.

Yes, it is true that lack of effort can be correctly pointed out. But if in good faith I try to read Hegel or Deleuze and get little for my efforts, then the accusation isn't pertinent: it's not worth more time.

Finally, even if Descartes and Schopenhauer are quite clear, if they don't resonate with you, then they don't resonate with you. No problem, there's plenty of other stuff that will catch your attention in philosophy.

What do you think? — Wheatley

Your post reminded me of a short audio (5 minutes long) I heard a while ago:



(From 1:57 onwards)

In the case of poststructuralism, I think Chomsky explains rather well why one can't compare Kant to someone like Derrida, even though Kant's work may be obscure in some parts.

Is $E = M c^2$ a sexed equation? Perhaps it is. Let us make the hypothesis that it is insofar as it privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us. What seems to me to indicate the possibly sexed nature o f the equation is not directly its uses by nuclear weapons, rather it is having privileged what goes the fastest... — Luce Irigaray

If someone read this and told me that there is something profound or important in what Irigaray says, I'd say they are speaking utter nonsense.

It would seem like there's a tendency by some people and some philosophers to believe that if someone is famous or critically acclaimed, then everything they say must not be nonsense, and must be important or profound. But to argue thus is simply to appeal to authority.

Contrast with this the case of Kant: some of his ideas are quite hard to understand, but when you ask kantians or philosophers who are more or less knowledgeable about his works to explain them, they usually can give a more or less satisfactory explanation of them in simpler terms. The same cannot be said about many postmodernists.

So, it's better to follow Popper's advice:

If you can't say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can

So, it's better to follow Popper's advice:

If you can't say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can — Amalac

I really enjoyed the Chomsky audio. I've been thinking I should put some effort into his work. I guess if Chomsky and Popper agree with us, we must be right.

I guess if Chomsky and Popper agree with us, we must be right. — T Clark

I never said that if Chomsky and Popper said it, that means it's right.

What matters is the content of what someone says, not who says it.

I never said that if Chomsky and Popper said it, that means it's right. — Amalac

I know that.

What matters is the content of what someone says, not who says it. — Amalac

I agree. I was being amusing.

I really enjoyed the Chomsky audio. I've been thinking I should put some effort into his work. — T Clark

That's my specialty actually.

If you want specific recommendations on different topics, I'll be glad to give you some recommendations.

If you want specific recommendations on different topics, I'll be glad to give you some recommendations. — Manuel

Yes, please. How about some follow up on what he was discussing in the audio to start.

I was in search of something to read that would blow me away. Rising to the top of the list was "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner. I read it. At first I thought it was the most worthless piece of shit every written. Worse even than the King James version of the Bible.

But then I pumped the brakes and confessed that maybe there are just some things I don't get, and don't want to invest the time and energy to get. I try to remain open to the possiblitlity that some things are beyond me.

What pisses me off are professorial questions about something I meant in something I wrote. I'll sit down and point my finger to a sentance in my writing that directly and specifically answers the question asked. Then scratch my head as to how a person with an advanced degree could have missed it.

I've always been a champion of the record created by a writing. That way, no one can ever claim they were not told. But alas, it is not always possible to communicate with written words. Maybe that is why we love the parable, the story told around a fire. There is not enough of that these days.

It depends on how deep you want to go with this.

If you want a good intro to his talking about innate ideas and the like, I'd recommend you see Michel Gondry's documentary about his ideas, called Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy?

It has some nice illustrations about how our innate faculties react to very small changes in the environment.

It's available for free here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv66xFD7s7g

His comment is simply that the way we recognize houses is innate in us. Another alien creature could have the concept HOUSE which differed in what properties are essential to it, such as a HOUSE being though if in terms of seeing an interior first, then the front side.

We do the opposite when we think of houses.

As for the Post-Modernist comment, he has in mind people like Derrida, Lacan and the like, which he thinks are gibberish.

He only demands that people explain these ideas the way a physicist or a biologist could explain some aspects of what they work on in simple terms. Here's an article he wrote about postmodernism:

http://bactra.org/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html

Thanks. I'll take a look.

Contrast with this the case of Kant: some of his ideas are quite hard to understand, but when you ask kantians or philosophers who are more or less knowledgeable about his works to explain them, they usually can give a more or less satisfactory explanation of them in simpler terms. The same cannot be said about many postmodernists.

So, it's better to follow Popper's advice:

If you can't say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can — Amalac

This is silly. Of course one can simplify Kant for today’s laymen. The man wrote 200 years ago. His ideas have been assimilated into the mainstream by now. Even the business community teaches ideas influenced by him. Try going back 200 years and simplifying him for the average person of the late 1700’s. He would have appeared as incoherent as Derrida does to many today.

I don’t find the writing style of Heidegger or any number of other contemporary philosophers to be unnecessarily opaque. The problem is that they were ahead of their time, and the developed a vocabulary that only makes sense if one has already arrived at that future world. If you’re going g to compare philosophy and science , then recognize how often it happens that a new philosophical work is dismissed and ignored for decades by academics who blame the author’s style rather than their own limitations.
Then suddenly the philosopher is rediscovered by a new generation of scientists who are ready to absorb what the philosopher was saying. This is happening now with Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger. A new generation of thinkers in cognitive science have embraced their views on perception and affectivity(don’t look for Chomsky in this group. He is considered hopelessly out of date ) . You won’t find them bemoaning the inadequacy of the writing style of these philosophers. Why? Because they actually understand them.

You are much, much, much too kind to and understanding of most philosophers. — T Clark

No he’s not. Possibly you give up too easily and end up blaming the writer for your own conceptual struggles? Actually , we can blame Anglo-American culture for not preparing us to make our way through Continental philosophy. I had to do it on my own and it was an enormous struggle for me. I was suspicious of it ,and thought it inferior to empirical writing. Took me quite a while to change my mind.

I was in search of something to read that would blow me away. Rising to the top of the list was "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner. I read it. At first I thought it was the most worthless piece of shit every written. Worse even than the King James version of the Bible.

But then I pumped the brakes and confessed that maybe there are just some things I don't get, and don't want to invest the time and energy to get. I try to remain open to the possiblitlity that some things are beyond me. — James Riley

"The Sound and the Fury" didn't do anything for me, but I loved "As I Lay Dying." It's funny, my brother, who doesn't like to read, somehow got ahold of "As I Lay Dying" and really liked it. My philosophy of fiction reading, and I think it's probably a bad one, is, if it doesn't pull me in in the first few chapters, to heck with it. For non-fiction I might try harder if it's something I really want to know about.

If you want to read some Faulkner, he has a collection of short I guess you would call them mystery stories collected as "Knight's Gambit." Very accessible, but they still have that taste of the dangerous wildness found in the countryside outside of town, which is probably the thing I like best about his writing.

No he’s not. — Joshs

Unh hunh. Is too.

He only demands that people explain these ideas the way a physicist or a biologist could explain some aspects of what they work on in simple terms. Here's an article he wrote about postmodernism: — Manuel

What makes an idea ‘simple’? The fact that you understand it? Isn’t that circular? If someone tries
their best to simply their philosophy and you still don’t understand it then the onus is on them? Where is the recognition of the possibility that the concepts behind the language are the problem, that they are beyond one’s comprehension?

No he’s not.
— Joshs

Unh hunh. Is too.
3h — T Clark

Tell you what. You give me a list of who you consider to be leading suspects for unreadable philosophy , and I will summarize, simplify, and link their work to social scientists who have embraced them. Since your beef isn’t with empirical writing but only philosophy , you will presumably have no problem correctly interpreting the empirical ideas of these scientists. My expectation is that you will have trouble doing precisely that. Becuase the problem isn’t so much with the style of writing of philosophers, it’s with the content. It’s essentially the same content in the hands of the scientists who embrace them, just expressed in amore conventionalized language. This may give the illusion of readability, but that’s deceptive.

So, it's better to follow Popper's advice:

If you can't say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you can — Amalac

:fire:

My philosophy of fiction reading, and I think it's probably a bad one, is, if it doesn't pull me in in the first few chapters, to heck with it. — T Clark

That is what a person of self-discipline will do. And that is what I tell myself I should do. And, it is what I have been told by others to do. And I resolve to do it. Faulker taught me.

I've also heard he has other good stuff. I just wish that when I was doing my research for a good book, I would have been told to read his other work. But yeah, I slog through, thinking all along "Well, it has to get better! I mean, people said how great this is. They can't be wrong!" Some movies are that way too.

Hopefully I've learned my lesson.

So, it's better to follow Popper's advice:

If you can't say it simply and clearly, keep quiet, and keep working on it till you c — Amalac

That explains why Popper never understood Kuhn.

Yes. If you do your best to explain and the person does not understand, then the onus tends to be on the person who doesn't get it. I agree with you.

There are, however, personal factors: what you find interesting another person will not or may find it trivial or boring or pointless. That's the way it is with people.

But at the very least, I agree with him that if you can't explain the basic idea or general thought behind something, I'm going to be suspect of your (not you specifically, but anybody) understanding of the topic.

This likely does not apply to mathematics.

It also explains why Popper managed to understand so much on his own, and open the way to Kuhn in the process.

He would have appeared as incoherent as Derrida does to many today. — Joshs

It doesn't follow from the fact that someone's work wasn't understood in his time, that future discoveries will show that it was actually important.

Try going back 200 years and simplifying him for the average person of the late 1700’s — Joshs

A hard task, but not an impossible one, unlike with people like Derrida and Lacan (excluding his psychology, about which I haven't read enough to make a judgement). I bet their “ideas”(if you can even call them that) will not have any importance in the next 200 years.

If you’re going g to compare philosophy and science , then recognize how often it happens that a new philosophical work is dismissed and ignored for decades by academics who blame the author’s style rather than their own limitations. — Joshs

Once again, it doesn't follow that if a work is dismissed as nonsense or as unimportant, that means that it is in fact not nonsense and/or important.

Then suddenly the philosopher is rediscovered by a new generation of scientists who are ready to absorb what the philosopher was saying. This is happening now with Husserl, Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger. — Joshs

I don't know Merleau-Ponty, and I only know
a bit about Heidegger's work , so I can't comment on them (they are not who I had in mind when speaking of poststructuralism anyway). But perhaps you could give me a brief explanation of how Heidegger's work helped or is contributing to scientific progress.

As for Husserl, I actually find his work quite interesting, and he wasn't at all who I had in mind when I refered to post-structuralists, I would classify him rather as an analytic philosopher. I don't take “postmodern” or “post-structuralist” to mean merely “contemporary”.

I had in mind rather the kind of authors who say the nonsense featured in Sokal and Bricmont's “Fashionable Nonsense”.

If you can find a paragraph quoted in that book that Sokal and Bricmont failed to understand (like Irigaray's quote in my previous post) explain it to me in simple terms and show how it's important, perhaps I can take your views more seriously.

You can't expect everything to neatly parse with English Language, some concepts are way too abstruse.

Take descriptions of advanced shapes, such as a metatrons cube or a tesseract.

You wouldn't clearly write a description of a tesseract. It wouldn't pass off saying it was a cube inside a cube - go on - have a go.

I understand what a tesseract is, and it compels a deep sort of conversation.

I think the problem is deeper discussions are treated as 'sweet talking' when truly they're just intriguing to the wise of men.

I conclude by saying people should have more freedom where writing it concerned, they must be concise and then intellectual, but not necessarily direct.