Really it just depends on whether you like the other person, if you like what they're saying, if you like the way they're dealing with the subject matter at hand, if you want to bother dealing with it in a similar way yourself.

If the answer to any of those questions is "No," then we often look for an easy way to dismiss the person in question, and calling them "pedantic" is one such way.

So it's all personal opinion? Does that mean you could never judge yourself to be pedantic? Does that mean that there are no community or social standards by which to judge it? Should there be community standards, or is it all a matter of personal taste? Doesn't context play a part?

Sorry, but your response seems a little over-simplistic to me.

So it's all personal opinion? — Reformed Nihilist

Whether someone is detrimentally "pedantic" or not, yes.

Sorry, but your response seems a little over-simplistic to me.

That's fine, but I'm telling you how people actually use the word in conversations. You can choose to ignore that if you want to, and it's no skin off my nose.

Also, the idea that community or social standards aren't personal opinion/taste is ridiculous.

That's fine, but I'm telling you how people actually use the word in conversations. You can choose to ignore that if you want to, and it's no skin off my nose. — Terrapin Station

Either I'm not understanding you or vice versa, because I have no idea where this response is coming from. I know people use the word in conversations. I'm not sure why you bring that up.

Also, the idea that community or social standards aren't personal opinion/taste is ridiculous. — Terrapin Station

I don't think that it makes sense to call them opinions, even though they aren't objective. The word opinion usually implies that you're talking about the feelings of one individual.

Either I'm not understanding you or vice versa, because I have no idea where this response is coming from. I know people use the word in conversations. I'm not sure why you bring that up. — Reformed Nihilist

My first response in this thread was explaining why people use the word "pedantic" when they do, especially when they use it with normative connotations.

Re the other thing, I don't know why we'd call it something other than opinion just because people have the same one.

"Gin is bad" is an opinion. "Walking around naked I public is bad" is a cultural standard. Surely there's a distinction between these.

"Gin is bad" is an opinion. "Walking around naked I public is bad" is a cultural standard. Surely there's a distinction between these. — Reformed Nihilist

I don't think there's a distinction between them, but what do you see as the distinction? Are you simply talking about the fact that at present, one happens to be illegal in the U.S., say, and the other isn't? What else is the distinction?

More the fact that one is normative and the other isn't.

I think we'd probably agree that when Bill Clinton protested "It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is, he was being pedantic. We could, however, also note that figuring out what the meaning of "is" is, is basically shorthand for the whole enterprise of metaphysics. — Reformed Nihilist

Which is precisely why some have alleged that Western Metaphysics is inherently phallogocentric ;-)

More the fact that one is normative and the other isn't. — Reformed Nihilist

That would have made more sense if your gin example had been, "I don't like gin," or "this gin tastes bad." "Gin is bad" is just as often meant normatively as "walking around naked in public is bad."

"Gin is bad" is just as often meant normatively as "walking around naked in public is bad." — Terrapin Station

Really? If I say "Gin is bad" I wouldn't expect you to stop drinking it. I would assume you interpreted it as being synonymous with "I don't like gin". I wouldn't have the same expectation about the same sort of utterance about public nudity.

I have some thoughts on the matter, but I'd like to see what others have to say on the subject. — Reformed Nihilist

I look forward to hear what your ideas are.

My view is that pedantry, or the tendency to engage in it, is an intellectual vice that doesn't (usually) reflect badly on the intellectual character of the 'pedantic' individual as much as it does reflect on deficiencies of the theoretical paradigm that she occupies. To consider only the example of scientific paradigms, for sake of illustration: if the apparent hair-splitting is actually done in the context of the search for better foundations and/or solving persistent puzzles over the course of an episode of 'normal science' (in Kuhn's sense) then it's not a vice at all so long as the research programme remains productive (and the paradigm is valid). In that case we say that the researchers are being thorough and conscientious. If, on the other hand, the paradigm is pathological (as is the case with pseudosciences) or is in the process of being over-extended beyond its proper domain of application, then the arguments adduced for defending it in the face of anomalous results or reasonable theoretical objections will rightfully be deemed pedantic by outsiders who can clearly view the limitations of this paradigm.

We may thus rightfully view the pedantry of the practitioners of a degenerating research programme as a vice; but it is a circumstantial vice, as it were, that they manifest only so long as they remain captives of the deficient paradigm, and it only is a vice, also, if indeed the paradigm *is* deficient or is being over-extended.

I look forward to hear what your ideas are. — Pierre-Normand

Well, we agree about much, based on your post. I think that context, and specifically what is the goal or benefit of a particular analysis, is central to the issue. How we frame things matters. We don't use quantum mechanics to build bridges, or classical physics to make a highs boson.

Having said that, I think there's value in general inquiry, and philosophy is often not guided by practical concerns, so I'm not sure that the normal ways of framing discussion work well in all areas of philosophy.

Really? If I say "Gin is bad" I wouldn't expect you to stop drinking it. I would assume you interpreted it as being synonymous with "I don't like gin". I wouldn't have the same expectation about the same sort of utterance about public nudity. — Reformed Nihilist

You might not have that expectation, but some people would. For example, people who supported prohibition for moral reasons.

Likewise, maybe some people wouldn't think "You shouldn't parade around in public naked" via just saying that they think that is bad.

Having said that, I think there's value in general inquiry, and philosophy is often not guided by practical concerns, so I'm not sure that the normal ways of framing discussion work well in all areas of philosophy. — Reformed Nihilist

Yes, I agree that domains of inquiry in philosophy are quite different from scientific paradigms. There are paradigms in philosophy but there isn't much of a counterpart to 'normal science' and the different fields are much less separable, and of course much less 'practical', than the various 'special sciences' are. But there are clear analogues to degeneracy and to over-extension, and a common quest for understanding.

You might not have that expectation, but some people would. For example, people who supported prohibition for moral reasons.

Likewise, maybe some people wouldn't think "You shouldn't parade around in public naked" via just saying that they think that is bad. — Terrapin Station

Is this ironic performance art? I'm asking, because this response strikes me as being pedantic. We can absolutely imagine cases where what I said wasn't true, but I think that in general what I said is true. Do you disagree?

But there are clear analogues to degeneracy and to over-extension. — Pierre-Normand

Could you give me a "for instance"?

You mean statistically a la what most people would have in mind? I have no idea, and you don't either. No one has done surveys about this. But why would such a thing be determined by what most people have in mind anyway?

Could you give me a "for instance"? — Reformed Nihilist

Of course each example will reflect my own views since adherents of those programmes aren't going to agree to my offensive pigeon-holing of them. But it seems to me that, for instance, the post-Gettier attempts to analyse knowledge as belief + truth + (internal) justification + 'some complicated missing element' is some sort of a degenerative research programme in contemporary epistemology. A case of over-extension might be the subsumption of mental states and events, as well as actions, under a Humean metaphysics of event-causation rather than a metaphysics of substances and powers. But in that case I am unsure the over-extended paradigm has so much as a proper domain of application. I might try to think of a better example...

Normally when I discuss the way people interact, it's pretty easy to agree on some basic things, like how people commonly speak. I'm open to the idea that my experience of how people speak in this case is not representative of the general trend, but unless you're saying that your experience is different, I have no reason to doubt my observations. That's why I'm asking.

Coming to think of it, most attempts to naturalize stuff (e.g. 'naturalize the mind', 'naturalize epistemology', etc.) in analytic philosophy may be best characterized as cases of scientific paradigms being over-extended and encroaching into properly philosophical areas of inquiry. Of course, proponents of the extension will view the resistance from people who object to their scientism as reactionary.

Yes, I'm sympathetic to that camp, so it looks more like science subsuming elements of philosophy that were previously not available to science, rather than over reach. If for the sake of argument, I took the opposite position, I'm not sure I'd describe it as pedantry. For instance, I think that particle physicists, the notion that a physicist comes up with an interpretation of QM is overreach, as I think interpretation is exactly a philosophers job. I don't think of those physicists as being pedantic.

I don't think of those physicists as being pedantic. — Reformed Nihilist

They're being philosophical, which is fine, as long as everyone understands the distinction, although if a way can be devised to test different interpretations, then it goes from philosophical to scientific.

Which raises the question as to what is the line between theoretical physics and metaphysics. Because the multiverse, 11 dimensional Branes colliding, and creation from quantum vacuum states certainly sound metaphysical.

Yup, I agree. I've always wondered why there's no particle physics analogue to Daniel Dennett or Noam Chomsky.

is loosing sight of the forest for the trees — Reformed Nihilist

Losing, not loosing.

Too easy.

This is perfect. :D

So why do we chide Bill Clinton, yet praise Heraclitus, Spinoza, Frege and Russell? — Reformed Nihilist

We chide/mock/ridicule Clinton in part because his remarks were made in the context of his back-peddling from denials he had earlier made about his relationship with a young White House intern. His statements were entirely self-serving.

Philosophy, at its best, has entirely different motivations and objectives.

Pedantry is to pick on details and ignore the whole picture type deal. Nothing is perfect, everything has flaws. If we're going to draw attention to the flaws, hopefully its with the intention of improving the whole. To minimize the errors present in the thing, or to demonstrate that some alternative does the same thing at least as well with less flaws or without the same flaws which is whats relevant in this context or whatever.

Just showing that something isnt perfect, or throwing the baby out with the bathwater usually doesnt go well... unless you hate babies... you dont hate babies do you?

Yes, I'm sympathetic to that camp, so it looks more like science subsuming elements of philosophy that were previously not available to science, rather than over reach. If for the sake of argument, I took the opposite position, I'm not sure I'd describe it as pedantry. For instance, I think that particle physicists, the notion that a physicist comes up with an interpretation of QM is overreach, as I think interpretation is exactly a philosophers job. I don't think of those physicists as being pedantic. — Reformed Nihilist

But the case I had in mind was not scientists essaying to do philosophy, which they are perfectly entitled to do, well or badly, of course (and some are actually pretty good; e.g. J. J. Gibson, Amartya Sen and George Ellis). Rather, I was talking about naturalizing paradigms within analytic philosophy. In that case, it is the methods of empirical sciences that encroach, not the scientists themselves.

But it seems to me that, for instance, the post-Gettier attempts to analyse knowledge as belief + truth + (internal) justification + 'some complicated missing element' is some sort of a degenerative research programme in contemporary epistemology — Pierre-Normand

I agree. Against this, I like Williamson's notion of 'knowledge first' - knowledge as foundational and in a separate zone from belief. But I've read Williamson, and even been to a little seminar run by him, and he's the nicest bloke - but every tiny possibility has to be explored by him too, footnote after footnote, and then there's the argument by Sproggins (2014) although Hackface (2015) would disagree...all that! I am a bit of a nit-picker by nature, I think that's why I enjoy the analytic approach mostly, but sometimes you've just got to see the bigger picture or you'll get awfully lost.