Skip to main content

Understanding Philosophy

 Although I am a mathematician, I still study philosophy. Here are a few lessons I’ve learned about that study. Philosophy is very much different than mathematics in that often the language is imprecise. Below are a few lessons I've learned trying to understand this strange world. These remarks apply to general philosophy, not the philosophies of mathematics and science, which are quite different.

  • Philosophy often is deeply involved with vague subject matter such as “truth” and “love.” Yet these are very important topics to understand. There are quick answers and highly complex ones. Your understanding is often connected with your belief systems as well as critical thinking. It is difficult to be unbiased. (In a twist, one could argue the being unbiased is itself a form of bias.)
  • Every contributor often discusses only small variations to the body of knowledge. Even the meaning of some philosophers changes with time as the meanings of words change and the culture drifts in other directions. For example, reading Spinoza today in our mostly nonsecular environment has different understanding that when it was written in an entirely secular environment.
  • Often the language used is vague and difficult to understand unless the reader is very familiar with the subject. It is important to know the basics well.
  • When new “big” contributions are made, it sometimes catches on in the general literature, but soon declines in influence after competitors highlight flaws. There is little consensus within any of the subareas of philosophy.
  • In philosophy, it is important to read and reread almost everything until it settles into your thinking. Philosophy is not a collections of maxims, aphorisms, sayings, and the like.
So, if you try to understand philosophy and are having trouble, it's not you as much as it is the nature of the subject.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Please Comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Behavioral Science and Problem-Solving

I.                                       I.                 Introduction.                Concerning our general behavior, it’s high about time we all had some understanding of how we operate on ourselves, and it is just as important how we are operated on by others. This is the wheelhouse of behavioral sciences. It is a vast subject. It touches our lives constantly. It’s influence is pervasive and can be so subtle we never notice it. Behavioral sciences profoundly affect our ability and success at problem-solving, from the elementary level to highly complex wicked problems. This is discussed in Section IV. We begin with the basics of behavioral sciences, Section II, and then through the lens of multiple categories and examples, Section III. II.     ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Lemming Instinct

  In certain vital domains, a pervasive mediocrity among practitioners can stifle genuine advancement. When the intellectual output of a field is predominantly average, it inevitably produces research of corresponding quality. Nevertheless, some of these ideas, by sheer chance or perhaps through effective dissemination, will inevitably gain traction. A significant number of scholars and researchers will gravitate towards these trends, contributing to and propagating further work along these established lines. Such a trajectory allows an initially flawed concept to ascend to the status of mainstream orthodoxy. However, over an extended period, these prevailing ideas invariably fail to withstand rigorous scrutiny; they are ultimately and conclusively disproven. The disheartening pattern then reveals itself: rather than genuine progress, an equally unvalidated or incorrect idea often supplants the discredited one, swiftly establishing its own dominance. This cycle perpetuates, ensurin...
Post a Comment
Read more

THE ORIGINS OF IMPOSSIBLE PROBLEMS

The Origins of Impossible Problems Introduction. Impossible problems have always been a part of the landscape of human thought. They arise from various sources, often rooted in cognitive, logical, or structural limitations. Some problems are truly unsolvable due to fundamental constraints, while others only appear impossible because of human limitations in understanding, reasoning, or approach. In many situations, we make difficult problems impossible because of our limitations, psychological and otherwise. It is a curious thought problem to consider what sort of limitations AI will reveal when we give it truly difficult problems to solve. We must hope that we humans have not transferred our complete reliance and dependence to machine-learning tools beforehand. Below are key sources of seemingly impossible problems, along with examples and a few references to philosophical and scientific thought. Impossible Problems . To explore impossible problems, we must consider our systems fo...
Post a Comment
Read more