Would you go so far as to say that those who engage with philosophy are afflicted by an illness? I mean, spending years on the study of vagueness is madness... like why? Asking for a friend. 🤣
Nope! Lots of intellectuals find certain intellectual projects well worth years or decades of work. Bertrand Russell spent years of his incredible life trying to figure out the semantics of "the" and the reasons why simple truths of math like "2 + 3 = 5" are true. Thank God in both cases, since his projects were pivotal for the generation of both linguistics and computer science.
It turns out that understanding vagueness is not just difficult but can be seen as fundamental for understanding language and thought.
Mathematics, unlike the concept of vagueness, has absolutely immense practical value. I would be very surprised if the vast majority of highly successful contemporary philosophers weren't at least somewhat neurospicy.
I agree that lots of philosophers are pretty eccentric in various ways. And math is just about the most practical thing ever. But knowing about vagueness & ambiguity is pretty essential for the study of law, so that's one way it's practical.
I doubt that law scholars and legal practitioners often refer to developments in highly advanced contemporary analytic philosophy. I would assume that any reference to philosophers in the legal body of work is constrained either to philosophy of law, or to some extremely well-established titans of 20th century analytic philosophy. On a cursory level, yours is a valid statement - in the US, prior to law school, prospective lawyers get a philosophy undergraduate degree comparatively often for a reason (though even here I would vary of correlation-causation confusion due to things like self-selection). Having said that, this does not hold to be the case at a super advanced level that you're describing in the article, which seems more often to be a case of a hyperfixation disconnected with practical considerations, or where practical matters are mostly an afterthought. You don't need to understand vagueness _this_ well to do or study law.
You misunderstood me. I never said that in order to do well in the study of law one needed to follow any advanced contemporary philosophy, whether it's the philosophy of language or anything else. Indeed, one doesn't need that.
I fully understood what you wanted to say. All I am saying is that there is practically sufficient amount of study one can dedicate to analytic philosophy as, say, a lawyer, and then there is extreme dedication to a highly niche study a specific concept like vagueness for literally years, often to make no progress at all. The latter is highly likely to be a sign of some kind of neurodivergence.
I am poorly educated. Could some philosophical problems seem intractable due to how they stated; could they be flys that just need to be let out of their bottles?
Hello Eric. The fly-bottle comment from Wittgenstein is apt, I think, in one way: some philosophical problems are generated by making some mistake right at the very beginning. But in another, crucial, way it's not apt: there is nothing at all easy about showing the fly out of the bottle.
For some philosophical problems, one can express the problem as a small set of claims that are individually highly plausible and yet provably jointly inconsistent. Those are the killer problems, the ones we can prove aren't based on some foolish assumption.
A major application for philosophy, as I see it (knowing very little about it) is the development tools and results for reasoning about things not amenable to empirical resolution, which is a lot of things.
Consider a yes no question. In Science there are three permissible answers to such a question: Yes, No and I don't know. The third answer is not very useful, but it is a common outcome from Science and it's respected by rational people.
There are many yes no questions for which this third answer is not permissable, such as guilt of a crime, or is the Plaintiff's charge in a tort valid or not? People need answers to these questions and others like them in order to go about the business of living. Otherwise, our society would collapse and lots of people would die.
So we have Law consisting of developed bodies of written laws and judicial precedents. The practice of Law involves arguments made with these plus facts. Law is partly based on philosophy and argument relies on tools developed by philosophers. New questions constantly arise as a result of our societies getting ever more complex. So there is a continuing need for the products of philosophy.
And then there is morality, ethics and politics separate from Law that also needs these thought tools. And Science at the cutting edge where it gets weird (e.g. quantum mechanics, consciousness) needs these things too.
Yep. Medicine too: the doctor has to treat the patient no matter what. He or she doesn't get to just say "I don't know" and run away. They have choose surgery, or meds, or something. Even if they recommend that the patient just rest for a time, they are still taking a stand--even if they don't know what's the best choice.
Would you go so far as to say that those who engage with philosophy are afflicted by an illness? I mean, spending years on the study of vagueness is madness... like why? Asking for a friend. 🤣
Nope! Lots of intellectuals find certain intellectual projects well worth years or decades of work. Bertrand Russell spent years of his incredible life trying to figure out the semantics of "the" and the reasons why simple truths of math like "2 + 3 = 5" are true. Thank God in both cases, since his projects were pivotal for the generation of both linguistics and computer science.
It turns out that understanding vagueness is not just difficult but can be seen as fundamental for understanding language and thought.
Mathematics, unlike the concept of vagueness, has absolutely immense practical value. I would be very surprised if the vast majority of highly successful contemporary philosophers weren't at least somewhat neurospicy.
I agree that lots of philosophers are pretty eccentric in various ways. And math is just about the most practical thing ever. But knowing about vagueness & ambiguity is pretty essential for the study of law, so that's one way it's practical.
I doubt that law scholars and legal practitioners often refer to developments in highly advanced contemporary analytic philosophy. I would assume that any reference to philosophers in the legal body of work is constrained either to philosophy of law, or to some extremely well-established titans of 20th century analytic philosophy. On a cursory level, yours is a valid statement - in the US, prior to law school, prospective lawyers get a philosophy undergraduate degree comparatively often for a reason (though even here I would vary of correlation-causation confusion due to things like self-selection). Having said that, this does not hold to be the case at a super advanced level that you're describing in the article, which seems more often to be a case of a hyperfixation disconnected with practical considerations, or where practical matters are mostly an afterthought. You don't need to understand vagueness _this_ well to do or study law.
You misunderstood me. I never said that in order to do well in the study of law one needed to follow any advanced contemporary philosophy, whether it's the philosophy of language or anything else. Indeed, one doesn't need that.
I fully understood what you wanted to say. All I am saying is that there is practically sufficient amount of study one can dedicate to analytic philosophy as, say, a lawyer, and then there is extreme dedication to a highly niche study a specific concept like vagueness for literally years, often to make no progress at all. The latter is highly likely to be a sign of some kind of neurodivergence.
So the deeper they investigate the more confused they get? And their solution is to just investigate further? Hmmm.
no, the degree of confusion doesn’t increase. it decreases.
Yes, I suppose that, for some, the futility of the enterprise does eventually come into focus.
you obviously didn’t understand the post. try reading the part about progress.
You mean the part about how progress is a matter of realizing that nothing is straightforward?
Nope. I never said that progress is that particular realization.
You really can't read?
It must be a testament to the subtlety of your thought.
I am poorly educated. Could some philosophical problems seem intractable due to how they stated; could they be flys that just need to be let out of their bottles?
Hello Eric. The fly-bottle comment from Wittgenstein is apt, I think, in one way: some philosophical problems are generated by making some mistake right at the very beginning. But in another, crucial, way it's not apt: there is nothing at all easy about showing the fly out of the bottle.
For some philosophical problems, one can express the problem as a small set of claims that are individually highly plausible and yet provably jointly inconsistent. Those are the killer problems, the ones we can prove aren't based on some foolish assumption.
A major application for philosophy, as I see it (knowing very little about it) is the development tools and results for reasoning about things not amenable to empirical resolution, which is a lot of things.
Consider a yes no question. In Science there are three permissible answers to such a question: Yes, No and I don't know. The third answer is not very useful, but it is a common outcome from Science and it's respected by rational people.
There are many yes no questions for which this third answer is not permissable, such as guilt of a crime, or is the Plaintiff's charge in a tort valid or not? People need answers to these questions and others like them in order to go about the business of living. Otherwise, our society would collapse and lots of people would die.
So we have Law consisting of developed bodies of written laws and judicial precedents. The practice of Law involves arguments made with these plus facts. Law is partly based on philosophy and argument relies on tools developed by philosophers. New questions constantly arise as a result of our societies getting ever more complex. So there is a continuing need for the products of philosophy.
And then there is morality, ethics and politics separate from Law that also needs these thought tools. And Science at the cutting edge where it gets weird (e.g. quantum mechanics, consciousness) needs these things too.
Lots of things that need doing--but not by me.
Yep. Medicine too: the doctor has to treat the patient no matter what. He or she doesn't get to just say "I don't know" and run away. They have choose surgery, or meds, or something. Even if they recommend that the patient just rest for a time, they are still taking a stand--even if they don't know what's the best choice.