mattnewport comments on Complexity of Value ≠ Complexity of Outcome - Less Wrong

32 Post author: Wei_Dai 30 January 2010 02:50AM

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Comment author: mattnewport 30 January 2010 09:40:58PM *  2 points [-]

My impression of academic philosophers is that their 'expertise' is primarily in knowledge of what other philosophers have said and in the forms of academic philosophical argument. It is not expertise in true facts about the world. In other words, I would defer to their expertise on the technical details of academically accepted definitions of philosophical terms, or on the writings of Kant, much as I would defer to an expert in literary criticism on the details of what opinions other literary critics have expressed. In neither case however do I consider their opinions to be particularly relevant to the pursuit of true facts about the world.

The fact that the survey you link finds 27% of philosophers 'accept or lean towards non-physicalism' increases my confidence in the above thesis.