billswift comments on There's learned philosophers but not philosophical experts - Less Wrong

3 Post author: JamesCole 29 January 2012 10:28AM

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Comment author: billswift 30 January 2012 07:10:20PM 2 points [-]

Disciplined reasoning. The arguments may be, and often are, flawed, but they are explicit and checkable. And if you don't think this is a skill, and one that takes a lot of practice, then you need to try it yourself.

Comment author: [deleted] 30 January 2012 09:43:29PM 0 points [-]

No, that sounds plausible enough. Though I suppose it can't be the only philosophical skill. After all, the question of whether or not disciplined reasoning is a philosophical skill could only be a philosophical question. And if we suggested that we could only address or answer that question by way of disciplined reasoning then we would be begging the question. Yet we must be competent to answer that question, given that we have the answer. So there must be other skills, I suppose. If this is so, won't we find ourselves with an infinite number of philosophical skills?