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lukeprog comments on Rationality Quotes January 2014 - Less Wrong
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David Chalmers
Influenced by this forum, I repeatedly tried to read up on basic philosophy over the last couple of years, only to recoil in disgust every time, after realizing that the "experts" keep discussing big ideas, big questions and so on without ever properly defining what the hell they are talking about to begin with. No wonder they then disagree on premises and conclusions.
Rigorous definitions of particular notions are the output of good philosophy, not the input.
Please feel free to explain and give some examples.
If so, Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy should be up your alley.
That's because finding the correct definitions of concepts is a big part of the problem.
Absolutely. and those learned scientists should understand as much.
I wonder whether it's because they don't realize the problem with not being specific, or whether they are aware of it, but they do it anyway as a part of some signalling game. And what specifically would be the rules of the signalling game?
It is merely: "If you don't understand me, it means I am deeper thinker than you?" Or something more sophisticated, like: "You can understand me, but to do that you have to read a lot of my texts very carefully. People who admire me are more likely to do it than people who don't, which is how I increase the ratio of people who agree with me among those qualified to discuss me"?
Yet another option would be that philosophers use multiple channels for communication. Maybe they speak clearly and define their terms when speaking in person, but have a taboo against doing so in writing.
I doubt any of those are good guesses. They think they are operating at the right level of abstraction, and they think that they meaningfully contribute to the body of human knowledge, and they don't have any secret communication channels anymore than mathematicians do. They definitely play the status games, but no more than any other group.
I'd expect that the local janitor considers status games and their personal status less than the philosophy students that he or she cleans up after. I'd argue that working in higher education is itself a sign that someone pays more attention to the status-game than most, and that philosophy in specific attracts higher-status-seekers than other fields.
There are some selection pressures going on, here (tenure, costs, limited availability, the selection processes favoring status).
I doubt it's the biggest cause, or even a big cause, but I'd not dismiss it entirely.