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Vladimir_Nesov comments on Rational philosophies - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (67)
Let's rather just take the strategies of practical value and throw out the philosophy.
I thought it was pretty clear the post idea was "I've learned some good strategies from Stoicism and wondered if there were practical strategies in other philosophies". This looks like philosophy-bashing for its own sake.
You're supposed to have a philosophy because you actually believe in it. The practical strategies come from the fact that the philosophy is true. Just like you wouldn't say, "Let's just take the technology of practical value and throw out the scientific principles."
The question of accepting solutions offered by a theory is distinct from the question of accepting the theory, even though finding something of value might well argue in favor of the theory.
Certainly true in some instances. Your post makes it sound like we should throw out all philosophy.
Most philosophy being wrong and toxic, this seems like a good heuristic.
Most truth claims are also both wrong and toxic, that doesn't mean we should give up on the concept of truth.
It does mean that we should give up on most claims though.
(I wouldn't call most claims toxic, in the sense of promoting anti-epistemic habits, which is something more characteristic of philosophy specifically.)
How is that?
Only if we determine them to be false.
I meant toxic in the sense of promoting destructive behavior.
As I said, a heuristic, which assumes inaccuracy and possibility of detecting exceptions by other means. For the "most claims" variant, the relevant heuristic would be associated with Occam's razor.
Late forms of Stoicism were pretty light on claims, relative to the strategies.
The main claims that I can remember are that determinism is true, and that the highest form of excellence for humans is to be rational.
Modulo "determinism" and "rationality" in that statement possibly referring to something wrong, your claim seems to be equivalent to there being nothing to accept (and correspondingly regret having thrown out) to begin with.
I'm still not sure if they meant the same thing by rational as we do (they're closer to the time when rational meant understanding ratios), but I do mean that they have very little to throw out.
There are some claims, but very little seems to hinge on them.
I'm not so sure about this. We all know the downsides of identity, but it seems to have its upsides as well - generalizing from one example, I know that I have a much better track record trying to change my behavior through "x is what a good {boyfriend|student|Green Team fan|Star-Bellied Sneetch|...} would do" than "x is a wise thing to do." (Although perhaps someone who self-conceptualized as wise would have an easier time.) My guess is that people who say (accurately, as far as I know) that Stoic philosophy has helped them benefited not so much from exposure to the advice that one shouldn't make one's happiness dependent on external circumstances (surely everyone has been so exposed) but from actually motivating themselves to do it by leveraging their identity as an adherent of Stoicism. Mutatis mutandis "rationalist," and so on.
Upsides of identity: It makes good ideas associated with it stick better.
Downsides of identity: It makes bad ideas associated with it stick better.