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Pablo_Stafforini comments on What do professional philosophers believe, and why? - Less Wrong Discussion

31 Post author: RobbBB 01 May 2013 02:40PM

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Comment author: Pablo_Stafforini 02 May 2013 03:36:45AM *  0 points [-]

The finding that expertise is only valuable in fields where there is a sufficiently short and frequent feedback look plausibly explains why professional philosophers are no better than the general population at answering philosophical questions. However, it doesn't explain the observation that philosophical expertise seems to be negatively correlated with true philosophical beliefs, as opposed to merely uncorrelated. Why are philosophers of religion less likely to believe the truth about religion, moral philosophers less likely to believe the truth about morality, and metaphysicians less likely to believe the truth about reality, than their colleagues with different areas of expertise?

Comment author: loup-vaillant 02 May 2013 11:35:32AM *  2 points [-]

Edit: this post is mostly a duplicate of this one

I would guess that those particular fields look more interesting when you make the wrong assumptions to begin with. I mean, it's much less interesting to talk about God when you accept there is none. Or to talk about metaphysics, when you accept that the answer will most likely come from physics. (I don't know about morality.)