It's always seemed bizarre to me how disconnected from the philosophical discourse the sequences are. It's a series of philosophical positions articulated in ways that make naming them, and thus exposing oneself to the counter-arguments to them, and the ongoing discussions they are a part of, EXTREMELY difficult. If someone would just go through the sequences and label the ideas with their philosophical names and cite some of the people they are associated with in the larger philosophical discourse it seems like a lot of the discussion here could be short-cutted by simply exposing the community to the people who have already talked about this stuff.
I just read fake frameworks and I still just feel like I'm being interpreted as asking a different question than I am asking. If the frameworks are ultimately fake then that's fine. I just want to know what the frameworks are and where they come from. I'm asking "Why do you believe what you believe?" and was expecting the answer to take the form of citations of cognitive/experimental psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology. Is that not the kind of answer I should be expecting?
While a summary would be ideal, I'm really looking for any specific source from any of those fields that the community would deem important and relatively trustworthy. I'm going to be at least mildly critical in my analysis and so I want to be sure that I'm not just strawmanning. Whatever the strongest arguments and sources rationalist can provide from these sources, they are the ones I want to spend my time working with. I'm trying to narrow this down to single sources because I want to do a critical analysis of a single source as an example of how to do the kind of critical analysis I'm going to be explaining... (read more)
That's great, but synthesis of multiple sources begins with single sources and I'm trying to start at that level and build up. I'm not asking for a definitive source, just studies that rationalists think are important, supportive of their worldview, and reliable as far as single studies go.
If philosophy(and psychology) is supposed to be based on the findings of cognitive science(and not the other way around,
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vzLrQaGPa9DNCpuZz/against-modal-logics
recursive justification hits rock bottom with a reflective process that relies on cognitive science,
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/C8nEXTcjZb9oauTCW/where-recursive-justification-hits-bottom
and reflection on the ways human brains are predictably irrational is the lens that sees its own flaws
https://www.lesswrong.com/s/5g5TkQTe9rmPS5vvM/p/46qnWRSR7L2eyNbMA
then what cognitive science, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology is that and what studies exist to support it?
The importance of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology to rationalist projects are no secret. The sequences begin with an introduction to cognitive biases and heuristics for example. I am an amateur researcher of theoretical and philosophical psychology currently preparing a series of blog posts intended to introduce the rationality community to some of the key insights from that field. As part of that project, I'm hoping to use a couple of studies as case studies to examine the processes by which the knowledge gained from them was produced and the philosophical and theoretical assumptions at play in the interpretation of their findings. In choosing which studies to use as case studies,... (read more)
I just read most of the comments in this thread and despite a general agreement that LW philosophy and Quinean philosophy have a whole lot in common, no one even suggested reading up on his critics. The lens that sees it's own flaws is fine and good(although always a more difficult task than one might expect), but what about the lens that exposes itself to the eyes of others and asks them what flaws they see?
And, especially with the replication crisis, shouldn't we all be gaining some awareness of the philosophical assumptions that inform our experimental and cognitive neuroscience? The interpreters of an FMRI scan or the designers or interpreters of an... (read more)
― Leo Tolstoy- Anna Karenina
I found myself reading this book today thought I'd remembered someone on Less Wrong posting about it. So here I am.
I think your critique misses some really valid critiques provided by Lakoff of the entire rationalist project.
The sections on Quinne, Kahneman and Taversky(around p. 471) and around pages 15 and 105 are particularly good.
What your critique misses is that when you use the lens of cognitive science to critique Lakoff's philosophy is that the body of work you are drawing on is already saturated with and informed by the assumptions you are critiquing. In Lakoffian terms, when we look at a brain scan and correlate activity in it to the words someone... (read more)
This was a fascinating read. You may find an essay in my recent post history on the purported difference between "Greek" and "Hebrew" ways of thinking interesting.
I stumbled on this essay while reading a book that does a meta-analysis of Lakoff's "objectivism vs experientialism" and then proposes an integration as part of a larger integration project for general and domain language. It does so while also addressing implications for Machine translation and AI, but I'm neither a linguist nor an AI researcher so I find myself wondering what someone more familiar with Lesswrongian projects than I would think of it.
The integration it proposes is through the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, my(budding) area of expertise.
Anyways, here it is, and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts if you do read it.
I linked it above.
Hemming problem?