Re-edition of the Sokal affair proves once again that social sciences have become a joke in the US

[yung.carl.jung]

Why then is philosophy held in high esteem?

because, as it turns out, many ideas that philosophers had were absolutely pivotal and build the cornerstone of the societies we now live in. christian virtues are merely adaptions of the big nine of aristotelian ethic. the scientific method, mathematics and geometry, heliocentrism, the french revolution, egalitarianism, the nation state, human rights, all these things you take for granted were either influenced by or thought up by philosophers of the past.

 

[brennan]

can you explain what you understand as "series" in this context and why you think that inherently contradicts the first statement?

I'd love it if you explained it. You're the one claiming it makes sense.

To my eye saying a singularity corresponds to a whole load of characteristics of a whole load of other stuff is obviously to misunderstand what the word singularity means. Or to deliberately misuse it.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I clearly stated I'm not familiar with any of his terminology, nor with any of the mathematical terminology. I also never claimed it made sense, I just identified his different claims and laid them out. it's utterly impossible to understandany philosophy without the proper terminology and context. try to work on your reading comprehension

 

[brennan]

It's utterly impossible to understandany philosophy without the proper terminology and context.

Nonsense, e.g.:

"Furthermore, the totality consists of bodies and space. The fact of sensation itself universally attests that there are bodes, and it is by inference to sensation that we must rationally infer the existence of imperceptible bodies, as I remarked previously. If what we call "the void" or "space" or "impalpable being" were nonexistent, bodies would not have anywhere to exist, nor would they have a medium through which to move,as they manifestly do."

Perfectly lucid text from well over two thousand years ago.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

but in this case the terminology is known to us, therefore we can make sense of it. I'm not saying philosophical texts are impossible to understand for the layman, because there are many that aren't. I'm saying they're indecypherable if you lack terminology and context, which is pretty much universally true. You couldn't read an instruction manual in Chinese, not because the text is nonsense, but because you don't know what the signifiers mean.

 

[schlaufuchs]

I mean, amazon reviews of linguistic works are littered with statements about how the texts are impenetrably dense and full of jargon the reviewer doesn't understand. Does that make historical linguistics a nonsense discipline? Or perhaps laymen with no background in historical linguistics aren't the intended audience of academic linguistics reference texts.

 

[HoloDoc]

I mean, amazon reviews of linguistic works are littered with statements about how the texts are impenetrably dense and full of jargon the reviewer doesn't understand. Does that make historical linguistics a nonsense discipline? Or perhaps laymen with no background in historical linguistics aren't the intended audience of academic linguistics reference texts.

Boom. There's a reason Stephen Hawking was the world's most famous physicist. It wasn't because he was the best physicist in the world. It's because he was the best physicist in the world at dumbing physics down to the point where even mouth breathing knuckle draggers like yours truly could grasp it. I can have a discussion with you on professional wrestling that not one other person in this thread will understand. That hardly means pro wrestling is impossible for the layperson to understand.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

two compelling points. the difficulty with philosophy is that terminology often is used to convey concepts that are not part of the physical reality, which makes them not only harder to grasp, but also harder to be universally understood. we have all come across water and wind and gravity, but we all have vastly different conceptions of what is "self", "time", "happiness", whatever.

eastern philosophy might be harder to understand for a phil major specializing in analytic thought as opposed to a random hinduist, because the concepts resonate more with one worldview than they do with another. it's not even just the questions, basic metaphysic premises aren't really shared, there is no base or consensus, really, because there is no objectivity nor continuity like you'd have with a system of closed axioms like maths.

 

[Mouthwash]

because, as it turns out, many ideas that philosophers had were absolutely pivotal and build the cornerstone of the societies we now live in. christian virtues are merely adaptions of the big nine of aristotelian ethic. the scientific method, mathematics and geometry, heliocentrism, the french revolution, egalitarianism, the nation state, human rights, all these things you take for granted were either influenced by or thought up by philosophers of the past.

Math (and to some degree science) was associated with philosophers because they were often the only people who did those things. As for the rest, I think that just the fact that certain ideas took off and then the philosophers who happened to advocate for them early on were cherry-picked out of all the ones that didn't is not a vindication of the discipline.