Why are so many smart people such idiots about philosophy?

Why are so many smart people such idiots about philosophy?
http://qz.com/627989/why-are-so-many-smart-people-such-idiots-about-philosophy/

It goes unmentioned but, to me, this is phase two of a train-wreck that started with religion—scientists who have no understanding of a field dismissing it out of hand. (Indeed, much of what Dawkins and others reject in religion, such as moral realism, are really issues in philosophy generally.)

Why shouldn't they be? You might as well ask why so many smart people are idiots about physics, or theology, or any other discipline. Look at someone like Ben Carson, who by all accounts is a brilliant neurosurgeon yet he seems incapable of understanding much of science not related to his specialty.

I guess the question is "Why are so many people such idiots about philosophy but feel that they are qualified to discuss and dismiss it?"

I agree about Carson, although with him it's not just science but politics and law too.

Certain fields seem to be fly-traps for this. Religion, philosophy and nutrition come to mind. You seldom hear people pontificating about neurosurgery, especially dismissing it.

>3 timspalding: You seldom hear people pontificating about neurosurgery, especially dismissing it.

but general medicine is fair game. So, for that matter, is literary criticism.

general medicine is fair game

Bill Nye is the Jenny McCarthy of philosophy.

So, for that matter, is literary criticism.

I suspect most authors want to be interpreted by their readers. Indeed the authors I know tend to have a low opinion of literary critics.

>5 timspalding: Indeed the authors I know tend to have a low opinion of literary critics.

102 Indispensible works of literary criticism

It seems odd to me why anyone would care what an entertainer (Nye) would think about philosophy. Is he really all that smart? He probably knows as much about philosophy as any other random TV personality. He should get out more.

But where does this "Ben Carson knows doesn't understand science" come from? Compared to the candidates left in the race, all of whom have "political science" degrees which everyone knows is not a real science (Cruz has a "public policy" degree). Carson has degrees in psychology and medicine (again, I would argue that medicine is not science, but if I was felling charitable, I would give psychology the nod.) But I would bet if you lined them all up and gave them all a pop science literacy quiz, Carson would come top.

>1 timspalding:

Is it to do with a more general lack of critical thinking?

>8 John5918:

I don't think that really hits it.

Philosophy has a somewhat odd position in modern education. It's fundamental, but unlike other fundamental topics--and many less fundamental ones--it's not commonly taught in school or required in college. It's a whole way of thinking that most people, including many smart and well-educated people, never encounter.

At the same time, like all other foundational topics, some of its more familiar questions are well known, and the object of speculation from childhood. But whereas our childish speculations about how sex works, what this "Constitution" thing is, or why Chinese people talk funny, are answered in school, and, more importantly, we learn how to approach the questions with a more-than-childish sophistication, with philosophy, grown-ass adults walk around thinking over the questions they had when they were eight, never having learned adult methods of answering them.

An uncritical scientism hardens this attitude. After all, if science "answers all the questions," there's no need to improve one's childish understanding of philosophy and, indeed, reason to believe that philosophy itself is childish. But since philosophical reasoning is foundational to the "big" questions, it's not long before someone who dismisses it, engages in it, badly.

In the 20th century, William James, in A Pluralistic Universe, felt free to burble on about Zeno's paradox, an issue solved by the time of Newton and part of the Calculus course taken by freshmen in STEM fields.* Mathematicians have thought quite carefully and precisely about what an infinite series means, and physicists have thought quite carefully about how that applies to the real world. Mr. James choses to push that aside and ramble. It's one example, but it's a pretty formative one for me.

Let me quote William B. Irvine (professor of philosophy at Wright State University, from his A Guide to the Good Life, from the Introduction:

"Of the things in life you might pursue, which is the thing you believe to be most valuable? Many people will have trouble naming this goal. ... a grand goal in living is the first component of a philosophy of life. This means that if you lack a grand goal in living, you lack a coherent philosophy of life. ... Suppose, however, that we want to take steps to avoid wasting not our wealth but our life. We might seek an expert to guide us: a philosopher of life. ... The obvious place to look for a philosopher of life is in the philosophy department of the local university. Visting the faculty offices there, we will find philosophers specializing in metaphysics, logic, politics, science, religion and ethics. ... But unless we are at an unusual university, we will find no philosophers of life in the sense I have in mind."

He quotes Epicurus: "Vain is the word of a philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man. For just as there is no profit in medicine if it does not expel the diseases of the body, so there is no profit in philosophy either, if it does not expel the suffering of the mind." That's pretty damning of modern philosophy.

What does modern philosophy offer? I've read A Guide to the Good Life and Defending the Axioms: the Philosophical Foundations of Set Theory (ok, so I skimmed that one a bit towards the end.) Tell me what else I should read and why, why it will be relevant to my life? Tell me why I shouldn't be concerned that the authors, like William James and unlike William B. Irvine, decided to ignore any non-philosophical thought on the matter, any experimental study, any rigorous mathematical work?

* http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11984/pg11984-images.html and search for Zeno's famous paradox.

>10 prosfilaes: Mr. James choses to push that aside and ramble.

This seems a strange interpretation. James starts by making the statement that Zeno's Paradox is a "sophism" and explains "the common way" of showing why it is a "sophism". He clearly understands what "an infinite series means".

But he then takes the tack of questioning the assumption of the continuity of time on which the mathematical demonstration depends (and we should note that its relation to reality is a question which has never been put to bed). His conclusion is that time is that "Time itself comes in drops." This was before the development of quantum physics. Some physicists interpret the Plank time as the smallest possible unit of time, and science may find it impossible to determine whether time is, in reality, continuous or discrete.

Physicists may have thought quite carefully about how that applies to the real world, but they can't yet make up their minds. James's thoughts on the topic are as valuable contribution today as they were over a hundred years ago.

"Philosophy is a field in which profound disagreement is the rule rather than the exception. Indeed, as soon as a stable consensus begins to emerge in any branch of philosophy, one ceases to think of it as a branch of philosophy, and begins to think of it as a special science." (John P. Burgess, Rigor and Structure)

"I have come to think that if I had the mind, I have not the brain and nerves for a life of pure philosophy. A continued search among the abstract roots of things, a perpetual questioning of all that plain men take for granted, a chewing the cud for fifty years over inevitable ignorance and a constant frontier watch on the little tidy lighted conventional world of science and daily life--is this the best life for temperaments such as ours? Is it the way of health or even of sanity?" (C. S. Lewis, Collected Letters: Volume 1)

"The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason."

Bertrand Russell

BTW, that quote is from The Problems of Philosophy http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5827.

Chapter XV is "The Value of Philosophy" which is a good antidote to the nonsense in >1 timspalding:.

>13 rrp:

Russell's philosophy apparently released him from the prejudicial prison of not having sex with other men's wives. Well, if it was good enough for Russell, I guess we can't hold it against Trump.

>15 cpg:

Yes, like many great thinkers, Russell had an interesting personal life.

But what field of human knowledge should we turn to provide guidance on whether having sex with other men's wives is a good or bad thing?

>16 rrp:

If the subfield of Philosophy called Ethics doesn't shed some light on questions like this, what good is it?

>16 rrp: But [to] what field of human knowledge should we turn to provide guidance on whether having sex with other men's wives is a good or bad thing?

Ballistics, perhaps?

>15 cpg: Russell's philosophy required him to view other people as people, not the property of their husbands. Not really all that radical in the 21st century.

Sex is one of the issues where I feel that pure philosophy is most problematic. It's stuffed full of biases, and I don't think we begin to understand humans and sex. I'd much rather listen to someone from the Kinsey Institute lecture on the matter then listen to some philosopher who has never talked to anyone involved in a threesome or open relationship, much less a good sample of people, lecture me about the value of monogamy.

>19 prosfilaes:

Fidelity in marriage is not synonymous with treating women as chattel. Fortunately, even in the 21st century unfaithfulness to one's spouse is still widely considered to be a taboo. (Note, for example, the ubiquitous condemnations of AshleyMadison.com and the ubiquitous Schadenfreude when it got hacked.) This is most clearly seen when a man cheats on his wife, since in those cases it's harder to bring up politically correct red herrings.

>20 cpg: Fidelity in marriage is not synonymous with treating women as chattel.

Your words were "other men's wives." That is treating women as chattel.

unfaithfulness to one's spouse

That's making the assumption that having sex with someone else is being unfaithful to one's spouse. It starts from the assumption that marriage can, should and always does involve monogamy.

the ubiquitous Schadenfreude when it got hacked.

It seems that the most ethical people tend to consider Schadenfreude to be taboo; I certainly did not see ubiquitous Schadenfreude at the blogs I visit.

This is most clearly seen when a man cheats on his wife, since in those cases it's harder to bring up politically correct red herrings.

Really? The fine old double standard seems quite in play; a man who cheats on his wife is just being a man, and his wife should stick with him, whereas a woman cheating on her husband is impure, and her husband is less of a man for letting it happen.

>21 prosfilaes: said:

"Really? The fine old double standard seems quite in play; a man who cheats on his wife is just being a man, and his wife should stick with him, whereas a woman cheating on her husband is impure, and her husband is less of a man for letting it happen."

My circle of friends doesn't resemble these observations. There are some very poly friendly cities out here on the West Coast perhaps. My family (starting with my mom and dad when I grew up back in the 70's) rejected such notions, as well as such concepts as 'my wife' or 'my husband'.

All one can do is reject such notions in one's life, and with one's friends, be honest and open with your significant other(s), and don't worry about how some parts of society may judge you.

A friend who recently (in the last 2 years) came out as poly to their family, work and friends found that 9 out of 10 of the folks --- who were not poly themselves, supported their life style, accepted not just the fact, but also both husbands. There was the 1 in 10 who did react the way you posted, but this was a very small minority of all the people.