bar_scene_gambler Posted February 12, 2014 Posted February 12, 2014 To be fair to Mill he made a wide set of contributions to political philosophy and ethics outside of his work on utilitarianism as well as some influential work on the philosophy of science and logic. Not to mention he made several contributions to economics and was, to his credit, also a proto-feminist. So, I hope this might explain why those who work on inductive logic, philosophy of science, and perhaps even a feminist or two would vote for him over Nietzsche. So it's not just a bunch of smelly utilitarians. Although I am a bit surprised Nietzsche lost as well and am not sure who I would vote for. What?! Why would a feminist not vote for Nietzsche?! He absolutely adored women!
dgswaim Posted February 12, 2014 Posted February 12, 2014 I was fortunate to do a BA at a liberal arts school in a small department where 3 of the six professors were analytic guys and the other three were primarily continental thinkers. I lean analytic, but I have a healthy respect for certain thinkers in the continental tradition (esp. Hussurl, Ricouer, Gadamer and Levinas). I tend to feel that the analytic-continental divide is a rather useless way to think about philosophy. To do philosophy that's worth anything I think one ought to be conversant with both traditions. bar_scene_gambler 1
Monadology Posted February 12, 2014 Posted February 12, 2014 It drives me nuts not knowing what was behind Kierkegaard's last minute rise from the bottom to the top of the list. That result surprises me a lot.
SamStone Posted February 17, 2014 Posted February 17, 2014 Just out of curiosity...What is everyones general attitude toward work in philosophy of mind as it relates to cognitive science? I am really interested in the work of Alva Noë, Evan Thompson, Alicia Juarrero, Andy Clark, etc. but have not seen them mentioned on here before.
dgswaim Posted February 17, 2014 Posted February 17, 2014 Just out of curiosity...What is everyones general attitude toward work in philosophy of mind as it relates to cognitive science? I am really interested in the work of Alva Noë, Evan Thompson, Alicia Juarrero, Andy Clark, etc. but have not seen them mentioned on here before. I'm not familiar with the authors you mention, but I think there are good works being produced by people in phil mind relative to the contributions of cognitive science. David Chalmers did a PhD in cognitive science, if I remember correctly. Patricia Churchland does a lot of work in cognitive science and neuroscience (she co-authored a work called "The Computational Brain" that is top-notch relative to its field). Douglas Hofstadter is a cognitive scientist who flirts with philosophy. Robert Kane has done some interesting stuff, as has Nancey Murphy. I think cognitive science provides some nice concepts to be explored by phil mind.
SamStone Posted February 17, 2014 Posted February 17, 2014 I'm not familiar with the authors you mention, but I think there are good works being produced by people in phil mind relative to the contributions of cognitive science. David Chalmers did a PhD in cognitive science, if I remember correctly. Patricia Churchland does a lot of work in cognitive science and neuroscience (she co-authored a work called "The Computational Brain" that is top-notch relative to its field). Douglas Hofstadter is a cognitive scientist who flirts with philosophy. Robert Kane has done some interesting stuff, as has Nancey Murphy. I think cognitive science provides some nice concepts to be explored by phil mind. Interesting that you mention Nancey Murphy—I just read her Did my Neurons...? and loved what she is doing in it. I thought of mentioning her in my original post but was not sure anyone would recognize her...ironically, you weren't familiar with those who I did mention. I'll have to look up Hofstadter's work, I have heard his name but never read his work. Also, I had forgotten about Chalmers so thanks for the reminder!
Cottagecheeseman Posted February 17, 2014 Posted February 17, 2014 Just out of curiosity...What is everyones general attitude toward work in philosophy of mind as it relates to cognitive science? I am really interested in the work of Alva Noë, Evan Thompson, Alicia Juarrero, Andy Clark, etc. but have not seen them mentioned on here before. Alva Noe is SUPER cool, and I know who one or two of those other names are. I think most people who do analytic philosophy are cool with the work these types of people do, but they might be like me and not super interested in it specifically. Someone on the continental side is going to have to say what their attitude is to it, it might be too empirical and objective for them to really understand though . philophilosopher 1
AcademicX Posted February 17, 2014 Posted February 17, 2014 Alva Noe is SUPER cool, and I know who one or two of those other names are. I think most people who do analytic philosophy are cool with the work these types of people do, but they might be like me and not super interested in it specifically. Someone on the continental side is going to have to say what their attitude is to it, it might be too empirical and objective for them to really understand though . Come on man...no need to bash us Continentals. I took a class on philosophy of mind and I really liked it; I'm just not that interested in it. As you say, we can respect good philosophy but not be super interested in it. As young philosophers we should be the ones breaking up this silly analytic/continental divide. For example, if you read someone like Habermas, you would see that he's committed to working with empirical and objective data (of course, he was very much influence by American Pragmatism). No ill feelings, though. I also dislike Zizek. I think he gives Continental philsophy a bad name.
Cottagecheeseman Posted February 17, 2014 Posted February 17, 2014 Come on man...no need to bash us Continentals. I took a class on philosophy of mind and I really liked it; I'm just not that interested in it. As you say, we can respect good philosophy but not be super interested in it. As young philosophers we should be the ones breaking up this silly analytic/continental divide. For example, if you read someone like Habermas, you would see that he's committed to working with empirical and objective data (of course, he was very much influence by American Pragmatism). No ill feelings, though. I also dislike Zizek. I think he gives Continental philsophy a bad name. I thought the winky face would make it clear I was being facetious. As per philosophy, I'm fond of Husserl who is claimed more so on the continental tradition. The zizek reference is because I made the username on reddit when /r/philosophy was basically /r/zizek. AcademicX 1
wildc4t Posted February 17, 2014 Posted February 17, 2014 Interesting that you mention Nancey Murphy—I just read her Did my Neurons...? and loved what she is doing in it. I thought of mentioning her in my original post but was not sure anyone would recognize her...ironically, you weren't familiar with those who I did mention. I'll have to look up Hofstadter's work, I have heard his name but never read his work. Also, I had forgotten about Chalmers so thanks for the reminder! Chalmers worked with Hofstadter while getting his PhD at Indiana. I know they've at least written one article together. It's in Hofstadter's book Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies. The article is a criticism of traditional efforts in AI (GOFAI - Good Old Fashioned Artificial Intelligence, as John Haugeland calls it) to model high-level cognitive processes without also incorporating simple perception processes as well. Their claim is that both kinds of processes are required to accurately model human-style intelligence. Also, I noticed you mentioned Andy Clark. I'm currently working on my MA Thesis which draws heavily from his work on the Classical / Connectionist debate (Microcognition being my primary text for this).
SamStone Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 Chalmers worked with Hofstadter while getting his PhD at Indiana. I know they've at least written one article together. It's in Hofstadter's book Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies. The article is a criticism of traditional efforts in AI (GOFAI - Good Old Fashioned Artificial Intelligence, as John Haugeland calls it) to model high-level cognitive processes without also incorporating simple perception processes as well. Their claim is that both kinds of processes are required to accurately model human-style intelligence. Also, I noticed you mentioned Andy Clark. I'm currently working on my MA Thesis which draws heavily from his work on the Classical / Connectionist debate (Microcognition being my primary text for this). Thanks! I'll definitely check out that article. I have yet to read Microcognition. With Clark I started with Being There, some articles, and recently read Supersizing the Mind. Its good to hear of others who are interested in this niche of philosophy—not that it is completely rare overall; but where I am at, I am about the only one interested in pursuing it.
PedagogodeLiberacion Posted May 27, 2014 Posted May 27, 2014 Historical: Rousseau, Nietzsche, Spinoza Contemporary: Arendt, Deleuze, Baudrillard, Habermas, Ortega y Gasset
dgswaim Posted May 27, 2014 Posted May 27, 2014 In the reading I've been doing over the summer, I'm finding that I really admire the work of E.J. Lowe. Such a thorough thinker, and always careful and generous with the work of others. I'm finding a lot of his work is a good corrective to my own positions. A shame he passed away.
brettmullga Posted May 28, 2014 Posted May 28, 2014 Jerry Fodor. Favorite Fodor quote: “It is a curiosity of the philosophical temperament, this passion for radical solutions. Do you feel a little twinge in your epistemology? Absolute skepticism is the thing to try... Apparently the rule is: if aspirin doesn't work, try cutting off your head.” jjb919 1
jjb919 Posted May 28, 2014 Posted May 28, 2014 Favorite Fodor quote: “It is a curiosity of the philosophical temperament, this passion for radical solutions. Do you feel a little twinge in your epistemology? Absolute skepticism is the thing to try... Apparently the rule is: if aspirin doesn't work, try cutting off your head.” That is excellent!
dgswaim Posted May 28, 2014 Posted May 28, 2014 Favorite Fodor quote: “It is a curiosity of the philosophical temperament, this passion for radical solutions. Do you feel a little twinge in your epistemology? Absolute skepticism is the thing to try... Apparently the rule is: if aspirin doesn't work, try cutting off your head.” There's a lot that Fodor and I would disagree over, but the dude is seriously funny (and he never pulls punches). Nastasya_Filippovna 1
Nastasya_Filippovna Posted June 2, 2014 Posted June 2, 2014 It's so hard to say - continental: my beloved Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, also Hegel, 20th century: Donald Davidson (he's getting no love on this board! I think he was brilliant), Paul Feyerabend Thomas Kuhn; contemporary, Jaegwon Kim (don't necessarily agree with his views but the man's got tenacity in a world full of nonreductive physicalists, and he's a very lucid and persuasive writer) and Jerry Fodor: while I'm not a fan of computationalism, he's written some incredible work, makes me laugh, and the Special Sciences remains one of the best articles to this day.
MakeYourself Posted June 3, 2014 Posted June 3, 2014 Later Wittgenstein is best Wittgenstein No love for Tractarian Witt?
MorganFreemanlives Posted July 10, 2014 Posted July 10, 2014 (edited) John Mctaggart. the poor man is basically only known for chapter 33 on time from his magnus opus The Nature of Existence , but once you read that masterpiece you get a feeling most contemporary analytics are wasting their time on legos and the continentals in europe got poisoned by eating playdough. i dont think this is just the case for Mct, the late 19th and early 20th century was a reinassance of very impressive systematic metaphysics which holistically tackled all branches of philosophy. how many of you guys have even heard of the likes of james ward or samuel alexander? figures like these are simply forgotten now. still, if any of you havent seen his argument for the unreality of time, this should explain it well, it will either piss you off or give you a "how clever" smile on your face but you cant deny its genius. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXG0gi4rNEs Edited July 10, 2014 by HegelHatingHegelian AcademicX 1
AcademicX Posted July 10, 2014 Posted July 10, 2014 John Mctaggart. the poor man is basically only known for chapter 33 on time from his magnus opus The Nature of Existence , but once you read that masterpiece you get a feeling most contemporary analytics are wasting their time on legos and the continentals in europe got poisoned by eating playdough. i dont think this is just the case for Mct, the late 19th and early 20th century was a reinassance of very impressive systematic metaphysics which holistically tackled all branches of philosophy. how many of you guys have even heard of the likes of james ward or samuel alexander? figures like these are simply forgotten now. still, if any of you havent seen his argument for the unreality of time, this should explain it well, it will either piss you off or give you a "how clever" smile on your face but you cant deny its genius. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXG0gi4rNEs man, i totally quoted this guy on a paper i wrote about Spinoza's conception of time and the eternity of the soul, but i didnt look into his ideas any further. His argument looks really interesting...it will take me some time to make sense of it completely though.
Kierkegaardashian Posted July 10, 2014 Posted July 10, 2014 I suspect that is why, even in light of much recent and active interest in German idealism and proximate philosophers, Nietzsche gets far more attention than Kierkegaard. It's a pretty understandable reaction. But there are, I think, two dimensions with respect to which non-Christian individuals can learn from Kierkegaard (or Christians with theological differences): 1) Kierkegaard's not just interested in Christianity and religion, but with what it means to be human. He was obsessed with Socrates almost as much as with Christ. He has things to say about being human that are independent of particular religious dogma. Most of this material comes from Kierkegaard's pseudonymous works and involve concerns about ethics/normativity, agency, and the significance of human finitude. Some of his religious writings are also significant (in particular those that are more Platonic than Christian, such as Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing). For examples of this, one could look toward Anthony Rudd's work (especially Kierkegaard and the Limits of the Ethical), MacIntyre's critique and the responses of Kierkegaard scholars, Patrick Stokes' work etc... 2) Kierkegaard's entire attack on Christendom, despite being an essentially religious project, may have some important things to say about how we relate to our culture and what it means to critique it (here, Socrates again bears a lot of significance). For examples of this, one could look at Jonathan Lear's work on irony or Jennifer Lockhart's work on ignorant knowledge. Spot on. I've heard a lot of people of all types of persuasions dismiss Kierkegaard. However, it's helpful to remember that great atheistic philosophers like Heidegger and Sartre (not to mention the theistic existentialists) were very heavily influenced by Kierkegaard, despite his "uber-Christian context." If the philosophical greats find a predecessor worth reading and understanding, I'm hesitant to pronounce quick judgment on said predecessor; chances are, there is something to be appreciated in the philosopher that I am too philosophically immature to understand. My ancient philosophy professor said something in class along the same lines that I find helpful: "there is a reason why [X philosopher] has been studied for thousands of years and we are still studying him or her today." Which isn't to say that Kierkegaard can't be crap; all it means is that a lot of very good philosophers would have to be wrong about him and you would have to be right... Also, Kierkegaard is a very difficult philosopher to truly grasp, for one because of his method of "indirect communication." Most of the people I hear dismissing Kierkegaard have read Fear and Trembling and think they understand what he's about. To really understand Kierkegaard (and thus be able to dismiss him or accept him) requires a lot of time and hard work.
alopachuca Posted July 11, 2014 Posted July 11, 2014 John Mctaggart. the poor man is basically only known for chapter 33 on time from his magnus opus The Nature of Existence , but once you read that masterpiece you get a feeling most contemporary analytics are wasting their time on legos and the continentals in europe got poisoned by eating playdough. i dont think this is just the case for Mct, the late 19th and early 20th century was a reinassance of very impressive systematic metaphysics which holistically tackled all branches of philosophy. how many of you guys have even heard of the likes of james ward or samuel alexander? figures like these are simply forgotten now. still, if any of you havent seen his argument for the unreality of time, this should explain it well, it will either piss you off or give you a "how clever" smile on your face but you cant deny its genius. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXG0gi4rNEs I spent many hours on that argument during Metaphysics class last year. One of my favorite singular topics during undergrad.
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now