Couldn't agree more, although I wonder what the deeper implications of this are, that is there are lots of high status people, with lots of fancy degrees and important roles in various social institutions, all of whom seem to can't get enough of ancient philosophy or the more recent continental stuff, whilst many of them are faking having read such philosophers, quite a lot of them have actually read them. What are we to think of this?, are they unintelligent, is there some Hansonian story about signalling, perhaps they sincerely believe that Plato and Kant and Heidegger etc. had access to some profound source of knowledge. (https://josephbronski.substack.com/p/why-philosophy-is-invalid) somewhat related, although from best I can tell Bronski seems pretty weak on analytic philosophy.
Great piece. I've also commented on Sauer's article some months ago (btw, I believe he has recently published a piece in the very same journal where he provides a partial rebuttal to its first article). I mostly agree with you and Sauer. I've however the impression that reading past philosophers is useful, but mostly to play the academic game. I'm writing a book that belongs to Economics and Philosophy. I think Kant is not mentionned a single time. I'm curious to see how philosophy referees and readers will react!
This seems pretty badly mistaken to me. Reading great historical philosophers is useful if for no other reason than to expose our own prejudices and unexamined assumptions. Take ethics, for instance. There was a long stretch in the early-to-mid 20th-century where anti-realism (typically some kind of non-cognitivism) was taken as obviously correct. Contrast this with today, when moral realism is a strong majority view, and virtue ethics is the most popular normative theory: https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/4890. This change was wrought primarily by the work of people like Anscombe, Foot, and MacIntyre, who were quite explicitly inspired by their readings of Aristotle and Aquinas. Now, does that mean that their arguments were precisely the same as those of Aristotle and Aquinas? Of course not. But it was their reading of these historic thinkers which inspired them, provided them with their basic projects and conceptual schemes, etc.
In the passage where you say that Huemer "impressively broadsides Aristotle," you go on to quote Huemer talking about Plato. I assume this was simply a typo, but I thought it might be useful to mention.
"We know that IQs have been going up dramatically over time". The so called Flynn effect is suppoed to be an increase of 3% IQ per decade. Is it credible to say that Plato IQ is that low ?
> So it would be miraculous if the disproportionately low IQ philosophers who existed historically
Isn't this Berkson's paradox? You assume ancient philosophers are less intelligent than modern ones because ancient people are less intelligent than modern ones. But since we know they did philosophy, we should actually be more impressed. Like a short NBA player or a highly rated but shabby restaurant.
(Using "intelligent" instead of IQ since online discussions using the word "IQ" tend to assign the concept magic powers and never validate any of their assumptions.)
"This is all just a terrible way of responding to the challenge. Thrasymachus' statements about the sheep are just an analogy, which only serves to illustrate Thrasymachus' point -- whether shepherds really are concerned for the good of sheep is completely irrelevant. The relevant point is how leaders actually behave in the real world, which requires empirical evidence about leaders."
Socrates' comment can be read, a lot more charitably, as pointing out that there is more than one way of framing the issue, that leaders might be skilled professionals who are being recompensed for the value they bring. (Huemer, of course, is dogmatically wedded to the idea that government is always bad). Moreover, the overall point of the Republic is normative ,,.to specify an ideal state under ideal leadership, not to describe existing leaders.
Philosophy isnt like other subjects, because it consists of unanswered questions. Information is useful, but so are hypotheses. There's an argument for looking everywhere and anywhere for the best way explanation of the data...not just backwards, but sideways, at other cultures.
Breadth is important... vital, in fact . In the least convenient universe, you would have to consider every theory before finding the one true theory. More convenient universes are highly compressible, so that the one true theory is fairly simple, and most of the complex theories have redundant complexity. But we don't know which universe we are in...probably somewhere in the middle.
Failing to consider a sufficient breadth of candidate theories is likely to lead to prematurely deciding on an imperfect theory -- the problem that is well known is AI as "finding a local minimum". In psychology it's called "early cognitive closure " and in rationality it's knows as "privileging the hypothesis". But while the rationalist theoretically objects to it, it , it often applies it as well. Acquanting yourself with the full range of known theories is hard work. Having done so, it is harder to come to a conclusion. For that reason, narrowness feels like deconfusion from the inside
Response to “Against History of Philosophy” by “Bentham’s Bulldog” by B.A. student (so forgive me not being an expert):
In the beginning you give this example of Sam Harris, with which I generally agree. But then you compare it to Kant:
“Kant will say some inane nonsense, and people will treat him like he’s Jesus Christ. He’ll say something vague but clearly false, and people will act like he actually made profound points”.
You should give an example here, because otherwise it is just a baseless accusation. Maybe you just did not understand what Kant wanted to say.
Re section one: In section one you argue that today we have access to much more information than the ancients did. I agree with that. Ancient philosophers are not to blame when some of them thought that the basic elements of the world were e.g. water, fire, earth etc. I would consider this kind of endeavor more akin to what chemists or physicists to. But what I think you are missing is that philosophy plays with notions which do not necessarily depend on having more information because they are doing a conceptual endeavor. For example, why would Democritus need more information about the universe, like physicists have today, to argue that the world must made up of smallest particles? It is a logical argument, it is a priori and not based on scanning or measuring the world. Aristotle argued that things are a combination of form and content. What would up-to-date information in physics or so help there? Philosophy has a moment of time-independence. Philosophy can be considered time-bound in a materialist way, e.g. Adorno argues that Kant’s philosophy was much influenced by bourgeois values, like law and order. But philosophy is also timeless in a sense because many arguments apply regardless of the information we get from natural sciences, for example the already mentioned Democritus and Aristotle points must be challenged philosophically and not scientifically.
I am no expert in the ancients which makes it more difficult for me to defend them, but I am glad you are also attempting to wipe the floor with more recent philosophers like Kant and Hegel, because I will gladly defend them.
Sauer’s points against the ethicists are laughable if I may say so. Aristotle arguing for slavery is no problem for us unless we are too stupid to criticize him and separate the good from the bad philosophy. We can clearly see that there is no good reason to accept that some people have some sort of “slave essence”. We can see that this is probably a by-product of his time, which is why Aristotle wanted to justify it, similar to Kant arguing against masturbation. We can still look at the arguments in general and separate it from the cultural baggage that Aristotle or Kant brought with him. We can look at his arguments in the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason whether the argument as such, namely the arguments for the Categorical Imperative, make sense. Koorsgaard (2021) for example uses Aristotle and Kant to argue for her animal ethics, so here it would actually make sense to read the Aristotle and Kant themselves to understand her arguments better and to see whether you agree with her interpretation in the first place. Or do you want to get your knowledge about classic philosophical concept, such as ergon or the categorical imperative, only through secondary literature? You will never develop your own stance on these concepts like this.
If I wanted I could turn this point around, provided you agree with Sauer there: You are a utilitarian. Most forms of utilitarianism which I have come across, I cannot see an argument against raping unconscious people. I believe, and please convince me of the opposite, that utilitarianism justifies that e.g. a doctor, let us say in palliative care, rapes comatose or unconscious people (they will never know) and removes the evidence so no one will ever find out. This is a net positive situation in terms of utility and therefore justified under utilitarianism. I do not see a way around. You could say the risk is too high that this somehow comes to light and causes outrage (suffering), but I can change the hypothetical: let’s say the Dr. does this once and then never again. The chance of it coming to light are super small. According to Hanno Sauer, I should not trust you as a philosopher now, which I think is just a silly argument. I am open to hear what you have to say, even if you would bite the bullet on the example I gave.
Quickly, another point from my personal experience. I have read the Groundwork and the second Critique of Kant and I have also read a good number of analytical moral philosophy and I think the latter raise some good points here and there. Yet, I am still wrestling between both in some points. I think Kant’s arguments against getting moral principles from experience (which from my experience analytic moral philosophy is doing) still need a good addressing by modern philosophy. This is an example of how Kant is still relevant for philosophy.
On the other hand, do you know who addressed Kant’s arguments well? Hegel. You should read both. You should not naively trust that modern philosophy today debunked all earlier philosophy. If you only read modern analytic philosophy you will never learn other styles of thinking like for example Hegelian dialectics. Sure, you can read Frederik Beiser’s introduction to Hegel, but there you will get Hegel through an analytical lense. You will not get Hegel as Hegel. It’s as if you got instant noodles (Beiser) instead of freshly served ramen (Hegel). You will not see the speculative and dialectical thinking in action, in its original form, because analytic philosophy does not think dialectical. Analytic philosophy mostly does not like Hegel I think. But you have to see for yourself, you cannot always trust others, especially if it comes with such premises as analytic philosophy. Try different air, otherwise you will end up being dogmatic.
Re section two. I think you are cherry-picking bad takes here. You could have looked at better arguments. And again, when there are bad arguments that does not mean that every argument of a philosopher is bad. I agree with you that Mill’s argument for utilitarianism does not work. I have not seen Peter Singer justify the principle of utility though, can you point me to where he does? I only know Animal Liberation and Practical Ethics.
I think, although much of what ancient philosophy gave us is wrong, you can still learn from them ways of arguing. I have not read any Huemer or Parfit, so I will not comment anything on them. I watched a video, though, by the youtuber “Kane B” (PhD in philosophy) who explained Huemer’s argument for moral realism and the argument is pretty bad if you ask me.
Quick side note once again: My experience with e.g. analytic moral philosophy is that their papers are also lacking, just as you say that ancient philosophy is bad. They kind of philosophize out of the blue, disregard arguments that they have to address (that’s why one has to read older philosophers, too!!), they disregard dialectical philosophy and rely very much on rhetoric like “It seems plausible to say that” or “We all would agree…”.
I do not really see the point Huemer makes against Kant. Kant wants to examine whether reason can be practical and whether our will can be determined by pure practical reason. This means the determination of the will must be a priori, which excludes anything empirical, i.e. the drives or the laws of society etc. A determinant which is a priori must be a law. I like to illustrate this point with mathematics: mathematics is concerned with laws like the Pythagoras Theorem, and these laws are analytical and necessary, they are a product of pure reason. Also take the distributive rule: a(b+c) = ab + ac. So, it must be a law that determines the will. The content of the law must also be from pure reason. As there is no content as such, we have a mere form, which is the categorical imperative. So, in order to determine your will by pure reason you need to (1) act in respect to the law (not for the maxim or the goal of your maxim) and also act only with maxims which can be logically conceived of as laws.
There are much better arguments against Kant and Huemer’s polemic comment at the end of your quote makes him look as if he did not understand Kant, really. Go and try to understand Kant for yourself, dude.
Concluding remarks. I believe it is very important to study older philosophy, because there are valuable insights to be gained and just because they are old it does not mean they are wrong. Furthermore, disregarding older philosophy makes one stay in a bubble. For example, assuming you’re mostly influenced by analytic philosophy, you will stay within this style of thinking and way of approaching philosophy. Another point, take literature, for example. There is still reason to read Frankenstein, Hamlet or other old stories to learn something about humanity, morality and the world, because they are all written from humans and the struggles and questions of humans often remain very similar over the centuries. We are not the Gods of knowledge just because we live in the present. This may be the case for our advances in natural sciences, but not necessarily in philosophy. I agree that philosophy improved greatly, but I disagree that older authors cannot provide something for today. I think a good practical example why studying the history of philosophy is important is the book “Dialectic of Enlightenment” by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, I encourage you to take a look into that.
I wrote this very quickly, so I know it’s kind of mediocre, but I would be happy if you respond. Take care.
Couldn't agree more, although I wonder what the deeper implications of this are, that is there are lots of high status people, with lots of fancy degrees and important roles in various social institutions, all of whom seem to can't get enough of ancient philosophy or the more recent continental stuff, whilst many of them are faking having read such philosophers, quite a lot of them have actually read them. What are we to think of this?, are they unintelligent, is there some Hansonian story about signalling, perhaps they sincerely believe that Plato and Kant and Heidegger etc. had access to some profound source of knowledge. (https://josephbronski.substack.com/p/why-philosophy-is-invalid) somewhat related, although from best I can tell Bronski seems pretty weak on analytic philosophy.
Great piece. I've also commented on Sauer's article some months ago (btw, I believe he has recently published a piece in the very same journal where he provides a partial rebuttal to its first article). I mostly agree with you and Sauer. I've however the impression that reading past philosophers is useful, but mostly to play the academic game. I'm writing a book that belongs to Economics and Philosophy. I think Kant is not mentionned a single time. I'm curious to see how philosophy referees and readers will react!
sharp and hilarious, congrats Matthew!
This seems pretty badly mistaken to me. Reading great historical philosophers is useful if for no other reason than to expose our own prejudices and unexamined assumptions. Take ethics, for instance. There was a long stretch in the early-to-mid 20th-century where anti-realism (typically some kind of non-cognitivism) was taken as obviously correct. Contrast this with today, when moral realism is a strong majority view, and virtue ethics is the most popular normative theory: https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/4890. This change was wrought primarily by the work of people like Anscombe, Foot, and MacIntyre, who were quite explicitly inspired by their readings of Aristotle and Aquinas. Now, does that mean that their arguments were precisely the same as those of Aristotle and Aquinas? Of course not. But it was their reading of these historic thinkers which inspired them, provided them with their basic projects and conceptual schemes, etc.
(BTW, for those interested in the relevant history, I highly recommend this: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-women-are-up-to-something-9780197541074)
Parfit: Kant is the best ever moral philosopher.
Parfit's Bulldog: Sam Harris is better.
Good joke Matthew
What is knowledge?
In the passage where you say that Huemer "impressively broadsides Aristotle," you go on to quote Huemer talking about Plato. I assume this was simply a typo, but I thought it might be useful to mention.
"We know that IQs have been going up dramatically over time". The so called Flynn effect is suppoed to be an increase of 3% IQ per decade. Is it credible to say that Plato IQ is that low ?
> So it would be miraculous if the disproportionately low IQ philosophers who existed historically
Isn't this Berkson's paradox? You assume ancient philosophers are less intelligent than modern ones because ancient people are less intelligent than modern ones. But since we know they did philosophy, we should actually be more impressed. Like a short NBA player or a highly rated but shabby restaurant.
(Using "intelligent" instead of IQ since online discussions using the word "IQ" tend to assign the concept magic powers and never validate any of their assumptions.)
"This is all just a terrible way of responding to the challenge. Thrasymachus' statements about the sheep are just an analogy, which only serves to illustrate Thrasymachus' point -- whether shepherds really are concerned for the good of sheep is completely irrelevant. The relevant point is how leaders actually behave in the real world, which requires empirical evidence about leaders."
Socrates' comment can be read, a lot more charitably, as pointing out that there is more than one way of framing the issue, that leaders might be skilled professionals who are being recompensed for the value they bring. (Huemer, of course, is dogmatically wedded to the idea that government is always bad). Moreover, the overall point of the Republic is normative ,,.to specify an ideal state under ideal leadership, not to describe existing leaders.
Philosophy isnt like other subjects, because it consists of unanswered questions. Information is useful, but so are hypotheses. There's an argument for looking everywhere and anywhere for the best way explanation of the data...not just backwards, but sideways, at other cultures.
Breadth is important... vital, in fact . In the least convenient universe, you would have to consider every theory before finding the one true theory. More convenient universes are highly compressible, so that the one true theory is fairly simple, and most of the complex theories have redundant complexity. But we don't know which universe we are in...probably somewhere in the middle.
Failing to consider a sufficient breadth of candidate theories is likely to lead to prematurely deciding on an imperfect theory -- the problem that is well known is AI as "finding a local minimum". In psychology it's called "early cognitive closure " and in rationality it's knows as "privileging the hypothesis". But while the rationalist theoretically objects to it, it , it often applies it as well. Acquanting yourself with the full range of known theories is hard work. Having done so, it is harder to come to a conclusion. For that reason, narrowness feels like deconfusion from the inside
Response to “Against History of Philosophy” by “Bentham’s Bulldog” by B.A. student (so forgive me not being an expert):
In the beginning you give this example of Sam Harris, with which I generally agree. But then you compare it to Kant:
“Kant will say some inane nonsense, and people will treat him like he’s Jesus Christ. He’ll say something vague but clearly false, and people will act like he actually made profound points”.
You should give an example here, because otherwise it is just a baseless accusation. Maybe you just did not understand what Kant wanted to say.
Re section one: In section one you argue that today we have access to much more information than the ancients did. I agree with that. Ancient philosophers are not to blame when some of them thought that the basic elements of the world were e.g. water, fire, earth etc. I would consider this kind of endeavor more akin to what chemists or physicists to. But what I think you are missing is that philosophy plays with notions which do not necessarily depend on having more information because they are doing a conceptual endeavor. For example, why would Democritus need more information about the universe, like physicists have today, to argue that the world must made up of smallest particles? It is a logical argument, it is a priori and not based on scanning or measuring the world. Aristotle argued that things are a combination of form and content. What would up-to-date information in physics or so help there? Philosophy has a moment of time-independence. Philosophy can be considered time-bound in a materialist way, e.g. Adorno argues that Kant’s philosophy was much influenced by bourgeois values, like law and order. But philosophy is also timeless in a sense because many arguments apply regardless of the information we get from natural sciences, for example the already mentioned Democritus and Aristotle points must be challenged philosophically and not scientifically.
I am no expert in the ancients which makes it more difficult for me to defend them, but I am glad you are also attempting to wipe the floor with more recent philosophers like Kant and Hegel, because I will gladly defend them.
Sauer’s points against the ethicists are laughable if I may say so. Aristotle arguing for slavery is no problem for us unless we are too stupid to criticize him and separate the good from the bad philosophy. We can clearly see that there is no good reason to accept that some people have some sort of “slave essence”. We can see that this is probably a by-product of his time, which is why Aristotle wanted to justify it, similar to Kant arguing against masturbation. We can still look at the arguments in general and separate it from the cultural baggage that Aristotle or Kant brought with him. We can look at his arguments in the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason whether the argument as such, namely the arguments for the Categorical Imperative, make sense. Koorsgaard (2021) for example uses Aristotle and Kant to argue for her animal ethics, so here it would actually make sense to read the Aristotle and Kant themselves to understand her arguments better and to see whether you agree with her interpretation in the first place. Or do you want to get your knowledge about classic philosophical concept, such as ergon or the categorical imperative, only through secondary literature? You will never develop your own stance on these concepts like this.
If I wanted I could turn this point around, provided you agree with Sauer there: You are a utilitarian. Most forms of utilitarianism which I have come across, I cannot see an argument against raping unconscious people. I believe, and please convince me of the opposite, that utilitarianism justifies that e.g. a doctor, let us say in palliative care, rapes comatose or unconscious people (they will never know) and removes the evidence so no one will ever find out. This is a net positive situation in terms of utility and therefore justified under utilitarianism. I do not see a way around. You could say the risk is too high that this somehow comes to light and causes outrage (suffering), but I can change the hypothetical: let’s say the Dr. does this once and then never again. The chance of it coming to light are super small. According to Hanno Sauer, I should not trust you as a philosopher now, which I think is just a silly argument. I am open to hear what you have to say, even if you would bite the bullet on the example I gave.
Quickly, another point from my personal experience. I have read the Groundwork and the second Critique of Kant and I have also read a good number of analytical moral philosophy and I think the latter raise some good points here and there. Yet, I am still wrestling between both in some points. I think Kant’s arguments against getting moral principles from experience (which from my experience analytic moral philosophy is doing) still need a good addressing by modern philosophy. This is an example of how Kant is still relevant for philosophy.
On the other hand, do you know who addressed Kant’s arguments well? Hegel. You should read both. You should not naively trust that modern philosophy today debunked all earlier philosophy. If you only read modern analytic philosophy you will never learn other styles of thinking like for example Hegelian dialectics. Sure, you can read Frederik Beiser’s introduction to Hegel, but there you will get Hegel through an analytical lense. You will not get Hegel as Hegel. It’s as if you got instant noodles (Beiser) instead of freshly served ramen (Hegel). You will not see the speculative and dialectical thinking in action, in its original form, because analytic philosophy does not think dialectical. Analytic philosophy mostly does not like Hegel I think. But you have to see for yourself, you cannot always trust others, especially if it comes with such premises as analytic philosophy. Try different air, otherwise you will end up being dogmatic.
Re section two. I think you are cherry-picking bad takes here. You could have looked at better arguments. And again, when there are bad arguments that does not mean that every argument of a philosopher is bad. I agree with you that Mill’s argument for utilitarianism does not work. I have not seen Peter Singer justify the principle of utility though, can you point me to where he does? I only know Animal Liberation and Practical Ethics.
I think, although much of what ancient philosophy gave us is wrong, you can still learn from them ways of arguing. I have not read any Huemer or Parfit, so I will not comment anything on them. I watched a video, though, by the youtuber “Kane B” (PhD in philosophy) who explained Huemer’s argument for moral realism and the argument is pretty bad if you ask me.
Quick side note once again: My experience with e.g. analytic moral philosophy is that their papers are also lacking, just as you say that ancient philosophy is bad. They kind of philosophize out of the blue, disregard arguments that they have to address (that’s why one has to read older philosophers, too!!), they disregard dialectical philosophy and rely very much on rhetoric like “It seems plausible to say that” or “We all would agree…”.
I do not really see the point Huemer makes against Kant. Kant wants to examine whether reason can be practical and whether our will can be determined by pure practical reason. This means the determination of the will must be a priori, which excludes anything empirical, i.e. the drives or the laws of society etc. A determinant which is a priori must be a law. I like to illustrate this point with mathematics: mathematics is concerned with laws like the Pythagoras Theorem, and these laws are analytical and necessary, they are a product of pure reason. Also take the distributive rule: a(b+c) = ab + ac. So, it must be a law that determines the will. The content of the law must also be from pure reason. As there is no content as such, we have a mere form, which is the categorical imperative. So, in order to determine your will by pure reason you need to (1) act in respect to the law (not for the maxim or the goal of your maxim) and also act only with maxims which can be logically conceived of as laws.
There are much better arguments against Kant and Huemer’s polemic comment at the end of your quote makes him look as if he did not understand Kant, really. Go and try to understand Kant for yourself, dude.
Concluding remarks. I believe it is very important to study older philosophy, because there are valuable insights to be gained and just because they are old it does not mean they are wrong. Furthermore, disregarding older philosophy makes one stay in a bubble. For example, assuming you’re mostly influenced by analytic philosophy, you will stay within this style of thinking and way of approaching philosophy. Another point, take literature, for example. There is still reason to read Frankenstein, Hamlet or other old stories to learn something about humanity, morality and the world, because they are all written from humans and the struggles and questions of humans often remain very similar over the centuries. We are not the Gods of knowledge just because we live in the present. This may be the case for our advances in natural sciences, but not necessarily in philosophy. I agree that philosophy improved greatly, but I disagree that older authors cannot provide something for today. I think a good practical example why studying the history of philosophy is important is the book “Dialectic of Enlightenment” by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, I encourage you to take a look into that.
I wrote this very quickly, so I know it’s kind of mediocre, but I would be happy if you respond. Take care.