If you wouldn't confidently proclaim that string theory is false without having read about string theory, you should adopt the same attitude towards philosophical views
Mary Midgley repeatedly called out scientists for dismissing philosophy and then doing it poorly. However, I don’t think philosophers and scientists should “stay in their lanes.” There are have many scientists who were good philosophers and traditionally the two subjects have complemented and inspired each other. I would hate to see a world where the two disciplines didn’t talk to each (or to artists).
Stop talking nonsense. There is nothing about morality that cannot be deduced by a strictly average person with common-sense. Marx got it right when he said that morality is an artefact of a particular society at a particular time. Morality comes from the bottom up, not from philosophical elites.
I feel your frustration about the absence of humility when sciency people stray out of their lane to opine on everyone else's disciplines. It's as if having some sciency cognitive leanings makes a lot of people less - rather than more - insightful. The most rigid opinionators I know on other epistemic fields all have sciency backgrounds.
Thank you for this post. I mostly agree. I’m not a philosopher myself, and I always found arrogance about philosophy to be the general norm. Which is why I don’t listen to Lawrence Krauss, as his views on anything not physics are pedestrian and almost ignorant. Carlo Rovelli and Tim Maudlin are way more interesting.
If I deny the existence of gravity, presumably I will fall off a cliff and cease denying anything.
If I embrace nonsensical philosophical postpositions, I will not vanish in a puff of logic. Indeed, as long as I conform to social expectations, I may even benefit from my outlandish positions.
Surely this is a relevant difference? I believe I am plagiarizing (and probably bastardizing) Orwell here.
Mary Midgley repeatedly called out scientists for dismissing philosophy and then doing it poorly. However, I don’t think philosophers and scientists should “stay in their lanes.” There are have many scientists who were good philosophers and traditionally the two subjects have complemented and inspired each other. I would hate to see a world where the two disciplines didn’t talk to each (or to artists).
Stop talking nonsense. There is nothing about morality that cannot be deduced by a strictly average person with common-sense. Marx got it right when he said that morality is an artefact of a particular society at a particular time. Morality comes from the bottom up, not from philosophical elites.
I feel your frustration about the absence of humility when sciency people stray out of their lane to opine on everyone else's disciplines. It's as if having some sciency cognitive leanings makes a lot of people less - rather than more - insightful. The most rigid opinionators I know on other epistemic fields all have sciency backgrounds.
Thank you for this post. I mostly agree. I’m not a philosopher myself, and I always found arrogance about philosophy to be the general norm. Which is why I don’t listen to Lawrence Krauss, as his views on anything not physics are pedestrian and almost ignorant. Carlo Rovelli and Tim Maudlin are way more interesting.
If I deny the existence of gravity, presumably I will fall off a cliff and cease denying anything.
If I embrace nonsensical philosophical postpositions, I will not vanish in a puff of logic. Indeed, as long as I conform to social expectations, I may even benefit from my outlandish positions.
Surely this is a relevant difference? I believe I am plagiarizing (and probably bastardizing) Orwell here.