[ExI] "How to do Philosophy"

Jef Allbright jef at jefallbright.net
Tue Jul 22 02:20:45 UTC 2008


On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 6:07 PM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> At 07:40 PM 7/21/2008 -0400, Natasha url'd:
>
>> http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html
>
> This is great stuff...

To me, the key point was made here:

>  We may be able to do better. Here's an intriguing possibility.
>  Perhaps we should do what Aristotle meant to do, instead of
>  what he did. The goal he announces in the Metaphysics seems
>  one worth pursuing: to discover the most general truths. That
>  sounds good. But instead of trying to discover them because
>  they're useless, let's try to discover them because they're useful.
>
>  I propose we try again, but that we use that heretofore despised
>  criterion, applicability, as a guide to keep us from wondering off
>  into a swamp of abstractions. Instead of trying to answer the question:

>    What are the most general truths?

>  let's try to answer the question

>    Of all the useful things we can say, which are the most general?

>  The test of utility I propose is whether we cause people who read
>  what we've written to do anything differently afterward.

Sadly, by far most of us are all too clear about the truth we can
conceive, and the good we can imagine, with only vague disdain for the
meta-framework that supports such beliefs and us within it.

- Jef



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