<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 Dan TheBookMan </span><span dir="ltr" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><<a href="mailto:danust2012@gmail.com" target="_blank">danust2012@gmail.com</a>></span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"> wrote:</span><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-size:12.8px"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​> ​</div>I put your previous rant against philosophy to a professional philosopher, his response was:</span></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><br></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-size:12.8px">'</span><span title="ireply" style="font-size:12.8px">Mortimer Adler is a silly example since he is respected almost solely by non-philosophers.  But I'd put the contributions of Wittgenstein, Putnam, Kripke, Anscombe, Davidson, Sellars, McDowell, Brandom, and Thompson up against any of these supposed "gargantuan philosophical discoveries made by non-philosophers."'</span></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​I grant you that not all modern philosophers are as silly as Adler was, and some are interesting people who do a good job explaining the ideas made by others to ​</div>humanities majors<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​. But w</div>hat <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​original ​</div>discoveries did those professional philosophers make that was even close in important <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​to​</div> the gargantuan philosophical discoveries make by NON-philosophers like Cantor who discovered that there is a infinite number of different types of infinity<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​,​</div> or Godel who discovered that some things are true but <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​have no proof​,</div> o<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​r​</div> Turing who discovered that things can be deterministic but not predictable<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​,​</div> or Clausius who discovered Entropy<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​,​</div> or Maxwell who discovered that static electricity magnetism and light were <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​all ​</div>related<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​,​</div> or Darwin who discovered how bacteria can turn into people<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​,​</div> or Planck who discovered that everything comes in little packages<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​,​</div> or Watson and Crick who discovered that heredity is digital<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​,​</div> or Hubble who discovered that the universe <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​is​</div> expanding<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​,​</div> or Perlmutter Schmidt and Riess<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​ </div>who discovered that the universe <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​is​</div> accelerating<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​,​</div> or Einstein who discovered that space and time <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​are​</div> not absolute. What discoveries about the nature of reality have<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​ </div>professional philosophers<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​ </div>made <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​in the last ​</div>couple of centuries<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​ </div>that <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​was​</div> even in the same ballpark <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​in​</div> importance, or even <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">​in ​</div>the same continent?<br></font></div><div><font size="4"><br></font></div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font size="4">​ John K Clark​</font></div><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span title="ireply" style="font-size:12.8px"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"><br></div></span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span title="ireply" style="font-size:12.8px"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline">      ​</div><br></span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><span class=""><div><br></div></span></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div>