<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div>On Mar 30, 2016, at 3:13 PM, John Clark <<a href="mailto:johnkclark@gmail.com">johnkclark@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div><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,</div></font></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Let me _stress_ this, since it's being missed: I know only one person who put forth Adler as a serious and important philosopher. The professionals I've asked have a fairly low opinion of him. He has no list of students following in his footsteps that I'm aware of. Why anyone would bring up Adler as a key example is beyond me. It's like picking Erich von Däniken to show us how archaeology and history are useless fields.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div><font size="4"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;display:inline"> 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?</font></div></div></div></div></blockquote><br><div>Gödel was a philosopher, no? What about Bertrand Russell, A. N. Whitehead, David Hilbert, and Henri Poincaré? Didn't they all do work in philosophy, in some cases as professionals?</div><div><br></div><div>This has descended into a pissing contest. Almost all workers in any field might be seen ultimately as adding very little, especially when set against the giants. (This doesn't mean I accept some "great man" version of history here.) Maudlin's point wasn't about who discovered more stuff. It was about the role of philosophy in the overall process.</div><div><br></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Regards,<br></span><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="line-height: 20px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Dan</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> Sample my Kindle books via:</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><a href="http://author.to/DanUst" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://author.to/DanUst</font></a></div></div></div></body></html>