I like him. He made me want to clean my room.

His self-help things and his work in his own field are supposedly alright. With regards to his philosophical/political opinions (i.e. the comments on postmodernism, marxism etc.), I'll just link to this thread on /r/askphilosophy (where professional philosophers and graduate students but also ordinary laymen answer questions about philosophy).

This. Note that answering questions on that forum is prohibited if you're a layman; although in some cases some people do and don't get caught instantly.

I agree with you on Peterson's psychology, like his self-help guides. For all I know, they're perfectly fine. His philosophy however is another story.

I typed out a long response on my beef with Peterson but realized that it's a bit weird to just drop it as a reply, and I've done that too much already, so I figured I'd spin it into a journal. Here it is if anyone cares to read it.

Here is also a relevant existential comic about the whole postmodernism schlock.

With regards to Peterson, it should be noted that he makes 60k$ per month on patreon for doing these videos and saying the things he says.* Meaning he has an audience which he has a financial interest in catering to (like most people on patreon). This doesn't make the things he says wrong per se, but it might explain the fact that the guy is supposedly a competent academic in his own field, yet completely fails to properly deal with relevant scholarship in this other field. If he actually starts to do that, I claim he is at risk of losing viewership, because in order to critique e.g. Derrida or Foucault in good faith (which you have to do in phil), you have to first represent their ideas properly, i.e. properly quote from primary sources and not from some book by a different person, take them at their most charitable interpretation, and then explain why they are wrong using what is considered sound reasoning in the field. My suspicion is that most of his viewership which supports him because of his work regarding these topics is not interested in any of this, and mostly subscribe to him in order to have their political views confirmed by a supposedly accomplished academic.

* Why he even does this (the patreon thing) is beyond me. The guy's a tenured professor, it's safe to assume he has a very high income already (five digits monthly).

Exactly, he gets most of his trafic and exposure trough fringe political groups based on r/T_D and 4chan. I can't tell if he's motivated to pander to them purely by financial gain, or by the praise and attention he gets as the intellectual guru of the imbeciles. Probably a combination of both

See my reply to M1zzu below, I don't think he's exactly a figure only for Trump fans or the alt right, but he does flirt with them. I also think he's quite sincere, but possibly caught up in the whole deal and led by it.

I dunno about that comic, is reading Marx good or is it a joke?

It's explained under the comic. The gist of it is that postmodernism is primarily about an incredulity towards metanarratives - like scientism, like Hegelianism, like Marxism, like feminism, like capitalism. The funny thing is that these people blaming postmodernism for everything have got it into their heads that postmodernism is for feminism or Marxism, when it's closer to the opposite.

And so the comic mocks them by pretending that the truth about the movement is the misconception, then says that the misconception is the truth and suggest a fix for it - reading Marx. Because Marx is not relativist at all, he's very clear about his moral message.


Reading Marx is good, he was a very influential thinker in the world. You do not need to agree with him to find value in understanding him. Furthermore, western democracies have been influenced by marx and people like him, despite remaining capitalist. That's what social democracies are. With that said, Marx is used in the comic for comedic effect.

Tell me more about what you think postmodernism is.

Probably both. My interpretation is that the joke plays on the irony of Marx being one of the least postmodernist thinkers and the resulting contradiction in the boogeyman of the so-called post-modern Neo-Marxists (a label I doubt anybody has ever seriously identified as).
Though the author himself is a commie and shitposts commie stuff constantly on his twitter, so he probably thinks unironically that reading Marx is excellent advice. Which I don't necessarily agree with, having read ~300 pages of Capital. Stuff's hard to read, even harder to comprehend (for me), and very abstract (not surprising, as Marx is a Hegel fanboy, Hegel is known for being extremely hard to read). I'm sure there are serious people who have rewritten his ideas in a more accessible manner to fit the modern world, though I don't know any english-speaking ones (for german readers, there's this, and it's great, though it doesn't have the objective of faithfully regurgitating his ideas at all, but they claim to have come to the same conclusions). edit: wait, there's david harvey's lecture series which I've actually watched the first episode of, where it's basically a read-along. It's nice, though like Peterson he's no philosopher so should be taken with a grain of salt (the group behind the german book I pointed to above have written a long article about Harvey's book-version of the course, claiming several of his interpretations of Marx to be erroneous, and the structure of the book's writing to not be helpful for understanding).

It all depends on the perspective from which you are looking at. There are people who make the point that 'postmodern' thinkers run contrary to the thinking of the enlightenment and marxism which sees itself in the tradition of enlightenment, but all the 'postmodern' thinkers sure share a lot in common with marxist thinkers in that they criticize the status quo with the implication of making it better.

And political groups who are in favor of equality and leftist policies like gender pronouns and so on all are reading people labelled 'postmodern' - it doesn't even need to be a category which makes sense, since as all of you have rightfully pointed out that they are more often thatn not opposed to each other and criticizing each other, but still everyone seems to know what is broadly meant with the term 'postmodern'. And since they all in JBP view share the same notions denying the usefullness of categories and hierarchies they can be denounced at once without the need to distinguish them further.

I don't know anyone who would call himself post-modernist or whatever but there are people who live in this marxist wannabie land where everything means the opposite. Complete negation of simple and universal christian values that we all know.

Absolutely - I even linked the same comic in the journal. I don't think he makes THAT much as a tenured professor, although I could be wrong. I generally think he is sincere, however, this whole ordeal has really affected him emotionally and so he probably feels a very strong connection with his fanbase, and that might lead him into things he wouldn't otherwise do. He definitely likes that Patreon cash, and doesn't feel like the uni job is secure anymore with half of the academia hating him.

I don't think his audience is strictly alt-right at all, however, he does flirt with them and has shown a disregard for properly and consistently calling them out. Unsurprising, really, but still sad.

How much a tenured professor makes depends on the field and institution. It ranges very widely. Oklahoma State University (OSU) does an annual survey of faculty salaries by rank and discipline which many institutions try to scale their salaries to based on cost of living adjustments and other things. That survey is paywalled, and I haven't really looked at any recent data, but I can tell you at my institution the range for a tenured professor in Psychology goes from roughly $80,000 to $226,000 for a 9-month appointment.

A typical (non-administrative) faculty member's primary appointment is usually only 9-months and during summer they are expected to teach or do independent research. Most 9mo faculty worth their salt do research which will commonly pay their full salary for the summer months. Essentially, you can take their 9mo salary and divide by 0.7471 to get a rough estimate of how much they make annually. Basically, that's $107,000 to $302,503, for my institution.

Something worth mentioning: In fields like Psychology, usually these folks also have side gigs. They do consulting work (which I believe Peterson does), which earns them sometimes as much as their academic work. Furthermore, if they occupy an endowed chair or professorship, they may make quite a bit more there, as well.

Having read you several times in the last 2 days accuse Peterson of not representing the views of his intellectual opponents credibly, it's ironic that you have done the exact same here.

Granted, there is no precise line of demarcation between what constitutes flirting with a group or properly and consistently calling them out but it's easy to find Peterson's quotes, in which he adamantly opposes the alt right.

https://fee.org/articles/jordan-b-peterson-is...alt-right/

In terms of preferred government policy, Peterson is a classical liberal. Would you say the difference between a classical liberal and an alt-righter is much larger as between a classical liberal and a leftist?

Of course he does deny liking them. Most people who "flirt" with the alt-right deny that, and of course the entire point of the alt-right is subversion; otherwise they would call themselves white nationalists.

You don't have to be alt-right to flit with them either. He's also forced to deny them every now and again, or risk more backlash from the mainstream. However, he is making content that is very appealing for them, in a 'useful idiot' kind of way. His views on leftists, academia, postmodernism, women, work, etc etc do align significantly with them, and generally his content will usually make them happy much more so than put them off.

This brings in lots of Patreon money, so unsurprisingly he doesn't spend too much time bringing up his nati-nazism. Certainly not as much as he does bringing up his vehement anti-leftism.

Remember, the alt-right are desperate for any intellectual backing and the entire point of the movement is subversion. It is not about agreeing with everything he says.

This article covers well how an idiot could interpret him, and unfortunately, he doesn't work too much on avoiding that:
https://www.ubyssey.ca/culture/Jordan-peterson-versus-everyone/

He also does many pepe memes, and does other silly stuff that casually associates him with them.

You might think my standards for denying them too high, but taking a look at his fanbase shows that the problem is rampant. For me, that is no surprise.

I'd add that for a classical liberal, he sure does like censorship / surveillance (of whatever is postmodernist) a lot, and seems to be extremely traditionalist, conservative and religious in a way that is extremely anti-enlightenment (by way of being very critical of our progress by way of science). I don't hear him criticize surveillance or censorship or free speech issues when it concerns the right either.

I mean, I don't know, I'm immediately suspicious of people claiming to be classical liberals. When the term is centuries old and yet gains popularity over several years, I begin thinking that it's more about a show rather than about trying to genuinely describe your position. When it's mostly conservatives who tend to think that "the left has lost it's way", I begin thinking that they just mean "better/original liberal" by it, rather than literal classical liberal. How many of those classical liberals that popped up int he last several years do you think have read Mills or Locke? I don't remember him describing himself as a classical liberal, so this isn't criticism of him unless he has.

No, he does not have to criticize Derrida or Foucault, because he does not want to criticize Derrida or Foucault - it's not his intent.

He saw the Stalinism which led to the suffering of millions of people and sought to find out the reason of thinking which led to this. He thinks to have found it in the notion that there is no human nature and that all humans are equal. He then looks around and sees all that which has been labeled (post)marxist, feminist postmodern and so on and ascribes those two notions (human nature/equality) to them; whether he is right in that respect is up for debate, but at least to Foucault and Derrida it is largely irrelevant. What is relevant is the theory which leads to the bill he is against and the policing of words and PC-culture, which can surely be ascribed to 'postmodern' thinkers like Judith Butler. So this is in his mind the same theory which led to the Gulag Archipelago. It is a legitimate claim and very old just like some left thinkers think, that essenstialism and biologism lead to Hitler and the Shoah.

Again this is basic political philosophy you always have a viewpoint and there are arguments for and against it. To just say he didn't criticize this or that is irrelevant. He sees it under his own psychological, Nietzschian thinking and it reasonates with many people. The only thing that people don't like are his political views.

Gross generilization necessary:
He does the same thing as Adorno/Horkheimer (both the founders of 'cultural marxism' according to some) who sought after the reasons for the Holocaust, they thought to have found it in an instrumental use of reason and the notion that enlightlement thinking falls back into its opposite, but they don't have to prove that by showing how that can be seen in the thinking of all the enlightenment thinkers like Bentham if you would include him f.e.

So you're saying he bases his opinion of a whole spectrum of philosophy on the fact that Stalinism produced suffering? The partial implementation of derivative of Marxism in Soviet Union is the proof that not only Marxism, but any philosophy that shares any of its core will ultimately lead to the same or similar result?

Not quite. This was the initial motivation - how the Khmer Rouge and the Gulag Archipelago was made possible. Just like postmodern thinkers asked: How was the Shoah possible? Or to ask in a more christian theological manner: Why is so much suffering included in human life?
And he makes the case, that if you think that there is no human nature, you therefore think that you can mold them to your liking and create a happy society f.e. communist utopia. But the humans have a nature and communist ideals of equality run contrary to that so the reality shows the utopia doesn't work and then the great terror becomes necessary.
So to what extent 'Marxism' was actually 'implemented' is of no concern to him, since the basis assumption of 'Marxism' is to him, that there is no human nature and that all humans are equal. Communism then showed that there naturally evolved hierarchies within the system which were not meaningful hierarchy of the best people lead the less abled people, but the people lead who lie basically and adhere to state ideology lead the others.

All 'postmodern' thought has the assumption that there is no human nature and that everything is a social construct, and that therefore if there is a hierarchy it is bad because it must have been the result of oppression of some sorts. This in his view leads to a replicate of the communist system.

I don't think he claims, that this will result in a totalist state communist dystopia, but that this ideology will have bad results on society as a whole.

EDIT: The new stuff that he brings to this argument is his psychological case studies and some psychological quantitative study stuff, which seem to underpin his notion that hierarchies are useful, necessary and human.

I remember when depressed housewives were the core audience for self help platitudes, now it's young nerds apparently.

He has an articulate, well reasoned perspective, which I think is valuable to anyone seeking the same thing. Even if you disagree with his perspective (some of which I do), it's worth listening to and trying to understand.

Regarding the whole Channel 4 thing: The Cathy Newman "debate" seemed healthy to me and while some people claim it was an embarrassment for Newman, I think she's simply voicing views which really should be voiced. If we're going to arrive at some mutually agreed upon "truth", voice's like Newman's will need to be heard so that counter arguments can also be heard.

My one criticism about Peterson is that he's drawing from a mixture, wide range of ideas and I think he has trouble with coherency and tying it all together. That came out with his podcasts with Sam Harris, and in other places, where his views on morality, truth, and other topics have been very muddled. He cites a lot of different sources of information -- science, literature, philosophy, religion -- but sometimes his arguments don't really clarify his stance, only confuse them. Don't get me wrong: He's much more knowledgeable and smarter than I am. Not trying to tear him down. But I think he's working through his own philosophy, in a public sort of way since he's letting himself be challenged publicly on his views (a good thing). Maybe someday he'll be more coherent. Especially if he's going to be writing more books where he can lay things out in a more coherent way.

For what it's worth, I enjoy listening to Peterson's views. Same with Harris, Eric and Brett Weinstein, Dawkins, Pinker, Dennett, Zizek, Chomsky, Shapiro, Paglia, Easton Ellis, etc.. It's one of the great things to emerge from the internet that we now have so much access to lots of great contemporary thinkers and critics (not to mention past thinkers like Hitchens, Rorty, and so many more). It's important to me to listen to what they all have to say but come to my own conclusions. We shouldn't settle on one person to tell us what we should believe. That's lazy, in my opinion. We should be using what they say to better understand our own views, not attach ourselves to one person (or group of people) and adopt their views as our own.

Hmm, it's weird, my view is close to the opposite in terms of the interenet and these public intellectuals. In nearly all cases I find them disappointing, I find that they misinform their audiences. The ones at a level below them, which you happily didn't list, like the ones growing in popularity on youtube (like say, Sargon of Akkad etc) tend to be even worse, producing self-contained pieces of content that appeal to an audience without ever engaging with their critics. The only opposition they tend to engage is the easiest targets they can find. This is usually opposed by their rhetoric, which is usually brazen, meant to buff themselves, ridicule the opposition, talk of high goals of rationality and dialectic only to undermine them with the next sentence.

This isn't to say that those you mention are like that, I'm mentioning them more in the sense of a trend. It seems like the internet could, in theory, give us a new age of knowledge and rationality, yet human biases and laziness leads them to easily consumable content that consoles them, and the money that goes into social media and advertisement makes sure that that trend continues rather than is broken. Reading some of the thinkers that you mention and later getting disappointed by them and resenting them made me quite intuit this trend, which by now I'm quite convinced of. And the next generation of these public intellectuals that I mention seems even worse.

This isn't really a criticism of what you wrote, just noting some of my thoughts that seem to go the opposite way to yours. I commend your commitment to not getting prepackaged views from a single person, but I wonder - why do you find it valuable to get them from these people rather than traditional popularizers of science or academia, who write plenty of authoritative books?

To give a little bit of context, I read Dawkin's God delusion in my teens, but later really regretted just believing him when I learned that he just knows really little about religion. I liked bits and pieces of Harris and Peterson, but quickly my opinion of them went the opposite way, and by now I'm really disappointed they have as much media attention and sort of "legitimacy" as they do.

Chomsky I really like although his perspective is radical, so I wouldn't follow all of his conclusions. But he does most things the right way and reads proper sources, cites them meticulously and gives an absurdly simple explanation of his views that is based entirely on best knowledge available and doesn't dumb it down despite the simplicity. So hats off to him, the guy's a hero.

Dennett is a titan in his field, I haven't read too much of him but certainly have no strong criticism, only respect. In fact I quite loved his scathing criticism of Harris' free will book, it might be my favorite among Harris criticism from academics and that is saying something.

Zizek's real academic work I mostly hear good things about, I haven't read him myself. However it seems his public intellectual persona isn't crafted to be clear at all, he's more focused on being controversial. So I guess I don't know why listen to him rather than someone who's more clear.

Shapiro and Paglia haven't read too much, but most of what I read seemed to be pretty bad, so I never really felt like continuing.

I think your disappointment in them has more to do with you rather than them. You should not be attaching yourself, or identifying yourself, with any individuals like that to where it becomes disappointing to hear something they say that you disagree with. I would also assume that anything Dawkins has to say about religion is specific to his perspective. Incidentally, I'm not sure what there is to need to know about most religions if you believe, like I do, that it's entirely not true. If he can't name every Hindu God, I should say that's probably to his credit because it's not worth knowing every Hindu God. They don't exist except in the minds of their believers.

It seems strange to me to "love" the criticism of Harris by Dennett. Are you more interested in the personalities, seeing Harris scathingly critiqued, than the ideas themselves??? I don't think the "truth" cares about personalities. It's like saying, "I loved how Einstein really shut down those Newtonian physicists!" It's missing the point.

For the others (Zizek, Shapiro, Paglia), it doesn't really matter to me whether I agree or disagree with them. If they make their arguments coherently and they're well-reasoned, it seems valuable to me to worth considering. For instance, it seems to me that you cannot wholly appreciate Dennett's argument for free will without considering Harris's. Dennett would never been able to form his "scathing criticism" of Harris without considering Harris's arguments. And that's precisely what I'm advocating for here: Consider what they have to say. Chomsky, Zizek, Shapiro, Paglia, whoever. It's worth paying attention. If you cannot handle entertaining ideas you disagree with, or ideas that "disappoint" you, then you will only shut yourself into an echo chamber of people you agree with. That's a slow death.

I really wish that it were me, however I am quite convinced that it is they who frame the debate in this way, and encourage this kind of behavior.

For instance, it seems to me that you cannot wholly appreciate Dennett's argument for free will without considering Harris's.

This is wholly not the case. Dennett had education in his field, he wrote academic articles and so he engaged the field in the way that academic papers in philosophy require him to. So he is dependent on them. Harris he only engaged in the way that he engaged other views like his - probably during his study years, in understanding how they're so far behind the current philosophy of free will landscape.

That's roughly what he said about Harris - that his views are, in Dennett's opinion, popular misconceptions about the free will debate. Useful, in his mind, because it's good that somebody writes them out so that philosophers can criticize them and show these misconceptions. Harris rightfully rejects this as praise of his book - rightfully pointing out that it's merely framed as that.

I agree with Harris wrt that. Harris book doesn't engage the debate as it currently stands, it doesn't show the understanding of the debate or where it stands in relation to it, as academic popularizer's books should. Because he isn't one, he doesn't respect philosophy and repeatedly shows disregard for learning it, or even using the relevant terms, and has said as much.

This is a microcosm of the issues I have with these people. What they say ends up being noise, it doesn't inform me. They also portrey their own arguments as much more serious and important than they are, and dare criticize others without having done the proper reading. They also focus on engaging other popular personalities rather than academics nobody knows, and mostly encourage their readers to do the same. It is wholly their fault that their fanbases do this... Or perhaps the fault of the media landscape that such people rise to the top, and more honest people don't get the chance.

I really wish that it were me, however I am quite convinced that it is they who frame the debate in this way, and encourage this kind of behavior.

I hope you can see how vague that is. Do you have specifics?

This is wholly not the case. Dennett had education in his field, he wrote academic articles and so he engaged the field in the way that academic papers in philosophy require him to. So he is dependent on them. Harris he only engaged in the way that he engaged other views like his - probably during his study years, in understanding how they're so far behind the current philosophy of free will landscape.

Harris also has a PhD in Neuroscience from a highly prestigious institution. Is that not "education in his field"? I get your point that Dennett has specialized in this specific question for most of his career but writing off Harris because of Dennett's credentials is not fair, in my opinion. In order to get a research-based doctorate, you have to study all the current relevant literature. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the process, but I know from personal experience it's non-trivial. It takes considerable time and effort.

Consciousness is still not a very well defined topic. And the question of free will is still very open and not settled. Harris is entitled to his opinion, as is Dennett. Neither can claim a definitive answer. They have their perspectives based on their own studies. You are mistaken if you think Dennett has solved the question of free will.

I <3 U

I saw Zizek speak not too long ago. Very captivating talker with lucid and clear points. Harris & Peterson seem like opportunists and their body of work is incomparable to someone like Chomsky or Dennett.

In terms of sheer volume, everyone's work incomparable to Chomsky. :D That guy is prolific af.

Ehh, I should really not have commented on Zizek in that list. I shouldn't criticize him next to Harris and Peterson for sure. I like him, I'm sure his scholarship is serious. I might have some points to make about clarity, I certainly don't find him as clear as other popular academic philosophers, but I don't care to nitpick so I'll just give up the point. I agree with the rest of the post 110%.

Misinform their audiences all the time? Or in certain moments? Intentionally or out of ignorance? You should be more specific because that's quite a claim considering the names I listed, the number of topics they discuss, and the number of public discussions/debates/etc. they've had. For instance, Dawkins is eminently qualified to talk about evolutionary biology. Would you say he's misinforming people when he's talking about evolution? That's a startling claim if that's what you're saying.

I would not put Sargon in the same post as those others because he's an amateur. I would compare him to the others like an intramural, hobbyist athlete to professional league athletes. Not trying to diminish him, he's got the right aims to want to study issues like he does, but he's not at the same level at all in terms of knowledge.

The internet is not all rainbows and cupcakes for sure. It's not a silver bullet that's going solve all social problems and turn everyone into intellectuals. But if you're not lazy, and have a genuine interest in learning and understanding, then the internet is the greatest invention for human understanding since the printing press. It's just not, in and of itself, the end all be all. Just like books have been used, since Gutenberg, to peddle nonsense to billions of people over the centuries.

These individuals aren't my only resources informing my worldview but I greatly enjoy their perspectives. I was responding to the subject of this thread: Jordan Peterson who has become sort of a celebrity academic because of YouTube videos of his lectures, debates, and other public appearances. That's what my post was responding to. I wasn't trying to give an overview of the history of public intellectuals and their role in civilization.

Personally, I've spent a lot of effort studying books and articles, both popular and academic. I'm close to finishing my doctorate (:pray:) and I think I've spent my life deeply interested in understanding/knowing the world, history, and myself. I've put in a lot of time, many, many late nights in libraries, labs, and my office studying for class or personal interests, that I feel I know enough to know that I don't know a lot. Which is more than most people, especially on the internet, I think can say.

They misinform them enough so as to not be worth the time generally. People shouldn't spend the little free time they have on people that will misinform them a bunch and then have doubts about half the stuff they know, or even worse, be convinced of incorrect claims. My claims are specifically about people that go outside their fields. That is why I think they relate to someone like Sargon - many of them talk enough outside their fields that they're not much more qualified than Sargon is. I'd note that in many areas, the audience often can't tell where their are of expertise begins and where it ends. For example Dawkins could talk about how society should be based on biology, and many people won't necessarily see that he's talking politics using biology which is very, very far from it even if it's relevant [random example, I haven't followed him for a while so don't expect me to give a link to him doing that]. The fact that they talk outside their field of expertise is specifically why it isn't quite a claim - it is expected, not surprising.

Harris for example has a doctorate in something he barely talks about, and uses it to give himself credence in topics he is woefully unqualified to talk about. What is worse, he, in typical modern public intellectual fashion, uses such rhetoric so as to put rationality, logic and science seemingly constantly on his side, often going into rants about it during otherwise-unrelated talks. This generates a sort of talking point of how whether he's wrong or right, he's intellectually honest. Such appearances are often generated mostly just with rhetoric, rather than a curious attitude which would have had him reading academic papers rather than talking about topics he doesn't really know in ambitious terms. Furthermore, the same rhetoric is used to make it seem like the opposition doesn't want to talk, all the while doing rounds on media, engaging public personalities rather than academics from relevant fields. The whole shtick of not having done the basic reading, not being able to present the basic ideas in the relevant fields correctly, then going on to talk about that topic, have strong opinions, criticize others, implore to use science and logic and rationality.... It's the opposite of intellectual honesty, yet you can't even say that because the sharp rhetoric has largely convinced their fans that they are intellectually honest, and if you don't think so then you're misreading them, or famously with Harris, quoting them out of context.

The same sort of formula goes for many of them. Perhaps that's where I disagree with you. It's fine being an amateur like Sargon, it's fine being more educated in one field like Harris, Peterson or Dawkins and going outside it. It's the level of certainty, and the audacity to have a strong opinion without having even a demonstrable basic understanding grasp of the academic area is what is the problem in my opinion. To then go on and make rounds around media and other public intellectuals prior to literally reading the relevant books, criticizing some for being intellectually dishonest or postmodernist or whatever else - that is tragic. It isn't a honest attempt at understanding the topic, it is trashing the public discourse.


I absolutely think that the internet can be wonderful for somebody who's curious, but then, I don't see how you're not wasting time with most of these when you could be reading something either directly from the relevant field or an academic popularizer who relays an accurate portrayal of the field instead of their own lazy hack of a thesis. I'm not saying that you were giving a whole worldview on the history of public intellectuals, just sensed that your opinion was quite different, possibly opposite from mine so I was curious. Congratulations on being close to your doctorate, that's pretty awesome ;P What is it in?

Going by your own standard, are you qualified to say what Dawkins is qualified to talk about? I'm not trying to be glib, but what constitutes your "field" cannot be clearly demarcated by your job title or thesis title. Dawkins has spent loads of effort talking about religion and atheism. It's not like some random guy off the street talking about this. Anyone who puts in the time and effort to study the topic is qualified to an opinion on it. At least, that's my opinion. :-D

Some important contributions have been made to this history of ideas by people going "outside their field". It's not useful to silo people like that based on some superficial credentials. There's loads of effort and time spent on other things in their lives. This is the distinction between "human capital" and "credentialism". Arguments should be judged on their merits, not by who is making the argument and their credentials (to a certain extent).

As someone who has spent a long time (too long) in school, and been around loads of people getting PhDs in various fields, there's nothing mysterious about it. It's just a way to force people to focus and study one specific subject, to know it inside and out. Honestly, the most valuable thing I've learned in grad school is not "what" but "how": How to do good research, how to find good information, and (hopefully) how to think and write clearly about an issue. But that honestly doesn't stop anyone from becoming as informed and knowledgeable on any topic of their choice given that they put in the same amount of time and effort into studying it. I definitely think someone without formal education is probably at a disadvantage but, depending on the field, it could also be an advantage in some cases, too.

Of course the YouTube debates are not as scientifically rigorous as a peer reviewed journal article. The people cite studies but they're not giving you specific authors, articles, journals, page numbers, etc., that are required by academic standards. Academic journals are where the real progress is made when it comes to the scientific "debate". But if you've worked or studied at a University, or even a public library, you should have access to all the same peer reviewed journals as any specialized scientist. Whether or not you can really understand the material is another issue. But that doesn't stop you, or anyone else, really, from studying it.

Harris's background in neuroscience certainly helps him to read and assimilate academic journals on free will. His educational wheelhouse is suited for that. He may be less suited for debating Islam but he's probably extremely well-read on that issue. As for Dawkins, evolutionary biology is very definitely relevant to the question of whether Judeo-Christian doctrine is correct or not. According to the Book of Genesis, God created Earth, the animals, and gave Man dominion over all. I think an evolutionary biologist would have something worthwhile to say about that claim...

My doctorate is on the economics of higher education. Basically how different financial, economic, and legal factors have driven the rise of adjunct faculty in the United States. "Adjunct faculty" are those who work on a contingent basis, usually contracted on a semesterly basis, and paid less in both salary and fringe benefits than traditional tenure track faculty. My work is on the implications of a specific section of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka "Obamacare", on employer-mandated health insurance coverage. There's two schools of thought about why adjunct faculty are utilized by institutions: one is cost-sensitivity and the other is enrollment-sensitivity. I'm using the ACA as a tool to test the cost-sensitivity hypothesis.

Answering both posts here so I don't feel like repeating myself in both.

Going by your own standard, are you qualified to say what Dawkins is qualified to talk about?

The gist of it is that I read about what people who I know are qualified (PhDs in the relevant field) say about them. Usually you won't get a comment from everyone so more limited information will have to do. Usually I also read and try to understand the claims about the errors they make, but this is entirely secondary. If I learned that academics disagreed with my interpretation, and I know I'm not half as knowledgeable as they are, well then I'd just know that I'm probably full of shit.

PhDs are no magic, of course nobody is saying that you have to have a PhD to have any chance of knowing a topic well. However for every hundred fools saying that they know what they are talking about, only several will. Even for academics who know the topic through and through, giving everyone a 'fair shot' and assuming everyone is qualified to have a shot will have you wasting your time reading nobodies who know nothing. So you have to go by reputation, the easiest distinction of which is a PhD in a relevant field. If someone doesn't have that, well then recognition by other PhDs is another easy way. At worst, of course, you do have to read them and understand them, but as a layman this is a crapshoot, and everybody is a layman in nearly all topics. Which means that you're not even supposed to attempt doing this. Of course, everybody does it to some extent, but it really is a loser's game, you will be wasting your time and believing sophists every now and again. The true measure is what relevant academics think of them.

And what they think of Dawkins in terms of religion, or Harris on philosophy (and politics, security, islam from what I know)... It isn't good. Overall, they mostly don't care about them, they have brought in nothing to the field, no academic papers are discussing their ideas. Sure, there's a chance they could inspire some debate, but I see that chance as negligent compared to the damage they do by spreading their uninformed opinions around, and convincing people that people who disagree with them, or don't debate them, are somehow idiots. In some cases that can include academics depending on what group they mention... Which is the ultimate arrogant claim to make. I know they studied the topics, I don't assume they know nothing, but they know, demonstrably, not enough. And sure, I do agree that they are at some advantage to someone who didn't get any PhD like Sargon, perhaps that's why they are more resourceful and knowledgeable.

In some cases though, I become certain that they either completely forgot their studies or purposefully ignore them. The mistakes Harris does in philosophy are ones his Stanford philosophy professors would have never allowed him to do and pass. In many cases I am confident that I understand how they are out of their depth due to my amateur studies of philosophy and, in some cases, religion. Same could be said for politics and security in some cases, although of course those are more murky and I'd need more education to be more confident. Once again, this is all at the mercy of being under the impression that I'm not in disagreement with academic consensus - if I learned that I am, I would certainly hope I'd be humble enough to shut up and listen.

I agree that Dawkins has, in his studies, learned things relevant to religion, however, they are only relevant only after learning enough theology / philosophy of religion to connect it. That's how it is with religion, you can't just read the bible and take it at face value, there are different interpretations and just breaking down whichever one comes to you after reading the bible is close to useless. I know he has not engaged with academics who study philosophy of religion because I've read them comment about his writing, heard them expose his arguments as not understanding the subject matter, etc. Which is not to say the debate is decided, that he couldn't have the right idea or that god is real, it just means that... if he's demonstratively misunderstanding arguments, well then, he's not providing worthy reading and anyone would be better off reading a book by a philosophy popularizer who explains these positions more clearly from a more informed perspective. You certainly wouldn't want to read his bold, rhetoric filled books about theories in theoretical physics if he was shown to not understand it by physicists, right? It'd be a waste of time.

From the other post:

I hope you can see how vague that is. Do you have specifics?

Peterson reading a polemic about postmodernism by Hicks and converting it into half of his career; he hasn't displayed any signs of reading the actual postmodernist writers, so I see no reason to suspect that his attitude makes his fans want to do that.
Peterson's comments and views on critical theory have very similar faults as well.
This is anti-intellectual, and he shows such lack of interest in the intellectual details of these matters, then there's no chance he invites his readers to do so unless they're already quite skeptical of him.
Peterson BTFO'ing half of academia like I noted, and linked, in my journal.
I could list more, but these examples are so egregious that it's probably enough of Peterson.

It's been a while since I read Dawkins, however, I'm reasonably confident he hasn't exactly littered his books with references, comments praising religious writers or recommending his readers to read them as he hasn't shown to be a careful reader himself either. Even if he did, his flowery and bold rhetoric would probably dissuade most of them to even consider engaging with them. I propose the early atheism communities online, including youtube, as some evidence empirical, anecdotal of this. People there, especially people citing Dawkins as an influence, tend to be quite bold and rude to religious people, and rarely have read much more than him. I know because I was one of them, including here on esreality, to my shame :( This isn't all 100% his fault, obviously.

I'd extend this bit of empirical evidence to all of these. Whenever I encounter people influenced by these personalities, they don't tend to be the most humble, openminded, informed, academically careful people. They certainly don't seem like they've engaged the opposition properly, despite their supposed values in debate. There's a distinct focus on personalities, on their clashes, on valuing them as among the greatest intellectuals alive (heard that many times about Peterson - makes me wonder how many people even know what his actual research is in). There's a distinct interest in intellectual content, however, content that is quite simple and unserious - podcasts, debates, in some cases articles. Fans of these people tend to not be ones readinga academic papers, knowledageable in academic consensus or major areas of debate within the field. There's an entire infestation of people who reject academia or consider it corrupt and never read it in favor of these people commenting outside of their field. Perhaps the biggest fault is that these fans are probably people who are interested in intellectualism and knowledge, as it shows by the fact that they fall for the rhetoric glorifying debate, rationality and science. And that gets used to dissuade them from the real source of that.

Of course, this is anecdotal, however, it is empirical evidence of exactly what I'm talking about, so I couldn't not include it. I understand that not everyone's experience will be the same, but expect it to have some overlap.

Harris has, meanwhile, repeatedly disparaged philosophy. Here's an example quote:

First, a disclaimer and non-apology: Many of my critics fault me for not engaging more directly with the academic literature on moral philosophy. There are two reasons why I haven’t done this: First, while I have read a fair amount of this literature, I did not arrive at my position on the relationship between human values and the rest of human knowledge by reading the work of moral philosophers; I came to it by considering the logical implications of our making continued progress in the sciences of mind. Second, I am convinced that every appearance of terms like “metaethics,” “deontology,” “noncognitivism,” “anti-realism,” “emotivism,” and the like, directly increases the amount of boredom in the universe.

First of all, you would never find a popularizer of physics calling physics terms boring. You should also generally not find anyone serious saying that they arrived at their philosophical position not through reading philosophy, especially if their views decidedly show philosophical influence. As his do. This sort of dance of "im no academic, I'm not boring and I want everybody to understand me" is popular among hacks. It's patently corrupt, since there are plenty of academic popularizers giving good overviews of academic subjects in an understandable manner without these excuses.

This is a guy that discusses metaethics himself, in his own book, for pages upon pages. In a very confused and botched manner I would add, and it doesn't add even to his thesis. He talks about it just because it adds to his implicit thesis, which he denies now and again, which is meant to be understood by his fans to make him into a more exciting scholar. This is the "How science can determine human values" debate that's the undertitle(?) of his book. He mostly engages it by writing horrible uninformed polemics that completely misunderstand Hume's is-ought guillotine. He insults Hume's work a bunch too, spending a lot of the time just on empty rhetoric rather than argument. The arguments he provides, as I said, completely misunderstand what it even means. Now, why does he do this?
In the literal interpretation of the undertitle, if we take science to mean empirical science, then he's providing something radical and new, which is what attracts fans and makes him unique among philosophers. However, this is only meant to lure in fans, and by now I'm quite certain it's purposeful - he later denies this theory. This is contradictory to what he says in the quote I gave above. He says that by science he means all of rational human endeavor, which, of course includes philosophy. This is patently true in reading his book and later views, too, as he's mostly just doing philosophy like everyone else is WRT this topic. Only he does it without having properly engaged academics, understood them, and he also flirts with saying he doesn't need philosophy and he has defeated Hume's is-ought gap to sound like he's unique and he's using empirical science, not philosophy like those boring academics. Except for the flirting, 'defeating' the is-ought gap serves no purpose for his face-value thesis, it's exactly the kind of boredom inducing nonsense he criticizes.
If this sounds insane, that's because it is. On a rational dialectic level. In terms of media manipulation, this is brilliant, and most of this fans interpret the undertitle in the science = empirical science way and find this incredibly bold and interesting. Ohhh I've met soo many of them convinced of this. I could give you academics analyzing this or commenting on this a bunch, as well as sooooo many examples of people being convinced that he means science = empirical science there.

He is a representative of utilitarianism, which he mostly intuits and never defends, and then disparages people who disagree with that. Just intuiting might be fine, but then saying that the term meaning the biggest competing theory, 'deontology' just increases boredom is over the top. He also thinks deontology is just a version of utilitarianism, which is...

He also never really describes the main positions in the field, or defends his own against them unless prompted. This is supposed to be among the most basic of things a person interested in popularizing academia should focus on, and is more important than nearly everything else. I could go on, there are some examples wrt security, Islam and politics, but this is probably enough in terms of that.

Harris also has a PhD in Neuroscience from a highly prestigious institution. Is that not "education in his field"? I get your point that Dennett has specialized in this specific question for most of his career but writing off Harris because of Dennett's credentials is not fair, in my opinion. In order to get a research-based doctorate, you have to study all the current relevant literature. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the process, but I know from personal experience it's non-trivial. It takes considerable time and effort.

Consciousness is still not a very well defined topic. And the question of free will is still very open and not settled. Harris is entitled to his opinion, as is Dennett. Neither can claim a definitive answer. They have their perspectives based on their own studies. You are mistaken if you think Dennett has solved the question of free will.

A PhD in neuroscience gives you information that will be relevant in a free will debate, however, you necessarily need to have the required philosophical education required to "connect it" to the mind (as opposed to the brain). Similar to the way it is with religion, as I noted above. There are quite a few famous and influential philosophers of mind / free will who do that, and their additions are very welcomed. However, Harris is decidedly not that, as the input from philosophers about his book shows. Harris is welcome to have an opinion, of course, but as it's been documented that he's not nearly knowledgeable or informed enough to have a serious opinion... There is little point in caring about it unless for commentary on the quality of public debate.

Dennett hasn't solved the debate, of course not. There are other legitimate positions and many other legitimate academics commenting on these topics, it's just that all of them have to have done their work and engaged with the material properly. For our purposes, that has to be recognized by relevant academics, which are undoubtedly philosophers in this area.


Anyway, I'm sure I sound like a broken record about some of these "must be recognized by PhD's points", but I'm too jaded by misinformation to not stress that this much. This is all my opinion of course, I'm an amateur in these topics although I try my best to know if I'm agreeing with academics or not. I just try my best to bring my interlocutors one step closer to that mythical enlightenment age where the internet actually gives us education and wisdom and cat pics, rather than just cat pics :P I have like a billion sources for things related to these people, so go ahead and ask if there's anything you'd want.


Your topic sounds interesting! Too bad you exposed yourself by saying ACA = Obamacare, when they are obviously not one and the same. How else could they have different approval ratings! :P On a more serious note, or rather, question, how is it looking, is the hypothesis seeming likely? Would you be willing to elaborate on it?

The free will debate has been solved for several millennia already, but it'll be several more before people finally accept that they don't have any.

Any youtube link or some short, basic gestalt on why it be like it do, my nigga?

although things may appear to be erratic, unstructured and random...
It will one day all be explained by physics which is neat, structured and definitely not random.
That we haven't completely figured out QED yet (among other stuff) doesn't mean that it has random elements in it.

No randomness in physics -> no free will.

lmao nerd

So does "no free will" means I will scratch my itchy ass or my next move in a chess game is somehow predetermined?

everything is.

I would post something but what is the point...

!

Are you unfamiliar with compatibilism?

yep, but I don't have to redefine free will into something which seems like free will in order to be right.

That one might dislike the truth doesn't make it different than what it is.

How do you decide that your "definition" is superior, or that it's the original?

I didn't... I don't even define it myself. I just said I don't have to redefine it in order for the conceptual idea about it to hold true.

Something which compatibalism doesn't do. As the first thing they do is tell you how they define free will and what that definition means for their view.

What do compatibilists redefine it from, and why don't those people need to first say how they define free will in order to say whether we have it or not?

you're acting like the philosopher here, you tell me...
I don't have a clue why philosophers first need to define terms differently and then reach different conclusions than other philosophers. Who reach different conclusions as laymen because laymen start with the definition in their dictionary.

The entirety of philosophy has gotten to a state where people are just redefining terms into slightly more or less specific definitions and then argue about what the definitions result in. It's seriously the worst pile of shit imaginable.

So you take a position, and then ask your correspondent to argue it?

you're not attacking my position?
You're asking me what compatibilists are doing, and my answer is that you know better than me.

Surely you can understand where a laymen's definition of free will is different from the one used by compatibilists innit?

I assumed that your position is hard determinism, based on this:

The free will debate has been solved for several millennia already, but it'll be several more before people finally accept that they don't have any.

I don't see what a layman's definition has to do with this. You seem pretty convinced of your opinion, surely your position is not that of a layman?

great deduction skills about the hard determinism.

But you see I dislike the current state of philosophy.
What happened is the following:
1) Long ago someone came up with a term for an abstract concept (in this particular case "free will"). And describes that concept -> gives it a name.
2) Then some interesting views come around which form around the concept. (partially disagreement / partial agreement / different ways of seeing the same concept / more extreme versions / more nuanced versions / etc.etc.)
3) people then "study" those views and come to the conclusion that the original term and argumentation was based on an abstract concept, but they gain some insight into why some people view things different and take note of different ideas.
4) people struggle with abstract concepts especially while talking/arguing about them, so they put a more strict definition to the term.
5) people read the definition and then either go "ye ok that makes sense" or go "well for me I would more rather define the concept as blabla".
6) people get different definitions for a similar (but not quite equal) concept.
7) they reach different conclusions than the ones before them.
8) they call themselves philosophers and think that they have had some sort of breakthrough.

Now I like the philosophers that go through stages 1 and 2, possibly also those in 3.... but as soon as they start bitching about what a word means I'm out.

You've proven to me many times that you are one of the ones that bitches about what terms mean... And you preach from your high and mighty place 8, while I am comfortable at 3.

You've proven to me many times that you are one of the ones that bitches about what terms mean...

I definitely am. I am hardpressed to understand how someone could not be and then have an opinion on the thing.

Because I understand the concept and have a view on the concept.
You read the terms definition and have a view on the definition. (at least I think you do..... like a real scholar of philosophy but without a clue of what it means to be a philosopher.)

We probably have very different ideas of what it means to have a view on a concept. Having thoughts related to ideas is omnipresent, of course, but I assume you mean something much more insightful and "core" than that.

You seem to be constricted by language in creating your ideas, I seem to be constricted by language in conveying my ideas.
The difference being that you need to reason about others reasoning about stuff (linguistically) that you find interesting, while I just reason about the concepts I find interesting which are sometimes brought to me by others.

fuck it I drink too much :D

These are interesting concepts though. How much can we reason about things without reasoning, how you say, "linguistically"? It seems to me a useful way of reasoning, however, it doesn't allow you to use logic, at least not carefully. So I don't really see how you can be confident in your conclusions then.

dunno what you exactly mean by this last post...
But logic and reasoning are not dependent upon language. Only when you try to explain your reasoning to others you could run into the barrier of language.

In physics for instance a lot of reasoning is explained with the help of images as well as language.

Do you mean that you use formal logic? If not, I don't see how you can use logic without language or any symbols. Rest of your post seems to commit you to not saying it's with formal logic. The explaining to others is crucial as well, otherwise, how could you ever be confident about your thoughts.

Perhaps you mean something different than literally logic by... logic? Just day-to-day reasoning using rules of thumb and stuff?

I'm not arguing against murky reasoning with pictures or aiding your explanations with them, I just don't see how you can be confident about what you get out of it.

It seems with this sort of reasoning you're committed to what could be metaphorically called a buyer of narratives, someone who sees what he likes, what fits their intuitions, enjoys it, and just accepts it as their own for comfort. Or, perhaps you think it's too much to expect we could do more, but then, I don't see why you're not more agnostic.

I'm confident about my thoughts because the world around me is fully compatible with my beliefs about the world.
There hasn't been any kind of scientific breakthrough or different world view that has been incompatible with my beliefs and knowledge about the world. (Sure some things might add to my knowledge and as a result influence my beliefs but that rarely happened)

When I reason about stuff I never think about the language used in describing the issue. I just view a concept in different ways, try to reason through how it fits in with my world view -> reach some conclusion.
Then sometimes when silly people come around I end up putting my conclusion into words. And sometimes when people are very interested in a topic or disagree with me I might take the time to also elaborate on the reasoning behind my conclusion, by putting those into words as well.

As to agnostics... It's abundantly clear that every God which has been written about is not an actual God (aka they don't exist in the shape/form that is written about). It's also abundantly clear that the concept of "brain in a vat" denies us the possibility to prove that for all of the gods as some of them are "all powerful" and thus can influence us in undetectable ways.

most philosophy students are like that, citing, parroting. They think that what theyre being taught as the "prevailing thought" of our time is the culmination of all knowledge and simply informing themselves about it makes them philosophers.

it is obvious that the study of economics is not a study but an indoctrination into the capitalist/globalist system.

it is obvious that the study of medicine is not a study but an indoctrination
into a corrupt system with little intention to heal or prevent and big intention in maintaining lifelong conditions that need constant and expensive care.

history as its told had and has many different interests affecting its interpretation.

while the historian will see very quickly thru the agenda, and the doctors themselves refusing any type of chemo or radiation shit that they have to peddle to people, the philosophy students, totally clueless about what garbage they gobble up.

it only takes a little distance to see the agenda philosophy students learn in school.

I think that was Feynmann's stance as well but I don't think it really matters whether nature, at a fundamental level, is deterministic or not. You can have complete determinism at one level and then, through iteration, great amounts of chaos can emerge at higher levels (like the Mandelbrot Set, Lorenz Attractor, etc.). I think that's one of Dennett's arguments, iirc.

The question of determinism versus indeterminism and how it relates to free will is a confusing approach, it seems to me. How exactly does indeterminism benefit free will? The answer to that question doesn't seem clear to me.

well your brain controls your actions right?
Your brain is part of the universe.
If the entire universe abides by the laws of physics and the physics are deterministic -> your actions are a direct consequence of the addition of all physical influences that your brain has gotten.

So you might "think" that you have the choice to do A or B... but you * will* do the option that has been predetermined by the laws of physics.... And thus you don't actually "have a choice".

Take the idea where when faced with an important choice and you will let yourself be guided by a coinflip. -> Heads you take A, Tails you pick B. At first this "seems random" but as soon as all the forces on the coin are known you can calculate if it'll be heads or tails. Therefor it's not random anymore. All forces are known if you know all forces 0.1sec before the flip, and all forces before that are known before that. Untill eventually you end up at the starting of time and basically at that point in time it would have been 'known'/'decided' which choice you will make now.

(kinda, :D )

Yea, I got all that. From what I've read, I find the arguments compelling that our sense of self and our sense of "free will" is not what it appears. I hesitate to use the word "illusion", but I can't think of a better one.

Anyhow, my point was that the fundamental level of physics, at whatever point that is (quarks or strings, etc.), whether it is deterministic or not may not really have bearing on "higher levels" of physics (chemistry, neurochemistry, etc.) or not. Chaos emerges even from the most deterministic systems: like the double rod pendulum, for example. Iteration generates indeterminism even in simple, closed systems.

So it seems sort of irrelevant to the question, whether or not the underlying physics is deterministic or not. It may not have a bearing on whether there is free will or not. And to look at it from the other angle, I'm not sure what value indeterminism has for free will either.

Well like I said, stuff "seems erratic / random / etc." but they aren't.
Like your double rod pendulum it seems highly complex, similar to the Mandelbrot set, but they aren't.

So even though the action that "you are gonna take" (out of the many 'possibe but deterministic non chosen other options') in a deterministic universe can seem highly complex.... And possibly they are as it's an accumulation of a lot of effects.... but the point is that it's not "you" who decides.

Now the compatibalists for instance will say that it is "you" who decides as "you are the only one who had the addition of all of those specific forces and thus you will *want* to choose the option predetermined for you" (somewhat)

So there are a lot of philosophical different opinions as to how to define stuff...... and then how the logical thinking steps go towards conclusions..... (it's not worth your time)

I'm pressed for time but here's a short response.

I don't think your assessment of the free will debate is accurate. There is, in fact, a large group of scientists who agree with Harris's position on free will. If you have Harris's book, I would suggest you look at his citations. He cites numerous studies that support his arguments. He is not alone in his opinions.

About Dawkins, religion, science, etc., I have to disagree. I don't think you need much of a deep study of religions to see how incorrect they are with all the explanations of the natural world. It need not go any further than that, in my opinion.

Regarding Postmodernism, Peterson is not unique in his criticism. That whole thing has been going on decades. It may be getting some interest about postmodernism because he's tying it to current events. But the issue is much bigger. Have you read about the Sokal Affair? That's just one famous account of postmodernism (and lack of peer review standards) in academia. But it's much more wide spread. Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind talked, in part, about postmodernism in academia. Camille Paglia has been beating that horse for decades, as well. It's a very old, well worn, topic of debate amongst academics. Most people, especially those in STEM fields, do not like postmodernism. It's sort of a meme.

I know this from personal experience: I've had several classes that have covered postmodernist theories and I've had conversations with people who subscribe to these ideas. It really boils down to this: Is "truth" something we can objective ascertain and search for? Or is truth relative? At the end of the day, the postmodernist position is that truth is relative. I believe, to my very core, that's not true. There is an objective reality worth studying. Not everything is contextual and relative.

Last comment: I'm a great supporter of philosophy (my son is named after Bertrand Russell!), but modern science, which owes it's existence of philosophy, is really where objective truth is being discovered. And only through empirical research can the truth be ascertained. There's no debate, in my mind, that science is vastly more effective today than philosophy, at explaining the world.

"And only through empirical research can the truth be ascertained."

Is this an a priori claim on your part or does it also require empirical research?

The fact that we're communicating over the internet, thousands of miles away from each other, on this website should be sufficient evidence of empirical research's power to solve problems.

What was the last practical discovery/invention made by postmodernism? The only usefulness, from what I can tell, is that it confuses the fuck out of people who don't know any better.

I think a postmodernist will be more motivated to answer your question. I'm not one, nor does my question imply that I am.

I am curious if you do not think it's a contradiction to assume the validity of empiricism to answer the question of empiricism's validity.

What's more, by disagreeing that "only through empirical research can the truth be ascertained" I don't throw out of the window the success of natural sciences that enabled us to communicate over the internet. I can hold a view that empiricism is so far the best method of finding true statements in natural sciences while having rationalist views when it comes to other bodies of knowledge. Math would be an uncontroversial example.

I don't understand your question about a contradiction. I'm not sure where there's a contradiction. Do you mean it's tautological? That using empirical evidence to support empiricism's validity is a logical fallacy?

To me, this is a practical matter. There has been no greater success story, in the history of human existence, than the empirical sciences. Some of the scaffolding of the sciences was erected (har har) by philosophers, but where the rubber meets the road is the experimental work done in labs.

As far as I know, the question of whether maths is empirical or rational, from a philosophical perspective, is not uncontroversial. And goes back a ways. For instance, I believe Kant used mathematics as an example of "synthetic a priori" knowledge. Something that's a mixture of a priori and some statement about the external world. Some of the methods of proof, like proof by exhaustion, seem to me quite empirical. Many mathematicians do proofs by algorithms like this. But I'm not a mathematician so I won't go out of my depth on this.

It seems our opinions are divided along the same lines again - I think that in all of these examples (Harris, Dawkins, scientists on free will, a bunch of people on Postmodernism) it's people speaking outside of their realm without required knowledge. I don't think they have the required familiarity with these topics. I think Dennett himself explains how Harris' opinions are those of a typical smart nonphilosopher's misunderstanding of free will. I don't think what you describe is postmodernism. I also think that Sokal submitted his article into a journal with no peer review, one that is meant to publish nearly everything, and decline the edits he was offered. Didn't he have to submit it twice, too, after managing to get it rejected from a "publish all" journal? It seems people who think that the whole affair was a huge deal seem to think that the academics consider the journal to have high standards. I guess we can't hash these out if there's no time for that.

In terms of science vs philosophy, it's a bit of a moot topic; they describe different aspects of reality. I also think that it's philosophy which people mostly lack, nowadays - there's some focus on science, and there is none on philosophy. That's largely why the sophism I describe can happen.

Philosophy is useful in some regards (as a tool for clarifying questions/answers and asking more questions) but it will not solve the problem of free will. That question will be solved by scientists in a lab, not philosophers in recliners. I am absolutely certain Daniel Dennett would agree with that statement. There is no substitute for looking at the data and conducting experiments.

I have a lot of respect for philosophers who do their research and are able to contribute to research (I know a few personally!) but they're a lot of the times peripheral to the real work being done on problems already identified by the natural sciences.

There is no "reality" that philosophy should be trying to describe besides the objective reality of the natural world. There's really no different aspects, in my mind, except those we have created and they are illusions. It would be a mistake to chase after them. There is a single, objective reality and we are at arm's length to it. We are imperfect creatures with imperfect senses and imperfect reasoning faculties. I'm not sure whether or not humans can ever truly grok the natural world, but if it is possible, it's principally through empirical research.

I... what? The objective reality of the natural world is quite exclusively the domain of the natural sciences for good reason, as they are suited to understand it. Why should we limit other human endeavors such as philosophy to it?

There's really no different aspects, in my mind, except those we have created and they are illusions. It would be a mistake to chase after them.

Mathematics and the majority of non-STEM fields are a mistake? (if you wonder why I mention mathematics, let me point out that numbers do not physically exist, and can thus not be considered part of objective reality of the natural world. (Whether numbers actually do exist has been discussed by... philosophers)).

There is a single, objective reality and we are at arm's length to it. We are imperfect creatures with imperfect senses and imperfect reasoning faculties.

Consider this: The Matrix (as in, the movie) could be real. I.e. you can make a rational claim that given our knowledge (i.e. what's delivered to us by our senses) we could very well live in a simulation delivered to our brain by computers, computers that might very well exist in a universe where e.g. Pi is 3 and reactions happen such that entropy always decreases. Whether that could actually be true has been discussed extensively by guess what... philosophy. In my opinion it's worth pursuing these questions. I recommend at least the first chapter of this introductory text by Bertrand Russel, which I'm currently reading, and which has led me to this conclusion.

Regarding the "we are at arm's length to [a single objective reality]", let's remind ourselves that astronomers are currently postulating that over eighty percent of mass in the universe is composed of matter we hitherto have no direct means of observing.

By world, I mean objective reality. Not just the natural sciences but includes everything from physics up through economics, political science, sociology, etc.. Literature and art is a domain outside of that and that's entirely free for philosophical discussions as well.

Mathematics is the ultimate science, in my opinion. It is the science of patterns. I would put maths at the top of the stack in terms of rigor and physics a step below. And so forth. When you get to sociology, the rigor is much lower because there's just so many more variables. Science becomes increasingly more difficult when you cannot isolate variables. If you work in the natural sciences, you should know this. When you conduct an experiment, you don't mix in variables and garble your hypothesis up with all sorts of different ideas. You want to be as laser focused and clear about what it is you're trying to figure out. Sometimes you have to do that one piece at a time, trial and error, until you figure out what's really happening.

You're linking me to a Russell essay... Lol... My son is named after Bertrand Russell! I'm not anti-philosophy!

Your last paragraph is a perfect demonstration of exactly what I am getting at. You may ask whether that understanding of dark matter/energy is correct or not, you can ask, if so, what is it made of, and so forth. But the observations, the empirical evidence, drives the debate. Philosophers have to shift their focus around what the evidence says. It will always, and should always, be that way.

Philosophers can come up with loads of explanations but they will entire be confirmed or not based on what the evidence says. This is exactly what the issue is with string theory, where the predictions made by string theory are beyond any possible experimentation (with the exception of cosmic super strings, which have not yet been observed).

Mathematics is the ultimate science, in my opinion. It is the science of patterns.

That's pretty interesting, you don't limit sciences to the empirical? I even have doubts about theoretical physics.

I assume that means you think mathematics is purely a "rational" thing. There's no empirical basis for 2+2 = 4? Or other more esoteric areas of maths? I know this is a topic of debate in philosophy and philosophy of science. For example, Kant used mathematics as an example of "synthetic a priori" knowledge. A priori knowledge being the rationalist camp, where you can deduce facts about something without any additional information. Synthetic being a statement about the world that requires some empirical evidence. Other philosophers like JS Mill, Quine, and Putnam have argued mathematics is fundamentally empirical because it can make testable predictions about the natural world.

Proof by exhaustion seems flat out empirical to me. Proofs made by algorithms fall in this category. To what extent maths is or isn't empirical, I don't know. I'm not a mathematician. But it is to a degree fundamentally empirical. I consider mathematics the bedrock of all the natural sciences. The history of mathematics is not lost on me. I understand its deep roots with philosophy and mathematically oriented philosophers like Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Russell, and Wittgenstein.

I even have doubts about theoretical physics.

"Theoretical" being a keyword here. It depends on what you're specifically talk about. But there are many natural phenomena that are so thoroughly and well explained by our understanding of physics that I would bet my life on it. Indeed, we do it all the time when we're in a plane flying, standing in a tall building, crossing a bridge, etc.. The knowledge that makes those feats of engineering possible is of very high confidence.

Let me interject a caveat here: Nothing, in my opinion, can be known with absolute metaphysical certitude. Nothing. (Except perhaps the absolute truths found in mathematics.) There will always be a degree of skepticism even about the most inane things like whether there's a giant purple elephant in this room with me, or if my brain is actually in a vat, or whether we're in a simulation, or whatever. I cannot disprove those things with absolute certainty.

But we can believe things to be true with extremely high confidence. Based on my 5 senses, I'm fairly confident there's no pink elephant in this room with me. If someone else told me they do not sense a pink elephant in this room, I'd be more confident. If I had some sophisticated equipment that would independently ascertain whether there's a pink elephant in this room, and it told me no, there isn't, I'd be more confident still. And so forth. As these bits of knowledge are continually tested, over and over, our confidence gets higher. (I'm not sure if you're familiar with Bayesian Probability Theorem, but that's essentially what I'm getting at here.)

I believe science to work as Karl Popper described it: through falsification only. You have an idea of something, you test it, and if it is not proven wrong, it remains a viable theory. If you're unable to test your theory, it becomes less useful than a theory you can test.

There are some areas of theoretical physics which are extremely well tested. Einstein's theory of relativity is extremely well tested. There's areas it breaks down and is flawed or incomplete (like in blackholes or how it is incompatible with quantum mechanics), but in large measure it is extremely reliable to use in doing things like satellite communication or nuclear power.

There are theories of physics which cannot be tested like string theory. String Theory does predict what we see in nature and does unite gravity and quantum mechanics. But the problem is that it makes many, many different predictions as well. There are many ways to formulate String Theory (which are correct?) and so many parameters you can tweak things to make it very right or very wrong. Furthermore, the theory itself cannot be tested. There was one unique prediction it made -- cosmic superstrings -- which could be tested. If we observed a cosmic superstring, that'd be evidence to support string theory. But there has been no observations and therefore there is no evidence to support it. The strings themselves exist at scales beyond our ability to study, well beyond the power ranges capable of by the LHC. We will not be testing string theory any time soon. It remains an unsupported theory and probably will for a very long time.

Personally, I've spent a lot of effort studying books and articles, both popular and academic. I'm close to finishing my doctorate (:pray:) and I think I've spent my life deeply interested in understanding/knowing the world, history, and myself. I've put in a lot of time, many, many late nights in libraries, labs, and my office studying for class or personal interests, that I feel I know enough to know that I don't know a lot. Which is more than most people, especially on the internet, I think can say.

So you dont know a lot, but you know u r better than others?

I really did not want to come across that way. I'm not "better than". But you would not deny the internet is full of people who think they know everything because they've watched some YouTube videos and read a few books. I'm saying I know I don't know everything. Take my opinion or leave it.

thats good ...
In my own experience when discussing topics in real life, it becomes mostly about winning an argument, people even dont respond to a single of your points and rather talk about their own theories, of course in a very strong teacher to pupil way ... and at the end of a discussion they place a sentence where they want again confirm their superiority like "when you get where I am, you will understand" ... and even if you wrong someone, noone is really thankful, even not unlikely that certain someone stabs you in the back later ... talking about abstract topics, thats where things become really difficult, one guy in these discussions on ESR dropped the term "Nietzschean philosophy", I read most of his works in the original german language, and imho. there is no such term as "Nietzschean philosophy" ... you can talk about different works of his, but not of a general philosophy .... and thats how discussions on abstract things tend to go often, people throwing terms around they dont understand to support their arguments etc. ... here on esr in these peterson discussions a lot of texts are muddled and mainly represent a stream of disconnected thoughts without a common theme ...

Yes, that's usually how these threads go. :-)

whats ur phd in

Copy+pasta'd from above:

My doctorate is on the economics of higher education. Basically how different financial, economic, and legal factors have driven the rise of adjunct faculty in the United States. "Adjunct faculty" are those who work on a contingent basis, usually contracted on a semesterly basis, and paid less in both salary and fringe benefits than traditional tenure track faculty. My work is on the implications of a specific section of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka "Obamacare", on employer-mandated health insurance coverage. There's two schools of thought about why adjunct faculty are utilized by institutions: one is cost-sensitivity and the other is enrollment-sensitivity. I'm using the ACA as a tool to test the cost-sensitivity hypothesis.

(errrrrr I responded to a comment that has been deleted)


The articles from the English newspapers about the interview are laughable. Absolute shite journalism.

He came into the spotlight when he voiced his opinion against that crazy law in Canada that compelled you to address everyone by the pronoun they themselves had chosen.

Ex. some looney wanted to be addressed as xer or dragonkin you were forced to by the law. Instead of just he and she.

I thought his appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast a bit after that was very interesting:

The thing is with things like this, is that you can't just study life experience easily. You have to be completely dedicated, or it goes in one ear and out the other. It just feels good listening at the time.

A lot of things are actually pretty simple, but people like him over complicate it. Thats fine if you want to get into the details. But its not what most people these days actually need, IMO. A lot of people don't have time for it. To learn this way is kind of backwards, or indirect, its listening to experience gained, rather than directly gaining it.

Its a lot better to keep simple things in mind, and act on them. This way, you don't forget. There isn't actually that much to tell people, if they just do things and learn for themselves. Life will tell them.

A lot of peoples problems can be solved by just doing what they know needs to be done. They don't need a book about it, or some guru, they already know what to do. They just don't want to do it. But if you can't get past that one simple thing, then don't even bother with anything more. Your brain can trick you, make you think you're making progress, when you're not budging an inch.

This. Agree almost 100%.

A lot of people may not need books, but they still lack motivation/willpower to go and do it. The self authoring program, or any other similar program, is about providing a system and some clear tasks/rules to follow. That program might be the best thing Peterson has done. The rest is entertainment / provoking thoughts.

True about life experience and learning; however also weirdly mechanistic, and too formal.

esr went full retard alt-right now?

White straight men. Peterson appeals to them.

wow. just wow.

I was making a joke. Did I shock you?

You did!

feminist : D

Not really, it's just that certain topics appeal only to certain crowd

gg hitler

the alt-left have gone full communism, people are waking up to the reality

I'm more surprised when I see anti-altright comments than alt-right comments to be honest. Much more surprised. With that said, I don't think Peterson is full on alt-right, he just flirts with them and makes points which are convenient for them.

I've never heard anything from Peterson that would make me think he has anything to do with alt-meme.

I think he just flirts with them for money, as has decent overlap with their positions due to his very deep conservatism and religiosity. He doesn't bring up his dislike of them too much and memes with them, which brings in lots of dough. Take a look at my post here http://esreality.com/post/2906746/n-a/#pid2906742

I guess it's a question about what was first - Peterson or memes?
Obviously he got boosted really hard by all the 4chanish meme magic but did Peterson changed after all of that?
I don't follow him so I don't know.
For me he still wants me to clean my room and has nothing to do with wiping jews or "non-h-uites" from the planet.

Not falling for the pay gaps or tranny faggots traps is not being "alt-right" or "white supremacist" but decent human being.

:^)

Peterson was first. I'm not saying his all content is corrupt, far from it.

It's more like... Let's say there are several factors to your political participation:
1) your positions and priorities for them
2) the amount of work you dedicate to promoting each
3) the way you promote each - down to specific rhetoric that appeals to people X or Y
4) results of your political participation. Like say you convinced 3 friends and your granny to vote for politician Z, but you also made person N mad at you and inadvertently convinced him to keep saying "richard spencer 2020"

You are, imho, responsible for looking at all of these. While Peterson was always a hardcore christian and very traditionalist, he has spun his priorities / amount of work he puts into it to mostly ignoring nazis, and constantly fighting leftists. Most importantly, he does a lot of rhetoric courting the froggers, and way too little criticizing them considering how many he's amassed among his fandom.

That's my point, I'm not at all saying he is wrong about psychology because of this.

Does he have some great quotes like cooller?

exactly

this whole thing: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/...rnism.html
also this

I'm not a follower, so i'm not very familiar with him. I have to say the guy has an innate talent of making me think his opposition has merit even when i agree with him. Don't know if it's because he's long winded or because it seems to me he slightly misses the point often.

I've not looked in to his work much, however it's nice that there are slowly people out there coming to the front and being a voice for things happening, being it political, philosophical etc.

I resonate more with Simon Sinek and his thoughts and philosophical views.


P.S. Still find it funny that people don't appreciate philosophy as a whole ie - "Well you don't have a degree in philosophy so your thoughts are not relevant."

I think anyone who has a voice on anything should speak up and be the voice for others out there who are not confident in being able to spread the message.

*Grabs popcorn and reads through the rest of this thread.*

overrated as fuck. I'm tired of his smug, arrogant look on his face, know-it-all behaviour, and his annoying screeching voice. got famous on youtube by chance. just about anybody can be a youtube 'intellectual' these days, as long as you speak out against sjw-s, and against degenerates who demand to be referred to as a gender different from 'he' or 'she'. pretty low bar if you ask me.

also, he's a christian, he's admitted as much in an interview. he thinks jesus was real. because intelligent ppl tend to subscribe to religious fairy tales... mmh, yep.

I think he makes sound talks ...he makes good use of gestures and intonation ... he is a good speaker in general ... being a university professor with a non-leftist view definitely helped his fame, but this is definitely not the only reason for getting where he is now ...
what made him famous I dont know ... maybe he was just at the right time at the right place ... still he definitely deserved it ... there are so many worse speakers out there ...

well I'd say what you're actually saying is more important than the way of delivering it. I'm sure there has been a great many influential writers who would've been completely awful at delivering their thoughts at live speech.

thing is, on youtube you've got random 'intellectuals' with thousands upon thousands of views and subs, and the only thing they've done is hate on sjw-s. it's just been very trendy to do that.

I'm sure he's got a lot of great thoughts, but definitely overrated. I personally find him annoying, and I have trouble taking religious ppl seriously.

A poor man's Dan Pena!

oh my god jordan peterson is on joe rogans podcast

fresh infusion of memes

yeah i just dont know what ur referring to