[Wittrs] Re: When To Ignore Philosophy
- From: cyn Adams <cynthiaadams3@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 20 May 2011 06:51:40 -0500
Hi Sean,
This is an interesting observation regarding comprehensive understanding. I am
heading off to work and will comment later except to say
that I am reminded of specialitis in medicine in which we have very specific
disciplines so that we do not diagnoses and treat otherwise.
More later.
Kind regards,Mark Adams, N.a.p. ( not a philosopher)... legal disclaimer: all
opinions expresed here are from an armchair philodopher
> Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 21:47:19 -0700
> From: whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [Wittrs] When To Ignore Philosophy
> To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> It's always quite curious to hear people make the claim that one couldn't
> reject certain kinds of philosophy without first reading through it. If you
> think about it, in daily life, one could never read EVERYTHING about the
> things one believes. In fact, part of what skillful thinking is, is learning
> what NOT to read so as to not waste valuable time. In fact, one could say it
> this way: reading is only for things that have ALREADY shown their worth in
> some way.
> How many people decide to read a journal article based upon its abstract? Or
> see a movie based upon its trailer? Or see an encyclopedic summary before
> deciding whether to read source material or to dig further? Or, how many
> people are taught lectures about something (in college) as a filter for
> deciding whether the thing is worth deeper investigation? Or, those who
> investigate after seeing a happenstance -- i.e., people brewing over
> something. How many times do you discriminate among newspaper stories by
> looking at the headline?
>
> Here's the point. People who take the position that they must read all
> philosophy before they are an expert on philosophy are really only the
> JOURNALISTS of philosophy, yet they cannot see this. What they are there to
> do is say things like: "X said this in such-and-such." "Y said this one
> time." "Here's what this other one said." They are like lexicographers or
> librarians. In some sense, they are masters of a kind of trivia and of a kind
> of dinner conversation.
>
> If philosophy was the exercise of throwing a ball around -- the ball being
> "the thought" -- the journalists would simply be the ones who report on other
> people's ball throwing.
>
> But imagine that you, yourself, are a ball thrower. Imagine your talent is to
> play, not watch others play. And so, you throw ball with X. And you throw
> with Y. But what you find is that X is poor at catch. Throwing doesn't go
> well with him or her. And so, you choose to throw with certain kinds of
> catchers and shun others, the way that any who play a game seriously would do.
>
> This is what philosophy is for some. It is knowing the ball skills of the
> other players. And when you have learnt certain kinds of ball skills from the
> master, there is no reason to go back and throw the ball with certain kinds
> of players. One wants to say: the Wittgensteinians have no need to play catch
> with certain of the "analytic thinkers," for the very reason of the way they
> go about playing. This is already known to you. You don't need to read "the
> news."
>
> The point: the philosophers that are not worthy of reading are NOT playing a
> different game; it's just that they aren't as good at it. It would be like
> one who offered to remove snow with a spoon rather than a shovel. Although it
> is true that, in some very rare instances, the spoon might be a better
> instrument -- or, perhaps, a player might be better with the spoon than
> another is a shovel. But the simple fact is that these are RARE. And you
> would hear about them and decide to throw the ball with these exceptional
> cases, should they emerge.
>
> But with the rest, and in all normal situations, there simply is NO REASON to
> peruse the games offered by certain kinds of analytic thinkers, for the same
> reason that a skilled tennis player would want to shun an inferior player
> (absent, say, social reasons).
>
> Regards and thanks.
>
>
> Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
> Assistant Professor
> Wright State University
> Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
> SSRN papers: http://tinyurl.com/3eatnrx
> Wittgenstein Discussion: http://seanwilson.org/wiki/doku.php?id=wittrs
>
>
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