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XiphosAletheria t1_j6ny64n wrote

Reply to comment by SyntheticBees in Great Philosophers Are Bad Philosophers by thenousman

I think it depends on what you think the role of philosophy is.

If you think it aims at finding truth, then the article makes a good point. You don't really study Becher and phlogiston theory in chemistry or Lamarck's view of evolution in biology, except as historical curiosities. If philosophy, like the hard sciences, aims at truth, then most of the old "great" philosophers shouldn't really be taught anymore, because they got almost everything wrong.

Now, if you think philosophy is more about learning how to think consistently about a variety of ultimately subjective topics, then of course the "great" philosophers are worth studying for the reasons you outlined, much as older literature is worth studying because it is the beginning of a very long and ongoing cultural conversation.

The issue, I think, is that most of the ancient philosophers, especially back before the hard sciences split off from natural philosophy, explicitly claim philosophy is the first type of thing rather than the second. And even today you'll get some philosophers who'll prattle nonsense about objective moral facts and whatnot. Philosophy is sort of an odd humanity in that way.

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slickwombat t1_j6oizqo wrote

Philosophy aims at truth. But the great philosophers didn't "get almost everything wrong," such that they're mere historical curiosities and unworthy of consideration otherwise.

Huemer says this based on a parody-level analysis of literally three ideas from three philosophers, but it's not right even if we just consider those examples. Kantian constructivism, for example, is still extremely influential in contemporary moral philosophy. Hume's skepticism, while often seen as mainly setting the stage for Kant, is hardly a dead idea that's fallen by the wayside; his problem of induction is still debated, for example.

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thenousman OP t1_j6p5h8g wrote

I second this though I think it’s important to highlight that the level of analysis of Huemer’s post is appropriate for a blogpost. He gets carried away but if his aim with his blogposts is to provoke philosophical reflection then I think he has succeeded. I rarely agree with him, but he makes me think a lot better which I why I continue to read his blog.

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slickwombat t1_j6pg4lr wrote

I think the level of analysis should be adequate to support the claim made, regardless of the format. So if a claim like "the great philosophers of the western canon are all wrong and bad at philosophy" can't be supported in blog post length, it probably ought not be made in a blog post. Unless of course the point is just to be provocative without substance, which would be pretty ironic in this case.

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thenousman OP t1_j6pgcks wrote

C’mon now, his blog is literally called Fake Nous 😂

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