Philosophy Now Forum

In listening to Ethics in the Real World, i've discovered Peter Singer is not a good philosopher. I could show, if it was useful, how he applies double-standards, indicating to me an ego problem of insisting on "proving" what he already wants to believe rather than taking ideas to their logical extreme to check for fallacies. Other notable thinkers such as Thomas Sowell, Daniel Dennett, Neitzsche, Kant, and Jordan Peterson, have similar existential problems with their ideas.

Some good thinkers like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and David Hume are just really bad communicators, leading many people to think they're wrong even when they're not.

What is the right balance of effective thinking and effective communication? How can True philosophers help show the world how problematic ideas should be dismissed in a way that is salient to them? How can the field of philosophy focus it's energies on philosophers who armor of no logical contradictions and who are also capable of being effective?

Advocate wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 5:12 pm Other notable thinkers suck as Thomas Sowell, Daniel Dennett, Neitzsche, Kant, and Jordan Peterson, have similar existential problems with their ideas.

"Existential" problems? What on earth does that mean? I think you're trying to say they have "logical" problems, but I'm not sure...

Some good thinkers like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and David Hume are just really bad communicators, leading many people to think they're wrong even when they're not.

It's the other way around, actually. Sam Harris is an excellent stylist, but very much a second rate thinker when you get him into questions of ethics and meaning. Richard Dawkins is both a prickly character, and prone to caricatures of Theism, rather than to tackling substantive issues. Hume was better than both as a thinker, by pretty much every fair metric...but yes, there were problems with Hume too; just not the same deficiencies the former two have.

What is the right balance of effective thinking and effective communication?

To have both. It's not an either-or. Nothing about being a good communicator makes your ideas shallow or silly, and nothing about being profound, as Orwell noted, requires one to communicate badly.

In fact, as the poet Alexander Pope so famously penned,

"True wit is nature to advantage dress'd;
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."

One sure signal of high intelligence is the ability to take very complex ideas and put them into straightforward, clear terms. A sign of lesser intelligence is to speak clearly, but to have nothing to say; and a sign of middling intelligence is to be capable of getting some grasp of complex ideas, but not enough to explain them to anyone -- even to yourself -- in words that an ordinary person can understand.

>>Other notable thinkers suck as Thomas Sowell, Daniel Dennett, Neitzsche, Kant, and Jordan Peterson, have similar existential problems with their ideas.

>"Existential" problems? What on earth does that mean? I think you're trying to say they have "logical" problems, but I'm not sure...

I'm sorry, but i cannot take you seriously until you say "What the tarnation?!" I don't mean logical problems per-se, i mean logical problems that cut to the heart of their ideas - being counterproductive, special pleading, double-standards, egocentric, or epistemologically bankrupt. I mean the kind of logical error that casts doubt on their general reasoning ability and therefore their value as thinkers.

>It's the other way around, actually. Sam Harris is an excellent stylist, but very much a second rate thinker when you get him into questions of ethics and meaning. Richard Dawkins is both a prickly character, and prone to caricatures of Theism, rather than to tackling substantive issues. Hume was better than both as a thinker, by pretty much every fair metric...but yes, there were problems with Hume too; just not the same deficiencies the former two have.

I'm not entirely familiar with Harris but i've not caught him in a fallacy that i can recall and i've got a pretty solid bullshit detector. His bridging of the is/ought problem is correct, but presented on the same scale of bad as Hume's Fork. My experience of his nay-sayers is that they're usually attacking points he's specifically addressed (much like myself). But i've always found his method of presenting his points to be insufficient BecausE he takes great pains to try to avoid the controversies that inevitably arise anyhow. Dawkins has a style that reminds me of old leather soaked in a puddle under a bridge. Don't try to translate that! I'm not familiar with Hume except for the fork, which is good metaphysics and just about as badly presented as any philosophy has ever been.

>One sure signal of high intelligence is the ability to take very complex ideas and put them into straightforward, clear terms. A sign of lesser intelligence is to speak clearly, but to have nothing to say; and a sign of middling intelligence is to be capable of getting some grasp of complex ideas, but not enough to explain them to anyone -- even to yourself -- in words that an ordinary person can understand.

That's one kind of application of intelligence, but you have to choose where to apply those IQ points and popular communication can be a major distraction from the ideas themselves. Einstein may not have been able to express himself as a Feynman can, but he's not less of a thinker because of it, he simply didn't find himself in the circumstances where that was particularly meaningful. My feathers really get ruffled when "popular philosophy" writers don't do a good job of the writing part. My initial example, Singer, writes like a great 10th grade philosopher. Ugh. No thanks. The reason such people are popular is because they barely scrape the boundaries of what's socially acceptable. The depth of their thought seems to be confined to the practical limits of their individual lives.

Point being, i agree great thought is better when it's also elegant, but being capable of expressing things simply isn't sufficient to be able to express them broadly.

Advocate wrote: ↑Mon Oct 19, 2020 8:42 pm >>Other notable thinkers suck as Thomas Sowell, Daniel Dennett, Neitzsche, Kant, and Jordan Peterson, have similar existential problems with their ideas.

>"Existential" problems? What on earth does that mean? I think you're trying to say they have "logical" problems, but I'm not sure...

I'm sorry, but i cannot take you seriously until you say "What the tarnation?!"

What about, "What the Sam Hill?"

I don't mean logical problems per-se, i mean logical problems that cut to the heart of their ideas

That's not what "existential" means, but go on.

>It's the other way around, actually. Sam Harris is an excellent stylist, but very much a second rate thinker when you get him into questions of ethics and meaning. Richard Dawkins is both a prickly character, and prone to caricatures of Theism, rather than to tackling substantive issues. Hume was better than both as a thinker, by pretty much every fair metric...but yes, there were problems with Hume too; just not the same deficiencies the former two have.

I'm not entirely familiar with Harris but i've not caught him in a fallacy that i can recall and i've got a pretty solid bullshit detector.

Wow. If so, your detector needs a cleaning, I would suggest.

His bridging of the is/ought problem is correct,

There's a good example. He tries to use "wellbeing" to get there. Silly. Nobody even can define what "wellbeing" is: which Harris then admits, but tries to convert into an asset by pleading that we can kind of work it out as we go...which makes his whole answer hopeless, since it means he admits he doesn't have anything solid to start with.

And your detector didn't pick that one up?

Dawkins has a style that reminds me of old leather soaked in a puddle under a bridge.

Yeah, his personal style is unattractive. His content is even worse, especially when he gets into ethics and metaphysics. He completely goes to pieces then, because he actually doesn't know much about either. I can't comment on his knowledge in the areas in which he's actually qualified to speak.

But he gets by on telling Atheists what they obviously already want to believe. Lots of people just like confirmation, and he offers plenty of that.

...popular communication can be a major distraction from the ideas themselves.

Yes, it can be. I would say that's how Harris gets by at all. He's good in person, and comes across as kind of stylish and supremely self-confident. But watch his interview with Jordan Peterson, for example, and you'll see his weakness. He's not actually all that great a thinker, and doesn't realize it. I would say he is a man accustomed to talking with his eyes closed.

My feathers really get ruffled when "popular philosophy" writers don't do a good job of the writing part.

Yes, I agree.

My initial example, Singer, writes like a great 10th grade philosopher.

Nothing wrong with that if he gets the ideas right. But he doesn't. I agree that Singer's a bit frustrating that way.

Point being, i agree great thought is better when it's also elegant, but being capable of expressing things simply isn't sufficient to be able to express them broadly.

True.

But as Orwell so astutely said in "Politics and the English Language," elaboration of language can easily become a way of concealing weak thinking. One simply uses lots of big words, grammar structures of negation, long and rolling sentences, jargon, cliche, and so on, and cobble together confused ideas like "the sections of a prefabricated henhouse," as he puts it. And that's how one makes stupid ideas sound smart, and clear, simple ideas sound too clever by half, and the writer keeps everyone -- even himself-- from realizing he doesn't actually know what he's talking about. Orwell supplies samples of bloated academic writing that marvellously illustrate his point.

Clarity is the friend of wisdom. Orwell offers one very smart tip: he offers an interdiction forbidding recourse to grandiloquent verbiage on occasions when a diminutive one will suffice. Or, to put it simply, never use a big word when a small one will do just as well. That's a great rule: not that we can never use a "big" word, but we ought never to use one when there's a simpler alternative. In that way, says Orwell, we can keep everyone's understanding -- and our own thinking -- clear and honest.

well being involving Jack and Jill usually results in a broken crown

-Imp

Impenitent wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 10:19 pm well being involving Jack and Jill usually results in a broken crown

-Imp

Jill was not a well woman, I understand.

>What about, "What the Sam Hill?" :wink:

That was my original thought but then i forgot what it was so i had to pick something else.

>There's a good example. He tries to use "wellbeing" to get there. Silly. Nobody even can define what "wellbeing" is: which Harris then admits, but tries to convert into an asset by pleading that we can kind of work it out as we go...which makes his whole answer hopeless, since it means he admits he doesn't have anything solid to start with.

>And your detector didn't pick that one up? :shock:

He addresses the difficulty of deciding what to strive for in many ways, but the point is that it's not the particular applications that prove his point but the relationship between the ideas. Whatever we're striving for, there are empirically better and worse ways to get there and there is some correlation between what every person wants for themselves and what we can actionably pursue collectively. That's an answer (framework of understanding that leads to solutions (customized plans of action)) to everything about is/ought as far as i can tell. Now if he'd take on understanding the three contingencies (salience, perspective, priority), he'd be able to move from answers to solutions.

[quote]Point being, i agree great thought is better when it's also elegant, but being capable of expressing things simply isn't sufficient to be able to express them broadly.[/quote]
>True.

>But as Orwell so astutely said in "Politics and the English Language," elaboration of language can easily become a way of concealing weak thinking. One simply uses lots of big words, grammar structures of negation, long and rolling sentences, jargon, cliche, and so on, and cobble together confused ideas like "the sections of a prefabricated henhouse," as he puts it. And that's how one makes stupid ideas sound smart, and clear, simple ideas sound too clever by half, and the writer keeps everyone -- even himself-- from realizing he doesn't actually know what he's talking about. Orwell supplies samples of bloated academic writing that marvellously illustrate his point.

>Doesn't it seem to you that expressing deep thoughts to ordinary people Requires trying and retrying your language until you find the thing that sticks because most of them simply aren't capable of understanding basic definitions of ordinary words, much less critical thinking? I don't do that but i still feel the need to re-explain again and again, even in simple language, from different perspectives to ensure people "get it". When they say they get it, they're just getting started. People who don't understand can easily see it as shifting the goalpost or some other nonsense but when they do they can see it's just different perspectives on the same central theme.

Clarity being a valid attribute of the best world view, can you clarify how to judge the clarity of a philosophical presentation when most people aren't deep enough to understand any meaningful ones?

Advocate wrote: ↑Tue Oct 20, 2020 11:33 pm Whatever we're striving for,

Which is what?

.... there are empirically better and worse ways to get there and there is some correlation between what every person wants for themselves and what we can actionably pursue collectively.

Hmmm...well, that's really not informative.

We "strive for" something? Like what? Dominance? Security? Equality? Justice? Racial purity? Zero carbon footprint? As many partners as possible? The ideal society? More money? Health? Procreating genes? Defeating enemies? Being the last one standing? Any one of a million other things? That gives us no information at all, really. We couldn't even begin to build a moral code until we know which of the above, or what else, is the right goal of the standards we're building. And Harris, all he gives us is this vague term, "wellbeing."

And is it an individual or a collective goal? Because they're certainly not the same. Maximizing my personal wealth might be a goal for an individual; but it's not clear that everything I might do in order to achieve that would be for the collective good, is it? Or maximizing security for the collective might well mean curtailing all kinds of freedoms for the individual. So unless we decide whether we're aiming for individual or collective good, where do we start?

Harris has got no real solution, nor even a starting point for the is-ought problem. That would be my main point.

Doesn't it seem to you that expressing deep thoughts to ordinary people Requires trying and retrying your language until you find the thing that sticks because most of them simply aren't capable of understanding basic definitions of ordinary words, much less critical thinking?

Not really. If you have enough good words, it seems to me you can usually find a way to say what needs to be said. It's more a vocabulary problem than a thinking problem, and more of the speaker's problem than the hearer's...although both have some role in it all, of course.

As for critical thinking, most people don't do it beyond a common-sense level. But that's not to be despised, because it seems to me that when you can explain to most people where a particular idea goes wrong, they can track your point. The much harder case is when you're taking to a person who is ideologically possessed, and so refuses to recognize an error in his or her thinking, even when that error is very clearly in front of him/her. An honest but simple person with common sense will usually get farther in critical reflection than a sophisticated reasoner who is ideologically possessed.

Clarity being a valid attribute of the best world view...

Oh, I wouldn't necessarily say that. I would only say it's the best and most honest way to communicate...both to other people and inside one's own head.

I guess I don't feel the frustration with the ordinary man that it seems to me you are expressing. I like common-sense folks, and I like academic ones; I just don't like the ideologically-possessed ones, and they come in both types sometimes.

Not you, I mean. I trust you understand I'm talking generally.