>Tyson has spoken about philosophy on numerous occasions. In March 2014, during an episode of the Nerdist Podcast, he stated that philosophy is "useless" and that a philosophy major "can really mess you up"
>Tyson has argued that many great historical scientists' belief in intelligent design limited their scientific inquiries, to the detriment of the advance of scientific knowledge
What is it with the smugness of guys like Tyson, Harris, and Dawkins? Why are they so sure that there is no god?
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But user getting a philosophy major really can mess you up
All them student loans and no way to pay them off
My old history professor once said that the only thing more useless than a history major is a philosophy major, can't really say he's wrong.
All philosophy did was make me doubt whether I am actually typing on this keyboard tbhfamilia
>God
He's right about a philosophy major messing up people because its puts them in a shit ton of student loans for a useless degree but he's wrong about philosophy being useless. Tyson along with Harris and Dawkins represent the intellectual regress of the field of science; it's one thing to find an answer it's another thing to ask the right questions.
This.
Tyson, Harris and Dawkins are pseudo-intellectuals.
Because they're manchildren
I think Tyson has identified himself as agnostic in that Saganian too-polite-to-say-'atheist' way.
My impression is that Philosophy departments are breeding-grounds for YEC and related heterodoxies. Not to suggest that most people in those departments subscribe to such views, only that many/most in academia who do subscribe to those views make their home in those departments.
But the correct response isn't outrage, it's to get empirical. Someone who's bothered doing it should maybe tweet some stats at him about outcomes for Phil grads. This came up during the Republican primary debates IIRC, Lil' Marco Rubio joshing about the earning power of a Phil grad versus a plumber and being spectacularly wrong.
>it's another thing to ask the right questions.
What are the right questions? A hypothesis is generated by earlier theories and produce a set of questions that may or may not be answerable, and some set of the answerable questions can be answered at a given level of development. What questions aside from these are "right, " and what progress has been made on answering them?
Questioning what "progress" really means is not a satisfying answer to the question.
A philosophy major is useless, you can't learn to question the world. Have to be born curious.
I question that.
Considering that Philosophy majors consistently out earn everyone else in the humanities, that is clearly bullshit.
theatlantic.com
Not to mention consistently having higher scores on LSAT and GMAT exams than any other arts degree.
yeah but how long are they in school for
what was their minor?
or did they pick up a sexcondary bachelors like myself
philosophy should be taught in higschool
college is for serious thinkers, not bullshit pop shit.
>philosophy should be taught in higschool
I agree.
>college is for serious thinkers, not bullshit pop shit.
And yet I feel as though you don't actually know what philosophy entails.
When you look at a lot of modern philosophy at the academic level and expect grand results like people in the hard sciences produce then of course you are going to say shit like this
>Considering that Philosophy majors consistently out earn everyone else in the humanities, that is clearly bullshit.
>consistently out earn everyone else in the humanities
>humanities
Congratulations on them having one lazy eye in the land of the blind
In other words, philosophy is useful as a means to an end, but not an end unto itself.
>X achieves Y
>"Ah, so you're saying that X certainly does not achieve Z"
This is the kind of lazy thinking that a course in Philosophy would knock right out of you m8.
I wish they'd just ban all humanities apart from History and Literature. Nothing of value would be lost.
What do their statements of philosophy have to do with not believing in God
Tyson hates philosophy because he has fucking assburgers and he just can't wrap his mind around it
Dawkins hates philosophy because he's an INCREDIBLY bitter fuck who views philosophy as "obstructionism" solely because philosophers tend to dismantle his shitty arguments in debates (which is all he cares about)
Harris doesn't hate philosophy and actively engages in it (or at least tries to), he's just helplessly naive in a way. I don't even wanna say he has an intellectual superiority complex, but it's like he has no awareness of when he embarrasses himself.
Get some cream for that butthurt, phil/his/tines.
>certainly
I paraphrased you. If you have any evidence to prove that X achieves Z, by all means show me up.
>philosophers tend to dismantle his shitty arguments in debates
Such as?
his misunderstanding of aquinas
HAHAHAHAHAH OHOHOHO this is great.
Lad, a high schooler could dismantle Aquinas
>I paraphrased you.
Wrong on two counts.
>If you have any evidence to prove that X achieves Z, by all means show me up.
M8 I've shown you up by pointing out your total non-sequitur. It's already happened.
What does "misunderstanding" actually entail? Because "works within its own context" doesn't actually mean much if the context is mistaken.
inb4 you have to individually refute every sentence of summa theologica or you lose and jesus is magic
>philosophy is useful to avoid actually having to address arguments
Yes, I guess that is useful under a particular definition.
I just know he'll pull that shit.
You know it's funny, I think Aquinas is apex faggotry considering both christfundies and philfags revere him.
Most of /phil/ is just sophistry
You haven't made an argument. You have made a claim. I have demonstrated that the claim is based on faulty reasoning.
Again, your obvious confusion here could have been avoided had you received a solid grounding in good ol' philosophy.
I never understood how you could believe Aquinas was right about anything unless your belief in god is a priori.
Honestly, I want to believe that modern philosophy can be fruitful. We owe a great deal to greek philosophy, regardless of the individual mistakes particular thinkers make. But nowadays people just seem content to be sophists while reaping the benefits of "impure" knowledge.
You can't and his arguments are literally childish as viewed through a modern lens.
You responded to someone saying that philosophy wasn't useless, because studying it could be profitable. You have shown that the study of philosophy can be useful, not that philosophy itself can be useful, and only within a specific context. Then you said essentially nothing, while claiming you had already been victorious. Disappointing but not unexpected.
Google "so you think you understand the cosmonological argument fesser" (I cant link blogs here)
He literally misrepresents what Aquinas states then refutes that. For instance Aquinas never stated that everything must have a cause, however Dawkins attributes that broken logic to him.
I agree. Philosophy should be about systems of value, morals and ethics, not about unquantifiable qualities like consciousness, being, or any other bullshit that /phil/ is peddling here.
What is worse is they are consistently berating real scientists like ebin nigger man and ebin science guy man, making the entire field look like a retard's secluded club where reality is shat on. A safe space if you will
>college is for serious thinkers, not bullshit pop shit.
So you've never actually done a Philosophy course I take it? Go enroll in a 4th year philosophy course and see how you do.
No, we were talking about "usefulness". To be useful is to be useful for something. Philosophy is a good in itself regardless of if you can make money or do well on tests that can lead to you making money, but it can have a derivative value as well, as demonstrated.
>High schooler's could understand Aquinas at a sufficient level to refute him.
And yet every time some fedora tries to refute Aquinas on this board they can't even get his arguments right and attack strawmen, or just completely embarrass themselves with logical fallacies.
Aquinas isn't infallible or anything, but he was a very good philosopher and was way smarter than 99% of his detractors. ( that 1% mostly being actual professors and famous philosophers). That, and Philosophy isn't that easy. If most grown (semi-educated) adults here on this board can't even touch Aquinas then I doubt that random 16 year olds could.
And yet his arguments are still stupid, no matter how hard you try to pain Dawkins as a moron.
>For instance Aquinas never stated that everything must have a cause,
What did he state?
That you shouldn't put pineapple on pizza, instead use mushrooms, that shit is cash
>implying medieval people didn't believe that all things worldly have a cause
You have to place these people in their Veeky Forumstorical era user, read between the lines :^)
>You responded to someone saying that philosophy wasn't useless, because studying it could be profitable.
Well again that wasn't me, but it doesn't matter.
>You have shown that the study of philosophy can be useful, not that philosophy itself can be useful, and only within a specific context.
Absolutely. You then took that statement and, as you put it, 'paraphrased' it into a positive claim that philosophy is definitely not useful in any other context. Literally, as I said in my first post to you:
>X achieves Y
>"Ah, so you're saying that X certainly does not achieve Z"
Or, if you need it phrased more accessibly, imagine you asked someone to tell you about a guy named Bill. If that person told you that Bill has a beard, would you conclude that Bill does not wear glasses? Of course not, but that's the same mistake you're making here.
I literally linked you a blog post discussing it but simply his premise was that "some" things are caused not all things
>That you shouldn't put pineapple on pizza
Pineapple is awesome on pizza, especially with anchovies, they work great together. Fuck this Aquinas lad if that's his deal.
Anything that is moved (changed) is moved by another.
and
Anything that is produced is produced by another.
Depending on which argument you look at.
>would you conclude that Bill does not wear glasses?
If someone refuted "Bill does not have anything on his face" with "he has a beard," I would ask them about his eyeglasses, yes, if the original question implied something on his face rather than a part of his face. And if they argued feverantly about whether or not a beard is on the face or a part of the face rather than addressing his glasses when they were brought up, that would be even more indication that the person in question has no ability to evaluate the state of glasses.
Which is kind of stupid isn't it?
I didn't ask you for a blog. I asked you.
What did Aquinas state?
>Which is kind of stupid isn't it?
You forgot your smug anime face
>If someone refuted "Bill does not have anything on his face" with "he has a beard," I would ask them about his eyeglasses, yes
But you didn't ask them about his eyeglasses. You 'paraphrased' the statement about his beard into a claim that he wears no glasses.
Fuck off n'wa
>Anything that is moved (changed) is moved by another
Refuted by the existence of radio-
active decay, which occurs independently and randomly.
>Anything that is produced is produced by another.
Invents a specific class of objects that are not produced, which is a neat trick but doesn't necessarily illuminate anything.
Also we should qualify that a part of one thing changing another part is not disbarred in the first claim, that principle was held with a qualification that it was talking about the exact same thing being both the changed and changer at the same time, in the same way, etc.
A statement that would be easily refutable if the speaker had any idea of what glasses were, but cannot.
If you say "philosophy has worth because it is a means to an end" and cannot show any intrinsic worth, I am forced to conclude you cannot show me any intrinsic worth.
>Refuted by the existence of radio-
>active decay, which occurs independently and randomly.
When you say that it occurs independently and randomly, do you mean that there is no reason for it to occur, or do you mean that it occurs because of properties possessed by the material decaying and occurs in individually unpredictable instances?
Because if you mean the latter then Tommy Boy doesn't sweat radioactive decay.
>The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.]
>do you mean that it occurs because of properties possessed by the material decaying and occurs in individually unpredictable instances?
If individually truly unpredictable instances exist, then there is no need for an infinite regress into an uncaused first cause.
>If you say "philosophy has worth because it is a means to an end" and cannot show any intrinsic worth
You are begging the question that I cannot show this. Hint: I am showing it to you right now. You made a laughably elementary non-sequitur and dug your heels in trying to defend it. I submit that a solid grounding in philosophy would have given you the skills needed to avoid getting into such spots, or at a minimum, to recognise when you have done so and extricate yourself quickly and efficiently.
Okay, then show it. If it is truly so easy to prove me wrong, do so as easily as you proved the study of philosophy was fruitful. Surely you must also be able to show philosophy itself is useful.
To verify that that is even possible you would have to deal with Aristotle's three arguments against the possibility of self change though. If those argument's can't be dealt with then we have better reason to believe that something that we can't measure and quantify is causing it to change the way it does. Though IMO Duns Scotus did a good enough job refuting those arguments, so I don't have much attachment to the principle.
The second one of course doesn't do much on it's own, considering it is just one premise in a larger argument on its own. Though it is valid, something that doesn't exist can't do anything, let alone produce something.
Whether or not Aquinas was always right isn't the issue as much as most of his critics attacking strawmen is.
>philosophy is useless
>astronomer
Again, I already have. Really not inclined to repeat myself further, bro. You can take a horse to water and all that. Considerably less hinges on your opinion of philosophy than you seem to believe.
Satellites are legitimately useful.
We'll need astronomers to get a colonization program off the ground.
But you're right.
>Dawkinsfags
and once you graduate college you realize that those 4th year philosophy classes mean jack shit in the real world.
>starts with a meme scientist
>caps his own 0/10 pasta
Dropped
>white males
Stopped reading there.
Yes, you have desperately avoided proving philosophy is useful using philosophy. I have already acknowledged that such avoidance is useful, so I suppose you have indeed managed that.
>If individually truly unpredictable instances exist, then there is no need for an infinite regress into an uncaused first cause.
Well, there's no such thing as 'an infinite regress into an uncaused first cause', that doesn't make sense. It's one or the other.
But ignoring that, the individual instances are 'random' but they occur because of certain properties of the material, right? Those properties would be different assuming a different set of 'the laws of physics', wouldn't they? It's possible to imagine a universe in which radioactive decay doesn't occur. Thus, radioactive decay occurs because of certain facts about the universe.
...
That one can imagine certain facts about the universe to be different does not make then possible.
>those 4th year philosophy classes mean jack shit in the real world
kek. Tell me more about the school of hard knocks, you grizzled old salt-of-the-earth type. You know, I'm doing a Masters in Life Experience, I might be able to use you for qualitative data.
Is philosophy 90% just going off irrelevant tangents without touching on the subject at hand?
They don't need to be possible, that's just to demonstrate that radioactive decay occurs because of certain facts about reality and therefore does not represent uncaused change.
A satellite engineer is a long shot from an astronomer. You may use some applied classical physics, but you sure don't need to know what a pulsar is.
You need to know all about pulsars and other forms of possible interference to be able to construct a useful satellite in the first place, which is only possible with astronomical knowledge. You can argue that dedicated astronomers aren't as useful as engineers who also study astronomical principles, but someone else would argue just as hard that generalists aren't as useful to the system as specifists.
YOU'RE A WHITE MALE
But if those certain facts about reality could not actually be any different, we don't need to involve all these imaginary realities. The facts are the facts.
desu the moment you touch on the subject at hand is the moment it stops being philosophy
That's why the best philosophers were also natural or political scientists
>we don't need to involve all these imaginary realities
Why not?
>The facts are the facts.
Which facts?
>One person builds, launches, and maintains each satellite without support from other specialists
Oh boy
>Why not?
Because if those fundamental facts are actually fundamental, imagining realities in which they are different achieves nothing but illustrating impossible realities.
>Which facts?
Whichever facts are fundamental to existence. While currently they may not be explicitly defined, as we investigate deeper and deeper into the nature of reality certain constants will likely emerge. You could argue that there is no way to differentiate "constant in terms of human perception" and "actually constant", and I would likely agree with you, but that does not prove Aquinas correct.
>Because if those fundamental facts are actually fundamental, imagining realities in which they are different achieves nothing but illustrating impossible realities.
How do you formulate hypotheses about newly discovered phenomena if it doesn't involve speculation about possible worlds?
>Whichever facts are fundamental to existence.
Right, I'm asking you: which facts are those?
>that does not prove Aquinas correct
I didn't even realize this was about Aquinas.
so I take it you are still in college?
have fun making your home there
>But if those certain facts about reality could not actually be any different, we don't need to involve all these imaginary realities. The facts are the facts.
I'm not 'involving' the imaginary realities, I don't think you're understanding me. Pretend I didn't say anything about that if you must, the point is that these facts about reality contribute causally to the occurence of radiation decay, which means radiation decay is not an example of an uncaused change.
What pisses me off about these guys is their irrational hate towards philosophy, not their disbelief of God. Why do they think you have to get a major philosophy to see the point in philosophy. In philosophy is an art and it is easy to pursue it yourself. Philosophy is like the science of the mind and soul. Understanding the quantum physics isn't more important than understanding how you work.
No, this isn't the way at all. Tell me about the 'real world' and how I 'don't have a clue' and all that. Swearing is good, too, swearing proves that you've 'been around a bit' and so on. Earthy metaphors are all to the good, also. Anything goes.
You're a cool fucking person and you should be proud to be so fucking good
i take it that inflated sense of ego and the use of sarcasm are just one of the few tools given to you by the gods of wisdom.
let me know how that works out for you when you apply for a job that doesn't involve a college administration.
Like, that's not terrible, but constructions like "I take it" are a little too airy-fairy. You're not one of those fancy-boys, are you? Then why talk like one?
Ideally, you should be laconic, delivering pithy put-downs in between drags on your (ideally hand-rolled) cigarette (I mean I've been picturing you smoking, just roll with it). And you need to start telling me about how hard you had it when you "were a lad" and so on. Sent down the coal-mines on your ninth birthday and so forth.
>a philosopher telling me what to do
the world never changes does it sempai
No, I've got to put my foot down here. Japanese loan-words are right the fuck out. I'm beginning to question the entire basis of our relationship here. I'm even starting to wonder how a hard-headed, no-nonsense pragmatic type like yourself even came to be posting on the humanities board of an Etruscan bone-tatto board.
This thread has taught me that studying Philosophy increases ones shitposting-capabilities drastically. I plan on changing my major from Physics to something else anyway and now it might just be to glorious "the love of shitpo- wisdom" Philosophy.
for someone so vested in philosophy
it is absolutely astounding how single minded you are
your perspective must be so great that you don't have any room for anyone elses.
ironic since you get your most valuable experience reading something that some old white dead guy wrote.
I want to say your living your live vicariously through the past.
but you'd just make a joke about tool or something.
also funny how you need to prove yourself by throwing yourself head on into one of the most common fallacies.
Given its only informal, but since you have a limited understanding about my character I'd still say its fallacious in your use of it.
This whole exchange is fucking hilarious
Are you seriously whinging about your 'perspective' not being afforded enough respect? I'm starting to think if I pulled that greasy macintosh off you, there'd be a ballgown underneath. Are you wearing fucking fishnet tights or something? Sipping on a frappucino with a dildo up your arse? What kind of poncey shit is this 'perspectives' bollocksology?
YOU SIR, have clearly been radically over-stating your 'real-world' credentials and are in fact a milquetoast of the first order.
...