I studied some philosophy in college, and found the experience pretty disappointing. The field addresses some really fascinating problems, but I'm not too impressed with their answers. A typical assignment in philosophy consists of thinking about a really hard problem with no good solutions, picking one, and arguing for it. And since there are so few fixed points, almost anything is arguable. Really, it's a debater's paradise.
If I were to do undergrad all over again, with an emphasis on mental calisthenics rather than job skills, I'd study physics and history. Physics is rigorous and really builds your analytical skills. History is deep and builds your research and writing skills. But both are ultimately grounded in reality. There are none of those oh so precious arguments about whether reality is even there.
I started a course in philosophy during my first year of university. I studied CS (in the UK, where you don't typically go far outside your major) but I'd always been curious about the humanities and thought it worthwhile to learn about all fields of knowledge. I'd also read about philosophy for laymen books as a teenager.
In the first lecture, I remember being surprised at how rational and logical the lecturer was. However, in the second lecture, we started getting into the details of different theories of meta-ethics. I was interested in the topic, but the presentation was exactly as you describe, focused on hairsplitting the viewpoints of everyone who'd debated the question previously.
In the last few years I was inspired to start analysing my own ideas and began studying philosophy in my own time. I now know my undergraduate experience was typical of analytical philosophy, which dominates the English-speaking academic world. Unlike continental philosophers, they believe that there's an objective reality and that our thoughts should be logically consistent. However, they also have accumulated a pile of logical puzzles (Frege cases, Gettier problems, the Raven paradox, etc) which imply that language does not straightforwardly refer to reality, that certain knowledge is impossible, and so on. This skepticism is (imo) at the root of the "debaters paradise" you observed.
Anyone looking for an alternative should give Objectivism a serious study. It has such a bad reputation in academic circles that I dismissed it for a long time, but when I finally got around to reading serious Objectivist non-fiction, I found it held together much better with my view of reality. It's basically a version of Aristotelianism, with some of the mystical implications removed. (Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology is the book to read if you want to dive in at the deep end).
Anyone interested in Objectivism should read Nietzsche: the philosopher that Ayn Rand did a very poor job of trying to copy.
I kind of hesitate to mention them in the same sentence, however, as Nietzsche would have probably hated Rand and the Objectivists. Even Rand herself hated Objectivists. There are long rants from her about them in her interviews. But that still doesn't change the fact that Nietzsche was a big influence on Rand.
It sounds like you're parroting things you've heard second-hand.
I was heavily into Nietzsche in my late teens and early 20s, before discovering Rand. He definitely influenced her in her early years, but by the time she came to write down her own ideas she'd rejected pretty much all of his ideas. She was an Aristotelian.
> Even Rand herself hated Objectivists.
This is not remotely true. In her later years, she concluded that the organised Objectivist movement had been a mistake, but she still hoped for an informal movement of intellectuals to follow her philosophy.
Ayn Rand definitely moved away from Nietzsche (as they are very different), but I think it's hard to deny his influence on her. Some parallels, particularly her idea of the ubermensch, are very Nietzschean (though again, the actual definition of the two differ markedly). To really understand where she's coming from, and where she's getting her ideas (which are often better and more deeply explored elsewhere) you have to read other philosophy. Nietzsche is one, perhaps Aristotle is another.
As for my allegation of Rand's hate for Objectivists, it looks like I misremembered. It was actually Libertarians who Rand despised, not Objectivists.[1]
You are talking from ignorance. She doesn't have an "idea of the Ubermensch" - she esteems honest ordinary men highly, and condemns modern elites.
What is Nietzsche's solution to the problem of universals? What does he say about the is-ought problem? What does he say about capitalism and individual rights? All of these things are discussed in Rand, none are discussed in Nietzsche, who rejects reason, logic and universal truths.
Sure, read other philosophy, but to really really understand where she's coming from, you have to read her, and not confidently spout second-hand misinformation.
Rand is most known for her "virtue of selfishness" idea and her high esteem if not worship of people who she considers to be superior due to their daring, individuality, flaunting of social conventions, and self-centeredness. This is a dumbed down or "mini me" version of Nietzsche's ubermensch concept.
Rand is not known for her view on any is-ought problem or her views on universals. She may have something to say about them, perhaps it's even original in some manner, but it's generally not what most Objectivists and Libertarians flock to her for. They flock to her to get some philosophical approval for their own self-centerdness. To those people I again recommend they read Nietzsche, to learn what one of the most influential philosophers of all time though on this subject that Rand tried to co-opt.
I never claimed and do not claim that everything Rand ever thought was thought first by Nietzsche, but the central idea that she's known for and that she championed she got (in a very distorted way) from him.
I also never suggested that Rand should not be read. It is a pity that she is ignored in academia. As a result, most of Rand's fans are often effectively isolated from the rest of the philosophical community and wallow in an intellectual backwater, with little awareness that there are other philosophers, what they thought, or how Rand's ideas relate to them. It would be much better if her work was read, taught, engaged, and challenged in academia, and her place in place in philosophical history was made more overt.
Finally, I have read Rand. Not nearly as much as her fans would have me read, I'm sure. But enough to say what I say from first-hand experience.
Similar studies and experience, I also think that Objectivism is one of the strongest philosophies. It's kind of ironic that we have to talk about Objectivism without naming the main author for politic reasons.
I like philosophy but, the "debater's paradise" really gets to the problems with it. Arguments can never be settled, just dragged on. I like this quote about the history of science, before the scientific method.
>...The scholastics saying that matter was this, or that, and justifying themselves by long treatises about how based on A, B, C, the word of the Bible, Aristotle, self-evident first principles, and the Great Chain of Being all clearly proved their point. Then other scholastics would write different long treatises on how D, E, and F, Plato, St. Augustine, and the proper ordering of angels all indicated that clearly matter was something different. Both groups were pretty sure that the other had make a subtle error of reasoning somewhere, and both groups were perfectly happy to spend centuries debating exactly which one of them it was.... People are terrible. If you let people debate things, they will do it forever, come up with horrible ideas, get them entrenched, play politics with them, and finally reach the point where they’re coming up with theories why people who disagree with them are probably secretly in the pay of the Devil... Imagine having to conduct the global warming debate, except that you couldn’t appeal to scientific consensus and statistics because scientific consensus and statistics hadn’t been invented yet. In a world without science, everything would be like that.
Yes. A lot of this discussion hasn't grasped your point. Philosophy did settle a lot of questions. They became natural history, physics, chemistry, even mathematics. The ones that are taught in Philosophy courses are the ones that haven't been settled.
Mathematics existed for a long time before philosophy, although the two do seem closely related. Science does have origins in philosophy, but I don't think it was philosophical arguments that settled scientific issues, but the invention of the scientific method, which abandoned the need for them.
Anyway the main point of that quote is that without developing a consensus or the ability to experimentally test theories, debates have a tendency to drag on for centuries without going anywhere. Of course philosophy can't settle issues experimentally.
The main criticism I've heard of philosophy, is that they don't try to form consensus and encourage the dragging on. Philosophy students spend their time reading through the history of philosophy and studying old arguments and issues. Whereas in math or science, there isn't really an emphasis on history or even that much about ongoing debates.
Mathematicians don't have a way to experimentally test ideas either. Certain ideas, like the validity of infinite sets, or of Cantor's diagonal theorem, are arguably philosophical in nature as much as mathematical. And were extremely controversial at one time, with many notable mathematicians taking the side against them. But mathematicians did come to consensus on them, eventually.
The rules of logic should be applied in philosophy as in physics. If you don't do that, or there is no competent judge (e.g. teacher) things tend to get out of hand, especially with people studying philosophy because they "can't do math".
I think are overstating that, but it's worth pointing out that more than anything students in my philosophy program went on to law school and seminary...
> thinking about a really hard problem with no good solutions, picking one, and arguing for it. And since there are so few fixed points, almost anything is arguable. Really, it's a debater's paradise.
Sounds like the entire content of all non-technical jobs and a good proportion of the content of technical jobs.
If I were to do undergrad all over again, with an emphasis on mental calisthenics rather than job skills, I'd study physics and history. Physics is rigorous and really builds your analytical skills. History is deep and builds your research and writing skills. But both are ultimately grounded in reality. There are none of those oh so precious arguments about whether reality is even there.