Philosophy

What This Section Is About

Philosophy is an old science. It emerged onto the scene long before empiricism, and tried to answer almost every question humanity had: what is the nature of existance? How do we know things? How should we act? How should society be structured?

And, in this sense, "little p" philosophy is wholesome and good: it gave birth to systematic logic, the scientific method, and other good things.

But like the religious debates of the Middle Ages (and some might argue modern theological arguments), "big P" philosophy misses the mark, and often makes things worse.

For example, many classical questions of philosophy are better answered by Science. Many fields of philosophy have outgrown the style of the larger discipline, like Logic. And finally, many contemporary schools of philosophy, and attitudes towards those schools, actively make the world a worse place. It is a place for smart people, yes, as it should be -- but being turned into a career? It wastes brilliant minds on semantic battles -- minds that could be more fulfilled (and more productive) in literally any other kind of intellectually challenging work.

And, as I have said, much of modern Philosophy is bad: it is not life-affirming, and often even anti-rational. As much as I am a proponent of Human Irrationality, that is still within bounds -- Human irrationality is about discovering the ways in which our biology keeps us from being truly rational actors, and finding social and legal ways to handle that. I don't think humans should choose to be more irrational, yet that seems to be the end result of much modern Philosophy.

You might, quite reasonably, ask: If you hate Philosopy so much, why are you dedicating so much time to it?"

Quite frankly, excellent question. I don't make this page because I am such a hater that I want to dissuade everyone from being Philosophers, but instead because I am trying to struggle to understand what value people really see in it. Also, my husband likes it, so if I understand it better, I can understand him better too.