"Philosophy Is All Nonsense Anyway!"

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It is an interesting pattern that I've seen repeated a few times. Someone with no experience in or willingness to learn philosophy nevertheless ventures out upon the philosophical sea. A real philosopher takes a look at his work, and notes it is terrible philosophy. At that point, the lightweight often pulls this move:

"The physicist responded to the review by calling the philosopher who wrote it 'moronic' and arguing that philosophy, unlike physics, makes no progress and is rather boring, if not totally useless."

OK, Professor Krauss, if philosophy is boring and useless, why did you bother writing a book centered around a (very bad) philosophical theory? Why did philosophy only become boring and useless once it turned out that you are awful at it?

Comments

  1. traumerei2:10 PM

    Philosophy only *seems* like non-sense to those who have not yet been saved by Stefan Molyneux.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeKys6zog2M

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous8:06 PM

    I was discussing philosophy the other day with a coworker who is actually a pretty smart guy. Sure, I am not a philosopher, nor am I all that well-read in philosophy (or anything else), but it is something that interests me. Anyhow, another coworker overheard our conversation and said, "Philosopher? Isn't that another word for bullshitter?" My reaction was classic. I looked at him, turned back to my friend, and began, "yeah, so anyway, as I was saying..."

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mike B.10:34 PM

    I've encountered this myself. The frustrating part is that they refuse to admit that they're doing philosophy. Instead, they insist that they're just talking about "science" or "reality."

    ReplyDelete

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