Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
July 31, 2015 8:55 PM Subscribe
Desire. Metaphor. The problem of many (“As anyone who has flown out of a cloud knows, the boundaries of a cloud are a lot less sharp up close than they can appear on the ground”). Implicature ("the act of meaning or implying one thing by saying something else"). Implicit bias. Feminism and globalization. Justice and bad luck. The Human Genome Project. The pineal gland (“a tiny organ in the center of the brain that played an important role in Descartes' philosophy”). Humor (“As he approached the gallows, Thomas More asked the executioner, ‘Could you help me up? I'll be able to get down by myself’”). The “Great Cosmological Debate” of the 1930s and 40s. Voting methods. Zombies.
…Read about all this and more in the remarkable Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which has just celebrated its 20th birthday.
“Launched two decades ago, years before Wikipedia existed, the site led the way in academic information sharing. It now includes 1,478 authoritative and vetted entries about all manner of philosophical topics. It is updated almost daily, thanks to about 2,000 contributors…
…Unlike Wikipedia, the SEP isn't a crowdsourced model. Instead, authorities from the academic philosophical community rigorously vet the content before it is published online, much like the peer review process of journals. Writers and members of the editorial board see themselves as joining the SEP's team of authorities for the long term. In fact, authors are expected to return to their articles and update them for years to come. This distinguishes the encyclopedia from many other academic publications.”
…Read about all this and more in the remarkable Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which has just celebrated its 20th birthday.
“Launched two decades ago, years before Wikipedia existed, the site led the way in academic information sharing. It now includes 1,478 authoritative and vetted entries about all manner of philosophical topics. It is updated almost daily, thanks to about 2,000 contributors…
…Unlike Wikipedia, the SEP isn't a crowdsourced model. Instead, authorities from the academic philosophical community rigorously vet the content before it is published online, much like the peer review process of journals. Writers and members of the editorial board see themselves as joining the SEP's team of authorities for the long term. In fact, authors are expected to return to their articles and update them for years to come. This distinguishes the encyclopedia from many other academic publications.”
My pineal gland is engorged at the site of all these links.
posted by vorpal bunny at 9:13 PM on July 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by vorpal bunny at 9:13 PM on July 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
My pineal gland is engorged at the site of all these links.
You mean this stuff just puts you straight to sleep?
posted by mr_roboto at 9:53 PM on July 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
You mean this stuff just puts you straight to sleep?
posted by mr_roboto at 9:53 PM on July 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
Oh my god I am old.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:09 PM on July 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:09 PM on July 31, 2015 [5 favorites]
grobstein,
How do you think SEP articles could be improved in terms of accessibility and helpfulness to novices and journey-people? What would you do differently?
If I ever have an opportunity to write an SEP entry, I'll try to take any suggestions into account.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 10:54 PM on July 31, 2015
How do you think SEP articles could be improved in terms of accessibility and helpfulness to novices and journey-people? What would you do differently?
If I ever have an opportunity to write an SEP entry, I'll try to take any suggestions into account.
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 10:54 PM on July 31, 2015
The metaphor article was written by a member of my committee! It and he are both fantastic.
<3 David Hills <3
posted by kenko at 11:00 PM on July 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
<3 David Hills <3
posted by kenko at 11:00 PM on July 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
It must be peculiarly challenging to write an encyclopedia of philosophy, where there is never a consensus, even on how to frame the issues, never mind the answers. Do you try to catalogue the most popular points of view? All possible points of view? A 'sensible' mainstream perspective, which inevitably is tinged with your own? Sometimes pieces do seem to me to have slightly the wrong slant, and I recognise what grobstein is saying. These things are probably unavoidable, and I feel somewhat ungrateful for mentioning them.
The main point is, it is a terrific piece of work, a splendid resource and a wonderful asset, which we are lucky to have (we might have been left with Wikipedia...). I don't think it's any exaggeration to describe it as a landmark of our culture. Massive thanks and appreciation to everyone responsible, and may it flourish forever.
posted by Segundus at 11:33 PM on July 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
The main point is, it is a terrific piece of work, a splendid resource and a wonderful asset, which we are lucky to have (we might have been left with Wikipedia...). I don't think it's any exaggeration to describe it as a landmark of our culture. Massive thanks and appreciation to everyone responsible, and may it flourish forever.
posted by Segundus at 11:33 PM on July 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
Such a great resource. I really enjoy reading random pages. In grad school I tried to get some fellow students to start up a W reading group. We were going to just go down the list of W entries.
(W was a do-able size, and the topics are sufficiently varied. If you start at the top of the alphabet you get bogged down in aesthetics pretty quickly. Plus, W is a funny letter. I liked the idea of an academic CV with the line "AOC: W")
We never did do it. Maybe I should dive into that article on Wang Yangming.
posted by painquale at 11:58 PM on July 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
(W was a do-able size, and the topics are sufficiently varied. If you start at the top of the alphabet you get bogged down in aesthetics pretty quickly. Plus, W is a funny letter. I liked the idea of an academic CV with the line "AOC: W")
We never did do it. Maybe I should dive into that article on Wang Yangming.
posted by painquale at 11:58 PM on July 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
Ye olde SEP popped up in more than one of the reference lists in my first-year essays, when online links were still a bit edgy to list with lecturers (at least in my subjects!). I'm gratified to see it's no doubt still filling late night "due date eve" trawlers with a rich bounty.
posted by smoke at 1:51 AM on August 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by smoke at 1:51 AM on August 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Why should a professional resource intended for academics be watered down so everyone else can understand it, it kind of denies the purpose for the resource to exist in the first place
posted by PinkMoose at 4:57 AM on August 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by PinkMoose at 4:57 AM on August 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
How do you think SEP articles could be improved in terms of accessibility and helpfulness to novices and journey-people? What would you do differently?
If I ever have an opportunity to write an SEP entry, I'll try to take any suggestions into account.
Gee, it's a little hard to say. I've had more experience trying to read them as a novice, though I guess I'm a journeyman now.
I think: when the articles work, they work as a guide to what arguments philosophers are making about some problem (not: a guide to the underlying problem, whatever that would be like). And so I feel like they tend to take for granted the framing of the problem that the philosophers are using in their arguments. But this mental framing is exactly what an outsider to the topic (and especially an outsider to the discipline) most needs to learn. If you don't have that, then the specific arguments appear unmotivated, overdetailed, boring.
I dunno, I'm just spitballing here, and I've only looked at a few of the hundreds of entries over the years anyway, but I think this reflects my experience.
Why should a professional resource intended for academics be watered down so everyone else can understand it, it kind of denies the purpose for the resource to exist in the first place
Don't know if this is directed at me, but, duh, it shouldn't be "watered down." Academics start out as novices, and if something like SEP is accessible to novices it can help us learn the subject. Encyclopedia articles are always going to be for non-experts, anyway, because on any subtopic non-experts outnumber experts, and experts don't need an encyclopedia article.
Finally, an academic discipline can get away with making its outputs difficult and inaccessible, but that doesn't mean it's great for that to happen. Philosophers in particular sometimes claim to be working on general problems of interest to everyone, and many of the SEP articles are nominally on topics that actually do trouble regular people. And even though in practice it is often abstruse and specialized, philosophy still has a cultural allegiance to plain language as a sign of clear thinking. I think this is a good thing.
posted by grobstein at 5:24 AM on August 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
If I ever have an opportunity to write an SEP entry, I'll try to take any suggestions into account.
Gee, it's a little hard to say. I've had more experience trying to read them as a novice, though I guess I'm a journeyman now.
I think: when the articles work, they work as a guide to what arguments philosophers are making about some problem (not: a guide to the underlying problem, whatever that would be like). And so I feel like they tend to take for granted the framing of the problem that the philosophers are using in their arguments. But this mental framing is exactly what an outsider to the topic (and especially an outsider to the discipline) most needs to learn. If you don't have that, then the specific arguments appear unmotivated, overdetailed, boring.
I dunno, I'm just spitballing here, and I've only looked at a few of the hundreds of entries over the years anyway, but I think this reflects my experience.
Why should a professional resource intended for academics be watered down so everyone else can understand it, it kind of denies the purpose for the resource to exist in the first place
Don't know if this is directed at me, but, duh, it shouldn't be "watered down." Academics start out as novices, and if something like SEP is accessible to novices it can help us learn the subject. Encyclopedia articles are always going to be for non-experts, anyway, because on any subtopic non-experts outnumber experts, and experts don't need an encyclopedia article.
Finally, an academic discipline can get away with making its outputs difficult and inaccessible, but that doesn't mean it's great for that to happen. Philosophers in particular sometimes claim to be working on general problems of interest to everyone, and many of the SEP articles are nominally on topics that actually do trouble regular people. And even though in practice it is often abstruse and specialized, philosophy still has a cultural allegiance to plain language as a sign of clear thinking. I think this is a good thing.
posted by grobstein at 5:24 AM on August 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
Here is my cheat code to reading SEP articles. Which are really great but the typical article is a lot of work to start at the beginning and read it through to the end of it.
Begin with the reference list. Ctrl+F to the one philosopher or other reference whose take on the topic you are most interested in seeing the commentary on. Nine times out of ten you will find something interesting. Two times out of ten you find something very interesting.
OK I am going to do zombies right now. . .
It looks like I have a choice of Chalmers, Dennet, James, Nagel, and Searle. Let's try Nagel:
The simplest version of the conceivability argument goes:
Zombies are conceivable.
Whatever is conceivable is possible.
Therefore zombies are possible.
(Kripke used a similar argument in his 1972/80. For versions of it see Chalmers 1996, pp. 93–171; 2010, pp. 141–205; Levine 2001; Nagel 1974; Stoljar 2001.) Clearly the argument is valid. However, both its premisses are problematic. They are unclear as stated, and controversial even when clarified. A key question is how we should understand ‘conceivable’ in this context.
One times in a hundred you will find something so interesting you get sucked into it so deep that you only emerge hours later and then you punch yourself for "wasting" so much time on the internet. This was not that time!
posted by bukvich at 5:52 AM on August 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
Begin with the reference list. Ctrl+F to the one philosopher or other reference whose take on the topic you are most interested in seeing the commentary on. Nine times out of ten you will find something interesting. Two times out of ten you find something very interesting.
OK I am going to do zombies right now. . .
It looks like I have a choice of Chalmers, Dennet, James, Nagel, and Searle. Let's try Nagel:
The simplest version of the conceivability argument goes:
Zombies are conceivable.
Whatever is conceivable is possible.
Therefore zombies are possible.
(Kripke used a similar argument in his 1972/80. For versions of it see Chalmers 1996, pp. 93–171; 2010, pp. 141–205; Levine 2001; Nagel 1974; Stoljar 2001.) Clearly the argument is valid. However, both its premisses are problematic. They are unclear as stated, and controversial even when clarified. A key question is how we should understand ‘conceivable’ in this context.
One times in a hundred you will find something so interesting you get sucked into it so deep that you only emerge hours later and then you punch yourself for "wasting" so much time on the internet. This was not that time!
posted by bukvich at 5:52 AM on August 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
I really liked that 'justice and bad luck' article, it really summarises the core beliefs that underpin my politics, but in a more coherent way than I've ever been able to manage!
posted by Quilford at 7:07 AM on August 1, 2015
posted by Quilford at 7:07 AM on August 1, 2015
Yes it seems to me very unclear that "people constituted physically EXACTLY like us but who are not conscious" is actually conceivable. I mean, you can SAY it. But isn't it question begging?
Also: why not spiritual zombies? People constituted metaphysically exactly like us, but who are not conscious? If the first one is conceivable, then so is the second. So: consciousness cannot be a non-physical property, either!
Surely someone has made this argument.
posted by thelonius at 8:23 AM on August 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
Also: why not spiritual zombies? People constituted metaphysically exactly like us, but who are not conscious? If the first one is conceivable, then so is the second. So: consciousness cannot be a non-physical property, either!
Surely someone has made this argument.
posted by thelonius at 8:23 AM on August 1, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yeah I haven't ever really ventured into the zombie literature. I mean, anything is conceivable if you don't conceive too hard. It's conceivable that r has an exponent of (-3) in the law of gravity and all the other physical facts are exactly the same. Newton needed to explicitly consider that and rule it out. But it's impossible. Not, like, physically impossible but it would be possible with different physics. More like logically impossible I guess.
I guess there is a whole literature about where exactly "conceivability" fits in and among different kinds of possibility (physical, "metaphysical," logical?). I haven't read it.
Also: why not spiritual zombies? People constituted metaphysically exactly like us, but who are not conscious? If the first one is conceivable, then so is the second. So: consciousness cannot be a non-physical property, either!
Surely someone has made this argument.
Are "spiritual zombies" conceivable? I don't know if this sort of question has been asked. I think the zombie folks would be tempted to respond that "constituted metaphysically exactly like us" is exhaustive -- it means, "like us in every way." It leaves nothing out. If there was any "except", then the people wouldn't be constituted metaphysically exactly like us.
Basically, I think the zombie people will feel vindicated (or act out an indistinguishable simulacrum of feeling vindicated) as long as consciousness isn't a physical property. If it's metaphysical, or if it turns out to be meta^2-physical, or meta^3-physical, etc., well, that's all fine.
posted by grobstein at 2:42 PM on August 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
I guess there is a whole literature about where exactly "conceivability" fits in and among different kinds of possibility (physical, "metaphysical," logical?). I haven't read it.
Also: why not spiritual zombies? People constituted metaphysically exactly like us, but who are not conscious? If the first one is conceivable, then so is the second. So: consciousness cannot be a non-physical property, either!
Surely someone has made this argument.
Are "spiritual zombies" conceivable? I don't know if this sort of question has been asked. I think the zombie folks would be tempted to respond that "constituted metaphysically exactly like us" is exhaustive -- it means, "like us in every way." It leaves nothing out. If there was any "except", then the people wouldn't be constituted metaphysically exactly like us.
Basically, I think the zombie people will feel vindicated (or act out an indistinguishable simulacrum of feeling vindicated) as long as consciousness isn't a physical property. If it's metaphysical, or if it turns out to be meta^2-physical, or meta^3-physical, etc., well, that's all fine.
posted by grobstein at 2:42 PM on August 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
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Still, it's a good idea and I'm glad it's ongoing.
posted by grobstein at 9:06 PM on July 31, 2015 [1 favorite]