tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post2447195424971863593..comments2024-03-25T11:49:21.281-07:00Comments on The Splintered Mind: Philosophy That Closes vs. Philosophy That OpensEric Schwitzgebelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-87753610946111584192021-12-16T15:33:42.081-08:002021-12-16T15:33:42.081-08:00Oh, I just realized my posts are being moderated. ...Oh, I just realized my posts are being moderated. Anyway, pick the one you like! As you can see, there is a process of negotiation with the gatekeeper that maintains the same intent yet with different words and you must make a gatekeeping decision. Good luck!Ronni3https://www.blogger.com/profile/18203846112310169006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-63725518247938952282021-12-16T15:31:47.455-08:002021-12-16T15:31:47.455-08:00Question: what are the implications of the propose...Question: what are the implications of the proposed dialectic? Why shouldn't we expect that we are are at least as likely to make philosophical errors of omission and close-mindedness as to make philosophical errors of over-inclusion and excessive open-mindedness? Ronni3https://www.blogger.com/profile/18203846112310169006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-21705243320315583512020-09-16T17:12:32.386-07:002020-09-16T17:12:32.386-07:00Interesting perspective, Kevin! I can see how tha...Interesting perspective, Kevin! I can see how that would be a frustrating aspect of the discipline. As is so often the case, there are tradeoffs and costs in accepting different ideals, and surely it's possible to be too open.Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16274774112862434865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-90951743879675456182020-09-16T16:11:27.144-07:002020-09-16T16:11:27.144-07:00Hi Eric,
I'd just like to share a perspective...Hi Eric,<br /><br />I'd just like to share a perspective on the presence or absence of a lot of "philosophy that opens". I think one thing that kept me out of the philosophy university as a profession was a requirement of openness. Whereas my preferred literary existence is such that I prefer to read only things that will point my understanding closer to truth about the world, in academia it seems that familiarity with and citations of (representative samples of) ALL the literature in a specialization was a substantial requirement for academia and publication. <br /><br />"Kevin, you can't just read the compatibilist literature, you have to read and cite (a representative sample of) even the most nonsensical things people have ever written about free will." Grasping this sort of openness requirement reduced the number of topic areas I was willing to specialize in very substantially, pretty much to zero. I'm willing to read what Wittgenstein calls nonsense, but I'm not willing to read most other kinds of nonsense that make it past the publishing gatekeepers.<br /><br />So, while you might be finding "philosophy that closes" to be more prominent in the literature, I think it's likely that you can find more "philosophy that opens" in the professors themselves. The philosophy classroom is notorious for opening intellectual windows that other disciplines are compelled to shut out. Taking relativism or nihilism seriously, for example, doesn't happen in accounting or engineering or much of anywhere else. I hope the same is true of the philosophy colloquium.Kevin Schuttehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04562007179161022792noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-64368770006890942382020-08-27T15:02:06.332-07:002020-08-27T15:02:06.332-07:00Splintered Mind, May 27, 2011, Disjunctive Metaphy...Splintered Mind, May 27, 2011, Disjunctive Metaphysics...<br /><br />August 2020, today the disjunctive state here is metaphysics/body, philosophy/thought, psychology/attitude...<br /><br />...towards me its about self observation...thanksArnoldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02580641063222662041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-19879094125723093752020-08-27T12:38:44.400-07:002020-08-27T12:38:44.400-07:00Eric, something you no doubt take for granted that...Eric, something you no doubt take for granted that not only might not be true but <i>is not</i> true is your certainty that time passes. Physics says it doesn’t. As a science fiction author deeply familiar with the genre, I’m sure you’re comfortable using the word ‘spacetime’, which is a geometric description of the universe that “... fuses the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold.” (Wikipedia) The temporal dimension differs from the three spatial dimensions in that 3-dimensional spatial ‘snapshot’ manifolds, each comprised of all the events in the universe, are arrayed along the temporal dimension. (An ‘event’ in relativity physics is the "instantaneous physical situation or occurrence associated with a point in spacetime" - Wikipedia again). Mass provably deforms spacetime, producing gravity and <i>slowing clocks</i>.<br /><br />So, what is the extent of the temporal dimension? Relativity physics says it's endless, so spacetime contains everything we consider past and future “all at once.” Nothing moves, nothing changes, nothing ‘happens.’ Here are the direct implications of spacetime that Philosophy seems reluctant or unable to consider ... and I’ll phrase them using the personal pronoun ‘you’—just to make it personal:<br /><br />Your life was <i>instantiated in its entirety</i> and ‘you’ are but the <i>experiencer</i>, experiencing your stream, or flow, of consciousness. Your life has never happened, not even once. Because you are a spacetime fixture, essentially <i>a recording in spacetime</i>, every conscious moment persists, meaning that you repeatedly and eternally experience (or unknowingly <i>re</i>-experience) your life—the same is true for all conscious organisms everywhere and everywhen. Einstein referred to that as the “eternity of life” and identified consciousness as responsible—“... the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity ...”.<br /><br />The flow of consciousness animates static spacetime, giving rise to our familiar dynamic view of the world. (By the way, I feel certain that "flowing time" is an externalization of the flow of consciousness—there is no "time as experienced." And the mysterious Arrow of Time is simply the narrative direction of consciousness).<br /><br />This scientifically supported spacetime reality falsifies every belief system I know of Eric. Although this understanding of spacetime is well over a century old, Philosophy has been <i>completely silent</i> about what our spacetime reality tells us about the human condition, other than endless debates about the existence of free will. What do you suppose accounts for Philosophy’s most unusual silence? When will the philosophical mind decide to spin in this not very new, yet very unfamiliar direction?<br /><br />If you'd rather not be the first Philosopher to formally explore this territory, you might consider approaching the subject as science fiction. The invention of a repeatedly reliable Time Viewer that fetched data from a few microseconds in the future would experimentally confirm the block universe for the first time and force all of the above considerations to be investigated. How would individuals and human cultures and institutions respond?<br /><br />Just for grins, I'll close with an unrelated sci-fi story idea: The Man Who Couldn’t Pass the Turing Test.<br /><br />The consequences of spacetime? Here's a primer:<br /><br />https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rZDWdTPEIvQyBI-q5ECAdQDgfpjwdA_N/view?usp=sharing<br />Stephen Wysonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15213141784165096783noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-78034516801176821492020-08-24T13:47:25.055-07:002020-08-24T13:47:25.055-07:00Thanks for the continuing comments, folks! Just a...Thanks for the continuing comments, folks! Just a couple of replies:<br /><br />Brian: You might be right -- sociologically the most successful strategy might tend to be opening things up while arguing like a closer. The social and personal level might differ here: At a personal level, it might *feel* like closing rather than opening.<br /><br />Hasen: It's certainly possible (though ambitious!) to do both.<br /><br />Charles: I'd be inclined to think of that as opening -- since your audience might not be aware of the range of options and/or have implicit commitments that you are now bringing into doubt.Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16274774112862434865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-68936764658247670812020-08-24T03:03:35.750-07:002020-08-24T03:03:35.750-07:00This is a great post. It helps me understand my ow...This is a great post. It helps me understand my own motivations a little better - I think most of my work is oriented toward the opening ideal. I'm curious what you would say about cases in which you open up a new topic, and outline the options for theorizing about it. In one sense, that is a philosophical project oriented toward opening. In another sense, it is prior to either opening or closing. Charleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08549160443980846955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-80550896411920615552020-08-22T09:46:24.747-07:002020-08-22T09:46:24.747-07:00An attempt to 'summarize complicated disjuncti...An attempt to 'summarize complicated disjunctive views that are difficult to summarize'....<br /><br />Plato's and "Hegel’s method for arguing against the earlier, less sophisticated definitions or views and for the more sophisticated ones "later"."..."Hegel's Dialectics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)"<br /><br />...'Later' is closing for the less sophisticated views for philosophy...<br />...'Here Now' is opening for the more sophisticated views for metaphysics and philosophy...Arnoldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02580641063222662041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-68668895988019474962020-08-22T09:10:04.873-07:002020-08-22T09:10:04.873-07:00Your view is laudable. Unfortunately, most people ...<br />Your view is laudable. Unfortunately, most people in this world do not like to have their long-held assumptions upended. Socrates spent much of his time questioning the assumptions of others and was ultimately put to death. Although he was likely also put to death for other reasons, this certainly didn't help. davidnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-49212192967777569682020-08-22T01:31:55.211-07:002020-08-22T01:31:55.211-07:00Hello, I'm a 20 year old aspiring philosopher,...Hello, I'm a 20 year old aspiring philosopher, whom, along with my co philosophy partner, have worked several months together, discussing broad topics on epistemology, futurology, rationalism, empiricism, phenomenology, philosophy of science/physics, and more. Unfortunately due to virus shutdown, we've been very isolated, without many philosophy supports in academia or other, whom could help us along in our quest to familiarize ourselves with more persons involved in philosophy communities for publishing teaching and other opportunities in meeting philosophers and philosophical community. One of the activities that would please help so much is if someone also experienced in philosophy, through teaching, publishing, etc., could please reach out via private message and then possibly through email. I have written several essays dating to 2016 on Heidegger, Kant, Aristotle, as well as have written on many more topics with them since then. I envision a future on contributing to both Analytical and Continental philosophy via teaching publishing, and would please like to find persons preferably in philosophy academia whom could please guide us further. Please feel free to comment or please write to me on https://cranbearlyingthundersnowpopsicles.blogspot.com/ if please interested, and I can also please provide email if please desired. Thank you so much ---Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-75833914886079337262020-08-21T11:46:40.709-07:002020-08-21T11:46:40.709-07:00Arguably, a good philosophy paper proffers and def...Arguably, a good philosophy paper proffers and defends the viability of a novel approach, thus being philosophy that opens, but also shows the limits of competing approaches, thus being philosophy that closes, as well.Hasen Khudairihttps://sites.google.com/site/hasenkhudairi/?fbclid=IwAR2i6vGfmTeqebhRlUrFo9IU-5D6y7xK889XmurwhWAsa0A0wl0AObKJbL8noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-16102797247093815392020-08-21T07:56:35.457-07:002020-08-21T07:56:35.457-07:00I'm not sure about the sociological claims her...I'm not sure about the sociological claims here. I think that the very biggest rewards are often given to philosophers who are regarded as having opened up new space.<br /><br />How many people regard Williamson as having closed off all alternatives to the picture in Knowledge and Its Limits? Maybe a handful of folks at Oxford, but probably not many outside it. But it's really admired because it shows us how a certain kind of position is possible. The same is true of Epistemic Injustice, of Lewis's defence of Humean supervenience, of Fine's development of grounding, and so on.<br /><br />What's mostly true is that it plays better to look like you are a closer (though as you note Chalmers is an exception here, and Lewis sort of is to). But the real rewards come from successfully opening.<br /><br />Indeed, I don't even think this is particularly controversial. It's a commonplace to say that purely negative work is not rewarded. Jobs aren't for closers - it's really hard to get a job by just developing flaws in existing views. What gets rewarded, correctly I think, is showing how new things (either new questions or new answers) are possible.Brian Weathersonhttp://brian.weatherson.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-35925894584611086192020-08-20T14:53:20.296-07:002020-08-20T14:53:20.296-07:00Thanks, Luke -- I'm glad you enjoyed the post!...Thanks, Luke -- I'm glad you enjoyed the post! I've been slowly working through Combining Minds (too slowly, but it's so rich and I have so many other commitments and things), and it seems to me to manifest the "opening" approach beautifully.<br /><br />Maybe one other dialectical challenge for philosophy that opens is that one tends to end up with complicated disjunctive views that are difficult to summarize.Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16274774112862434865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-81759651795022505492020-08-20T12:55:20.927-07:002020-08-20T12:55:20.927-07:00Thanks for posting this, it echoes things I’ve oft...Thanks for posting this, it echoes things I’ve often thought. I feel like almost all of my work has been in the ‘philosophy that opens’ vein, which can make it hard to concisely convey the point to people. Especially since I often find myself exploring fairly small corners of logical space - ‘everyone assumes you can’t think both X and Y at once… but actually you can, as long as you also think Z!’ <br /><br />Ironically, I sort of suspect that this sort of opening-up is the task for which philosophical training best equips people - much better than it equips us to finally decide on the big truth! So it’s unfortunate if the profession rewards closing more than opening…Luke Roelofsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-90557728597051270652020-08-20T10:17:36.171-07:002020-08-20T10:17:36.171-07:00At 77 its easy to love-I love to read your posts.....At 77 its easy to love-I love to read your posts...<br /><br />But could have included paragraphs toward self and here now for philosophy...Arnoldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02580641063222662041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-25665386166237687062020-08-20T09:53:29.127-07:002020-08-20T09:53:29.127-07:00Yes! I also think David Chalmers is good example ...Yes! I also think David Chalmers is good example of someone who thinks through and offers up for our consideration positions that probably deserve only minority credence. I love the idea for that journal, but I do fear that you're right about the sociology!Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16274774112862434865noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26951738.post-47014362694416562342020-08-20T09:39:42.216-07:002020-08-20T09:39:42.216-07:00A great example of philosophy that opens is Bill L...A great example of philosophy that opens is Bill Lycan's 2009 paper "Giving Dualism its Due", published in the <i>Australasian Journal of Philosophy</i>. It was cool to see someone who had spent a long career defending physicalism come out of left field and publish a paper arguing that dualism gets short shrift. Another example philosophy that opens is Robert Nozick's <i>Philosophical Explorations</i>.<br /><br />Here's a cool idea for a philosophy journal: <i>The Journal of Forlorn Ideas</i>. It only accepts papers that seek to expand the space of ideas and positions on a particular subject matter. Now, whether anyone might submit papers for publication there is up for debate—I suspect that prestige and status in professional status attaches much more to philosophers who close (jobs are for closers!) than to philosophers who open. That would be itself an interesting topic for discussion. Even more generally, one might speculate about the extent to which the institutions that reward professional research (e.g., universities, colleges) are biased against researchers that open, as opposed to researchers that close.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com