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Raina nails it while discussing that garbage Atlantic article about physics making philosophy and religion obsolete. (For a good response/takedown, go here.)

If calling the author stupid and ignoring an opportunity to participate meaningfully in public discourse is nailing it then I guess I feel ill equipped to participate in the conversation. 

Do go read the response to The Atlantic article Tony references, it’s fantastically interesting. 

(via jennaddenda)

So, I don’t normally go back and caveat or explain or elaborate on flippant Tumblr posts (also: in the context of this Tumblr “flippant Tumblr post” is decidedly redundant), mostly because I don’t really care all that much about engaging subsequent reblogs, but I like jennaddenda and I generally find her to be thoughtful and fair and fun and I like to engage people who are thoughtful and fair and fun. So…a few remarks:

1) This quote, in some ways, is less about the article referenced and more a dig at Christopher Hitchens. I lol’d when Raina typed this at me mostly because I very much dislike Christopher Hitchens.

2) I don’t believe Krauss’ statements constitute “meaningful public discourse.” I mean, sure - it has a meaning (in as much as he is saying words that are meant to mean something), it is aimed at some sort of reading public, and - yes - it connects up to discourses of popular science and philosophy. But, at its core, it is a poorly constructed attack (and I mean that - this interview is an attack, it isn’t an argument, but I’ll get to that in a second…) driven by, I don’t know? An intense love of seeing one’s own words in print, probably. Hubris. Whatever.

3) A concession that he means to be provocative doesn’t relieve him of the task of constructing an actual argument for his (self-serving) claims about the irrelevance of philosophy. He sets up philosophy as a straw-man (repeatedly mischaracterizing philosophers and sub-disciplines, carving them up in ways that are conducive to his ego but that are not at all grounded) and then lobs his bombs at it. That is an attack, not meaningful public discourse. (Note that the interviewer is pretty quick to call him on this, too.) That’s why I called it a “garbage article.”

4) Last, I use the word “garbage” as an adjective a lot, so it shouldn’t be considered a particularly damning description from my end. If I call something garbage it just means I think it isn’t worth much time or effort. And, on that note…

:: drink ::

(via convincingindie)

Okay, let’s agree to ignore the Hitchens question for a moment because I kind of feel like the interviewer put the Hitchens question in there at the very beginning as a sort of flag or warning to his intended audience that Krauss was using Hitchensian methodology for illustrating his points. I don’t really have many strong feelings about Hitchens myself mostly because he reminds me of an ex-boyfriend whose top talents were using offensiveness as defense and his big brain to apply logic in all kinds of new and upsetting ways. 

To your second point, you know brand managers often talk about how even when a user on some sort of social platform is saying bad things about you is an opportunity? That. That is exactly how I felt the academic philosophical community should have treated this article. Even an outright attack is actually an opportunity for discussion. about philosophy. on a national platform. How many opportunities like that do you get, philosophers?

I, personally, don’t think all of his points are invalid. For instance here:

“I think of the interesting work in philosophy as being subsumed by other disciplines like history, literature, and to some extent political science insofar as ethics can be said to fall under that heading. To me what philosophy does best is reflect on knowledge that’s generated in other areas. “

I thought that was really interesting and worth exploring a little bit. That and the question of progress over time. The 2,000 years argument? I’ll take a big bright brain and beer and talk about that one gladly. And that’s just two examples. There are more but I don’t necessarily feel like this response is the best place to do so. As it’s gotten a little long, especially for tumblr. 

That said, thanks for not eviscerating me and instead being really quite nice. In general, I respect your opinion (although not about Katy Perry) and enjoy your wit and find your style of academic discourse actually quite sufferable and interesting :)

Raina nails it while discussing that garbage Atlantic article about physics making philosophy and religion obsolete. (For a good response/takedown, go here.)

If calling the author stupid and ignoring an opportunity to participate meaningfully in public discourse is nailing it then I guess I feel ill equipped to participate in the conversation. 

Do go read the response to The Atlantic article Tony references, it’s fantastically interesting.