6 votes

Topic deleted by author

6 comments

  1. [5]
    skybrian
    Link
    This article isn't very clear about how other people think. Let's say you're curious about how today's rationalists think. One reasonable approach would be to find some of them to interview, and...

    This article isn't very clear about how other people think.

    Let's say you're curious about how today's rationalists think. One reasonable approach would be to find some of them to interview, and ask them what they think. It seems like this would be a better approach than speculating about how they think without gathering evidence?

    But because there's a lot of variety in how different people think, I suspect that many people who call themselves rationalists think quite differently from each other, so "how do rationalists think" isn't a well-defined question. At best you're going to get some kind of average tendency.

    But maybe the point isn't to make claims about specific people, it's just to warn against some misguided ways of thinking, and never mind who really believes them? You would probably still want to collect real examples of people making certain mistakes. One reason is just to be clear about which sort of mistakes you mean.

    3 votes
    1. [4]
      lou
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Well, yeah. That's because the writer is a philosopher. Philosophers are not required to use statistics or any kind of quantitative data (specially in blog posts). That would be more akin to...

      Well, yeah. That's because the writer is a philosopher. Philosophers are not required to use statistics or any kind of quantitative data (specially in blog posts). That would be more akin to social sciences, or psychology.

      5 votes
      1. vord
        Link Parent
        I like that the author notes that everyone is a philosopher. It's just a matter of whether they try to refine it or not.

        Most rationalists probably haven’t explicitly formulated their view and wouldn’t call themselves “rationalists”. I’m including non-philosophers, including thinkers who work in other fields, as well as people in non-intellectual jobs who nevertheless have philosophical opinions.

        I like that the author notes that everyone is a philosopher. It's just a matter of whether they try to refine it or not.

        2 votes
      2. [2]
        skybrian
        Link Parent
        Maybe it shows that "how do rationalists think" isn't really a philosophical question, because you need to observe people to answer it? Philosophers do sometimes have thought experiments that can...

        Maybe it shows that "how do rationalists think" isn't really a philosophical question, because you need to observe people to answer it?

        Philosophers do sometimes have thought experiments that can serve something like examples, if they're clear enough. I don't think they're as good as real examples, though.

        1 vote
        1. lou
          Link Parent
          It's okay to dislike philosophy. There are other avenues to insight.

          It's okay to dislike philosophy. There are other avenues to insight.

          4 votes
  2. lou
    (edited )
    Link

    ...it seems to me that there is a cluster of misguided thoughts and ways of reasoning that are generally associated with rationalist philosophers, such as Plato and Descartes, and which remain tempting for many people today. The rationalistic mindset is perennial — each new generation has people who are born with rationalistic dispositions. (I myself am a natural rationalist, but after some learning and reflection, I’ve become critical of it.)

    So, how do rationalists think, and what’s wrong with it?