Retitled: Modern philosophers are full of it!

[GePap]

Originally posted by Asher


Is this a joke? Honestly?

Look, bolding another part of the definition works too!

a) introducing the second of two possibilities [beer or wine]

beer != wine

Oh my God.

No words.

Having to define and explain "or" to someone who seriously thinks he's winning an argument.

Philosophy.

See, this is were you an I differ, and why I am obviously so much better than you in debating:

you look at the definition, and based on your small mind, cling on like a fool to the one part that supports your argument. I on the other hand realize that the word OR has multiple uses, and I try to understand which of those uses the people who wrote the definition of philosophy meant. Because I understand, unlike you, that people who write dictionaries understand the multiple uses of words and try to use the correct one.

So if we look at the definition of philosophy you provided, it includes 3 different choices for the word. The authors of the definition decided to split these choices up by numbering each different choice. According to the definition of OR, they could have grammatically separated them all by the use of the word OR as well, just as you can do beer or wine. So could you:

A student of or specialist in philosophy or A person who lives and thinks according to a particular philosophy or A person who is calm and rational under any circumstances.

But they didn't chose that. Instead, they decided that if the choices were different enough, it merited a new number, like saying:
1.Beer
2. Wine

From contextual clues, I see that definitions B or C of the definition of OR make more sense than definition A, given that one has to explain them being in the same numbered definition.

I assume that the notion of contextual clues are byond you, and that in general such a well reason reply is beyond your ability to comprehend, and that your reply will be more innane stupidity. BUt for others who might read this, I thought they might enjoy seein the difference in caliber between an "Asher arguement" and a "Gepap arguement". So they can realize where a good rounded study in the humanities does wonders.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Asher

The odd man out, as I see it, is Philosophy today. They do nothing to give back to modern society with the knowledge they gain with their studies. Their reasoning for studying it is personal interest only. And if that is the case, and supply/demand is true like you said, there would be ample opportunities in the private sector for those people to learn all they want about Philosophy. In the public sector, it is a waste of my money.

Ethicists and logicians give nothing back to society?

[Kuciwalker]

Sounds about right. Well, logicians only inasmuch as they're not mathematicians.

[Asher]

Originally posted by GePap
See, this is were you an I differ, and why I am obviously so much better than you in debating

Dude.

I'll give you points for being creative...but you took a definition saying a "Philosopher is a student of or specialist in philosophy".

The meaning is obvious to most people who speak English or know any kind of basic logic. If they meant to say specialist in and only specialist in, they would have said that.

You are trying to redefine the dictionary's obvious definition because it shows you up on a point you made. How do you do this? You look up the definition of or(!) then bold one way (which wouldn't make any sense in a professional publication's definition of a word) in which it could be interpreted. And no, "student of" and "specialist in" are not synonyms.

If you think this is why you're "better at debate", it must only be in Philosophy circles, because this has been -- without a doubt -- the worst debate in Apolyton history. No wingnut poster before you has ever tried to take a dictionary definition and try to redefine it by trying to force an unusual interpretation of "or".

Pathetic. Pathetic. I don't know what else to say.

I'm tempted to post a link to your post history and label it "Exhibit A" against the usefulness of Philosophy, assuming you took some Philosophy courses.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Odin
Ethicists and logicians give nothing back to society?

Holy ****, of course they don't.

Any "logicians" worth their salt are computer scientists or mathematicians. The ones that aren't are people like GePap who still don't understand the meaning of the word "or". This is why computer science students walk all over the Philosophy twits in the Philosophy of Logic courses.

Ethics is the biggest crock of ****, it's a scam.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Asher

Dude.

I'll give you points for being creative...but you took a definition saying a "Philosopher is a student of or specialist in philosophy".

The meaning is obvious to most people who speak English or know any kind of basic logic. If they meant to say specialist in and only specialist in, they would have said that.

Newsflash, OR in the english language is not the same OR is a computer language. That is what the dictionary is there to show you. Obviously you need to bone up on the English language some more.

You are trying to redefine the dictionary's obvious definition because it shows you up on a point you made. How do you do this? You look up the definition of or(!) then bold one way (which wouldn't make any sense in a professional publication's definition of a word) in which it could be interpreted. And no, "student of" and "specialist in" are not synonyms.

Next time you start picking up dictionaries, know what you are getting into. Oh, by the way, check ou the definitions of Student and Study by the way...

If you think this is why you're "better at debate", it must only be in Philosophy circles, because this has been -- without a doubt -- the worst debate in Apolyton history. No wingnut poster before you has ever tried to take a dictionary definition and try to redefine it by trying to force an unusual interpretation of "or".

Pathetic. Pathetic. I don't know what else to say.

I'm tempted to post a link to your post history and label it "Exhibit A" against the usefulness of Philosophy, assuming you took some Philosophy courses.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Asher

Ethics is the biggest crock of ****, it's a scam.

[Asher]

Crash course in dictionary usage for our Philosopher friends:

Each line of this definition refers to a different conceptual usage of the word:

phi·los·o·pher Audio pronunciation of "philosopher" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (f-ls-fr)
n.

1. A student of or specialist in philosophy.

Educational usage

2. A person who lives and thinks according to a particular philosophy.

Lifestyle usage

3. A person who is calm and rational under any circumstances.

Personality usage

The relevant usage is the first:

1. A student of or specialist in philosophy.

This sentence is taken from a professional publication - a dictionary. It is not casual english usage like the definition of "or" that you used which links synonyms.

The usage here is deliberate, simple, and obvious: it is to say a Philosopher is either a student of Philosophy (formally educated), or a specialist in Philosophy (not formally educated).

It's simple stuff to people with any sort of competence, but a huge challenge for Philosophers.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Asher

That's never even been mentioned, so that's you pretending to read something that's not being said again.

You've just demonstrated admirably that public money is being wasted on twits like you to study Philosophy in university just so you can become a civil servant for a city and never use it again in your life. It becomes, as you say, irrelevant.

So why are we paying tax dollars for a piece of paper that is irrelevant for the people who take it? Because, again, as you said in Carly's case, the fact that she got an undergrad in Philosophy has absolutely no bearing on her abilities in real life.

Why are we paying for that? What is the usefulness of that field in modern, public universities?

Those are the key issues that you, Aggie, and nostromo have done your damnest to avoid, but it's pretty unavoidable now. That's why you've resorted to nothing but insults and "you just don't understand".

This argument is over, and you weren't on the winning side.

Unlike you, I adress one issue at a time. I certainly don't change the issue when I'm in trouble (a typical dirty trick people use during debates) And I don't claim victory when no victory has been won (another dirty trick that, surprisingly enough, works sometimes).

The issue that interested me before you moved on to the larger issue, the issue of wether philosophy is useful or not, was your analysis of the reason of HP's downfall. That's why I pointed out that I don't see how her major in medieval history and philosophy could have possibly been the cause of her bad business decisions. The question of whether she majored in philosophy or medieval philosophy is beside the point. Even if she majored in philosophy, I still don't see how that could be the cause of her bad decisions. A typical major in philosophy (with a little of this and a little of that) hasn't much to do with business. If some philosophy departments claim otherwise, its not my problem. The fact that you don't even consider her business training, where they explicitely try to teach them how to make good business decisions, demonstrates your bad faith.

Now, if you want to say that a typical major in philosophy is useless for running a big company, I would tend agree with you. However, a friend of mine is doing his MBA in a reputable business school at the moment and he was astonished to discover that the teachers regularly talk about the views of philosophers. So they don't seem to think its totally useless.

If you want to conclude from this that philosophy majors are never useful, you'd have some work to do. You'd have to show, for example, that a good major in philosophy concentrating in ethics and philosophy of law would be useless to a lawer. You'd have to show that a good major in science studies (including philosophy of science) wouldn't be useful for a scientist, or someone who want to be involved in science or technology policy. You'd also have to show to all those people who study philosophy for the sake of it, simply because they're curious about certain issues, that they're basically wrong.

[Asher]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by nostromo
The issue that interested me before you moved on to the larger issue, the issue of wether philosophy is useful or not, was your analysis of the reason of HP's downfall. That's why I pointed out that I don't see how her major in medieval history and philosophy could have possibly been the cause of her bad business decisions. The question of whether she majored in philosophy or medieval philosophy is beside the point. Even if she majored in philosophy, I still don't see how that could be the cause of her bad decisions.

Now, if you want to say that a typical major in philosophy is useless for running a big company, I would tend agree with you. However, a friend of mine is doing his MBA in a reputable business school at the moment and he was astonished to discover that the teachers regularly talk about the views of philosophers. So they don't seem to think its totally useless.

Some people who study Philosophy are going to be good at business, too. Same with people who study Computer Science.

The whole Fiorina was just a ploy to get GePap/Aggie to admit her undergrad degree wasn't useful at all to her real career, which is actually different than Aggie has asserted before, and various Philosophy profs at Stanford also alluded to Philosophy studies giving her a solid foundation. There were a few articles on this in 1999/2000 in various business magazines.

It's just that now she's a disaster, Aggie and Stanford are distancing themselves from her and now claiming her degree had nothing to do with it.

And I agree with that. It never did. She got there based on her business acumen and unfortunately her slimeyness and smarmyness and "rockstar" image is what got her to CEO at HP.

It was, again, a segway into the real discussion which was the uselessness of the undergrad Philosophy degrees. Just what do they provide for people, aside from a study of interest? The vast majority of Philosophers in universities today do blatantly trivial, specific stuff that's not of use to society. Their undergrad degrees are taken out of interest, usually using public funding and money, and then they do something completely unrelated as a career.

That's my beef.

[Agathon]

The odd man out, as I see it, is Philosophy today. They do nothing to give back to modern society with the knowledge they gain with their studies. Their reasoning for studying it is personal interest only. And if that is the case, and supply/demand is true like you said, there would be ample opportunities in the private sector for those people to learn all they want about Philosophy. In the public sector, it is a waste of my money.

This has been patiently explained to you by me any number of times now.

Again: in a mixed economy, the provision of most goods that people want is left up to the market. But the market is notoriously bad at providing certain goods that people want (ones that are subject to what economists imaginatively call "market failures"). Health care and education are the most obvious examples.. policing is another.

That is why we pay for these goods collectively through the tax system. Not everyone wants everything that the state provides, but virtually everyone wants some of the things that the state provides. Some people enjoy public parks, some people enjoy public libraries and others enjoy knowledge for its own sake (as universities provide) -- the market sucks at providing these goods.

If you want to remove all state funding of things that people actually want, then you would be one of the few people that actually like living in the barren wasteland of a society that would result. The fact that you or other people do not like philosophy is irrelevant. Everyone has to pay tax for things they don't like in order to make sure they get the things they want. It's called the social contract, and is the basis of our form of society.

I guess in computer science they forgot to teach you how our society and economy works, just like they seem to have forgotten to teach you how to wash.

I've enjoyed watching you get thrashed in this thread.

[Kuciwalker]

Again: in a mixed economy, the provision of most goods that people want is left up to the market. But the market is notoriously bad at providing certain goods that people want (ones that are subject to what economists imaginatively call "market failures"). Health care and education are the most obvious examples.. policing is another.

Private universities are an excellent example of how the market is perfectly good at providing philosophy education to those who desire it (and have the money to pay for it).

Unless you're arguing, of course, that modern philosophers have a benefit to society as a whole...

[Agathon]

The meaning is obvious to most people who speak English or know any kind of basic logic.

No it isn't. Most uses of "or" in ordinary discourse are the exclusive use. In symbolic logic the exclusive use is not the common one.

In symbolic logic the "or" sign in "A v B" stands for the truth function "at least one must be true (perhaps both)" not "at least one and only one must be true" [that is (A v B).~(A . B) IIRC (although it's a while since I did symbolic logic)].

Pwned again.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
This has been patiently explained to you by me any number of times now.

Again: in a mixed economy, the provision of most goods that people want is left up to the market. But the market is notoriously bad at providing certain goods that people want (ones that are subject to what economists imaginatively call "market failures"). Health care and education are the most obvious examples.. policing is another.

Health care, general education, and policing are generally in the interest of society as a whole.

Despite your personal biases, Philosophy in universities does not equate to life-saving medical operations.

I guess in computer science they forgot to teach you how our society and economy works, just like they seem to have forgotten to teach you how to wash.

I've enjoyed watching you get thrashed in this thread.

The trashing in this thread was on the side with the people with nothing left but to dig and scrape and try to change the way "or" was meant in a pretty clear instance of a dictionary.

This latest argument of yours is better than redefining "or" or talking about "dadabases" but it still falls short.

Private schools can and do teach Philosophy as it is today. I'm not sure how stupid you think we are, but comparing philosophy to police forces as an examples as market failure is bad enough to make a grown man cry. Especially because it's patently wrong, given how many private universities (including some of the best?) give Philosophy instruction already.

If we fired all of the hapless Philosophy instructors in the public payroll, I have no doubt that the surge of people with Philosophy degrees such as yourself would go into teaching it privately (it's either that or flip burgers). And since I'm told how crucially important Philosophy is, I'm sure many people would theoretically want to study it as well.

Between the surge of Philosophy instructors and curious emo kids, I'm sure there would be quite a nice free market for the goods. Unless, of course, people value Philosophy far less than you want to admit to, which is what you really know to be true.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Again: in a mixed economy, the provision of most goods that people want is left up to the market. But the market is notoriously bad at providing certain goods that people want (ones that are subject to what economists imaginatively call "market failures"). Health care and education are the most obvious examples.. policing is another.

Private universities are an excellent example of how the market is perfectly good at providing philosophy education to those who desire it (and have the money to pay for it).

Unless you're arguing, of course, that modern philosophers have a benefit to society as a whole...

And private universities exist by means of ancient endowments, charity and tax breaks, not by direct sales.

In any case, this only bolsters my example. What happens in such a system is that a few universities with wealthy donors and substantial endowments do well, and the others suck.

You have comparatively few good universities and lots of terrible ones. It's hardly an efficient way to distribute higher education. The same goes for your ridiculous primary and secondary education systems. They are appalling too.

And if you get in to Princeton I guess it shows that they'll let any idiot in.