Retitled: Modern philosophers are full of it!

[GePap]

Whatever.

[Asher]

Is English your second language?

[The Mad Viking]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Simple question: what would happen if universities stopped teaching engineering and science courses?

We might try to solve problems, rather than symptoms.

What would happen if universities stopped teaching philosophy courses? Which is worse?

Everyone would forget that there is a difference between problems and symptoms.

[Asher]

Just how do you figure only Philosophy goes after the "problems"?

That is one of the more moronic statements in this thread, if only because it's so vacuous of meaning...

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Agathon
Did you ignore the part about other contributory causes.... I guess so.

Naah it also is a false premise.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
That's debatable. Philosophy has lots of obvious indirect benefits.

Not so obvious, really. Especially compared to, say, computer science...

Even so, setting that aside, lots of people want to take our classes out of interest in the subject, so your argument fails.

No it doesn't; it's obvious that the market is QUITE capable of supplying an education in philosophy to those who are capable of paying what it costs, so your justification must be to subsidize the personal enjoyment of individuals, which is silly since there are many more efficient ways than philosophy education to spend govt money even if that is its goal (subsidizing personal entertainment).

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
We might try to solve problems, rather than symptoms.

What the hell are you talking about? God I hope that isn't your approach to medicine... let's stop educating doctors and solve PROBLEMS, not SYMPTOMS!

[Kuciwalker]

Clearly we would've all been better off if we'd just never wasted our time with mathematics, I mean, that's what opened up this whole "engineering" thing which is such a waste of resources...

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
What the hell are you talking about? God I hope that isn't your approach to medicine... let's stop educating doctors and solve PROBLEMS, not SYMPTOMS!

It seems to me that he doesn't understand that there are usually practical and theoretical departments in the same field.

There will be some doctors whose purpose is to solve the symptoms (practictioners) and others whose purpose is to solve the problems (researchers).

The same is true for most science fields. Computer Science is no different, the practictioners will go on to become software engineers while theoretical computer scientists will work at solving the problems.

Philsophers are far from the only people who try to solve "problems". This day and age, they're inarguably the least successful at solving problems anyway.

[Agathon]

No it doesn't; it's obvious that the market is QUITE capable of supplying an education in philosophy to those who are capable of paying what it costs, so your justification must be to subsidize the personal enjoyment of individuals, which is silly since there are many more efficient ways than philosophy education to spend govt money even if that is its goal (subsidizing personal entertainment).

That's simply not true. You show me somewhere where the market supplies a decent education in philosophy, or Egyptology, or history, or one of the other more arcane academic subjects. Private universities are no objection. These depend heavily on charity, endowments and tax breaks.

I can't think of one. The market does a ****ty job of providing purely informational goods. Even the dopiest 1st year economics student knows this.

Once again your confidence is directly proportional to your ignorance.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe


Naah it also is a false premise.

You are just ignorant.

Ignore for you.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Agathon


Still sore from being *****-slapped in the last philosophy thread?

You mean, the one in which you used transparently circular arguments and didn't abandon them when the circularity was called on?

I can't think of any other project that was as large and so involved. Feel free to come up with an alternative.

The key word here is "large". The impressive things about Apollo are an economy that could produce the vast resources needed and the organization that could make them all work for the same goal. The technological side of Apollo is just rocket science.

[Last Conformist]

Rereading bits of this thread, I'm getting this horrible feeling that Asher is a social democrat ...

***

"Benefit to society" is a slippery concept, because society isn't an entity you can ask what it needs or wants. We can certainly find Luddites who think society would be better off without computers - presumably, they'd be happier if no public money had been spent on Asher's education.

What it all comes down to is that most people think state money should be spent both on compsci and phil education, and what the public wants, it generally gets. If Asher wanted something beyond scoring rhetorical points, he'd be better off writing letters to the editor and mailing his elected representatives than arguing with pseudos on 'Poly.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon No it doesn't; it's obvious that the market is QUITE capable of supplying an education in philosophy to those who are capable of paying what it costs, so your justification must be to subsidize the personal enjoyment of individuals, which is silly since there are many more efficient ways than philosophy education to spend govt money even if that is its goal (subsidizing personal entertainment).

That's simply not true. You show me somewhere where the market supplies a decent education in philosophy, or Egyptology, or history, or one of the other more arcane academic subjects.

Stanford, perhaps?

Private universities are no objection. These depend heavily on charity, endowments and tax breaks.

Endowments are still private. Charity is private. The tax breaks are given to the whole university. And you know, given the massive government subsidy of higher education (good thing), it's not surprising that there aren't many institutions that teach philosophy without even any tax breaks... the market is taken out from under them.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
What it all comes down to is that most people think state money should be spent both on compsci and phil education, and what the public wants, it generally gets. If Asher wanted something beyond scoring rhetorical points, he'd be better off writing letters to the editor and mailing his elected representatives than arguing with pseudos on 'Poly.

Isn't that true of everyone here?