I think it is unseemly to justify one's own biases by noting that everyone has them. It is not so much that science should be used for every investigation and inquiry, as that the scientific attitude which consists in attempting to find counter-evidence that refutes one's own theories should be used as an antidote to bias confirmation. — Janus

So how would or should this play out for a physicalist or someone who thinks that the paranormal or the supernatural - as used as categories, not that they are named well - do not exist? IOW how should they attempt to find counter-evidence?

No-one's immune from bias, it seems. — Pattern-chaser


I think it is unseemly to justify one's own biases by noting that everyone has them. — Janus

Making straw men is a nice hobby, but.... :meh: To recognise and admit bias is different from justifying it.

So, you have to agree with philosophers to make it worthwhile reading them? — Janus

I was alluding to the tendency here to equate a dismissal of some quarters of philosophy with a failure to understand, rather than a legitimate decision.

Its not necessary to attempt to understand a philosopher in order to dismiss their work as waffle. For that to be the case, it would require that it be necessaryto understand work before distinguishing between a child's writing and Shakespeare, or between poetry and a technical manual.

Writing style, approach and even attitude (to an extent) is identifiable without needing anything more than a superficial understanding of the semantic content.

I might well find a gem of insight in the middle of Mein Kampf, but I already know enough about it to make a reasonable decision that its not worth the effort.

Well said.

Though that's quite different from Deleuze or Derrida, say. You could give an example of a philosopher who you have not read but feel you can dismiss. Hitler's ideas radiated out of his books and informed his policies and actions. It's not a particularly dense type of text that needs work to tease out its meanings, at least not for someone like you seem to be.

You could give an example of a philosopher who you have not read but feel you can dismiss. — Coben

I think I might not have been clear enough (the initial comment was meant to be somewhat facetious, I didn't take the thread too seriously). The philosophers I'd happily dismiss as producing 'waffle' are not ones I know nothing about. They're ones I've either read, or more likely read passages from in critique. I wouldn't just dismiss out of hand someone I've neither read nor been introduced to the ideas of. But for anyone with even more than a passing interest in philosophy, that's unlikely to be the case for many given authors. The point is that making a personal judgement about the quality of the text doesn't require an intimate understanding of it. There are sufficient clues in a superficial reading to make such judgements to a perfectly reasonable level of likelihood.

It's not a particularly dense type of text that needs work to tease out its meanings, at least not for someone like you seem to be. — Coben

Yeah, this is the kind of thinking I'm opposing. That some texts are 'dense' with meaning as an objective fact. Meaning (in the sense I think you're referring to here) is something taking place in the mind of the readers, not contained in the text.

It might be reasonable to say that the meaning of the word 'dog' is somehow contained in the word (not literally, but as a term of speech), but it would not be so reasonable to say that the meaning of some paragraph from Heidegger was similarly contained in the text. If that were so, there'd be widespread agreement about it among epistemic peers, and there is not. So, if the meaning can be different for different readers, then it's hard to see what mechanism might make the quantity of meaning invariant. Absent of such a mechanism, it follows that zero might be one of the available quantities.

So how would or should this play out for a physicalist or someone who thinks that the paranormal or the supernatural - as used as categories, not that they are named well - do not exist? IOW how should they attempt to find counter-evidence? — Coben

If no convincing evidence is provided for a claim, and it appears as though no definitive evidence either way is possible, then suspension of judgement would seem to be the most intellectually honest way to go. A physicalist, or anyone, could simply say that there seems to be no reason to believe in the paranormal or supernatural.

I don't know if that was the kind of answer you are looking for?

So how would or should this play out for a physicalist or someone who thinks that the paranormal or the supernatural - as used as categories, not that they are named well - do not exist? IOW how should they attempt to find counter-evidence? — Coben

Someone, I think, Randi, offered a lot of money to whomever could show something, and though a lot of people tried no one showed anything.

If no convincing evidence is provided for a claim, and it appears as though no definitive evidence either way is possible, then suspension of judgement would seem to be the most intellectually honest way to go. A physicalist, or anyone, could simply say that there seems to be no reason to believe in the paranormal or supernatural. — Janus

That's a little different from....

... the scientific attitude which consists in attempting to find counter-evidence that refutes one's own theories should be used as an antidote to bias confirmation. — Janus

Attempting to find counterevidence sounds active to me, not simply reacting to a perceived lack of evidence. IOW doing active research, or perhaps engaging in certain practices to seek counter-evidence.

How can you find counterevidence if there is no plausible evidence to begin with; there would be nothing there to counter.

Yes, Randi has done a version of what Janus described. Though one has to be something of a celebrity to apply to the challenge. I'm interested in general what people should do to show their scientific attitude, given Janus' description. Randi does pass the criteria.

How can you find counterevidence if there is no plausible evidence to begin with; there would be nothing there to counter. — Janus

You would try to find counterevidence to your own theories, whatever they are. This could take many forms. But it sounded active in your description. I don't think reading texts from within one's paradigm that said there was no counterevidence would count, for example. Your description sounded like you would treat your own beliefs as hypothesis and then set up some kind of testing to see if they hold.

Don't get me wrong I was not accusing you of justifying your biases. I was merely noting that people often do justify their biases by saying that everyone is biased with the suggestion being "so why should I not be?". I don't think kind of attitude is intellectually honest or fruitful because it leads straight to relativism..

Yes, but we don't have time to investigate every claim that is made with little or no evidence to back it up. And we don't need to have definite beliefs about all issues; as I said suspension of judgement and paying no attention to such claims is the most intellectually honest way.

If people are interested in the paranormal or supernatural and want to make claims about such matters then it is up to them to provide convincing evidence; and I would say that if they can find what they take to be convincing evidence for an extraordinary claim then it is up to them to find counter-evidence or more plausible alternative explanations if they value intellectual honesty. In any case why should anyone be called upon to investigate areas they find to be of little or no interest to them?

I was alluding to the tendency here to equate a dismissal of some quarters of philosophy with a failure to understand, rather than a legitimate decision. — Isaac

You are of course free to "dismiss", in the sense of saying you have no interest in, or that you find no value in, any particular area of philosophy or any other discipline. But to claim tout court that there is no significant value or original insight in philosophers such as Kant, Hegel and Heidegger is something else altogether. If you don't find value and insight in them it is arguably because you are not interested enough to spend the time to understand, or because you hold some polemical view such that you reject or devalue the insight that others have found there.

Its not necessary to attempt to understand a philosopher in order to dismiss their work as waffle. For that to be the case, it would require that it be necessary to understand work before distinguishing between a child's writing and Shakespeare, or between poetry and a technical manual.

Again, you can dismiss work as appearing to be waffle to you, but then don't expect others who find value and insight in it to believe that you have put in the necessary work to understand it. On the other hand if you want to say that what people consider to be valuable insights are wrong or merely trivial truisms or whatever other criticism you might have, then you would need to provide textual citations and arguments addressing them that support your claims.

I don't understand what are trying to say with your second sentence there.

I might well find a gem of insight in the middle of Mein Kampf, but I already know enough about it to make a reasonable decision that its not worth the effort.

Of course you would use the most egregious example to try to garner support for your merely subjective point of view; almost everyone is going to agree that it is not worth reading Mein Kampf unless you were a scholar of Nazism or a Hitler biographer.

If we go back to the original statement, the focus is on what YOU believe, not on what others believe. That's what piqued my interest. It presented it as from your own beliefs. I gave the example of a physicalist. This is a positive belief or set of beliefs, and it seemed like you were saying that the scientific attitude entailed looking for counterevidence. Rather than as you have been framing it now...other people who have beliefs that do not fit with mine have to onus to present me with evidence and until I see some evidence I consider significant, I will not spend time on that.

And hey, you worded it in a way that I liked, and actually it is pretty much how I live, with provisos on time and resources. But I have explored looking for phenomena that went against views I've had, including engaging in practices and experiments I often thought were pointless. Sometimes they turned out not to be and my beliefs changed. You may not quite have meant that original statement as I think, given how it is worded, it should be interpreted. But that's what I was reacting to. I see that your interpretation is not the same, now. I wish there were more people with the attitude presented in that orginal quote.

... the scientific attitude which consists in attempting to find counter-evidence that refutes one's own theories should be used as an antidote to bias confirmation. — Janus

Here it is not...let's see if they have justified their theories. It is let me actively try to find evidence that counters mine.

This is more rare. Of course scientists do this all the time when they perform experiments, takign their own hypotheses, including those they think are likely to be true, and set up experiments to see if they can find counter-evidence. This is generally piecemeal as it should be.

I love the idea of people, and there are a number, who actually try to challenge things on a paradigmatic level, perhaps,.for example, engaging in the activities people they think are deluded engage in, that those people have said led to evidence.

That's all.

You seem to be saying that my interpretation of what I said, that you last quoted there, is different than yours, but it is not clear to me why you think so.

I only said the onus is on others in cases where they make extraordinary claims. You mention physicalism: I think when analyzed it is an extraordinary claim, at least in its stronger versions, because it cannot account for abstraction, generality, real possibility and even logic and semantics. The other point regarding physicalism is that being a metaphysical position, there can be no empirical evidence for or against it, and the evidence against it is its incoherence.

Taking again your example of the supernatural and the paranormal, if someone wants to positively claim there are no such phenomena, and it matters to them (which presumably it would if they made such a positive claim), then of course they should try to find evidence that refutes their belief, just as scientists do (or should). If they believe there is (or even can be) no evidence either way, then I would say they have no justification for such a positive claim.

They might still reasonably say, in the absence of evidence and because it is an extraordinary claim, that there is no reason to believe that paranormal and/or supernatural phenomena are real, and that they err on the side of caution and tend towards disbelieving in such phenomena.

If you don't find value and insight in them it is arguably because you are not interested enough to spend the time to understand, or because you hold some polemical view such that you reject or devalue the insight that others have found there.[/quote
— Janus

you can dismiss work as appearing to be waffle to you, but then don't expect others who find value and insight in it to believe that you have put in the necessary work to understand it. — Janus

By what argument are you supporting this 'arguable' assertion, then? As I said to Coben, if there is disagreement among epistemic peers as to the meaning of a passage from any of those authors (and there definitely is), then the meaning cannot be inter-subjectively contained within the text, but must be somehow more a function of the mind of the reader. If the quality of the meaning is not inter-subjectively in the text, then what mechanism ensures that the quantity of meaning is within the text in that way? In other words, how can you argue that there objectively is value and insight in the text, when there is such disagreement (even among those who agree with you) as to what that value and insight actually consists of? It would be like arguing there definitely is a cat in some box despite no-one being able to agree on it's colour, shape, sound or any other sensory clue as to it's properties.

I don't understand what are trying to say with your second sentence there. — Janus

The point is, it is not only the semantic content of the words that conveys information about the qualities of the text. Take a passage from Harry Potter, or some other fantasy. There will be lots of terms in there that you or I would not 'understand' the meaning of, but it is clearly not necessary for us to really understand the full meaning of the passage in order to recognise that it is a work of children's fiction. We could have no clue at all what the passage is about and yet still make such an accurate judgement as to its genre and likely worth as a philosophical investigation.

Of course you would use the most egregious example to try to garner support for your merely subjective point of view; almost everyone is going to agree that it is not worth reading Mein Kampf unless you were a scholar of Nazism or a Hitler biographer. — Janus

Exactly. That's the point of picking a polemic example. Almost everyone is going to agree, including my interlocutors, presumably. So follow the logic by which you too agree and you will understand the point I'm making. How do we know (without reading it) that we can dismiss Mein Kampf as being not worth reading? It is not on the basis of the semantic content of the words (we haven't even read them), it is on the basis of the objective of the text, the opinions of others whom we trust, the qualities of the author, the subject matter we have had summarised for us...All sorts of information outside of the actual text has been able to produce a judgement that we (and most of the sane world) are quite happy with, without having to actually read the whole text and render arguments against it from citation.

In other words, how can you argue that there objectively is value and insight in the text, when there is such disagreement (even among those who agree with you) as to what that value and insight actually consists of? — Isaac

I haven't argued anything like that there is, objective speaking, value and insight in texts. I don't even know what that could mean. All I have said is that many people have found value and insight in the texts of the authors in question. Do you want to argue that there is, objectively speaking, no value and insight to be found in those texts, and that people who say they do find value and insight there must therefore be deluded?

I also haven't denied that you have every right to decide, on however minimal evidence you like, that there is no value or insight to be found there for you, but I also think that you could well be deluded about that, and that if you approached the texts with a different attitude and were prepared to put in the effort, you may well find value and insight there.

without having to actually read the whole text and render arguments against it from citation. — Isaac

I said that you would need to do that only if you were making a claim such as that a work was objectively speaking, and not merely according to your assessment, waffle. You would need to cite passages and show that they were without value or insight and/ or consisted in merely trivial truisms tout court, and not merely according to your understanding.

Of course this would be impossible to do, which just goes to show how vacuous such claims are when they purport to be anything more than your own subjective opinion. All I am pointing out is that your subjective opinion about such things is no more privileged than others' opinions that your opinions are poorly informed. That is why it is generally bad form to make such pronouncements; it just makes you appear ignorant. If you said instead that such works are not interesting to you or to your taste of course then that would be a different matter.

All I have said is that many people have found value and insight in the texts of the authors in question. — Janus

If you don't find value and insight in them it is arguably because you are not interested enough to spend the time to understand, or because you hold some polemical view such that you reject or devalue the insight that others have found there. — Janus

I'm asking you for that argument. You said "it is arguably because...", not "it is in my opinion because..." Your rhetoric suggests that there exists some argument in reason that there is value and insight in these texts, now you seem to be retreating to the idea that it is all subjective.

Do you want to argue that there is, objectively speaking, no value and insight to be found in those texts, and that people who say they do find value and insight there must therefore be deluded? — Janus

No, I'm arguing that value and insight must (according to evidence of epistemic peer disagreement) be subjective properties, therefore the text can neither have them, nor not have them. It is a category error to ascribe them to the text at all.

I also think that you could well be deluded about that, and that if you approached the texts with a different attitude and were prepared to put in the effort, you may well find value and insight there. — Janus

you can dismiss work as appearing to be waffle to you, but then don't expect others who find value and insight in it to believe that you have put in the necessary work to understand it. — Janus

Again, your second comment does not match the implication of your first. Now you are saying that it is about other people's opinion of what I might find if I put in the effort. Your first comment, to which I responded, however, contained no such subjectivity. It claims that there is some valuable meaning to be had and a "necessary" amount of work required to obtain it. If the value and insight is subjective, then there cannot be a necessary amount of work required to obtain it.

I said that you would need to do that only if you were making a claim such as that a work was objectively speaking, and not merely according to your assessment, waffle. You would need to cite passages and show that they were without value or insight and/ or consisted in merely trivial truisms tout court, and not merely according to your understanding. — Janus

There is, as far as I can tell, no connection between 'waffle' and 'value/insight/truisms'. Waffle is a style of writing and is contained in the structure of the text. Value/insight is a property of one's interpretation of the text, and not contained within it. Truism is an assessment of the logic of propositions. I'm only making the argument here that 'waffle' can be detected without understanding the full semantic content of the text, in the same way as a work of children's fiction can be detected despite us not understanding all of the terms used. The information is in the style, not the meanings of the words.

All I am pointing out is that your subjective opinion about such things is no more privileged than others' opinions that your opinions are poorly informed. — Janus

You've just contradicted yourself in one sentence. If my opinion on such matters as the qualities of a text is subjective (as is that of others) then how can it be simultaneously "poorly informed"? What objective information is my subjective opinion lacking?

Your rhetoric suggests that there exists some argument in reason that there is value and insight in these texts, — Isaac

The fact that hordes of scholars have pored over them for one, two or three centuries demonstrates that there is value and insight to be found. What more do you need? For myself I know there are original insights because I have discovered some of them.

There is, as far as I can tell, no connection between 'waffle' and 'value/insight/truisms'. — Isaac

So, you are claiming that there could be value and insight in what is mere waffle? In that case you have a very different notion of what counts as waffle than I do.

If my opinion on such matters as the qualities of a text is subjective (as is that of others) then how can it be simultaneously "poorly informed"? What objective information is my subjective opinion lacking? — Isaac

You either haven't read carefully or you are indulging in deliberate obfuscation and sophistry. I said that your opinion of the works in question, which you presented as though you were stating facts, is no better than the opinion of those who will believe that you are ill-informed on account of that opinion.

Having said that, objectively speaking you are ill-informed if you haven't studied the works that others find valuable and insightful, and are merely tossing off a half-arsed negative opinion based on your lack of familiarity with the works. Whether that is so in your case I cannot judge since I don't know how much and how well you have read the works in question.

This is becoming a waste of time.

The fact that hordes of scholars have pored over them for one, two or three centuries demonstrates that there is value and insight to be found. What more do you need? — Janus

So when Bertrand Russell, for example, said of Hegel...

Hegel's philosophy is so odd that one would not have expected him to be able to get sane men to accept it, but he did. He set it out with so much obscurity that people thought it must be profound. It can quite easily be expounded lucidly in words of one syllable, but then its absurdity becomes obvious. — Russell

...he was what? Wrong by virtue of being outvoted?

Having said that, objectively speaking you are ill-informed if you haven't studied the works that others find valuable and insightful, and are merely tossing off a half-arsed negative opinion based on your lack of familiarity with the works. — Janus

No, this is exactly the view I'm arguing against (you're right about the original comment though, I had misread it, my apologies). I don't see how I can be ill-informed as a consequence of not having thoroughly read the text when there is no agreed upon body of information within the text for me to be informed about. You keep dodging the central argument with dismissive rhetoric.

If there is disagreement among epistemic peers about the meaning of a text, them how is it possible to say that there is any information within it to be informed of by study?

If Bertrand Russell can read Hegel and find nothing but obfuscated absurdity, yet Husserl can read him and find there the basis for an entire field of investigation, how can you possibly argue that my agreement with Russell is ill-informed, by virtue of not having studied the text. If there were some objective evidence within the text that could inform such an opinion, then how is it that two people with the same knowledge of it reached such radically different conclusions. How is being informed by the view of someone like Russell, less informed than if I had studied the text myself. Do we not all build our understanding of a text through the input of others?

If you wish to say that Russell was wrong, then it must be possible for someone to read the text and yet still be wrong about the quality of meaning therein. If such a thing is possible, then how is it demonstrable that it is not Husserl who is wrong?

I only said the onus is on others in cases where they make extraordinary claims. You mention physicalism: I think when analyzed it is an extraordinary claim, at least in its stronger versions, because it cannot account for abstraction, generality, real possibility and even logic and semantics. The other point regarding physicalism is that being a metaphysical position, there can be no empirical evidence for or against it, and the evidence against it is its incoherence — Janus

Love what you say here. Peachy. May the physicalists meet us both in a dark alley.

But then it seems you are not a physicalist, so that's not a good example for you.

Whatever your beliefs happen to be, it shouldn't matter what other people's positions are if you are following....

... the scientific attitude which consists in attempting to find counter-evidence that refutes one's own theories should be used as an antidote to bias confirmation. — Janus

your own theories. If your theory/belief is that X is true, then you seek out counterevidence. It doesn't matter if the people who say X is false are making an extraordinary claim. That quote just says that the
attitude entails seeking evidence against one's own position. Perhaps there is a third position. Perhaps you are both wrong.

That's what I like about that sentence of yours. The implication that regardless of what 'the other team is saying', if there are opposing teams, one should oneselff seek out counterevidence related to one's own claims.

This seems to fit what you say here....

Taking again your example of the supernatural and the paranormal, if someone wants to positively claim there are no such phenomena, and it matters to them (which presumably it would if they made such a positive claim), then of course they should try to find evidence that refutes their belief, just as scientists do (or should). — Janus

the evidence against it is its incoherence — Janus

Love what you say here. — Coben

So dismissing an entire field as incoherent (not just as a personal opinion, but as a property of the field itself) is "peachy"? Do you not think any physicalist work might be as you put it "a particularly dense type of text that needs work to tease out its meanings". Are we not just being partisan here, it's OK to slag off the physicalists wholesale as incoherent, but dismissing the continentals as waffle is to show a lack of understanding of the text?

To be honest, this is where the interest lies with this discussion. We have the OP dismissing theology as mere 'verbiage' but insisting that continental philosophy is not included in that same concern. We have a requirement that accusations of 'waffle' to continental philosophy be backed up by deep understanding of the text, yet physicalism is casually dismissed a "incoherent" to mutual jeers of support.

Isn't this all just demonstrating as clearly as can be that meaning is imparted by the reader, not an intrinsic property of the text? It cannot possibly be the case that anyone not already disposed to do so would see the value in any given text otherwise it would be impossible to read two opposing texts (in value terms) without entering into a state of constant vacillation.

No-one can mount a counter-argument because no argument was ever made in the first place, just a long-winded translation of the blindingly obvious into the satisfyingly obscure. — Isaac

I totally so agree, but I'd like to extend the approach one step beyond cool. YOU DON'T NEED TO DEPEND ON TRANSLATIONS. I memorized "Der Kritik der reinen Vernunft" and "Quo usque tandem, abutere, Kataline, paciencia nosssssstra?" and I can silence any wafflers with these babies. (In LIterary circles I use "Die Leiden des jungen Werthers". In circles who adore opera, I use "Gotterdammerung" and "Die Zauberflote".)

This is not my original approach. I have to give credit where credit is due: My dad was in the Basilian seminary for three years before he got honourably discharged by his Father Superior. My old man never again spake a word in the rest of his worldly existence. Instead, he sermoned. It did not even matter that he became a communist, and a member of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party. He continued sermoning, and as the case was, he sermoned communist propaganda. He had a brilliant and high-reaching career because of it. Most of the other communists in the district were uneducated hoodlooms who grabbed the easy way to success without needing to do work. They respected and feared my dad. Because of his sermons. They had the brawl and brash; he had the words. A classic case of "The pen is mightier than the sword."

He learned and retained one, sage und schreibe, one latin sentence, quoted above. As quotes go, it is a good one. it can be quoted anywhere, in any occasion, to nail down and to win any argument. It is a great opener to a speech of anger, or praise, of love, of calling the warriors to fierce battle to defend the nation and the land, or in preparation to go to the outhouse with a bunch of rolled-up old newspapers. Heck, the old man used to say this even when he successfully swatted a fly. Or unsuccessfully.

Therefore I say unto you, Isaac The Insomniac, son of Andromedea, believer in Intercontinental philosophy, to not rely on translations alone.

It cannot possibly be the case that anyone not already disposed to do so would see the value in any given text otherwise it would be impossible to read two opposing texts (in value terms) without entering into a state of constant vacillation. — Isaac

Too many negatives for my mutual understanding, but I think I agree with you. And I at the same time plead guilty as charged.

I'm 65. By 45 I had learned enough life so that my world view would be cocooned in. I am able to accept that god-belief is philosophically acceptable, that solipsism is a valid thought, and reincarnation is possible. (I want to come back as a bouquette of carnations.) But at the same time I reject them as not my own beliefs, and I fiercly will argue against instances of these beleifs when they are out of their pure cocoon, and out in the open and attributes are attached to them (such as Christianity or Greek mythology to the god-worship, or ghost spotting to the idea of the undying soul.)

My point is that I learned a few things in philosophy, mabye, in the past 20 years, but my VALUES as they pertain to philosophical convictions, are set, and would take a godly good effort to change them.

Maybe that's the experience that you describe in others, and again, I agree with your words, if you mean what I read into what you wrote, what with your tons of negating the narrative within a sentence or two.

So dismissing an entire field as incoherent (not just as a personal opinion, but as a property of the field itself) is "peachy"? — Isaac

Physicalism is not a field. I mean, not in the sense of physics or biology. And since he was expressing views I agreed with, I just went emotional. People who identify as physicalists have done incredible work, but, yes, I think there are problems with the idea as a whole. That particular ontology. Which is quite different from dismissing philosophers without having read their books. Apart from the issue of category types being conflated in your comparison, I have read a lot within physicalism and on it.

Do you not think any physicalist work might be as you put it "a particularly dense type of text that needs work to tease out its meanings". — Isaac

I think the works of many people who are physicalists are excellent works from which I have learned a tremendous amount. I think there are problems with physicalism, however.

Are we not just being partisan here, it's OK to slag off the physicalists wholesale as incoherent, but dismissing the continentals as waffle is to show a lack of understanding of the text? — Isaac

I believe in our interaction I had a problem with not having read something and dismissing it as waffle.

And since this implies I have a bias in favor of continentalists, I have perhaps a less positive view of them than physicalists, especially if we take scientists who are physicalists into the latter category. I do think many of those who are very dense and, it seems to me at time ridiculous, also have things to say with much value.

To be honest, this is where the interest lies with this discussion. We have the OP dismissing theology as mere 'verbiage' but insisting that continental philosophy is not included in that same concern. We have a requirement that accusations of 'waffle' to continental philosophy be backed up by deep understanding of the text, yet physicalism is casually dismissed a "incoherent" to mutual jeers of support.

Isn't this all just demonstrating as clearly as can be that meaning is imparted by the reader, not an intrinsic property of the text? It cannot possibly be the case that anyone not already disposed to do so would see the value in any given text otherwise it would be impossible to read two opposing texts (in value terms) without entering into a state of constant vacillation. — Isaac

Not quite sure what you are saying in paragraph 2, but as far as my involvement I think paragraph 1 is not a good summation of what happened, which my previous post goes into.

Paragraph 2 seems like an interesting idea, but the all the negatives and the possibility of irony I am not sure what the position or positions are here.

You are of course free to "dismiss", in the sense of saying you have no interest in, or that you find no value in, any particular area of philosophy or any other discipline. But to claim tout court that there is no significant value or original insight in philosophers such as Kant, Hegel and Heidegger is something else altogether. If you don't find value and insight in them it is arguably because you are not interested enough to spend the time to understand, or because you hold some polemical view such that you reject or devalue the insight that others have found there. — Janus

This, as well as your paragraph after it, is something he already alluded to:

if you don't agree with me yet, go back and try harder". — Isaac

What's being agreed on there is whether Kant, Hegel, Heidegger et al are worth bothering with. Your stance if that if one feels they're basically garbage, so that one disagrees with you that they're worthwhile spending time on, one needs to go back and try harder.