Should we say that philosophy was just the proto-form of those fields? — MSC

I tend to think this is how it's gone historically, though I'm lazy about the idea. In olden times, thinking about stuff was philosophy. Once you get the ideas cleaned up enough to start doing real research, you spawn off a science. There's no more "natural philosophy" like there was up until shockingly recently; now there's the physical sciences. We don't need Hume to do psychology for us anymore; we have actual psychologists. There was a brief period in the mid-20th when English-speaking philosophy was dominated by the "ordinary language" school, which more or less disappeared over night; it didn't disappear -- the work of Austin and Grice was a solid enough start on actual science that the entire field decamped to linguistics departments and renamed itself "pragmatics" to be studied alongside phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. A linguistics major is far more likely to be able to recite Grice's maxims (it was on the midterm!) than a philosophy major.

you made the guy who saved up enough money, purchased an item, read the instructions, and otherwise acts as a patient individual who knows the value of planning and research at first- into an arrogant, petulant, and unrealistically petty child- for no reason other than to do so. While the other man is for some reason valiantly humble and infinitely resourceful. — Outlander

I mostly agree and said as much -- it's what I called the resentment at the story level -- but there is still something to it, and the story is supposed to be about buying. People who don't have resources to hand have a motivation to be "resourceful". People who can buy what they like are privileged, and feeling privileged can readily lead to feeling entitled.

Before answering, the reason I consider the story a "random, ridiculous example" is because you made the guy who saved up enough money, purchased an item, read the instructions, and otherwise acts as a patient individual who knows the value of planning and research at first- into an arrogant, petulant, and unrealistically petty child- for no reason other than to do so. While the other man is for some reason valiantly humble and infinitely resourceful. These facts are what will effect the answer to the above questions. — Outlander

Now I hadn't thought about this at first, however now that I am thinking about it, if anything this makes the character more realistic, not less. Maturity in one area of life does not mean we can be mature in others.

I do agree that up until this point I've been rather unfair in my perspective of my own character. Ultimately the character is human though. I happen to know of a number individuals who are mature in the same way as the character and immature in the same way. Some of the nicest people I know become absolute bastards when competition rears its head. This does make me feel more sympathy for my character, when the build up to the story matches what you described, financial maturity, patience, etc...

However, this isn't the only reason the character may have had enough money to make the purchase. They may be a thief, they may be living off of parents money, they may be living off money earned in an ethically questionable way. They may have just been given a gift card with enough value to make the purchase.

None of this suggests that the person cannot possibly be the type of person who loses their head and their sense of self during competition.

By determining for us the purchaser of the javelin cares little about the art itself (distance throwing) and more about success over other people for purposes of patronizing his own ego- it casts him as the "lesser" or "less legitimate" person. Aside from the fact distance throwing is based on little more than physical strength, which is inexplicably linked to physical size/genetics. Not to say someone larger than yourself who just sits around all day will always be stronger than someone of smaller size who trains constantly with maximum effort- a smaller person can use leverage to topple a larger person who doesn't know what they're doing, but if that larger person uses the same tactic, that smaller person will likely get very hurt very quickly. Just how it is. In short, hurrah for firearms- the great equalizer! — Outlander

I'll do now what you did, how the maker character is portrayed doesn't mean he is the greater or the more legitimate than the buyer. He could be too lazy to get a job, he might have used wood from a tree that was on private property, the particular species of tree may have been endangered and/or the very last of its kind.

I hope that the higher power is watching over me
'Cause we young people don't see faith like most the older see
If he or she is listenin', a mere sign can spark me
But if the laws in the bible are bogus, then prepare for anarchy
Worst case scenario is never ever was a higher power
So in the midst of chaos now, the only real savior is fire power

- Tech N9ne, Higher power

Thought I'd put this here. That last line about firearms made me remember it and I think you'd enjoy the song and the artist it is from.

Will respond more to you and others soon. I have chores to do that I've neglected. STOP REPLYING WITH SUCH INTERESTING POINTS! MY CAR IS FILTHY! :')

Pfhorrest I think you have some skin in the game here. Would you view something like the field of linguistics, mathematics or ethics as something that was created, or discovered, by philosophy? — MSC

I think the historical way to think about it is that philosophy divided, like a cell undergoing mitosis, rather than a human giving live birth. These other fields used to be considered part of philosophy, as almost everything did, until they developed enough to split off and become their own things. What we call philosophy today is what’s left after all those other fields split off, and their subjects still overlap at the fringes, but there are things within each offshoot that are clearly not philosophical now, and things within philosophy that clearly have nothing to do with that offshoot (but maybe have much to do with another).

You might think of philosophy as like a stem cell, as yet undifferentiated into any more specialized cell, while those other cells that split off from it have all become more specialized.

I think the historical way to think about it is that philosophy divided, like a cell undergoing mitosis, rather than a human giving live birth. These other fields used to be considered part of philosophy, as almost everything did, until they developed enough to split off and become their own things. What we call philosophy today is what’s left after all those other fields split off, and their subjects still overlap at the fringes, but there are things within each offshoot that are clearly not philosophical now, and things within philosophy that clearly have nothing to do with that offshoot (but maybe have much to do with another).

You might think of philosophy as like a stem cell, as yet undifferentiated into any more specialized cell, while those other cells that split off from it have all become more specialized. — Pfhorrest

That's a great way to put it. Thank you for writing that! Helps put things into perspective and context.

I mostly agree and said as much -- it's what I called the resentment at the story level -- but there is still something to it, and the story is supposed to be about buying. People who don't have resources to hand have a motivation to be "resourceful". People who can buy what they like are privileged, and feeling privileged can readily lead to feeling entitled. — Srap Tasmaner

I would say that having confusing and irrational seeming flaws and behaviours is what makes the character believable. It's easily verifiable that individuals who are strong in some areas are weaker in others. That's just human nature. It's true of me, it's true of you, it's true of everyone. Hell, I consider myself to have good sportsmanship but a boxing match with one or two of my past tormenters may see that fly out the window.

All I really read from that particular criticism when made by @Outlander was "Why didn't you make your character perfect?" Because then there would have been no moral, no realism, no humanity, no real story. It would have just ended up being a story about a perfect sage who buys a Javelin and has a good time with a new friend who can throw further than the sage can. Where is the moral? Might as well ask why JK didn't just make Voldemort a nice person and save Harry Potter all that time almost being killed while he was at school.

Admittedly my buyer character is not Voldemort but no one in my story is described as a good or a bad person. Their day is just described. One day out of thousands of possible days to have either a good or a bad one.

Don't get me wrong, I'm of the opinion that you can tell a lot about an author from their writing. However, you can also tell a lot about other people by how they react to a piece of writing. Which means you need to be careful you're not projecting your own emotions onto an author. They might very well be there, but why are certain criticisms only able to be made by certain people?

A linguistics major is far more likely to be able to recite Grice's maxims (it was on the midterm!) than a philosophy major. — Srap Tasmaner

Is that what you majored in? Linguistics. Just asking out of personal curiousity. You won't paint yourself as "the evil academic elite" to me, just because I am a highschool drop out. I'll maybe do that another day, maybe when I have a really bad one haha

Thought you also might like this related picture:

What would you say if I told you that the Javelin represents philosophy? — MSC

That's the first thing that popped into my head... But then again, I wouldn't say that I've thrown the javelin farther than anyone.

I'd give a fortune(in knowledge, cuz I'm broke) here to anyone who can guess what it is I really resent the most, based on this short story. — MSC

You mean the fancy, and ultimately useless collapsible javelin used dogmatically as a metaphor for formal academic philosophy à la AP? And the hand-made javelins that end up being more useful code for the self-made individual philosophies, pragmatic, in a whatever-works kind of way?

Edit: assuming the above hypothesis is correct, let me see where it leads, in terms of resentment.

In the metaphor, the fancy javelin buyer / academic philosopher has good reasons to be pissed, because the amateur casually picked and threw his fancy javelin much further afield than him. While the gifted amateur has no good reason to be pissed, because what, he met an angry entitled idiot? C'est la vie!

So if you indeed identify with the gifted amateur, and if the whole metaphor works, I don't see why you should feel resentful; instead the academic guy should feel resentful, like in the story...

So there's something that the story doesn't say. Some secret envy of the amateur for the fancy javelin, for instance... Or his desire to be recognized by the academic javelin thrower as tallented.

Further reflections: I know I'm really going on a limb here but what's the worse that could happen? I could look like a fool? Already done. :-)

So then, why the title of the thread? The Bias of Buying. What is our friend MSC trying to tell us here? Maybe that the act of buying in a particular strand of philosophy, however fancy, the very act of adhering to it and investing in it leads to the death of our philosophical pursuit, now hanged like a fancy javelin on the wall, shown up to our friends, but never actually used to do any real throwing, any projection, any philosophy... Because we're afraid to break it.

Whereas a more opportunistic user of whatever philosophy he finds good can get some results, the picky, proprietary defender of one tradition never actually produces anything new with it. He just tries and protect or show off his tool. That's the bias of buying.