• _db
    3.6k
    When you do philosophy, what are some of the things you find yourself weak at doing? I will start.

    1.) I have a very low tolerance for fancy-language bullshit. Can't stand that Latin crap, it seems so unnecessary. Unfortunately, this turns off my motivation to read things that might have been a good read.

    2.) When I don't understand something, I can't just nudge it off like it's no big deal. Because it's not like a natural science where just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't right. In philosophy, you have to understand the arguments. So I will spend far more time on things than might be necessary to try to make sure I understand something.

    3.) I frequently confuse my obsessive compulsive disorder for philosophy. That's my biggest problem.

    4.) I get overly-ambitious regarding understanding a certain topic of philosophy, only to be drained and disappointed later on down the road when it still doesn't make any sense (like #2).

    5.) I tend to not read original documents, although this is beginning to change. I'm developing my patience more. But I used to be almost exclusively SEP or similar.
  • ssu
    8.7k
    1.) I have a very low tolerance for fancy-language bullshit.darthbarracuda
    This is a problem for me too.

    I think this a quite universal problem in academic circles, where a certain specific language is used, starting from abbreviations and technical jargons etc. basically to limit the possibility to "non-specialists" to participate in the debate. The objective is to make an own area where certain researchers are the "professionals", that their research topic or area of academic study is owned by a certain group that uses certain language.

    In Economics it's math. Yet behind all that advanced fancy math equations are basically simple ideas about how the economy works, that could be well written in plain English. But that plain written ideas then could open critique from others that do understand economics, but aren't expert mathematicians. If an economist doesn't use math, then he or she is a light-weight and not a serious economist. As another example, one historian wrote a book and made the effort to open all the terms and make the text as understandable as possible that even a layman could understand the ideas. She was scolded and simply told that her text wasn't academic, which made her really furious.

    In a similar way Philosophy uses certain "slang". You mentioned latin, I remember quite well Heidegger. When a lecturer at the university started that these terms cannot be understood properly in other language than German, and hence you have to refer to dasein even if you otherwise English (or in my case Finnish), I really started to loose interest in Heidegger. If the philosophical insight and idea isn't possible to translate, to put into other words, then there's a really a problem with the idea itself. Naturally one can refer to dasein for ease, and people simply do use jargon to ease the discussion, but it should be something that ought to possible to open in other ways. And the jargon never should be used to limit the discussion.
  • _db
    3.6k
    Completely agree.
  • The Great Whatever
    2.2k
    I'm right too often, and I think that intimidates people.
  • _db
    3.6k


    Smartasses tend to be dumbasses in disguise.

    I'm sorry that was uncalled for.
  • The Great Whatever
    2.2k
    It's okay. I'm so smart and magnanimous that any time someone insults me I immediately intuit the psychological shortcoming that caused them to do so and forgive it.
  • Agustino
    11.2k
    It's okay. I'm so smart and magnanimous that any time someone insults me I immediately intuit the psychological shortcoming that caused them to do so and forgive it.The Great Whatever

    Man, and they say I'm arrogant. This is beyond arrogance, this is a pathological case already...
  • Michael
    15.7k
    Next he'll claim to have some sort of official seal of awesomeness. How arrogant would that be?
  • Soylent
    188
    This is an interesting exercise because it seems to be asking us to identify our own biases, which might be hindered by the blind spot bias.

    On the language issue, I am tolerant of "fancy" words in the interests of being concise, and wordiness is more of a distraction for me than obscure words. I often question whether rambling arguments are trying to hide a weakness by repeating points or adding lots of irrelevant information.

    Age (and/or my health) has given my thoughts a particular cloudiness that makes it difficult for me to discern if I have a worthwhile thought. I recall a time when I had a distinct sharpness to my thinking, which is no longer present. Luckily, the condition itself also makes it difficult for me to discern whether this is a actually a problem.

    I tend to stay within the sub-discipline of ethics and I have a tendency to import optimism and idealistic outcomes into my moral thinking. I have a healthy amount of cynicism (in the contemporary meaning and not referring to the philosophy of the Cynics) and would categorize myself as a misanthrope, but on occasion I still get accused of being too idealistic.
  • Pneumenon
    469
    It's okay. I'm so smart and magnanimous that any time someone insults me I immediately intuit the psychological shortcoming that caused them to do so and forgive itThe Great Whatever

    I can't tell if you're making fun of yourself or everyone else. :/
  • Ciceronianus
    3k
    I just don't know what the hell it's supposed to be. "What is philosophy?" (Quid est philosophia) said jesting Ciceronianus.
  • _db
    3.6k
    It's easy to identify philosophy, but impossible to describe it.
  • shmik
    207
    • I find new books more attractive than something that I'm part way through reading, so I often don't finish books.
    • I'm not thorough enough to go into the nitty-gritty and will often move on once I've got a general grasp of a philosophers ideas.
    • I get bored when reading some philosophers (especially analytic phils). For example I can get through about 5 pages of Searle before I doze off. I like a lot Nagel's ideas but I can't force myself to read him. There's something about flowery language that I'm used to, or just having to work a bit to understand the sentences. Part of this isn't a weakness as I think that style is important when it comes to enjoying philosophy.
    • I forget whole books of philosophy. If I read the book more than 6 months ago it's likely that I can only remember a couple dot points about it.
    • I have a constant pull push relationship with nihilism.
    • I find TGWs comments in this thread hilarious.
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