Topic for discussing:
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Video: Why I’m doing this channel
Why is he making a channel? Says he doesn’t think he’s super great, but he thinks 99% of philosophy channels suck. I liked this.
Says lots of philosophers focus on education about existing ideas instead of thinking and creating new ideas and risking being wrong. I liked this point.
Philosophers he thinks have good integration: Plato, Aristotle, Rand, Kant.
He challenged people to find a clip of someone saying Ayn Rand is a bad philosopher and giving a reason. I think Ayn Rand is a good philosopher, but I do have criticism. I posted some recently at Atlas Shrugged
He believes in objective truth.
He said something about wanting to fight skeptics, mystics and collectivists. I thinking fighting with people is broadly bad. Arguing with them is fine. Criticizing them is fine. But i think it’s a mistake to conceptualize it as fighting with them in an adversarial way. I think the goal of any engagement with them should be cooperative mutual benefit and knowledge creation if they are open to that. They can learn to understand you better, and vice versa. They may be able to take some corrections from you, and you may be able to take some corrections from them if they are willing to discuss or debate with you. I think it’s fine to believe they’re wrong and should change but the change would be for their own benefit and would be by their own voluntary choice, not something you want to coerce them into. I also think it’s also fine if they’re not your audience, and you’re more interested in speaking to people more similar to you, and you aren’t seeking out engagement with skeptics, but I don’t think that is or should be fighting them either even if you speak critically about them. Trying to use reason isn’t fighting. I don’t think this is just a terminology quibble. I think it’s important to emphasize things like the harmony of men’s interests, mutual benefit, consent, voluntary interaction, because a lot of people are tribalists who yell at the out group and have an actual bad, fighting mindset which is too adversarial, biased, closed to discussion, dismissive of different points of view, etc. I think it’s worth clearly differentiating oneself from that in one’s communication and in one’s own mind.
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Video: Is Sam Harris reasonable here? No.
I wrote some criticisms of Sam Harris in 2018:
I don’t think this is accurate. He said those were the greatest in terms of integration, not in terms of good or bad. It’s like Peikoff calling Plato a genius, but I don’t think Peikoff likes Plato.
Peikoff on the ingenuity and integration of Kant’s philosophy.
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Firstly, thanks. I’ve been following you for a few years now and I like your “yes or no” philosophy. You think, you integrate, you give answers and you risk being wrong. In other words, you do philosophy and I appreciate it.
The word “fight” was a little out of place. I often misspeak in my vids. What I meant by “fight” was “oppose”, “criticize” or similar. I definitely don’t view philosophy as a zero-sum game where one interlocutor wins and another loses. This is another thing you are good at: using the precise term and pointing out when a word is not appropriate. I quite liked when you picked apart Deutsch and I agree that he was somewhat equivocating or at least veiling his point or perhaps making it seem grander than it was very often and seemingly for no reason, or perhaps dishonest reasons. And I am honored that you have now done it to me, and I acknowledge that you are right; “fight” is not what I want to do.
Thanks again for the recognition. I look forward to discussing more with you in the future.
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