He's a simpering, disingenuous poser whose stock-and-trade is poor philosophical reasoning peddled in a manner that is nonetheless digestible to those unwilling or unable to understand a more formalized approach. He asserts rather than argues, and in so doing betrays his intellectual poverty.
More often than not I find myself in agreement with his positions. But he is right not so much for the wrong reasons, but for reasons he is unable to explain. He sucks, and as with most public "intellectuals" should be largely ignored.
Do you listen to much of him? I can see how you can form an opinion like this from a surface-level perspective.
He sometimes simpers, yeah.. seems mostly inconsequential.. Disingenuous, .. I wouldn't say that. I'd say he attempts to reach as broad an audience as possible, given the importance of these ideas and the likelihood many of them wouldn't otherwise be able to digest them he may come across as talking down to his audience..
I need proof for "disingenuous" and "poor philosophical reasoning". Admittedly, I am not well-educated. I simply find these ideas intriguing and learn a lot from listening to him.
Hi tree_. I'm not trying to piss in your cornflakes; Harris' style just grates on me and I'm likely being unnecessarily harsh.
I have listened to him, but I don't very often because, like I said, his style grates on me. Harris is considered kind of a joke amongst professional philosophers precisely for those reasons mentioned above. Here's a reddit thread that summarizes some of the objections to Harris. Here's another one.
Attempting to reach as "broad an audience as possible" is not costless, and the price Sam - and his audience - pays is depth of philosophical understanding.
If you're interested in this kind of stuff I would recommend picking up some kind of primer on the history and epistemology of philosophy.
He's a simpering, disingenuous poser whose stock-and-trade is poor philosophical reasoning peddled in a manner that is nonetheless digestible to those unwilling or unable to understand a more formalized approach. He asserts rather than argues, and in so doing betrays his intellectual poverty.
More often than not I find myself in agreement with his positions. But he is right not so much for the wrong reasons, but for reasons he is unable to explain. He sucks, and as with most public "intellectuals" should be largely ignored.
Do you listen to much of him? I can see how you can form an opinion like this from a surface-level perspective.
He sometimes simpers, yeah.. seems mostly inconsequential.. Disingenuous, .. I wouldn't say that. I'd say he attempts to reach as broad an audience as possible, given the importance of these ideas and the likelihood many of them wouldn't otherwise be able to digest them he may come across as talking down to his audience..
I need proof for "disingenuous" and "poor philosophical reasoning". Admittedly, I am not well-educated. I simply find these ideas intriguing and learn a lot from listening to him.
Hi tree_. I'm not trying to piss in your cornflakes; Harris' style just grates on me and I'm likely being unnecessarily harsh.
I have listened to him, but I don't very often because, like I said, his style grates on me. Harris is considered kind of a joke amongst professional philosophers precisely for those reasons mentioned above. Here's a reddit thread that summarizes some of the objections to Harris. Here's another one.
Attempting to reach as "broad an audience as possible" is not costless, and the price Sam - and his audience - pays is depth of philosophical understanding.
If you're interested in this kind of stuff I would recommend picking up some kind of primer on the history and epistemology of philosophy.
Thanks for the explanations and recommendations. Things such as this (from reddit) are somewhat revealing:
He basically admits he's not actually interested in moral philosophy. In a footnote in his Moral Landscape book he writes:
Many of my critics fault me for not engaging more directly with the academic literature on moral philosophy ... [but] I am convinced that every appearance of terms like ‘metaethics,’ ‘deontology,’ ‘noncognitivism,’ ‘antirealism,’ ‘emotivism,’ etc. directly increases the amount of boredom in the universe.
It's weird that he thinks metaethics is boring since his book is a work of metaethics.
I guess my problem is that I have a pretty simple mind and get bored easily. I actually find his style appealing/entertaining. If I'm learning less than optimal reasoning techniques and philosophical understanding, at least I'm enhancing my simple vocabulary a bit (I learned ontological yesterday!) while being entertained and debating ideas in my mind I wouldn't otherwise consider.
I can't read books like that. I just can't. If you have a similar but better public thinker on youtube to recommend, I'd appreciate that.
look, ---, I get it. You're smart, I'm dumb. You don't have to rub it in.
I'm not rubbing anything in.
You asked for proof, I outlined that a lot of that proof requires a general understanding of philosophy, and gave you a book recommendation for where to start developing precisely that understanding. You asked for a YouTube video instead.
look, ---, I get it. You're smart, I'm dumb. You don't have to rub it in.
I'm not rubbing anything in.
You asked for proof, I outlined that a lot of that proof requires a general understanding of philosophy, and gave you a book recommendation for where to start developing precisely that understanding. You asked for a YouTube video instead.
Yeah, because I actually learn from hearing people speak and debate and struggle to retain information quite a bit from reading large, complicated texts. YouTube is accessible at work and free. Its content isn't inherently stupid.
It seemed to me your 'jfc' comment, remembering to read that book and saying I could figure out if audiobooks were available were jabs at my ignorance/stupidity. If you have some form of audio to recommend, I would appreciate it.
tree_ wrote:Yeah, because I actually learn from hearing people speak and debate and struggle to retain information quite a bit from reading large, complicated texts. YouTube is accessible at work and free. Its content isn't inherently stupid.
It seemed to me your 'jfc' comment, remembering to read that book and saying I could figure out if audiobooks were available were jabs at my ignorance/stupidity. If you have some form of audio to recommend, I would appreciate it.
YouTube is fine as a supplementary resource, but insufficient as a primary one.
The "jfc" was a jab at your unwillingness to do some of the work necessary to develop a fuller understanding of the aforementioned criticisms, an understanding that in the prior post you expressed an interest in developing.
If you really want to find some audiobooks...again, I'm confident you can navigate Amazon's website to find audio versions of either the book to which I linked or one like it. Or go check your library's website to see if you can find something there. I'm not going to do all of the work for you.
