Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49310506

Points: 10

# Comments: 1

Oh, the irony. If you look at the rest of the comments in this thread you will find people insisting that the Austrian School is economics, not philosophy.

And this is exactly the problem. Philosophy is whatever other self-styled philosophers say it is, and that authority ultimately can be traced back to the people writing the checks. Yarvin is able to do what he does in no small measure because he has (or at least had) Peter Thiel as a patron. In 50-100 years, if the Republicans win the next election, Yarvin will be taught alongside Trump and Vance as being among the brilliant thinkers who threw off the yoke of woke and ushered in the new era of enlightenment.

It's ultimately all about money and power, not truth.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49283344

Points: 57

# Comments: 7

Why do you think I needed to? The phrase "a lot" has an established meaning in the English language.

> or mention which topics in philosophy you think are legitimate

That's true. I was writing an HN comment, not a review paper for submission to a peer-review journal. But it doesn't take a lot of imagination to notice that my comment was made in the context of a discussion of an article entitled "Silicon Valley misreads science fiction and undermines democracy" and to infer from that I was referring to philosophical topics popular among silicon valley tech bros. The specific topics I had in mind are mainly political and economic theories, which not everyone considers philosophy. But I'll point as an undeniable example the work of Curtis Yarvin a.k.a. Mencius Moldbug who, rather incredibly, attracts a huge audience by advocating for the divine right of kings, among other absurdities.

That's actually not a bad analogy, except for the tacit implication that RFK is a crackpot and not worthy of serious consideration. I, of course, agree with that. However, the sad fact of the matter is that RFK is the United States Secretary of Health and Human Servivces. He was appointed to that position by a democratically elected President and confirmed by a democratically elected Senate (or at least as close to democratically elected as it gets in the USA). So dismissing RFK as a crackpot is a no-true-scotsman fallacy. Like it or not, RFK is part of the biology establishment. In fact, he is one of the principal leaders of the biological establishment. The only difference between RFK and philosophers is that RFK is a recent and, hopefully, temporary aberration, whereas philosophy is shot through-and-through with RFKs and has been for thousands of years.

"Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum;[c] February 2 [O.S. January 20], 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (/aɪn/ ⓘ), was a Russian and American writer and philosopher.[3] She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which she named Objectivism."

I can cite a lot of bullshit in academic philosophy, but so what? There's a lot of bullshit in academia in general. There is bullshit in physics (string theory). There is bullshit in chemistry (James Tour). There is bullshit in botany (John Sanford). There is bullshit everywhere. If you really want an example from academic philosophy, I'll give you John Searle and the Chinese Room.

You obviously haven't read Murray Rothbard.

Wow, I didn't expect to be vindicated quite so definitively when I predicted: "The most likely outcome of that exercise would be for you to invoke the no-true-scotsman fallacy."

> That's no a No True Scotsman fallacy.

It absolutely is:

> the definition of philosophy, a deep analysis of certain specific topics.

I see nothing in that definition about writing in a particular time period or having a university degree, which are the two features you cited that allegedly disqualify Ayn Rand. I also see an awful lot of wiggle-room in the "specific topics" and how one measures whether one's analysis is sufficiently "deep". You exclude economics and computer science from your list of "certain topics" but you don't say what topics are allowed or on what basis this assessment of admissibility is to be made. Your argument is a paragon of muddled thinking, and does more to support my position than refute it.

If you really want my list, since this is HN, I'll start with Ayn Rand and the Austrian school. You can read this if you like:

https://blog.rongarret.info/2013/03/murray-rothbard-was-idio...

Oh, and since this is HN, I'll also invoke an argument from authority and cite:

https://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html

There are definitely some non-BS philosophers, like Dan Dennett and Tim Maudlin. But really they are more like scientists than philosophers. In Maudlin's case, he's really a physicist, he just happens to work in a philosophy department.