(1) It’s surprising to me that you bring up analytic philosophy as a better parallel. Writing in agent foundations / LessWrong feels very different to me than analytic philosophy!
Analytic philosophy works within a well established and rigorous taxonomy of terms / concepts, as evidenced by, e.g., PhilPapers and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The assumptions at the roots of this taxonomy are generally pretty well explored. So even if philosophers are not exactly deducting an entire chain of belief for every paper, we can usually articulate the tradition within which an author operates, and understand the common arguments and axioms.
This is in contrast to continental philosophy, which is often much less explicit about its assumptions, and instead draws on a hodge-podge of different thinkers, ranging from Freud to Hegel, without rigorously examining its own claims. Not all continental philosophy is like this! Alain Badiou, for example, starts from an ontological exploration of reality based on set theory to build up to his theory of politics. But the parallel with continent philosophy is exactly to point out this lack of consistency and this poor habit of leaving assumptions implicit.
If others belief I am being too generous in my treatment of analytic philosophy, I’d be interested to hear why.
(2) I agree with your point that the examples could be improved.
(3) I agree that clean conclusions would be nice, but it seems legitimate as well to simplify identify the problem. I’d also assert that some of the conclusions are implicit in the critique, i.e. be cautious of formalizing an inherently imprecise concept, or don’t treat the “epistemic status” label as permission to advocate for a dubious opinion. Agent foundations has a very hard task set for itself, so I wouldn’t pretend to have the answers for how it can ensure intellectual rigor.
EY has been incredibly productive, so while I’m sure there’s counterpoints like those you cited, The Sequences themselves seem like a clear example of a more verbose writing style (without making an assessment of this as good/bad; maybe it’s fit for purpose! My critique is that this has influenced others to replicate the style when it may not be appropriate).
I guess my main problem with the post is that too many points are implicit/underexplained/have no examples.
be cautious of formalizing an inherently imprecise concept
This is an interesting point, but it felt random in the post. Like you just drop this point, disconnected from the main criticism.
don’t treat the “epistemic status” label as permission to advocate for a dubious opinion
I’m not sure AF researchers do this. Though I understand that calling out specific people would be offensive. Just saying that it’s not an obvious claim.
EY has been incredibly productive, so while I’m sure there’s counterpoints like those you cited, The Sequences themselves seem like a clear example of a more verbose writing style (without making an assessment of this as good/bad; maybe it’s fit for purpose! My critique is that this has influenced others to replicate the style when it may not be appropriate).
Analytic philosophy works within a well established and rigorous taxonomy of terms / concepts, as evidenced by, e.g., PhilPapers and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The assumptions at the roots of this taxonomy are generally pretty well explored. So even if philosophers are not exactly deducting an entire chain of belief for every paper, we can usually articulate the tradition within which an author operates, and understand the common arguments and axioms. This is in contrast to continental philosophy, which is often much less explicit about its assumptions, and instead draws on a hodge-podge of different thinkers, ranging from Freud to Hegel, without rigorously examining its own claims. (...) If others belief I am being too generous in my treatment of analytic philosophy, I’d be interested to hear why.
Definitely you’re either too charitable to analytic philosophy or too uncharitable to AF research. Or have in mind some non-obvious distinction.
In my experience, lots of analytic philosophy starts with thought experiments and non-axiomatic theories, then discusses possible counter-arguments to them (still not establishing any axioms). Sometimes it does infer “axioms” in the context of a specific debate, but anyone is free to disregard them or question their implications (because those “axioms” are not really axioms in some logic). See
Also, I think I haven’t seen an AF researcher who just relies on a hodge-podge of other researcher’s ideas without questioning them… The researchers I listed above don’t do it.
(1) It’s surprising to me that you bring up analytic philosophy as a better parallel. Writing in agent foundations / LessWrong feels very different to me than analytic philosophy!
Analytic philosophy works within a well established and rigorous taxonomy of terms / concepts, as evidenced by, e.g., PhilPapers and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The assumptions at the roots of this taxonomy are generally pretty well explored. So even if philosophers are not exactly deducting an entire chain of belief for every paper, we can usually articulate the tradition within which an author operates, and understand the common arguments and axioms.
This is in contrast to continental philosophy, which is often much less explicit about its assumptions, and instead draws on a hodge-podge of different thinkers, ranging from Freud to Hegel, without rigorously examining its own claims. Not all continental philosophy is like this! Alain Badiou, for example, starts from an ontological exploration of reality based on set theory to build up to his theory of politics. But the parallel with continent philosophy is exactly to point out this lack of consistency and this poor habit of leaving assumptions implicit.
If others belief I am being too generous in my treatment of analytic philosophy, I’d be interested to hear why.
(2) I agree with your point that the examples could be improved.
(3) I agree that clean conclusions would be nice, but it seems legitimate as well to simplify identify the problem. I’d also assert that some of the conclusions are implicit in the critique, i.e. be cautious of formalizing an inherently imprecise concept, or don’t treat the “epistemic status” label as permission to advocate for a dubious opinion. Agent foundations has a very hard task set for itself, so I wouldn’t pretend to have the answers for how it can ensure intellectual rigor.
EY has been incredibly productive, so while I’m sure there’s counterpoints like those you cited, The Sequences themselves seem like a clear example of a more verbose writing style (without making an assessment of this as good/bad; maybe it’s fit for purpose! My critique is that this has influenced others to replicate the style when it may not be appropriate).
I guess my main problem with the post is that too many points are implicit/underexplained/have no examples.
This is an interesting point, but it felt random in the post. Like you just drop this point, disconnected from the main criticism.
I’m not sure AF researchers do this. Though I understand that calling out specific people would be offensive. Just saying that it’s not an obvious claim.
I cited EY’s AF work, because the post is about AF. The Sequences are not really AF work. I’m not sure people do AF work in the style of the Sequences? Examples would be nice. Meanwhile, here’re other counterexamples: ARC (Eliciting Latent Knowledge), Paul Christiano, Vanessa Kosoy, Alex Flint (optimization, accumulation of knowledge), TurnTrout (reframing impact), John Wentworth, Thane Ruthenis, decision theory / Lobian obstacle / logical induction work...
Definitely you’re either too charitable to analytic philosophy or too uncharitable to AF research. Or have in mind some non-obvious distinction.
In my experience, lots of analytic philosophy starts with thought experiments and non-axiomatic theories, then discusses possible counter-arguments to them (still not establishing any axioms). Sometimes it does infer “axioms” in the context of a specific debate, but anyone is free to disregard them or question their implications (because those “axioms” are not really axioms in some logic). See
EP and NEP theories
meaning holism vs. molecularism debate
plenty of underspecified solutions to the Gettier problem
Also, I think I haven’t seen an AF researcher who just relies on a hodge-podge of other researcher’s ideas without questioning them… The researchers I listed above don’t do it.