The lazy answer is probably “whatever it is that philosophy grad students do.” I honestly think this might be a good question for a zoom call with a bunch of PhD philosophy students.
That’s a reasonable starting point and probably somewhere to look. But I’ve been a philosophy graduate student and I don’t think most of what I did made me any better at philosophy.
Among other issues, my experience with philosophy graduate education is that philosophers almost exclusively spoke to one another and read works of philosophy. This risks developing a narrow and insular conception not only of philosophy but, given the ubiquitous reliance on intuitions, on what “commonsense” is like.
Philosophers will declare something as “obvious” or “intuitive” with little regard for who it is supposed to be obvious or intuitive to; the implicit presumption is that it’d be obvious or intuitive to everyone, or anyone who is thinking correctly, and so on, but little serious consideration is given to the possibility that one’s intuitions may be idiosyncratic and not probative of the world so much as how the individual with the intuition is disposed to think about the world.
In short, a lot of philosophy strikes me as bad psychology, with a sample size of one (yourself) or a handful of idiosyncratic people whose views aren’t even independent of one another because they’re in the same graduate program and all talk to and influence each other.
I’m curious about how one would know one has become better at philosophy? For other skills, our reference point is either an objective metric, or the regard of our colleagues. But for philosophy, there’s no metric, and it sounds like you’re saying that the regard of one’s colleagues is not a very useful signal either. After all, you’re claiming that studying philosophy made you no better at the subject, and seem to be characterizing your experience as typical.
Anyway, this seems like the key problem. How can you know how to improve unless you have a way to define improvement? And yet philosophy resists such a definition perhaps more than anything else. Except in the sense of “being familiar with more and more works that are deemed to be important works of philosophy.” That seems like a place to start.
To some extent, I know I’ve gotten better at philosophy simply by finding that my beliefs have changed, and my new justifications clearly seem much better-grounded than my old. This doesn’t work as a general tool (obviously it overly praises those who come to strong convictions, since they will rate their new beliefs extremely favorably), but it’s far more than nothing.
It seems to me that the regard of colleagues would, actually, be a useful signal as well (even if problematic for similar reasons).
However, I’m far more fond of mathematical philosophy, where it is easier to see whether you’ve accomplished something (have you proven a strong theorem? have you codified useful mathematical structures which capture something important? these are subjective questions, but, less so).
It sounds like you have a pragmatic perspective. By synthesizing several perspectives on philosophical improvement, you can find a more robust measure of your skill. All our suggestions so far might be more powerful in combination. We might measure exposure and command of philosophical texts; an increase in self-perception of having a well-grounded perspective over time; an increase in the regard and, perhaps, status of one’s colleagues; and the provable aspects of one’s output. In combination, these seem like a reasonable aggregate measure of improvement.
It would therefore be interesting to know which of these metrics was not showing improvement in Lance’s grad program. Were the other students failing to achieve influence? Not building a command of previous literature? Perceiving themselves as ever-more-befuddled as they studied more? Working on unprovable problems, or failing to find proofs?
Among other issues, my experience with philosophy graduate education is that philosophers almost exclusively spoke to one another and read works of philosophy. This risks developing a narrow and insular conception not only of philosophy but, given the ubiquitous reliance on intuitions, on what “commonsense” is like.
Small, out-of-the-mainstresm bubbles like Rationalism and Objectivism have the same problem, but worse. If the problem is insularity, you can’t fix it with more insularity.
If philosophers would be a bit less shy about their reliance on intuition, perhaps they could openly admit that they are relying on their own personal intuition without projecting it on anyone else. There’s nothing shameful about analyzing one’s personal intuitions, for one’s own benefit and for the benefit of others. For example, I am happy to read someone like Russel or Descartes examining their own intuitions. Someone’s intuitions can be interesting, and can be a source of insight!
But philosophers seem to have a pretty strong tendency to try and sound more authoritative, stating something as a generally-shared intuition.
True, but I perceive room for them to be even less shy, and I stand by my earlier speculation. (I’ve read enough philosophy to know what Lance Bush was pointing at.)
The lazy answer is probably “whatever it is that philosophy grad students do.” I honestly think this might be a good question for a zoom call with a bunch of PhD philosophy students.
That’s a reasonable starting point and probably somewhere to look. But I’ve been a philosophy graduate student and I don’t think most of what I did made me any better at philosophy.
Among other issues, my experience with philosophy graduate education is that philosophers almost exclusively spoke to one another and read works of philosophy. This risks developing a narrow and insular conception not only of philosophy but, given the ubiquitous reliance on intuitions, on what “commonsense” is like.
Philosophers will declare something as “obvious” or “intuitive” with little regard for who it is supposed to be obvious or intuitive to; the implicit presumption is that it’d be obvious or intuitive to everyone, or anyone who is thinking correctly, and so on, but little serious consideration is given to the possibility that one’s intuitions may be idiosyncratic and not probative of the world so much as how the individual with the intuition is disposed to think about the world.
In short, a lot of philosophy strikes me as bad psychology, with a sample size of one (yourself) or a handful of idiosyncratic people whose views aren’t even independent of one another because they’re in the same graduate program and all talk to and influence each other.
I’m curious about how one would know one has become better at philosophy? For other skills, our reference point is either an objective metric, or the regard of our colleagues. But for philosophy, there’s no metric, and it sounds like you’re saying that the regard of one’s colleagues is not a very useful signal either. After all, you’re claiming that studying philosophy made you no better at the subject, and seem to be characterizing your experience as typical.
Anyway, this seems like the key problem. How can you know how to improve unless you have a way to define improvement? And yet philosophy resists such a definition perhaps more than anything else. Except in the sense of “being familiar with more and more works that are deemed to be important works of philosophy.” That seems like a place to start.
To some extent, I know I’ve gotten better at philosophy simply by finding that my beliefs have changed, and my new justifications clearly seem much better-grounded than my old. This doesn’t work as a general tool (obviously it overly praises those who come to strong convictions, since they will rate their new beliefs extremely favorably), but it’s far more than nothing.
It seems to me that the regard of colleagues would, actually, be a useful signal as well (even if problematic for similar reasons).
However, I’m far more fond of mathematical philosophy, where it is easier to see whether you’ve accomplished something (have you proven a strong theorem? have you codified useful mathematical structures which capture something important? these are subjective questions, but, less so).
It sounds like you have a pragmatic perspective. By synthesizing several perspectives on philosophical improvement, you can find a more robust measure of your skill. All our suggestions so far might be more powerful in combination. We might measure exposure and command of philosophical texts; an increase in self-perception of having a well-grounded perspective over time; an increase in the regard and, perhaps, status of one’s colleagues; and the provable aspects of one’s output. In combination, these seem like a reasonable aggregate measure of improvement.
It would therefore be interesting to know which of these metrics was not showing improvement in Lance’s grad program. Were the other students failing to achieve influence? Not building a command of previous literature? Perceiving themselves as ever-more-befuddled as they studied more? Working on unprovable problems, or failing to find proofs?
Small, out-of-the-mainstresm bubbles like Rationalism and Objectivism have the same problem, but worse. If the problem is insularity, you can’t fix it with more insularity.
If philosophers would be a bit less shy about their reliance on intuition, perhaps they could openly admit that they are relying on their own personal intuition without projecting it on anyone else. There’s nothing shameful about analyzing one’s personal intuitions, for one’s own benefit and for the benefit of others. For example, I am happy to read someone like Russel or Descartes examining their own intuitions. Someone’s intuitions can be interesting, and can be a source of insight!
But philosophers seem to have a pretty strong tendency to try and sound more authoritative, stating something as a generally-shared intuition.
Philosophers are so un-shy about their use of intuitions that they write books and articles about the subject. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intuition/
You know who’s actually shy about their use of intuitions...?
True, but I perceive room for them to be even less shy, and I stand by my earlier speculation. (I’ve read enough philosophy to know what Lance Bush was pointing at.)
You know who’s actually shy about their use of intuitions...? People who are in denial about it.