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Just me or is philosophy actually a complete shitshow? When I was younger I really wanted to major in philosophy because I thought it was "learning to think real good about abstract stuff", but eventually found out it was "quoting other famous people's stuff at each other"

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I’ve only read a bit but some name-dropping happens because other people have had the same thoughts and arguments hundreds of years ago

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but that's not the point, like the point is to talk with the *other person* about how *they personally* relate to it, doesn't matter if old people hashed it out.

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If old people hashed it out, then you listen to whichever one you think makes sense. Either you don’t understand philosophy well or I’m not understanding your problem with it.

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Why would you listen to them, though? They obviously did a ton of thinking, but I assumed the point of philosophy is for *you* to do all that thinking, independently, and then notice if you happen to agree with them or not. I used to think people read philosophers to assess-

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how solid they were and then debate them endlessly and then throw out the philosophers that didn't hold up. Most philosophy-trained people don't seem to actually be approaching texts with a critical, destructive eye.

6:19 AM · Oct 18, 2019

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How many people doing philosophy have you spoken to? I see the destructive eye almost always. It seems like when they quote another philosopher they're acting as a curator - and effectively giving citations.

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The "point" of philosophy is a debate of its own. Progress isn't really made, which is why men who've been dead 200 years still have answers to the unplumbable queries we grapple with. Tho admittedly, for someone not in the field, the name dropping is obnoxious.

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It's woefully common for students of philosophy to be coaxed into studying the history of philosophy instead.