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Philosophers - have you observed that academics in other disciplines tend to have negative attitudes toward philosophy and philosophers? If so, why do you think that might be? I find myself continually encountering academics in varied disciplines who exhibit this attitude.

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I'm not an academic, but for a long time I wanted to go into philosophy, figured that's where people went to get good at thinking. Then I started meeting people who studied philosophy and found them to be bad at thinking, much worse than many non-philosophy ppl I knew.

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At this point I have a pretty low opinion of academic philosophy, and when someone says they're a philosophy academic I am less likely to want to engage with them, because I tend to find discussing philosophy with them actively unpleasant.

4:27 PM · Feb 16, 2022

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I understand how a person might form that perspective and share some of it - I left academic philosophy largely because of philosophers (also because of culture within academia more widely). Still love philosophy though.

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Academic philosophy is a broad and varied field; not sure which parts you've already been exposed too, but you might find it pleasant to poke around a bit more to see what else is there.

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It’s like trying to discuss classical music with someone who went through a theory PhD program. Almost guaranteed bad experience!

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There are some perfectly reasonable interesting philosophers right here on twitter and they are not even using obtuse language when talking to each other or non philosophers.

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Would you mind expanding on this? Is it unpleasant because you find that they make serious philosophical mistakes or because they engage with philosophy in an annoying/pedantic way?