Okay, there's some wriggle room there... but it's still a curious idea that there would be a consensus about something being overrated.
"and probably most people would agree with me about one of them—in each case"... So in what sense are these books overrated?https://twitter.com/prospect_uk/status/892419656455081984 …
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That's the problem with philosophers. They just don't think very well.
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Breaking the Spell is actually a fairly bad book... I'd say it was certainly overrated by atheists.
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Yes. Actually a great interview - the epistemic chaos - but pity they brought him back to the four horsemen stuff, not his finest hour.
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Okay, because I didn't spell this out... It's odd to say most people agree that the book you think is the most overrated is overrated.
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Odd because usually something that is overrated isn't thought by most people to be overrated (because it wouldn't be overrated if it were!).
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I'm aware there is wriggle room here, but it's going to amount to the claim that x is overrated by those who rate it, and there are a lot...
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of those people. Well yes, but we're talking here about the *most* overrated books, and it remains implausible to suppose that the *most*...
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overrated books are thought by a majority to be overrated. What about bloody Harry Potter, for example!?
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Mainly, though, I'm not being entirely serious! This is Twitter. I'm only very very rarely being entirely serious. The end.
#deepbreath
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I'll go out on a limb and guess one is the Bible.
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Yes, it's the Bible and the Koran.
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I suspected the Koran. I suppose if everyone read one or t'other, and all reading one thought the other was over-rated, it would be true.
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That's the wriggle room. But if it ends up that a majority of people think both are overrated - then again, it's a curious formulation.
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Are you trying to prove that philosophers also don't read very well? Because that's clearly not what Dennett implied.
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About what are you talking, Sven?
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He implied that followers of each religion would glorify one book and dismiss the other - thus "agreeing" with him on one.
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It's broader. He means *non-Muslims* ("most people", not just Xians) would think Koran overrated; and *non-Xians* ("most people")...
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each book is overrated by one very large group and dismissed as overrated by another very large group
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Right, that's the wriggle room. But there are presumably books that will be overrated by many, but not dismissed as overrated by many...
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Yes, though if the overrating is specific to a social group, then it wouldn't be surprising if it's balanced by dismissal among other groups
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Right, wriggle room, but formulation still runs into the problem there are presumably other books, overrated, but not balanced by dismissal.
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not sure that dismissal by one group cancels out overrating by another; the overrating still exists, has bad effects &c
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