The Philosopher’s New Clothes

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quantropy
Posts: 131
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The Philosopher’s New Clothes

Postby quantropy » Sun Jun 24, 2018 5:38 am

Why I looked at this book
I'm interested in whether there are any books discussing whether philosophy is deliberately wordy and hard to follow, when one could envisage philosophical points being made in a more modern way. I didn't find anything along those lines, but I did find this book.It looks like it discusses how philosophers delight in being eccentric, which I thought might make a good start.

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quantropy
Posts: 131
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 10:38 am

Re: The Philosopher’s New Clothes

Postby quantropy » Fri Jun 29, 2018 8:54 am

First Impressions
What does a philosopher do? Think about things? Well anyone can do that. But how do real philosophers distinguish themselves from the armchair kind. It seems that they have two choices. One is to be part of an institution, to claim just to teach philosophy. The other is to emphasis your difference from the rest of humanity, thus the philosopher is seen as an eccentric. But might the eccentricity overshadow the philosophy?

From what I've seen of the book so far, I'm hopeful that it will discuss why philosophers can be deliberately hard to follow. I'm a bit worried that not being familiar with the works of Plato might cause problems in reading the book, but it does seem that there is always enough material cited to be able to follow the arguments.


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