Every month my patreon donation to you is arguably my most well-spent money. I'm an economist, not a philosopher, but I can't thank you enough. Literally listened to every video. Cheers from Brazil!
I'm so heartened to hear that you started philosophy after high school, I always thought I was disadvantaged because I didn't start really young, but only in the first year of college. Thanks for all the videos you make Kane, a huge inspiration to my own philosophical views.
thank you very much for your videos on multiple identity disorder & others about identity & narrative theory. were more useful to me & helpful that most of the books i read on this subject.
That's quite an inspiring story, you've done well to overcome the anxiety you initially struggled with. I am approaching the end of my Master's now. I feel pretty anxious, mainly as I do not feel I have learned enough through my degree (in PPE) and MA in ethics. I think I've learned more from your channel that I have via the school. But you have inspired me to not let some anxiety hold me back. Perhaps I have to make a TH-cam channel too!
It's great to hear that the channel has been useful! If you do make a channel, I'd be happy to collaborate on something, maybe do a discussion or whatever, if you want. That might drive a few viewers your way.
@@KaneB Thank you very much! I might just do that. Keep making the content, even if it's not so often. I think a lot of people like myself find it very valuable.
As a philosopher of science myself I feel very close to your (more recent) positions. My main influences are a bit different from yours though, I'd name Quine, Putnam and Paul Churchland as providing a lot of food for thought 'back in the days'. This was a very cool video! Cheers!
I've been a subscriber since about 2016, and it's strange to think we've followed pretty similar paths. I decided to pursue philosophy during undergrad, I did a terminal master's, and now I'm doing a PhD. But one area that I really don't overlap with you is that I really don't see myself as having a philosophical development in the sense of changing my views in response to arguments. I mean, I've changed my mind in response to arguments before, and there are views that I used to have which I don't hold anymore. But I don't have an area as you seem to (philosophy of science and epistemology pertaining to phil sci.), or a kind of main personal philosophical storyline. Maybe I could construct one if I reflected on how my views have changed, but it'd feel more third-personal than first-personal, and I'm not sure how coherent it'd be. I didn't have to do a long work at the end of either my undergrad or master's, so maybe that plays into things (as far as I know things are a bit different in the UK in regards to coursework and theses/dissertations, etc. as compared to the US, where I'm at). I'm pretty sure I'll be digging deep into some topic pretty soon once I finsih my coursework and move into my dissertation, but I really do see myself as more of someone who's just commenting on others' views than developing my own. If I do end up finding my own views, that'd be kind of incidental.
"but I really do see myself as more of someone who's just commenting on others' views than developing my own" I felt much the same way, until I decided to become an empiricist. And it was very much a decision -- although I was already leaning in a broadly empiricist direction in most areas, a point came where I consciously chose to plant my flag in that tradition. I think my own philosophical work improved somewhat when I did this. It provided a degree of systematicity to my philosophical thinking that wasn't there before. Naturally, any broad philosophical view faces a host of objections, and it's not really possible for a single person to respond to all of them. I think that for a long time, this made me resistant to endorsing any philosophical perspective. It just seemed that all of them face fatal objections. These days, though, I see empiricism as an ongoing project, and I take my role as an empiricist to be to develop it, and to respond to problems, in the specific areas that I equipped to investigate. Perhaps I will never develop an empiricist philosophy of mathematics, for instance, and I'll certainly never respond to all the potential objections, but that's okay, because other people are working on those things. Anyway, I don't know if this is at all useful as advice. But if you find that arguments aren't really helping you develop your own position, you might consider just *choosing* a position, and then try to tenaciously defend it.
@@KaneB I've definitely considered making a conscious attempt to basically do what you're saying (especially in the areas of experimental philosophy, metaphysics and ethics of death, and the ontology of people), and for the reasons that you've cited: you become more systematic, which has it's own upsides (and downsides). I guess I haven't done so because the method I've been using has served me well so far (I went to one of the top terminal MAs fully funded, am at a top 20 PGR PhD program fully funded, a significant number of people I've done philosophy with have expressed that they found me a worthwhile interlocutor, etc.). Maybe that'll change pretty soon and I'll want to do the philosophy equivalent of settling down, but at least in my evaluation so far I haven't had many issues in having a lack of a personal philosophy storyline. I guess I'll report back some years from now to see what happens lol.
@@howtoappearincompletely9739 Not really lol. I've adopted no specific overall tradition, such as empiricism, although I do have a paper that I'm pretty sure will get published in a couple years which isn't commenting on anyone's arguments at all, so that's a development. One possible reason why it makes less sense for me to embrace a tradition is that I work more in normative philosophy than non-normative philosophy, and many normative philosophy positions are known for not being particularly philosophically fruitful themselves, at without very very creative and sophisticated defenders brings much of their own additions as using the traditional claims. Maybe experimental/scientifically oriented philosophy is its own tradition, and if so I guess that's mine, but it's really not the kind of thing that bears out philosophical consequences on its own like empiricism does. I think I'll stick with what I'm doing for the foreseeable future.
Have you ever heard about spiral dynamics ? You seem to describe a transition from the orange level (rationalist, materialist) to the green level (relativist, post-modernist). i think i got some insights about the yellow level (integral, metamodern) if you are interested. But my English is not really good so it could be hard for me to discuss hard topics.
@@andreluislindquistfiguered8638 Ken Wilber's "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality" perhaps. I haven't read it myself, but a SD-interested friend of mine has and rates it.
I am studying Law and in our 3rd semester we have subject called "Jurisprudence" where I studied about ethics and the rest is history. Lol! Now I wish I had opted for Philosophy in my undergraduate studies but it's okay now.
You've done a great job describing everything. I think you made a lot of ground in general. And whenever something you said was a little hard to follow you very quickly corrected your statement to resolve any possible confusion. Here's a poem, I'm unsure if I've ever shared it here or not yet. A list of things that are involved : The human story, archetypes, dialectics [>ethical divides
I have read also Feyerabend’s Against method and farewell to reason but I dont think I have Comprehended them too well. If you would do a video on him it would be great.
I have videos on Feyerabend in my philosophy of science series th-cam.com/video/GXgIKGBJq4s/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/f5MtcjXXbzU/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/hk9QItshpOw/w-d-xo.html
I was wondering, how does Bas van Fraassen ‘s ideas of logic relate to the logic of Hegelian dialectics, in particular the formalization of it by Lawvere? There seems to me to be similarities there. They both seem paradoxical and based on prospective?
what are your thoughts on Epistemological Anarchism Meets Epistemic Voluntarism: Feyerabend’s Against Method and van Fraassen’s The Empirical Stance by Martin Kusch ?
Were you influenced by Roy Bhaskar's critical realism at all? And do you think Wilfrid Sellars ideas around the manifest and scientific image are useful in your current views?
No to both. Bhaskar has had very little influence among analytic philosophers of science, at least with respect to the scientific realism debate. I think he's had some impact on philosophy of social science, but I never focused much on the social sciences. As for Sellars, I would resolve the clash between the manifest image and scientific image by denying that there is any compelling reason for thinking that the scientific image - and explanation by postulation of theoretical entities more generally - accurately describes anything. I say "would" because I'm more inclined to think that Sellars's distinction between the manifest and scientific image just misdescribes both our ordinary ways of thinking and our scientific theories, so the problem doesn't really arise, at least in the form that he set it out. Of course, Sellars acknowledged that the distinction was an idealization, but I'm not sure it's a particularly useful idealization.
@@KaneB I would like to learn more about your critique of Sellars. Have you done a video about this, or written anything on problems with Sellars? Or could you recommend some reading? Thanks.
@@squatch545 I haven't done anything on it yet, and it's been so long since I've read about Sellars that I can't think of any particular readings on the manifest/scientific image stuff off the top of my head. I'll do a video on it at some point.
I'm not sure that anything interesting could be captured in a definition, and also, what we take as progress depends on the domain in question. In the case of science, I take progress to involve factors such as increased predictive power, puzzle-solving power, simplicity and ease of use, systematicity, explanatory scope, fruitfulness for further research, technological applications... and so on.
I might count as an idealist in a weak sense, since I take a constructivist view of empirical facts. Facts are true propositions, but truth only holds relative to perspectives that provide (a) standards of evaluation for propositions and (b) a classification scheme within which such propositions can be formulated. I suppose I'm a kind of Kantian, though unlike Kant, I do not think that our conceptual schemes are fixed and universal. For any stronger form of idealism, the answer is that as an empiricist, I just don't go in for that kind of metaphysics. I don't think there is any good reason to believe that such views are true.
@@KaneB For what it's worth, I am also a thorough empiricist, and I hold to Idealism (or at least rather than Substance Dualism or Physicalism) only because of the impossibility of reducing consciousness to physical properties in principle. And because Dualism seems like tripe. Although, I'm sort of halfway between Madhyamika and Idealism, nevertheless, these are the views I think make the most sense from an empirical perspective.
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Every month my patreon donation to you is arguably my most well-spent money. I'm an economist, not a philosopher, but I can't thank you enough. Literally listened to every video. Cheers from Brazil!
Thanks a lot man! I really appreciate the patreon support!
Oh yeah, cheers from Brazil 2x
Your channel made me interested in philosophy.
Thank you.
That's really great to hear!
@@KaneB did you read The Grand Design.That book made me into philosophy.
"Based Van Fraassen" I love that. Made me chuckle a bit.
Oh my god
@@p07a Hey!
I'm so heartened to hear that you started philosophy after high school, I always thought I was disadvantaged because I didn't start really young, but only in the first year of college. Thanks for all the videos you make Kane, a huge inspiration to my own philosophical views.
Now this is a story all about how
My life got flipped turned upside down
thank you very much for your videos on multiple identity disorder & others about identity & narrative theory. were more useful to me & helpful that most of the books i read on this subject.
That's quite an inspiring story, you've done well to overcome the anxiety you initially struggled with. I am approaching the end of my Master's now. I feel pretty anxious, mainly as I do not feel I have learned enough through my degree (in PPE) and MA in ethics. I think I've learned more from your channel that I have via the school. But you have inspired me to not let some anxiety hold me back. Perhaps I have to make a TH-cam channel too!
It's great to hear that the channel has been useful! If you do make a channel, I'd be happy to collaborate on something, maybe do a discussion or whatever, if you want. That might drive a few viewers your way.
@@KaneB Thank you very much! I might just do that. Keep making the content, even if it's not so often. I think a lot of people like myself find it very valuable.
Very inspiring. Thank you.
As a philosopher of science myself I feel very close to your (more recent) positions. My main influences are a bit different from yours though, I'd name Quine, Putnam and Paul Churchland as providing a lot of food for thought 'back in the days'.
This was a very cool video! Cheers!
> Quine
> Churchland
Well that just sounds like Hume and Feyerabend with extra steps ;)
@@KaneB haha, that's true!
I've been a subscriber since about 2016, and it's strange to think we've followed pretty similar paths. I decided to pursue philosophy during undergrad, I did a terminal master's, and now I'm doing a PhD. But one area that I really don't overlap with you is that I really don't see myself as having a philosophical development in the sense of changing my views in response to arguments. I mean, I've changed my mind in response to arguments before, and there are views that I used to have which I don't hold anymore. But I don't have an area as you seem to (philosophy of science and epistemology pertaining to phil sci.), or a kind of main personal philosophical storyline. Maybe I could construct one if I reflected on how my views have changed, but it'd feel more third-personal than first-personal, and I'm not sure how coherent it'd be. I didn't have to do a long work at the end of either my undergrad or master's, so maybe that plays into things (as far as I know things are a bit different in the UK in regards to coursework and theses/dissertations, etc. as compared to the US, where I'm at). I'm pretty sure I'll be digging deep into some topic pretty soon once I finsih my coursework and move into my dissertation, but I really do see myself as more of someone who's just commenting on others' views than developing my own. If I do end up finding my own views, that'd be kind of incidental.
"but I really do see myself as more of someone who's just commenting on others' views than developing my own"
I felt much the same way, until I decided to become an empiricist. And it was very much a decision -- although I was already leaning in a broadly empiricist direction in most areas, a point came where I consciously chose to plant my flag in that tradition. I think my own philosophical work improved somewhat when I did this. It provided a degree of systematicity to my philosophical thinking that wasn't there before.
Naturally, any broad philosophical view faces a host of objections, and it's not really possible for a single person to respond to all of them. I think that for a long time, this made me resistant to endorsing any philosophical perspective. It just seemed that all of them face fatal objections. These days, though, I see empiricism as an ongoing project, and I take my role as an empiricist to be to develop it, and to respond to problems, in the specific areas that I equipped to investigate. Perhaps I will never develop an empiricist philosophy of mathematics, for instance, and I'll certainly never respond to all the potential objections, but that's okay, because other people are working on those things.
Anyway, I don't know if this is at all useful as advice. But if you find that arguments aren't really helping you develop your own position, you might consider just *choosing* a position, and then try to tenaciously defend it.
@@KaneB I've definitely considered making a conscious attempt to basically do what you're saying (especially in the areas of experimental philosophy, metaphysics and ethics of death, and the ontology of people), and for the reasons that you've cited: you become more systematic, which has it's own upsides (and downsides). I guess I haven't done so because the method I've been using has served me well so far (I went to one of the top terminal MAs fully funded, am at a top 20 PGR PhD program fully funded, a significant number of people I've done philosophy with have expressed that they found me a worthwhile interlocutor, etc.). Maybe that'll change pretty soon and I'll want to do the philosophy equivalent of settling down, but at least in my evaluation so far I haven't had many issues in having a lack of a personal philosophy storyline. I guess I'll report back some years from now to see what happens lol.
@@mandobrownie Do you have anything notable to report on at this point, two years on?
@@howtoappearincompletely9739 Not really lol. I've adopted no specific overall tradition, such as empiricism, although I do have a paper that I'm pretty sure will get published in a couple years which isn't commenting on anyone's arguments at all, so that's a development. One possible reason why it makes less sense for me to embrace a tradition is that I work more in normative philosophy than non-normative philosophy, and many normative philosophy positions are known for not being particularly philosophically fruitful themselves, at without very very creative and sophisticated defenders brings much of their own additions as using the traditional claims. Maybe experimental/scientifically oriented philosophy is its own tradition, and if so I guess that's mine, but it's really not the kind of thing that bears out philosophical consequences on its own like empiricism does. I think I'll stick with what I'm doing for the foreseeable future.
Thanks for sharing your line of thoughts! It is funny that I switched from scientific antirealism to realism after watching your videos lol
Have you ever heard about spiral dynamics ?
You seem to describe a transition from the orange level (rationalist, materialist) to the green level (relativist, post-modernist).
i think i got some insights about the yellow level (integral, metamodern) if you are interested. But my English is not really good so it could be hard for me to discuss hard topics.
Do you have a reading suggestion about this topic?
@@andreluislindquistfiguered8638 Ken Wilber's "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality" perhaps. I haven't read it myself, but a SD-interested friend of mine has and rates it.
I am studying Law and in our 3rd semester we have subject called "Jurisprudence" where I studied about ethics and the rest is history. Lol! Now I wish I had opted for Philosophy in my undergraduate studies but it's okay now.
That was interesting; thanks. Voluntarist epistemology piqued my interest.
Great video.
Very nice. I really like those more personal videos from you.
thanks for sharing
Very interesting and inspiring 👍👍
Philosophy of biology ,Panic attacks all sounds so relatable 😁😁😁
That's unfortunate! (Not the first of course, but the certainly the second.)
You've done a great job describing everything. I think you made a lot of ground in general.
And whenever something you said was a little hard to follow you very quickly corrected your statement to resolve any possible confusion.
Here's a poem, I'm unsure if I've ever shared it here or not yet.
A list of things that are involved :
The human story, archetypes, dialectics [>ethical divides
No I don't think you've posted that here before. Thanks for sharing that!
I miss that Kane B chaotic energy in between these streams
Kane being in a pickle. Pickle, dogs, Pickle Kane!!
You have to keep making these videos.
I have read also Feyerabend’s Against method and farewell to reason but I dont think I have Comprehended them too well. If you would do a video on him it would be great.
I have videos on Feyerabend in my philosophy of science series
th-cam.com/video/GXgIKGBJq4s/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/f5MtcjXXbzU/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/hk9QItshpOw/w-d-xo.html
I was wondering, how does Bas van Fraassen ‘s ideas of logic relate to the logic of Hegelian dialectics, in particular the formalization of it by Lawvere? There seems to me to be similarities there. They both seem paradoxical and based on prospective?
what are your thoughts on Epistemological Anarchism Meets Epistemic Voluntarism:
Feyerabend’s Against Method and van Fraassen’s The Empirical
Stance by
Martin Kusch ?
COOL STORY BRUH 😎
Were you influenced by Roy Bhaskar's critical realism at all? And do you think Wilfrid Sellars ideas around the manifest and scientific image are useful in your current views?
No to both. Bhaskar has had very little influence among analytic philosophers of science, at least with respect to the scientific realism debate. I think he's had some impact on philosophy of social science, but I never focused much on the social sciences.
As for Sellars, I would resolve the clash between the manifest image and scientific image by denying that there is any compelling reason for thinking that the scientific image - and explanation by postulation of theoretical entities more generally - accurately describes anything. I say "would" because I'm more inclined to think that Sellars's distinction between the manifest and scientific image just misdescribes both our ordinary ways of thinking and our scientific theories, so the problem doesn't really arise, at least in the form that he set it out. Of course, Sellars acknowledged that the distinction was an idealization, but I'm not sure it's a particularly useful idealization.
@@KaneB I would like to learn more about your critique of Sellars. Have you done a video about this, or written anything on problems with Sellars?
Or could you recommend some reading?
Thanks.
@@squatch545 I haven't done anything on it yet, and it's been so long since I've read about Sellars that I can't think of any particular readings on the manifest/scientific image stuff off the top of my head. I'll do a video on it at some point.
What's your take on Nagel's The Last Word?
I haven't read it.
Since you've warmed up to perspectivism do you feel any kind of affinity towards Nietzsche and/or the post-structuralists?
If rules can be broken in the name of progress, what then is the definition of 'progress'?
I'm not sure that anything interesting could be captured in a definition, and also, what we take as progress depends on the domain in question. In the case of science, I take progress to involve factors such as increased predictive power, puzzle-solving power, simplicity and ease of use, systematicity, explanatory scope, fruitfulness for further research, technological applications... and so on.
4 years ago I became scientific anti realist.In the last year I became scientific realist.
Yeah you're kind of different from me
Have you explained why you're not an idealist?
I might count as an idealist in a weak sense, since I take a constructivist view of empirical facts. Facts are true propositions, but truth only holds relative to perspectives that provide (a) standards of evaluation for propositions and (b) a classification scheme within which such propositions can be formulated. I suppose I'm a kind of Kantian, though unlike Kant, I do not think that our conceptual schemes are fixed and universal.
For any stronger form of idealism, the answer is that as an empiricist, I just don't go in for that kind of metaphysics. I don't think there is any good reason to believe that such views are true.
@@KaneB For what it's worth, I am also a thorough empiricist, and I hold to Idealism (or at least rather than Substance Dualism or Physicalism) only because of the impossibility of reducing consciousness to physical properties in principle. And because Dualism seems like tripe.
Although, I'm sort of halfway between Madhyamika and Idealism, nevertheless, these are the views I think make the most sense from an empirical perspective.
12:08
Graham Priest is and is not the GOAT