What is philosophy supposed to do … give me a quality life? Life goes on regardless of what you think it should be. Good thing too. The question how to live should be thrown out of language. Forget about mental machination. The quality of life is in the physical life and in its cooperation with other physical lives. The physical aspect will not honor a psychological deliberation even when physical suffering is a product of something psychological.
Only on a physical level will quality have relevance and beneficial outcome. Intellect cannot be relied on due to the fascist nature of thought. We survive physically ultimately or we don’t exist at all.
Psychological phenomenon are really just fancy covers for physical phenomenon in the brain. Thus, psychological deliberation can affect the physical. If quality of life is determined by the physical and as I have stated the psychological changes the physical, then psychological deliberation can change your quality of life.
Affecting quality of life via psychology is essentially the entire idea behind various psychological therapies, support groups and some types of training seminars. Many of which are effective to at least some extent by most definitions of quality of life that aren’t entirely based in economic factors.
OK. Lots of different ideas… Are there anymore? So far, most of the posters have suggested there is no criteria while establishing their own criteria… While denying criteria, the fallback position seems to be appeal to authority. Terms such as well-read, careful construction, obvious rationality, are fine but offers no consensus as each person offers their opinion of what this criteria means. James (surprise! we agree on something) came fairly close with the step-by-step explanation of where a poster is and how they got there. I suspect Typist may be right in saying the internet forums are the last place to look for ‘quality’ philosophical discussion.
I’m still puzzling how we have meaningful meta-discussion about quality philosophy where concepts and words are well understood by all parties involved. Much of the discord in exchanges in this site is directly attributable to the lack of understanding of how another member is using concept words and the assumptions behind them. If there is to be ‘elevated’ discussion,there needs to be a solution. So what is that solution? It’s either that, or admission impossible…
No solution needed when the words stand or fall on thier own. Abstract concepts are talked about using words. When you have no connection to the words, when the words are just there for utilization by anyone for even nonsense, they are used to formulate a concept and are done and over with … no lingering problem. There’s aproblem only when thought makes up one and then trys to solve it.
A lack of obvious fallacies. Uses logical connectors in ways that seem valid. Can move between the concrete and the abstract and tie the two together around an argued issue. Is a bit interesting to read. Has some sense of the limits of both deduction and induction or at least potential limits. Has some knowledge of the philosophy of language. Even if they take some really rather literal take on language, they understand some other takes.
If responding: integrates the ideas of the post they are responding to into a counterargument. Seem to have actually understood what they are agreeing or disagreeing with. do not suddenly bring up another issue when at an impasse in making a counterargument. Can propose relevent counterexamples. don’t confuse a value judgment of a post with a critique/analysis of that post.
Or how about…
Quality philosophy inspires new lines of thinking, at least within the circle the philosophy is presented.
It stimulates interesting thought.
When will you realize that this means that forums will then always be a “you get what you pay for” experience, and that no amount of yack, yack, yacking about quality will change that?
It seems to me the only way to improve quality is by improving the quality of one’s own posts and then pressuring others to improve the quality of their posts. Also to do some grass roots organizing of other posters, agreeing to challenge quality levels and also to challenge each other. Role modeling, challenging other posters to improve, improving the only posts you have full control over - your own posts. Possibly trying to invite in posters their consider of quality from other philosophy forums, putting their participation in the context of improvements here.
This is a small forum. We are not talking about trying to change attitudes in the USA or even a small town. A core group of people could actually make a difference, but they would have to use the end as the means. Which means putting their money where their mouths are.
I don’t think bemoaning the current state will do very much. I don’t think a separate subforum will either, but we’ll see.
I think it will take some actual investment by those who want the improvement in making quality posts and demanding them or at least pressing for them in others. Some meta-comment threads as the process goes along might keep it interesting and gather some momentum.
This forum would do well to find a means of slightly rewarding people for presenting more quality philosophy. People need reward, not merely punishment. Of course that supposes that the judge of such has a reasonably straight idea of what quality means and isn’t TOO biased.
At the very beginning of the new forum discussion in H&S, I suggested that the debate forum would be both a place to show some seriousness as well as advertise the need for ‘elevated’ posting. It was met with dead silence. I still think it is the place for serious discussion with a panel of judges to point out strength and weaknesses instead of one lone moderator. Plus, it was already in place for those who felt the need for more serious discussion.
Given the lack of any but vague ideas of what is quality philosophy, perhaps the only way to judge any submission is by a panel of three or more members. Chance score would give everybody a shot at posting quality philosophy. Other than aum, there may be no need for the Academy or the debate forum…
History speaks volumes within the test of time. Big names, some/many I find personal disagreement with. The arguments to the extent of the exposure have yet to compel. Historical philosophers of noteworthy mention. Empirical and/or rationalist views lacking. There is an event and those with experience of it; even a motion triggered camera has a bias.
‘Debate’ has certain connotations … two opponents, or two teams arguing a well defined statement with strict rules. Maybe the serious/quality forum proponents don’t want that kind of format.
Possibly, but argumentation implies two opposing sides, if not more. There was a comment period after each debate that allowed anyone who cared to make comments. I agree that it isn’t perfect, but then Academy is falling on it’s ass, so WTF??? Essay and Theses was one of the least used forums and suffered the same lack of participation. I’m sure I’m missing something, but if performance counts for anything, the conclusion one has to draw is that an internet discussion board isn’t the place for elevated or serious philosophical discussion. The sentiment may be great, but the performance by those who asked for the Academy sucks pond water. I know, the rules are too strict, or not strict enough, or this, but not that, or… What this thread seems to indicate is that everyone has some notion of what is “quality” in some general way, but no criteria with enough specificity to establish a this is - this is not a quality submission. Rather, when Pav created the Academy rules, immediately the complaints started that “I don’t like this or I don’t like that”, and apparently that is the reason (excuse) for the lack of performance. After all the blah blah blah, you have to admit that serious or elevated philosophical discussion is coming up way short here.
I used to believe in this appealing grass roots approach too, and have argued for it many times, but I’ve had to face the overwhelming evidence and change my overly idealistic (ie. unrealistic) view. But the question remains interesting, as forum software seems such a powerful tool, which has yet to begin to reach for it’s full potential.
As for philosophy forums, it’s interesting that of all the many philosophy professors all over the world, it seems not a single one has seen the teaching potential that forums represent. Imagine the professor playing the role of forum owner, and his grad students acting as mods. That might be a forum worth struggling to get in to.
Any venue that wants it’s writers to struggle with their posts has to offer prestige and a significant audience in return. The way to build that prestige and audience is with standards. Standards are enforced by editors, not by writers who all feel they are brilliant, no matter how drunk or inarticulate they may be.
It seems a philosophy department could provide both it’s students and the public a great philosophy education by using it’s students (free slave labor) as the mods, working under the guidance of the professors.
The key to the whole thing is that the mods need to be willing to say to posters, “Sorry, your post isn’t good enough, so we’re not going to publish it. Please try again.” Remove that element, and you also remove standards, prestige, quality writers, and an audience worth writing for.
Phyllo says that nobody in today’s forum land wants to take it seriously, and it’s hard to argue with that. So perhaps the solution is to find somebody who has a reason to take it seriously, and sell the idea to them. I nominate philosophy professors. Anybody know one?
Philosophy professors are typically poor philosophers. They are much more often mere historians (with elitist opinions).
If you actually want to cause good philosophy to begin taking place, there are better ways. The normal forum software is seriously lacking thus putting more strain on forum moderation concerning such debating. So as you have stated, there does need to be someone running the show that actually cares enough to cause positive flow, not merely wait for it to accidentally happen.
Unfortunately, that person has to exist merely to understand the details involved in causation of social behavior in that particular direction.
Years ago, I developed “Resolution Debating” around the requirements of analytically thought and progress toward logical resolution of dispute (answering to doubt). Due to the state of typical forum software, it required 3 participants; the two opponents and a specialized moderator. The method consequentially creates a mountain of indisputable reasoning covering any number of subjects.
Since philosophy, especially quality philosophy, is all about reasoning, the moderator needs to be a serious pedantic logician with experience in epistemology and variety of ontologies. On this forum, Faust would have been a candidate (despite my pedantic picking on his posts).
But has it been tried? IOW it is not a call for improvement and a discussion of how to get things better. It is a committment to improve one’s own posts and work at this in conjunction with like minds to try to shift the culture. Likely the process would be slow. I think however a handful of people could make a difference. Utopia? unlikely.
Imho, the core issue is that everybody wants quality writers to participate, but nobody wants to address the needs of quality writers. It’s a classic something for nothing pitch, a we want our cake and eat it too plan.
Quality writers want a higher signal to noise ratio environment, and a real audience to write for. Forum culture is willing to do pretty much nothing to weed out the junk content that is diluting the signal to noise ratio other than the hysterical holy jihad against spam, and few forum owners really work at building their audience.
Like everything else in life, forums are a get what you pay for deal.
This is essentially the prevailing academic orthodoxy: peer review. Of course, it has it’s drawbacks, one of which was pointed out by SIATD in the first post. Because quality is a subjective perspective it has to be predefined in advance for it to be an effective goal. Pav has attempted to do this, but his guidelines generally only relate to form rather than content, which I think is what you’re driving at. However, I do think that quality form can be used to produce quality content.
…And furthermore, it’s utterly self-contradictory on your part. You are the one claiming ignorance about what quality is, demanding strict necessary and sufficient conditions from others, and so on. --That means that it’s not open to you to claim that there’s no quality here. (!)
You continue to go on with all these negative and misguided claims. For once would you please read and address the arguments?
All I’m suggesting is the only way that quality has ever been distinguished, in any medium… which is exactly what most of the posters in this thread have been telling you… matty, Typist, phyllo, Suzera, and myself. But recognize that popular consensus has nothing to do with distinguishing quality.—and for that, it’s about time you read my arguments…
What this thread seems to indicate is that everyone has some notion of what is “quality” in some general way, but no criteria with enough specificity to establish a this is - this is not a quality submission. Rather, when Pav created the Academy rules, immediately the complaints started that “I don’t like this or I don’t like that”, and apparently that is the reason (excuse) for the lack of performance. After all the blah blah blah, you have to admit that serious or elevated philosophical discussion is coming up way short here.