Philosophical Superiority
Philosophical Superiority
It has come to my attention (AI told me) that many people out there think it was very arrogant (and deluded) of me to claim superiority to the great dead philosophers. Such people (if they exist) have got hold of the wrong end of the stick: my statement, properly understood, is trivially true, a mere truism. If anything, I should be applauded for my generosity concerning nearly all living (or recently dead) philosophers; for I am saying that they too are clearly superior to the Great Ones of the past. The reason, as I clearly stated, is that we have the benefit of all that has come before us, but they didn’t have the benefit of all that was to come after. We know more philosophy than them (we would do better in a quiz). Assuming that the field has progressed since Plato, we have access to a lot of good stuff that Plato knew nothing about. And even if it hasn’t progressed, we know what was said by the post-Socratics (and his pupils). It is exactly the same in physics and the other sciences: science has progressed, so current scientists are better at science than their predecessors—they know more science. This is no insult to the great and dead, or narcissism with respect to the mediocre and living; it is a simple platitude. We living philosophers can all bask in the knowledge that we are better at philosophy than the long deceased. Living humans are also better at history, technology, and road building. The question of GOAT only gets interesting (and non-trivial) when we get to the present and the proximate past; here we may expect a lively substantive debate. Apparently, AI stands for Artificial Ignorance, or it is just reporting the opinions of one sector of OM (organic Idiocy).
I’m very interested in whatever Colin McGinn wishes to write about. I consider him to be one of the greatest philosophers of our times.
Khushbir
I’m glad to hear that, but I do wonder who you think are the other great ones.
I completely agree. In mathematics, for example, even a mathematician from the beginning of the 20th century would be vastly inferior to a contemporary one. I wonder, however, whether there has been as much progress in philosophy since, say, 1850 as there has been in mathematics, physics, and the other natural sciences.
Not as much progress as defined by those sciences, but an enormous amount of stuff to learn that adds to one’s arsenal. A lot happened in the first half of the twentieth century philosophically; earlier philosophy looks primitive. Much of this progress arose from the progress of the sciences, including mathematics.