I have what you might call a love-hate relationship with
philosophy. On the one hand, my study of philosophy has been a richly
rewarding experience in both my personal and professional life. On the
other hand, philosophical literature is overflowing with pretentious word salad that just makes me want to puke. Reading philosophy is a lot
like digging through a giant pile of compost in search for the
occasional diamonds. They're there if you look hard enough, but you have
to wade through a lot of bullshit to find it.
I'm a professional scientist/engineer with a doctorate of philosophy from an accredited American university. I am the author of more than two dozen peer-reviewed technical articles, multiple patents, and one book chapter. My specialty is applied electromagnetics with a particular interest in numerical methods. I have taught multiple technical courses at the college level, and I make a pretty decent living by doing research and solving problems.
With all due respect to the "professional" philosophers out there, philosophy isn't exactly rocket science. It is, however, riddled with a lot of people who want you to think it is. Academic philosophy has a very well-deserved reputation for vapid naval-gazing, and this tends to drive people running and screaming away from any productive study. To make matters even worse, many of the supposedly "hard" philosophical problems have long-since been solved decades ago by experts in other fields. Philosophy itself is also a horribly nebulous term, which means any random yahoo with a keyboard can presumably call themselves a "philosopher" if only they spend enough time barfing up words. Religious philosophy in particular is like a cancerous tumor that exists only to promote apologetics rather than advance the field in any productive direction.
I'm a professional scientist/engineer with a doctorate of philosophy from an accredited American university. I am the author of more than two dozen peer-reviewed technical articles, multiple patents, and one book chapter. My specialty is applied electromagnetics with a particular interest in numerical methods. I have taught multiple technical courses at the college level, and I make a pretty decent living by doing research and solving problems.
With all due respect to the "professional" philosophers out there, philosophy isn't exactly rocket science. It is, however, riddled with a lot of people who want you to think it is. Academic philosophy has a very well-deserved reputation for vapid naval-gazing, and this tends to drive people running and screaming away from any productive study. To make matters even worse, many of the supposedly "hard" philosophical problems have long-since been solved decades ago by experts in other fields. Philosophy itself is also a horribly nebulous term, which means any random yahoo with a keyboard can presumably call themselves a "philosopher" if only they spend enough time barfing up words. Religious philosophy in particular is like a cancerous tumor that exists only to promote apologetics rather than advance the field in any productive direction.
What is needed is a fresh approach to philosophy that stops clinging to the failed ideas of the past and instead focuses on the demonstrable solutions of science, mathematics, and other relevant fields. We need to set boundaries on what constitutes good, worthwhile philosophy and set it apart from the vast sea of useless or manipulative nonsense. This stuff matters, and it has a greater influence on our collective social behaviors than people realize. Many of the worst ideas in this world are not necessarily the result of mistaken information, but a hopelessly corrupted sense of truth itself. Only by correcting that foundational sense of epistemology can we ever hope to overcome the countless social, environmental, and psychological demons that have plagued our ancestors since the dawn of time.
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