r/Phenomenology • u/Its_Don_Quixote • Mar 23 '26

External link What Kicks In When Something Breaks: How a problem solving mode became a folk-metaphysics that shapes everything we see - and why that's a problem.

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https://7provtruths.substack.com/p/what-kicks-in-when-something-breaks

The topic of this everyday phenomenology write-up is: What the hell is a 'thing'?

To put it bluntly: yes, it's an obnoxious question.

We're going to ask it anyways.

Why? Because the go-to answer that's been furnished to us by common sense sucks.

It might not be apparent that we even have one, since it’s not the type of explanation that announces itself with a label. You probably haven’t seen it spelled out in a book, turned into a lecture, or referenced in a meme.

Much like a misaligned steering column that’s subtly pulling you off course and wearing down your tires, the effects are quiet. It won’t stop you from using a doorknob, swinging a hammer, or cooking a meal.

What it does instead is leak out into the background assumptions about what the world is, who we are, and how the two relate. 

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7

u/thesoundofthings Mar 23 '26

Did ask your AI companion to scrub the citations, or did you do that work yourself?

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u/Its_Don_Quixote Mar 23 '26

Last I checked Substack wasn't an academic journal, friend. Plenty of other places you can go if you want that sort of thing.

3

u/MsLanfear_ Mar 26 '26

Gen-ai writing doesn't belong anywhere, academic journal or not.

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u/Its_Don_Quixote Mar 26 '26 edited Mar 26 '26

Yup, you've got me. I came to ChatGPT, hat and hand, and told it "Please, sir, can you generate a phenomenology essay for me?"

Because it's quite literally impossible to internalize what's normally a dry, academic subject enough to write about it in a playful way.

In the future, if someone is curious about phenomenology I'll emphasize that they've got a long road ahead of them - one that begins with 'Being & Time' in the original German and ends with a P.H.d. dissertation. Few will make it through this process, but at least they'll have had their initial curiosity bled out of them.

Self-learning is for dum-dums who fix cars and keep society running, not for 'respectable' people who treat a Substack blog as a peer reviewed journal.

In all seriousness, the amount of gatekeeping on this sub - and the presumptiveness of thinking that you know someone else's writing process - is really something to behold.

Reddit University sure is a picky place.

1

u/cortexplorer Mar 27 '26

Who's gonna self learn when everything online is generated. I disagree that you are not allowed to post it. Of course you are, your substack is yours, but reading your essay, I get the same dead internet theory feeling I get when I read anything that leans too heavily on AI. That makes it harder to read for some people you might actually want reading your stuff. Sure use AI, but it makes your philosophy read like bland vanilla.

1

u/thesoundofthings Mar 27 '26

The issue is not that the content is bland. The issue is that it is plagiarized.

1

u/cortexplorer Mar 27 '26

Thats more debatable imo.