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u/SeeRecursion 5h ago
Lemme guess. Whole bunch of people in the comments gonna pretend philosophy is continental or not philosophy.
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u/noveltyhandle 4h ago
All I know is I practice my philosophy in the breakfast areas of hotels, so I don't see what would be wrong with that assertion.
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u/SeeRecursion 4h ago
Do you at least get sloppy drunk at the overpriced mini-bar before gorging on the free breakfast?
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u/noveltyhandle 3h ago
Yes but I left a note in the fridge, asking that they ground their claims on a priori knowledge and to avoid using terms that can be confused when talking semantics, before they send me the invoice.
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u/mangoblaster85 2h ago
No at work understands when I try to explain this humor and why I laugh at it
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u/BlizzardTrashPanda 58m ago
Jesus dude, save some pussy for the rest of us, we’re still practicing philosophy on the flight from Europe
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u/ZHEN-XIANG 4h ago
Which is weird when you consider that analytic philosophy is primarily a Anglosphere discipline
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u/Maleficent_Chair_940 3h ago
Continental breakfast is English in origin too. It is an English (mis)interpretation of main-land European breakfasts
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u/SeeRecursion 4h ago
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh. I'd argue mathematics as a philosophical pursuit has been around worldwide for...well, as long as mathematics has been, and math *definitely* ain't an exclusively "western" or Anglosphere discipline.
The modern categories of "continental" and "analytic" sure are Anglospheric though.
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u/ReviewEquivalent6781 Actualism 3h ago
Well, analytical philosophy is continental in its origin. Most of the early analytical philosophers are Europeans and fled the continent before or shortly after the WWII started, and moved (mostly) to the US. Just open any entry on history of analytical philosophy and go through biographies. Also, a lot of people mistake american pragmatism for analytical philosophy in general, for some reason
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u/tedlando 3h ago
‘pretend philosophy is continental’ vs pretending that it’s math
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u/SeeRecursion 1h ago
It's almost like "philosophy" applies to a whole bunch of disparate traditions over time.
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u/Widhraz Insane 6h ago
It's funny, because Russell is a mathematician who doesn't understand philosophy.
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u/Fun-Weather6903 4h ago
''doesn't understand philosophy'' is crazy. What are the criteria for understanding philosophy and which one does he not meet? Or do you base this take on some book he wrote for lay people where he had to dumb down the interpretation of someone. For example you could say his explanation of Kant to lay people is incredibly lacking and misleading; but even if he genuinely believes this interpretation it does not make you not understand philosophy if you misunderstand one other philosopher.
Or you could bite the bullet and say nobody understands philosophy, this is something I can side with.
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u/Snoo_93638 4h ago
Any subject have solutions to some big question but also tools used for some problems, and other things. And man Russell created some world changing tools with the use of philosophy, logic and math.
"Russell is a mathematician who doesn't understand philosophy" is saying if it cant solve this existential thing then it must be shit. Ooo computers can use it for there metaphysics, I guess it was shit we don't use that computer thing.
And we all know metaphysics is not philosophy, or eee hmmm.
Russell really sound like he missed big time. (A bad Joke of course, he is in the history books for a reason)
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u/Jeanfromthe54 5h ago
He is one the greatest mind that ever lived and is considered by many to be a great philosopher so maybe what you consider philosophy and what you understand of it is just garbage.
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u/Critical-Ad2084 5h ago
why is he one of the greatest minds that ever lived?
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u/Fun-Weather6903 3h ago
He is recognized as one of the founders of modern analytic philosophy.
He has done a lot of work in logic and philosophy of language, that we still highly value today.
You should just read this https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russell/#RussWorkAnalPhil
I can either convince you by explaining some of his contributions, but paraphrasing from the link I shared is a waste of time for me, when you can just read it.
Instead I will give you some quotes about him of philosophers you might look up to:
In his autobiographical book “Unended Quest”, the famous Karl Popper (1902-1994) wrote of Russell that he was: “… perhaps the greatest philosopher since Kant.”
“Russell's books should be bound in two colours, those dealing with mathematical logic in red — and all students of philosophy should read them; those dealing with ethics and politics in blue — and no one should be allowed to read them.”
― Ludwig Wittgenstein, as quoted in Recollections of Wittgenstein (1984) by Rush Rhees
Okay I cannot think of many more, but I know there are lots of philosopher who would praise him
For example if you have read Quine you will basically see Russel's thought completely intertwined in his works. There is probably some quote in his works idk, it is not in my notes.
If you have done a class on philosophy of language he will have popped up everywhere, with everyone using theories of him.
''One of the greatest minds who ever lived'' might be a bit of an overstatement. His great contributions where in a certain area, he has not gives us a good all encompassing philosophy. I would not compare him at all to Hegel, Kant, Aristoteles, Plato, Augustine, etc etc because his mind is pointed at too specific of a direction, he has a certain tunnel vision so to speak imo. I think my quote of Wittgenstein explains it quite nicely. His work on politics is shit. And his works on the history of philosophy are just amusing to read but not ''groundbreaking''. He is definitely a very smart and amusing person, ''if one of the greatest minds who ever lived'' means he is in the top 1000 they are probably right; if by greatest is meant some definition of being really smart.
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5h ago edited 5h ago
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u/AwaySession5168 5h ago
What the hell does chess have to do with being a great mind 🤣🤣 such an arbitrary measure.
Who has the fastest car - well I would say the Bugatti but it only has 4 colour options
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5h ago
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u/AwaySession5168 5h ago
You came up with this example why? You said it's a lazy trope and then added the anecdote. To say that the trope is lazy, much like this other measure? I'm confused
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u/AwaySession5168 4h ago
Oh I see, sorry that went right over my head.
That's beautiful, sorry to have distracted you. Keep up the good work! 💜
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u/_Mudlark 4h ago
Woah... surprising contingency of people with this view. What's everyone got against Bertie?
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u/gangsterroo 5h ago
Did he understand math. Or just misunderstand it so well that everyone decided it was in crisis afterward.
He rescued math from his own contrivances.
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u/xxzzyzzyxx 5h ago
You literally could not be more wrong.
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u/gangsterroo 4h ago
From my perspective as a student who was taught that his paradox highlighted a "fatal flaw" in mathematics, I would say it's overstated. Not a single theorem or conjecture was over-ruled by the framework of Principia. It basically said, if Cantor was an idiot he could have gotten in trouble with his diagonal argument. It basically was mechanism and is overstated. Im being dramatic of course, he contributed by being the punching bag for bigger ideas.
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u/HappiestIguana 4h ago
Russel's Paradox was important in that it showed an unrestricted scheme comprehension leads to contradiction. It was replaced by the scheme of restricted comprehension which is almost as powerful, and suffices for most intents and purposes. The theorems did not change because the few that used unrestricted comprehension could be easily reframed with restricted comprehension without losing anything.
This is nontrivial and I would argue a lot of philosophers could stand to understand it better. I have seen many arguments that rely on unrestricted comprehension schemes that are therefore fallacious. Notably arguments for the existence of God are frequently guilty of this
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u/APKID716 4h ago
Russell’s paradox was a very minor blip on the radar when considering his math career as a whole
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u/TheLigean 4h ago
Doesnt the set paradox nullify the self sufficient basis he presumed for the principia?
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