How some philosophers could be fooling you

In this video we summarize some academic papers that spell out stratagems that some continental philosophers could be guilty of utilizing to create a fake aura of profundity. These techniques range from the use of obscurantist language to the incorporation of epistemic defense mechanisms in their conceptual frameworks, equivocating definitions, and employing the motte and bailey fallacy. The papers referenced explicitly call out philosophers of the caliber of Foucault, Heidegger, Derrida and Sartre.

References:

The Guru Effect

The Vacuity of PostmodernistMethodology

Immunizing strategies and epistemic defense mechanisms

The Dark Side of the Loon.
Explaining the Temptations of Obscurantism

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[alexwennerberg]

Philosophy is extremely dense and challenging. The evidence in this video is a bunch of quotes pulled out of texts that are obviously bizarre on their own, but much more comprehensible within the context of their (very dense) work. The examples here are from a specific group of philosophers, but you could pull out equally obscure quotes from philosophers like Kant or Hegel, which no serious person would call charlatans.

[paulaustinmurphy]

The main argument is usually that "deep", "radical" and "revolutionary" ideas can't be expressed in the "old philosophical language". (Heideggerians and Derrideans have explicitly stated this.) Moreover, using the old language involves committing oneself to "old ways of thinking". The problem is that I can think of many deep, radical and revolutionary philosophers who didn't write in an obscure way: Hume, Marx, Descartes, Berkeley, Spinoza, etc. etc. etc. Even in their day, these philosophers weren't deemed to be "obscurantists". (Descartes' prose was always praised for being very clear. Marx's prose is a little academic and dry at times, but not obscurantist. Hume sometimes writes as if it was written as a letter to a friend. Etc.) Also, if the prose really is deliberately obscure, then how does anyone gain a foothold into the ideas themselves? What is the initiation rite that readers must go through? Can anyone "join the club"?

[aboveman]

It appears more that the ontological background within which we operate is not open on the new ways of viewing the world these thinkers have to offer. Therefore, I think it is best to try to understand what these thinkers are saying rather than dismissing them outright as speaking nonsense. "The Nothing nothings" is not a meaningless statement if one only knew, (unlike Carnap!) what Heidegger had meant.

[rv]

What Derrida was saying about death was actually very interesting.

[adamjnotthecongressmanschi]

Something being difficult doesn’t mean it’s nonsense. And what do you mean meritless? Sartre and Heidegger and Lacan inspired SO much art, and that is itself enough for me

[СергейМакеев-жн]

Don't know much about continental philosophers, but it seems to me as a layman, that when they use equivocations, they on some level believe that equivocating *is the right thing to do.* As in, the operation of equivocation, in their point of view, "actually reveals" some deeper content of the concept.
Same with motte and bailey - they seem to believe that the more obvious observation is a "hint that points towards" a deeper truth expressed by the more outlandish claim.

[lukeskirenko]

I'd be interested in having a conversation on this subject. I've gone round in circles for years trying to decipher whether the French philosophy I encountered during the crap degree that I did made sense, and I think it's impossible to come to a simple conclusion... and that perhaps is a rather post-modern conclusion itself, that the desired compressed state of knowledge isn't a possibility. The sound-bite attributions to Derrida, for instance, probably have next to nothing to do with his actual work. Afaics, he was only criticising the simple foundationalism of other philosophers, rather than errecting an epistemology himself. And that's part of the frustration, the lack of an epistemology going forward. Deleuze, on the other hand, went a completely different route, and tried to construct a complete metaphysics. I still tend to regard Lacan as garbage... but of course one can always spend more time, i.e. sink more costs, into delving deeper into the work.

[Xob_Driesestig]

So this video is based on papers by Maarten Boudry and Johan Braeckman. I studied at the university of Ghent and have had them as professors and let me just say, I'm not too impressed. In my conversations with Maarten he appeared, not dumb, but kinda incurious.
So he claims that postmodern philosophy is nonsense and he thinks a good method for revealing nonsense is sending in deliberately nonsense papers and seeing if they get accepted. He did this with a theology paper and got it accepted. Great! But while the paper used postmodern language it was sent to a theology journal, so if anything this is evidence against *theology* as a discipline. Why wouldn't he try it with a postmodern journal? Or maybe he did and couldn't get his nonsense paper published?
Now I do believe that some postmodern philosophers obscure things (thanks for that quote you sent me!) which is unforgivable, but the same can not be said for the social constructivists. Maarten makes a type of category error, just because social constructivists say that there are an infinite amount of theories that are valid, doesn't mean *all* theories are valid. Let me explain, say we are trying to measure the distance between two stars, our measurements come back and say that it's somewhere in between 10 and 11 lightyears. One person has a theory based on a MOND model of gravity that the distance is 10.3 lightyears, another person has a theory based on dark matter that the distance is 10.56. Between 10 and 11 are an infinite amount of possible theories 10.1, 10.01, etc, but that doesn't mean *all* theories are valid, e.g. a theory that says there's 100 lightyears between the two is invalid.
Now maybe Maarten could retreat and say he wasn't talking about that, he was talking about "radical" social constructivists, but he never defines what that is and he spends his time railing against social constructivists and scientific anti-realists in general, this strategy would, ironically enough, be a motte-and-bailey.
Now that's not to say Maarten is dumb, I found his book on informal logical fallacies very clearly written and have even gifted it to someone, but let's just say that as someone who has read the social constructivists' literature (and has even developed an extension of it), I think he misses the mark when it comes to philosophy of science.

[mountbrocken]

Wrong. Heidegger does not use this guru effect in that while he employs what some that have not read his work as mystic neologisms instead in detail explains in plain German what these terms mean. This is just an example of dismissing Continental Philosophy by those in the analytic tradition without having to address the arguments made directly. Which undermine the fallacious positivism at the heart of Analytic Philosophy.

[darillus]

just because you can't understand it mon0, doesn't mean it's trying to fool people, and that there are some French words that are hard, if not impossible to translate into English, as we either don't have an equivalate word for it or no word at all for it.

[kingmj]

"Could it be that the very Philosophy that pointed its finger against the powerful oppressive mechanisms of Religion... ultimately resorted to similar tactics to uphold its own authority?"

I wouldn't say "Philosophy" generally, but I'd say it's absolutely true that many who claimed to be against the manipulative propaganda techniques of religion have been very happy to use those exact same forms of deceptive trickery to push their own ideologies (and overwhelmingly, it's been to push fanatical ideologies which rationalize dictatorship... which I would define as a "religion").

[aboveman]

Perhaps a reason natural scientists cannot understand postmodernism is because they fail to understand Kant's critique of science?

[tarvoc]

I see analytical philosophers aren't over their discipline being utterly useless yet.

[Andre-qoek]

philosophers are bonkers people that push boundaries. there are sometimes small gems of wisdom that have profound influence on perception of the world.

the real issue is when people get dogmatic and start thinking that EVERY WORD these philosophers utter are the words of geniuses.
we have to remember to just take the good and leave the bad.

-
"fooling you" is just not the appropriate word here.
it is all about how much you want to go down the rabbithole.

[nickb]

the problem with a highly intelligent mind that is closely tuned to reality is that many insights are genuinely beyond words, beyond quantification. To be able to apply rationality to the irrational requires you to abandon words. To communicate it to other brains, however, you need to use words. This is why in eastern philosophy there are things like "The Dao" which is beyond human comprehension. Its also why the Buddha could not immediately transmit enlightenment to others. The reality is that "fake it til you make it" is how everyone operates. Some people are too ignorant to realize that's what they're doing. Some people are too intelligent to allow themselves to do that. The truth is that the best you can ever do is speak with confidence and minimize the ignorance of your brain and hope that your words are received the way you intend them to be received.

[real_pattern]

see timothy morton's OOO/ecophilosophy work for a more contemporary example.

i view these as a kind of exalted/exalting performance (art) that largely arises from and (among other goals), aims to stimulate experiential states/vibes, that are usually extremely difficult to coherently, clearly, 'non-weirdly' articulate to people who haven't had similar experiences.

i actually find the phenomenon fascinating and engaging with it can be a nice exercise for training critical thinking & epistemic vigilance.

[YawnGod]

The joke is that the kids have no idea of the degree to which the adults are lying.

[alanjones]

Nice examples of the deceptive practices of modern mumbo purveyors. Thank you. I'm looking for works that compare and contrast the methods and thinking styles of traditional metaphysicians and those that characterize John Dewey's instrumentalism.

[theonetruetim]

"The poets lie"
-Continental guiles.
[analytic = castrated play acting]

[real_pattern]

@Mon000 have you seen dr. fatima's recent video on the sokal affair?