Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
I have discovered a universal perspectivalism-idealism tradeoff law that applies to both Asian and European philosophy. It shall henceforth be known as the ChatGPT-Rao philosophy contraptions production frontier. Both distributions have a similar trend, but looks like western philosophy is a bit convex while Asian is a bit concave I’ll take my Centaur Nobel Prize now.
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John Grant
@jlg
Interesting. I'd like to see subjective vs objective on the x-axis. The y-axis materialist vs idealist represents ontological perspectives while perspectival vs dialectical are epistemic methods. This structure is incoherent because both materialism and idealism already function as perspectives. Subjective vs objective might better capture whether knowledge is viewed as relative or universal.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
I think the current x axis basically the same. Replacing wouldn’t help since idealism and materialism are both also de facto subjectivisms. The two x axis ideas are loosely isomorphic. Dialectics usually have objectivist stances attached. Even Hegel thought he was describing reality not just his view of it.
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John Grant
@jlg
Equating perspectival/dialectical methods with subjective/objective approaches while simultaneously claiming all philosophical positions are subjective creates a contradiction. If everything is subjective, doesn't that render the distinction on the x-axis meaningless?
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
You did the same thing with perspectives
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John Grant
@jlg
If you say all philosophical positions are subjective it implies that knowledge is relative. Yet, you're presenting a 'statistical law' of philosophy which suggests an attempt to create an objective universal framework for understanding these positions.
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Venkatesh Rao ☀️
@vgr
Statistical law of philosophy contraptions As in the theories actual philosophers have tried to build
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John Grant
@jlg
Ah I think I know where you're going with this. All models are wrong but some are useful. But even if all models are imperfect they still need to be internally consistent.
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