Good philosophy

Gar Lipow lipowg at sprintmail.com
Fri Apr 5 10:49:08 PST 2002


JKS wrote:

>... As my differences with Chris about JS Mill and Husserl show, even people with extensive professional education can differ about these things. Basically there is no hope whatsoever that anyone will ever say anything general and interesting about what makes philosophy good. It's something you have to learn by studying exemplars that experts generally acknowledge to be great. It's easier to say what makes philosophy bad, when it is. Anyway, learning this stuff is a lot of what grad school in philosophy is about.

There is an old, old story. A woman steps into a doctors office, say "Doctor I get these horribly shooting pains in my..."

The doctor interrupts. "Madame, I'm sorry, I can't help you. I'm a Doctor of Philosophy".

Terribly embarrassed, the woman turns to leave. But she is curious, and can't help asking "Doctor, pardon me, but what kind of disease is philosophy?".

You are saying that to this question "What kind of disease is philosophy?"), there is no short answer?

Gar



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