Saturday, July 9, 2022

The Gratuitous Length Of Some Philosophical Writings

Writing, speaking, and conversation do not ground knowledge and are in fact epistemologically irrelevant to the many strictly logical and introspective truths that can be known, even if language can be used to describe and communicate them (or even personally reflect on them).  This does not mean that it is irrational or pointless to write about philosophical facts and subjects, from the self-verifying absolute certainty of logical axioms to individuality to ethical systems to relationships and beyond.  What is irrational and pointless is when those who write about a philosophical topic think appeals to authority are necessary to logical proofs and drag out their written work far longer than it needs to be.


For every truth, there are perhaps dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of possible errors or assumptions an irrational a person could leap to, but there are not literally thousands of separate and knowable truths about self-contained subjects.  There are not 300 standard pages worth of distinct, non-repetitive, necessary, and provable logical truths about any given issue without extending the focus to secondary or more loosely related facets of it, or even being precise enough to address the aspects of something that only a genuine, deep rationalist would understand (like some of the things mentioned here [1]).  Most of what the majority of people will talk and write about, however, is not a sincere, rational analysis of things that can be proven with absolute logical certainty, but red herrings, reactions to trivial cultural trends, or inverted epistemological frameworks.

It is not irrational to address even relatively minor cultural issues in one's mind or conversations, but to revisit important or core truths and ideas, but to pretend that there is a need for much of the thousands of digital or physical pages that get written about plenty of topics is outright asinine--especially since so many ideas people assess are not necessary to prove foundational logical truths or truths about other things that logic actually reveals, as opposed to speculation or assumptions.  Most ideas people discuss, write about, or think about are only given attention as a reaction because someone else mentioned them already, not because they are truly vital concepts or truths that any independent rationalist would come to just by looking to reason.

For example, there is not necessarily a reason to specifically think or talk about plenty of the misconceptions of ideas that abound all across history except as a response to other people who have not thought carefully about a topic.  A rationalist could go a lifetime without ever mistaking something like rationalism for a neglect of emotionality, gender egalitarianism for sexism against men, basic theism for an actual religion, and so on.  While there is always something about every concept that can be understood only by looking to reason and the concepts themselves, many points about a given issue are almost exclusively thought of because someone else, perhaps in the kind of writing that goes on for far longer than is necessary, made an easily avoidable mistake in their thinking that someone else has to correct in a specific way.

Reactions and reactions to reactions are indeed important, of course--not that academia, the internet, or books are necessary even to react to cultural trends.  They are necessary to weaken the influence of false or unverifiable ideas.  It is still the case that they are neither the heart of philosophy nor something that justifies presenting the whole of prolonged books or articles as helpful contributions to anything but expanding the pool of material true rationalists can tear apart.  Most writing is still shallow, unnecessary, overly prolonged, and repetitive in a way that is not helpful.  One of the best reasons for people to write is simply because they want to, not out of some false belief that mere quantity and popularity of writing is in any way useful on its own.


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