He was controversial, but he was in my opinion one of the best all-around living philosophers. He was enormously influential on my own thinking, as well as kind and patient every time I met him. Enormously influential, and a big loss to the discipline.

There is no philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage was taken on board without examination.

  • Philosoraptor [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
    2·
    7 months ago

    The other two don’t even deserve my time aside from mentioning the fact that Dawkins, in The Selfish Gene, goes entirely off the rails in how he conceives of “memes” (in the original sense) and it illustrates why experts need to stay in their fucking lane

    Just to add on to this, Sam Harris isn’t even good in his own (ostensible) lane. His neuroscience PhD dissertation is almost shockingly bad. I have no idea how they awarded him the degree, except maybe just to get rid of him because he was so insufferable. Dawkins at least has some real and respectable scientific scholarship in his past; Sam Harris has never been anything but a grifter.