Submitted by philosophybreak t3_zkr99s in philosophy
He's pretty flippant about discarding certain views with without much explanation. For instance, the idea that seriousness is an inherently closed view of reality. Some people are too uptight, sure, but you can absolutely take seriously the task of being openminded and exploring the world.
It's normal to care deeply about some parts of the world, and thus take them seriously, while keeping an open mind. It's actually really important. For one example, think of a time when a friend or family seriously fucked up and needed help. Like if they had an addiction or financial problems. A lot of people would take their situation seriously and be open-minded in order to empathize with the person who's suffering despite their own part in their suffering. That's just an example of a serious attitude being important for openmindedness. Someone who's flippant or too playful about their friend's problem might not be helpful if, indeed, their friend requires help. You'll have a hard time being empathetic if you don't take someone's situation seriously.
You can be serious about finding and exploring the world around you in all sorts of things, including stuff like art and engineering design.
It seems like the author's statement on seriousness being an inherently closed view of the world is not totally accurate. Playfulness is valuable, and legitimately important for thinking laterally; but being playful can be limiting in itself, especially in a complex topic, like engineering or empathizing with trauma, where care is absolutely needed in order to make much progress. So I think the author made a highly generalized statement that, as a result, isn't too useful imo. I think that's not great for an essay where the main idea is openmindedness and considering the whole world as-is.
If that's what you got from his discussion of seriousness as a refusal to see nuance in all situations then as others have pointed out you literally are too serious about the use of the word. If there's anywhere you should be open to understanding the context and entirety of what's written rather than being pedantic it's in philosophy.
I think you're fixating way too hard on the terminology he decided to coin for the idea. Do you disagree about the content of the idea, its name aside? I also disagree with the naming choice but it seems relatively unimportant to discuss.
>but being playful can be limiting in itself, especially in a complex topic, like engineering or empathizing with trauma, where care is absolutely needed in order to make much progress
but he is talking about philosophy, which is inherently general, not as specific as a given engineering problem.
btw the most exciting products of engineering are always the ones which are attempting to break paradigms.
>but he's talking about philosophy, which is inherently general,
Philosophy needs to be precise aswell, and it absolutely must relate to actual events the real world (such as engineering, art, socializing, etc), or else it is not useful at all (maybe still interesting, though). The author involves real-world specific context in his article plenty.
It's not good form to make an extremely broad and general statement in philosophy unless you can back it up by elaborating. Maybe he elaborates in his book, but in this article, he denounces "seriousness" - an incredibly broad and frequent feeling in humans - without being precise enough for it to be meaningful.
> btw the most exciting products of engineering are always the ones which are attempting to break paradigms.
I completely agree, and I firmly believe most of those engineers take their jobs seriously. Even as they break boundaries.
I think there are some explanations of seriousness dropped here and there in the article, and it is not exactly what you mean. it is rather used for following rules without questioning, respecting discipline to the detriment of creativity.
this means someone can be serious in their work (in your terms) without following the seriousness of the subject (in the author's term).
he suggests playfulness for example to break well known dichotomies, or an other example to adopt foreign ideas instead of translating everything to familiar terms.
at least this is my recollection.
That's not the meaning of 'seriousness' in English, though. That's my point. This author is using 'seriousness' as a stand-in for being committed to rules or being closedminded. Just refer to the thing itself or make a new word rather than defining a word that already has a different, relevant definition.
Literally, that's not a definition of seriousness. Defining seriousness such that serious things and people are always closed-minded really seems like a bad idea. Seems very closed-minded in itself.
I think you are too serious about the meaning of that word.
Similar response to someone else:
Yes, language changes naturally over time. If it is an intentional change on his part, I think it's a bad change.
What do we call our old version of "seriousness" now? Why change it, why lose it? Why tie up "closedmindedness", which we have a word for, with a related but totally distinct thing?
He's conflating two different things and using then using one of those two things to denounce the other. I do not abide that in an essay about openmindedness. He absolutely didn't have to choose a specific, different word.
Someone is downvoting you for simply asking why the author of the article needlessly tortures the meaning of a word. This sub is too serious... lol
Language is fluid and changes constantly. All of human history can tell you that. Why is this specific situation so different?
Yes, language changes naturally over time. If it is an intentional change on his part, I think it's a bad change.
What do we call our old version of "seriousness" now? Why change it, why lose it? Why tie up "closedmindedness", which we have a word for, with a related but totally distinct thing?
He's conflating two different things and using then using one of those two things to denounce the other. I do not abide that in an essay about openmindedness.
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