Unpopular Science 230729 Philosophers

When reason goes on holiday

Venture Capitalist Marc Andreessen recommends a 2016 book by Neven Sesardić:

what happens when basically very smart people who are taken very seriously in one field decide to branch out and decide to become experts on society and politics and decide to weigh in on the future shape of society, and basically it turns out they’re just horribly bad, they just have catastrophic judgment once they’re outside of their core discipline.

When Reason Goes on Holiday is written by a young philosophy student who clearly has an ax to grind — no doubt, he wrote this after realizing he would never be accepted into the elite world — but it's a well-researched and useful reminder not to take every philosopher (or scientist) as an expert on contemporary events.