Why am I interested in philosophy?

When I was a teenager, I discovered you can spot errors in people’s thinking and lives just by analysing the underlying ideas they’re operating on. And then think how to do better!

These conversations were my favourite thing in the world.

I’d watch TV with friends and pause to discuss e.g. what people did in relationships. We’d discuss morality, how to avoid making their mistakes, and why they made them.

(Relationships were a great source of this, because people often get upset and behave badly in relationships.)

I asked people what school was like, how it was set up, what sucked about it, what kind of abuses of power happen — and most importantly: why?

How could someone think you could teach another human, by force, with a curriculum? The bucket theory of knowledge, among other errors. https://twitter.com/reasonisfun/status/1298635719225860097

I learnt about justificationism, which was eeeeverywhere.

A lot of problems boil down to “trying to have a reason for things” instead of “going with your best idea, and using reasons to criticise/improve it”.

A few years later, I was 16 (trying school!), and it struck me how different Popperian epistemology was from everything everyone thought.

I found people thought you need firm foundations for something to be knowledge — and learnt there are many types of justificationism.

What are the mistaken underlying assumptions?

What is the framework they’re using? Is it true?

If applied to other areas, does it still work, or give weird answers?

What is the problem they ignore / don’t address?

What would be better / great?

How does reality actually work?