Rex Kerr
1 min readSep 12, 2023

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I'm not sure that this is a major factor. Philosophy typically requires a lot of detailed interaction with prior work in philosophy, and it takes a lot of time to make a good case according to the standards of one's audience. For instance, Cristina Somcutean reports spending an entire month writing a 3000 word essay (https://medium.com/@cristinawrites/giving-myself-permission-to-suck-38e376992c2f) and feeling that this rate of work was necessary to craft a good argument--this is not the kind of thing that is done by the impatient!

Of course, philosophy isn't science, and presumably people who go into philosophy do better-than-random at picking the one that is better aligned with their personalities. But I suspect that "insufficient patience" isn't an important factor behind why some philosophers don't seem to do well at even understanding science.

I don't know a good way to assess whether or not it is the comparatively impatient philosophers who are also comparatively unlikely to have a sensible view of science. Regardless, most of the historical figures I referenced in my article do not seem to have been inordinately impatient overall.

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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