Comment by guerrilla
5 days ago
I'm someone who has read all of that and much more, including intense study of SEP and some contemporary papers and textbooks, and I would say that I am absolutely not qualified to produce philosophy of the quality output by analytic philosophy over the last century. I can understand a lot of it, and yes, this is better than being completely ignorant of the last 2500 years of philosophy as most rationalists seem to be, but doing only what I have done would not sufficiently prepare them to work on the projects that they want to work on. They (and I) do not have the proper training in logic or research methods, let alone the experience that comes from guided research in the field as it is today. What we all lack especially is the epistemological reinforcement that comes from being checked by a community of our peers. I'm not saying it can't be done alone, I'm just saying that what you're suggesting isn't enough and I can tell you because I'm quite beyond that and I know that I cannot produce the quality of work that you'll find in SEP today.
Oh I don't mean to imply reading some classical lit prepares you for a career producing novel works in philosophy, simply that if one wants to understand themselves, others, and the world better they don't need to go to university to do it. They can just read.
I think you are understating how difficult this is to do. I suspect there are a handful of super-geniuses who can read the philosophical canon and understand it, without some formal guidance. Plato and Dostoevsky might be possible (Socrates would be a bit difficult), but getting to Hegel and these newer more complex authors is almost impossible to navigate unless you are a savant.
I suspect a lot of the rationalists have gotten stuck here, and rather than seek out guidance or slowing down, changed tack entirely and decided to engage with the philosophers du jour, which unfortunately is a lot of slop running downstream from Thiel.