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Debate on Wisdom and Criticism w/ John Vervaeke and Chris Mastropietro (Patreon)

Published:
2023-03-15 02:00:44
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

For anyone who was interested but missed the livestream the video is now up for all to see on YouTube.

I think it went quite well and Matt & I enjoyed ourselves.

But you can judge for yourself.

As always comments and feedback are welcome.

Files

Wisdom Signalling & the Wisdom of Criticism w/ John Veraveke, Chris M, Chris Kavanagh, & Matt Browne

March 13th, 2023 John Vervaeke and Chris Mastropietro meet the secular guru decoders, Chris Kavanagh and Matt Browne, to discuss secular gurus, wisdom signaling, and the wisdom of criticism. More from John: https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke/videos https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke More from the decoders: https://twitter.com/GurusPod https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus https://thestoa.ca https://thestoa.substack.com https://patreon.com/the_stoa

Comments

Rod Hodges

Not 5 minutes in and the guy right after Chris K starts talking a language that I can’t follow.They haven’t even started and I could understand clearly what Chris K was saying. The next dude sounded like he was setting up to justify more gobbledygook with gobbledygook . This could be a tough one for me.

Patrick

I respect you guys so much for putting up with this bullshit lol. I can't ever bring myself to watch these response episodes all the way through, but its cool that you offer to do them anyways.

Barrett

I was following up to 24:50 and heard this gem: "If there's a critique made of wisdom, it seems to me the critique would have to be wise." I am paused still, but I have a feeling that lil bit of begging the question is the sort of seed that will gets spun up into an entire universe of word salad jazz. I'm sure there are a lot of people who would find it profound. Maybe even a signal of wisdom! now I'm looking forward to the rest. btw well done on openers, C & M.

Daniel

Listened to Vervaeke's first remarks three times to try to understand him. Would be very appreciative if someone could check my understanding: Vervaeke's view is that the dominant idea of rationality is lacking because it focuses too much on the inferential (i.e., logic), and it should be broadened to include things like mindfulness and perspective-taking. People cannot merely use logic and have to rely on heuristics which introduce bias, and are also subject to attentional biases. He sees wisdom as something that is had through this expanded concept of rationality, and would also like criticism to use this broader rationality. At the same time, he doesn't want to take things so far that it leads to the ills Chris K. spoke of. I still don't get what Vervaeke meant about taking the implications that are relevant versus those that aren't. He speaks in abstractions but I need concrete examples. It'd probably be easier to understand if I'd read a paper of his like Matt dared to do...

Rod Hodges

How bout we broaden the meaning of borrowing things so we could just go into a store and “ borrow” a few things.

Exai

To my surprise, this was pretty good. Like Žižek, I'm vehemently opposed to capital-W Wisdom (mostly seeing it as various obfuscated forms of motivated/post-hoc reasoning), but the topic is worth debating. There's also something to be said for aestheticized anti-wisdom, which comes out in my reaction whenever I arrive to the solemn "Welcome... to the Stoa" (or "Let there be light in the Stoa" :puke:). Or, when Matt says he's not opposed to "poetry or philosophy" whenever he describes how little he thinks of both, which are also the same thing, obviously. Most importantly, nobody on call was some culture war idiot, which was previously everyone I knew of in Vervaeke's orbit. He comes off like a genuine thinker, and seems self-reflective of the responsibility of intellectual work. On whether it succeeds, I wonder if there's anyone who would share this same critique of openness and wisdom (and a defense of some form of cog psych postcritique) to a psychotic Jordan Peterson tweeting fetish porn as news from China. He is physically incapable of processing an idea that he didn't already agree with in 2010. It's bad pedagogy to rub a puppy's face in their own shit. Vervaeke is correct about this. It's also irresponsible to think that a few kind nudges will potty train a 60 year old. You can't treat the world's top "intellectuals" like helpless babies, <i>especially</i> if they are helpless babies. In this, you need systemic critique of what exactly makes it so that to be a top intellectual in 2023, you have to be a fragile, gullible, narcissistic baby. PS. I think the false framing of the fight, presumably put forth by the goobers at The Stoa itself, points at the problem. Wisdom is opposed to criticism. On what grounds? Who is on the side of criticism here? IDW era public intellectuals are people whose job it is to get mad at things and to insulate themselves from disagreement and criticism. In being professional criticizers against self-criticism, are they here for or against criticism? As gurus, in peddling many kinds of enlightenment products but being against self-reflection, are they for or against wisdom? Professor Derrida deconstructs. (Now that I recall, Chris probably said something like this in the opening arguments. It's astonishing that you would have the bravery to think on such a high level!)

Colin Fardey

That was fun , enjoyed it. The bit at the end,when everybody was thanking each other for being so polite and interpersonally lovley was quite amusing.

NB

There's something so funny to how Chris, matt, and even John talk like normal human being who live on earth, and the Mastropietro comes in like a sense making wrecking ball talking like he's a 17th century philosopher writing a letter to his interlocutors

Peter

This was fun for me, having taken classes with Vervaeke at Toronto. I’m seeing a lot of confusion in the comments about his positions, and frustratingly it is is one of those JBP-like situations where you sort of have to dive into his worldview to get where he’s coming from. He has a 50-part series on his YouTube where he stakes out his whole cog-sci/philosophy informed megaverse. It’s very galaxy-brained, complete with neologisms, the whole shebang. I think I fell off somewhere around the 15th episode but it’s quite the watch if you’re curious. For somebody more knowledgeable, I’m sure there would be plenty to critique in there, but for someone like me it’s a lot of “… okay, sure, for the next half half-hour I’ll take your word that that’s what Kant meant…” Though to his credit the series isn’t just surface level babble. It goes very deep and makes JBP’s thought look like graffiti done in crayon. Having had interactions with JV as well as knowing some people who’ve worked closely with him, I know him to be sincere and lacking the narcissism of JBP etc. Of possible note to you guys is that JV and JBP have known each other for ages, having been colleagues at Toronto in the same department since at least the early 00’s. And from what I know, they were friends when JBP was still teaching there, so I’d venture that JBP is likely even closer to home for JV than Pageau. Anyway, this was a fun one to watch. My sense is that JV is just not a very confrontational person and it’s uncomfortable for him to call people out directly on their batshit takes. He genuinely doesn’t have a political agenda and he just enjoys having stimulating conversations. I’d put him at “harmless sense-maker”. I would personally love a longer form interview with him, or even an episode dedicated to his thought. If Eric Weinstein is the prototypical malignant secular guru, then JV is the prototypical benevolent secular guru.

Martin Pelchat

Great discussion - I don't know much about Vervaeke, but based on this discussion he seems like a genuine person in his intentions (and I'm not saying that because we are both overly polite Canadians!), and Chris and Matt expressed their points very well. Thanks!