ψηλή και/et scientia @atfirstthought - Tumblr Blog

Analytic Philosophy Reading List for the Self Taught*

f -Th*does not include ethics, politics, social philosophy

Duration: 3 to 4 years

Time required: 4 to 6 hours a week

General instructions: Do not advance until you finish all the reading materials in the current level (4A and 4B, can be read together, same with 5A and 5B). Books inside a level can be read in any order unless specified. Take into account that logic and methodology books usually require more time if you don’t have a mathematical background. Most of the material can be found online.

About: I am a professor of Epistemology in Mexico (@MetaEpistemic), some of my students with different backgrounds have asked me for a short reading list on analytic philosophy. Well, it got out of hand, though feel free to stop whenever your curiosity is fulfilled. I hope this may be useful for some folks interested in learning a bit more of this fascinating tradition.

Disclaimer: I haven’t read 100% of the material. Some of the books are recommendations from colleagues, thanks to Moisés Macías (@logicalanalysis) and Carlos Romero (@ckronosz) . All suggestions are welcome.

———-

Level 0

Duration: 2 to 4 months

Objective: Read fun stuff to get started (not necessarily philosophy). Start getting familiar with some of the basic problems of philosophy. You may want to skip some of these books depending on your background.

Also, watch the Crash Course in Philosophy playlist if you’ve got little or zero background in philosophy.

- Taleb - The Black Swan

- Barrow - The infinite book

- Sider & Conee - Riddles of Existence

- Blackmore - Conversations on Consciousness

- Pinker - The Language Instinct

- Smullyan - What is the name of this book?

- Gladwell - Blink

- Baggini - The Philosopher’s Toolkit

- Russell - Problems of Philosophy

- Baggini - The pig that wants to be eaten

- Clark - Natural born cyborgs

- Doxiadis - Logicomix

- Bruce & Barbone - Just the arguments

- Williamson - Tetralogue

- Lakoff - Don’t Think of an Elephant.

- Cornman & Lehrer - Philosophical Problems and Arguments

- Dennett - Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (part I)

- Janik & Toulmin - Wittgenstein’s Vienna.

- Gowers - Mathematics a Very Short Introduction

- Warburton - A Little History of Philosophy

———–

Level 1: Introductory textbooks (mostly)

Duration: 2 to 4 months

Objetive: Get a general idea of the most important problems in different areas of analytic philosophy with books that don’t require previous knowledge. Get a basic knowledge of first order philosophy.

Epistemology: Pritchard - What is this thing called knowledge?

Language: Lycan - Philosophy of Language, Austin - How to do things with words

Logic: Varzi - Outline of Logic (or any primer in first order logic), Priest - Logic a Very Short Introduction (in that order).

Math: Linnebo - Philosophy of Mathematics, ch. 1-7, Colyvan - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics.

Metaphysics: Garret - What is this thing called metaphysics?

Mind: Churchland - Matter and Consciousness.

Science: Dewitt - Worldviews, Losee - Philosophy of Science a Historical Introduction.

History of Philosophy: A. W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics, part I.

————–

Level 2: Filling the gaps

Duration: 2 to 4 months

Objective: Fill some gaps necessary to get to more advanced topics by reading a couple of books.

Epistemology: Hacking - An Introduction to Probability and Inductive Logic

Language: Birner - Introduction to Pragmatics.

Logic: Gamut - Logic, Language and Meaning v. 1.

Math: Russell - Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy.

Metaphysics: Brock & Mares - Realism and Anti-Realism, Loux - Metaphysics.

Mind: Clark - Mindware

Science: Hempel - Philosophy of Natural Science, Hacking - Representing and intervening.

History of Philosophy: Dicker - Hume’s Epistemology and Metaphysics, A. W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics, part II.

Articles from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (iep.utm.edu): Frege’s Philosophy of Language, A Priori and a Posteriori, Chinese Room Argument, The Hard Problem of Consciousness, “The Brain in a Vat” Argument, Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology, Internalism and Externalism in the Philosophy of Mind and Language, Theories of Explanation, The Infinite, Russell’s Paradox, Truth, Scientific Change

————–

Level 3: Intermediate textbooks

Duration: 10 to 12 months

Objective: To get a grip of many of the same topics of level 1, but with a more detailed presentation. Learn the basics of the meta-mathematics of first order logic. Optional: the student may want to check some of the sources cited in these textbooks when they seem interesting.

Epistemology: Pollock - Contemporary Theories of Knowledge.

Language: McGinn - Philosophy of Language, Dummett - Frege: Philosophy of Language.

Logic: Hunter - Metalogic, Skyrms - Choice and Chance.

Mathematics: Shapiro - Thinking about Mathematics, Pollard - Philosophical Introduction to Set Theory, Dummett - Frege: Philosophy of Mathematics (preferably read first Frege: Philosophy of Language).

Metaphysics: Koons - Metaphysics: The Fundamentals, Divers - Possible Worlds, Berto - Ontology and Metaontology,

Mind: Cummins - Mental Representation, Kim - Philosophy of Mind, Bermúdez - Cognitive Science.

Science: Rosenberg - Philosophy of Science, Peter Godfrey Smith - Theory and Reality.

History of Philosophy: Dicker - Kant’s Theory of Knowledge, Malpass - The History of Philosophical and Formal Logic.

Philosophical Methodology: Papineau - Philosophical Devices, Daly - An Introduction to Philosophical Methods,

——————

Level 4A: Lectures (and more)

Duration: 2 to 4 months

Objective: Enjoy yourself by engaging in new ideas with a couple of lectures. Keep learning a little bit more of the math necessary to do philosophy.

Millikan - Varieties of Meaning

Fodor - The Elm and the Expert

Kripke - Naming and Necessity

Putnam - The Threefold Chord

Clark - Being There

Dennett - Sweet Dreams

Kornblith - Knowledge and its Place in Nature

Jackson - From Metaphysics to Ethics

Lewis - On the Plurality of Worlds

History of Philosophy: Dummett - Origins of Analytical Philosophy, Coffa - The Semantic Tradition.

Philosophical methodology: Steinhart - More Precisely (begin)

—————

Level 4B: Articles from the SEP (mostly)

Duration: 2 to 4 months

Objetive: Get bored. At the same time, get an idea of the positions in many important discussions by reading articles from he Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu). Articles should not be studied in detail (it’s not necessary to understand 100% of them), but should be read to get a general idea of several debates. Finish More Precisely.

-Metaphysics: Identity over time, Free Will, Mereology, Nominalism, Essentialism, Essential vs. Accidental Properties, Transworld Identity, The Metaphysics of Causation, Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Properties, Events, Types and Tokens, Supervenience, Possible Objects, Possible Worlds, Actualism, Impossible Worlds, States of Affaires, Modal Fictionalism, David Lewis’s Metaphysics, Location and Mereology, Truth, Temporal Parts, Personal Identity, The problem of the many.

-Epistemology: Naturalized Epistemology, Social Epistemology, Virtue Epistemology, Formal Epistemology, Foundationalist Theories of Epistemic Justification, Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification, The Analysis of Knowledge, Reliabilism, The Ethics of Belief, Evidence, Epistemic Contextualism, Epistemic Paradoxes, Epistemic Basing Relation, Internalistic vs Externalistic Conceptions of Justification, Epistemic Closure Principle.

-Mind: Externalism about mental content, The Mind/Brain Identity Theory, Consciousness, Functionalism, Teleological Theories of Mental Content, Intentionality, Mental Causation, Causal Theories of Mental Content, Representational theories of Consciousness, Consciousness: Higher Order theories, Qualia, Qualia: The knowledge argument, Connectionism, The Language of Thought Hypothesis, Anomalous Monism. Zombies, Collective Intentionality, The Chinese Room Argument, Behaviorism, Dualism.

-Science: Scientific Realism, Abduction, Constructive Empiricism, Models in Science, Scientific Progress, Structural Realism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Induction, Historicist Theories of Scientific Rationality, The Incommensurability of Scientific Theories, Scientific Progress, Scientific Explanation, Underdetermination of Scientific Theory, Scientific Reduction.

-Language: Philosophy of Linguistics, Reference, Rigid Designators, Theories of Meaning, Meaning Holism, Pragmatics, Two-dimensional Semantics, Descriptions, Convention, Anaphora, Logical Form, Non-existent objects, Metaphor, Indexicals, Propositions, Tense and Aspect, Innateness and Language.

-Math: Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics, Abstract Objects, Ontological Commitment, Formalism, Explanation in Mathematics, Constructive Mathematics, Philosophy of Mathematics, Fictionalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics, Set Theory, Continuum Hypothesis, Indispensability arguments, Frege’s Theorem and Foundations for Arithmetic, Principia Mathematica, Philosophy of Probability

-Logic: Classical Logic, Logical Consequence, Modal Logic, Free Logic, Relevance Logic, Intuitionistic Logic, Deontic Logic, Informal Logic, Temporal Logic, Inductive Logic, Many Valued Logic, Paraconsistent Logic, Logic and Artificial Intelligence, Non-Monotonic Logic, Dialtheism, Logical Pluralism, Epistemic Logic, The Logic of Conditionals, Quantifiers and Quantification.

-History of Philosophy: Gottlob Frege, Paul Grice, Bertrand Russell, David K. Lewis, Willard van Orman Quine, Wilfrid Sellars, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Vienna Circle, Rufolf Carnap (in construction), Karl Popper, Charles Sanders Peirce, Richard Rorty, Donald Davidson, George Edward Moore, John Langshaw Austin, Gilbert Ryle, Thomas Kuhn.

History of philosophy: Soames - Philosophical Analysis v. 2

Philosophical methodology: Steinhart - More Precisely (finish).

Metaphysics & Science: Schrenk - Metaphysics of Science.

————-

Level 5A: Advanced books

Duration: 10 to 12 months

Objective: Go on. It’s too late to reconsider. In this level not all of the books are surveys, some of them defend particular positions (but also reconstruct several antagonistic positions).

Epistemology: Stitch - The Fragmentation of Reason, DeRose - The Case for Contextualism, Ghijsen - The Puzzle of Perceptual Justification.

Language: Soames - Philosophy of Language, Stalnaker - Context.

Logic: Sider - Logic for philosophy

Math: Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics: Structure, Maddy - Naturalism in Mathematics, Balaguer - Platonism and Anti-Platonism in Mathematics.

Metaphysics: Lowe - A Survey of Metaphysics, Sider - The Tools of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of Science, Bob Hale - Necessary Beings.

Mind: Chalmers - The Conscious Mind, Siegel - The Contents of Visual Experience, Machery - Doing without Concepts.

Science: Suppes - Representation and Invariance of Scientific Structures ch. 1-4, Thagard - Computational Philosophy of Science, Van Fraassen - The Scientific Image.

History of Philosophy: Soames - Philosophical Analysis v. 2, Kneale - The Development of Logic, Feser - Scholastic Metaphysics.

Philosophical Methodology: DePaul - Rethinking Intuition, Bashour - Contemporary Philosophical Naturalism and Its Implications.

Free choice (one book from this list): Pylyshyn - Computation and Cognition, Bennett & Hacker - Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, Jackendoff - Foundations of Language, Casullo - A Priori Justification, Lando - Mereology, Williamson - Modal Logic as Metaphysics, Priest - Beyond the Limits of Thought, Lange - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics, Carruthers - The Architecture of the Mind, Sider - Four Dimensionalism, Rescher - Epistemic Logic, Potter - Set Theory and its Philosophy, Lewis - Counterfactuals, Williamson - Vagueness.

—————-

Level 5B: The sources

Duration: 10 to 12 months.

Objective: Read the most important articles in each area using anthologies.

Choose 4 areas:

Epistemology: Sosa & Kim - Epistemology,.

Language: Martinich - Philosophy of Language.

Logic: Jacquet - Philosophy of Logic.

Math: Putnam & Benacerraf - Philosophy of Mathematics

Metaphysics: Sosa & Kim - Metaphysics.

Mind: Chalmers - Philosophy of Mind,

Science: Lange - Philosophy of Science an Anthology.

Add one from these to one of your chosen areas: Turri - Virtue Epistemology (Epistemology), Chalmers - Metametaphysics (Metaphysics), Correia & Schneider - Metaphysical Grounding (Metaphysics), Landry & Rickles - Structural Realism (Science), Margolis - Concepts (Mind), Lindström - Logicism, Intuitionism, and Formalism (Math), Jokic - Time, Tense and Reference (Language).

———-

Congratulations, you’re an analytic philosophers now (even though you’ve never read Wittgenstein’s Tractatus). You can now begin to learn other philosophy stuff (perhaps the history of early modern philosophy or post-structuralism?)

(Or you can just skip everything and print this table).

—————

Where to continue? An incomplete list of suggestions:

Metaphysics: Ruth Barcan - Modalities, Sider - Writing the Book of the World, Ladyman - Everything Must Go, Sider - Four Dimensionalism, Mumford - Powers, Stoljar - Physicalism, Schmitt - Socializing Metaphysics, Maudlin - The Metaphysics Within Physics, Williamson - Modal Logic as Metaphysics.

Mind: Millikan - Language, Thought and Other Biological Categories, Fodor - The Language of Thought, Fodor - The Modularity of Mind, Block - Consciousness Function and Representation, Dretske - Naturalizing the Mind, Clark - Supersizing the Mind, Carruthers - The Architecture of the Mind, Searle - Intentionality, Stich - From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science, Dennett - The intentional Stance, Clark - Associative Engines, Ludlow & Nagasawa - There’s Something About Mary, Perry - Knowledge, Possibility, and Consciousness, Margolis - Concepts..

Logic: Manzano - Model Theory, Kozen - Automata Theory, Priest - In Contradiction, Beall & Restall - Logical Pluralism, Garson - What Logics Mean, Popkorn - First Steps in Modal Logic, Van Benthem - Modal Logic for Open Minds, Rayo - Absolute Generality, Priest - An Introduction to Non-Classical Logics, Priest - Beyond the Limits of Thought.

Epistemology: Haack - Evidence and Enquiry, Williamson - Knowledge and its Limits, Greco - Knowledge as Achievement, Goldman - Epistemology and Cognition, Stanley - Knowledge and Practical Interest, Bonjour - The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, Lackey - The Epistemology of Testimony, Rorty - Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Craig - Knowledge and the State of Nature, DeRose - Skepticism, Plantinga - Warrant and Proper Function, Knobe & Nichols - Experimental Philosophy.

Math: Maddy - Second Philosophy, Hartry Field - Science Without Numbers, Lakatos - Proofs and Refutations, Cohen - Set Theory and the Continuum Hypothesis, Maddy - Believing the Axioms.

Language: García-Carpintero & Maciá - Two Dimensional Semantics, Yablo - Aboutness, Stalnaker - Context, Keefe - Theories of Vagueness, Dummett, Along & Leonardi - The Philosophy of David Kaplan, Soames - Beyond Rigidity, Lewis - Convention, Brandom - Making it Explicit, Grice - Studies in the way of words.

Science: Goodman - Fact, Fiction and Forecast, Maudlin - Philosophy of Physics, Sterlny - Sex and Death, Popper - The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Feyerabend - Against Method, Cartwright - The Dappled World, Kitcher - Science Truth and Democracy, Laudan - Progress and its Problems.

Classics from the first half of the 20th century (circa): Frege - The Foundations of Arithmetics, Anscombe - Intention, Wittgenstein - Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, Wittgenstein - Philosophical Investigations, Sellars - Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, Russell & Whitehead - Principia Mathematica, Russell - The Principles of Mathematics, Carnap - The Logical Construction of the World, Carnap - Meaning and Necessity, Quine - Word and Object, Quine - Ontological Relativity, Quine - From a Logical Point of View.

>planting

>mushroom cultivation

>self made tattoos

>side hustle

>ceramics at home

>backpacking

>meditation for dummies

Watch "how to grow herbs at home without soil 🌿" on YouTube

#Youtube

veganlove

zengardenamaozn

Clear Your Chakra

flowerinaflame

From Edna Lewis’ The Taste of Country Cooking

creepylittleworld

franksinatra420-remade-blog

During the Bubonic Plague, doctors wore these bird-like masks to avoid becoming sick. They would fill the beaks with spices and rose petals, so they wouldn’t have to smell the rotting bodies.

A theory during the Bubonic Plague was that the plague was caused by evil spirits. To scare the spirits away, the masks were intentionally designed to be creepy.

twinkletwinkleyoulittlefuck-dea

Mission fucking accomplished

cellarspider

Okay so I love this but it doesn’t cover the half of why the design is awesome and actually borders on making sense.

It wasn’t just that they didn’t want to smell the infected and dead, they thought it was crucial to protecting themselves. They had no way of knowing about what actually caused the plague, and so one of the other theories was that the smell of the infected all by itself was evil and could transmit the plague. So not only would they fill their masks with aromatic herbs and flowers, they would also burn fires in public areas, so that the smell of the smoke would “clear the air”. This all related to the miasma theory of contagion, which was one of the major theories out there until the 19th century. And it makes sense, in a way. Plague victims smelled awful, and there’s a general correlation between horrible septic smells and getting horribly sick if you’re around what causes them for too long.

You can see now that we’ve got two different theories as to what caused the plague that were worked into the design. That’s because the whole thing was an attempt by the doctors to cover as many bases as they could think of, and we’re still not done.

The glass eyepieces. They were either darkened or red, not something you generally want to have to contend with when examining patients. But the plague might be spread by eye contact via the evil eye, so best to ward that off too.

The illustration shows a doctor holding a stick. This was an examination tool, that helped the doctors keep some distance between themselves and the infected. They already had gloves on, but the extra level of separation was apparently deemed necessary. You could even take a pulse with it. Or keep people the fuck away from you, which was apparently a documented use.

Finally, the robe. It’s not just to look fancy, the cloth was waxed, as were all of the rest of their clothes. What’s one of the properties of wax? Water-based fluids aren’t absorbed by it. This was the closest you could get to a sterile, fully protecting garment back then. Because at least one person along the line was smart enough to think “Gee, I’d really rather not have the stuff coming out of those weeping sores anywhere on my person”.

So between all of these there’s a real sense that a lot of real thought was put into making sure the doctors were protected, even if they couldn’t exactly be sure from what. They worked with what information they had. And frankly, it’s a great design given what was available! You limit exposure to aspirated liquids, limit exposure to contaminated liquids already present, you limit contact with the infected. [Removed a non-fact from here. See note at the bottom!]

Beyond that, there were contracts the doctors would sign before they even got near a patient. They were to be under quarantine themselves, they wouldn’t treat patients without a custodian monitoring them and helping when something had to be physically contacted, and they would not treat non-plague patients for the duration. There was an actual system in place by the time the plague doctors really became a thing to make sure they didn’t infect anyone either.

These guys were the product of the scientific process at work, and the scientific process made a bitchin’ proto-hazmat suit. And containment protocols!

EDIT: I don’t know whether this will show up on anyone else’s posts, but I did get one thing wrong that I’d like to correct. There’s been a commentary and more facts added here! Check it out! We’ve now got wandering hordes of Germans whipping themselves! (No seriously this is a thing that happened)

wheeloffortune-design

The true deadly sins

Lust

Not a sin- feeling sexual attraction, sex with consenting partners, masturbation, consuming pornographic media, having several sexual partners, sex before mariage. IT’S A SIN WHEN- the person projects lust onto an unwilling recipient person and does not take into account their wants or consent. Rape, harassment, sexual assault, catcalling, dick pics.

Gluttony

Not a sin- food, enjoying food, cooking, eating sweets, eating meat. In the larger sense, accumulating material things you enjoy, like books or collectibles or whatever. IT’S A SIN WHEN- It deprives other people of what they need.

Envy

Not a sin: Wanting things you see other people have, like money, power, fame. IT’S A SIN WHEN: This is how you define people, and stop respecting them as humans. It’s a sin when you use them for what they have and what they can bring you.

Greed

Not a sin: Wanting financial security, working hard for the things you want. IT’S A SIN WHEN: Your own financial growth depends on keeping other people impoverished and suffering.

Pride

Not a sin: Being proud of your accomplishments, liking your looks, dressing up IT’S A SIN WHEN: It stops you from accepting your faults and seeing how you can be wrong, not admitting that you can better yourself.

Wrath

Not a sin: Righteous anger at situations, being mistreated, seeing other people suffer, at the injustice of the world. Self-defense. Revolution. IT’S A SIN WHEN: Violence towards defenceless people, hitting your partner or your kids,. Violence fuelled by intolerance and bigotry.

Sloth

Not a sin: Resting. Sleeping. Taking a day or a year off. Being unproductive. Playing videogames. IT’S A SIN WHEN: You stay inactive when action is required. When people need you and you’d rather do nothing.

auntbutch

if someone does the “fine, you’re right, i’m clearly a terrible person, i’m satan, i’m the worst person alive, i should just die” thing in response to criticism of their harmful behavior, they are trying to manipulate ppl and flip the situation around so that they look like a victim

stop tolerating this in 2k17 tbh. like really and truly, if you or your friend thinks this is okay pls call the hotline on the bottom of the screen and learn how to take responsibility for your bad behavior

redeyestakewxrning-blog

The bad thing is I do this on a regular basis. Not because I want to manipulate people, but because that’s actually how I feel. I’m bad at receiving concrit. I can’t say that everyone who reacts this way feels the same as I do, but…not every case is like that.

auntbutch

have you considered that, regardless of your intentions, reacting in such an exaggerated way would make it very difficult for anyone to criticize you or tell you that you’re harming people with your behavior? i’m not interested in searching out people’s motives, i don’t really care why someone does or says manipulative things. being unable or unwilling to simply apologize and not make it about themselves is a solid indicator that a person is not interested in being held accountable for their bad behavior, and people, especially the injured parties in question, shouldn’t have to tolerate it.

take responsibility for your bad behavior 2k17 tbh

jenroses

Okay, life lesson time.

When I was in my late teens and early 20s, I kept getting involved with people who would say, “Oh, I’m a bad person” any time I brought up ANYTHING that was the least bit of a disagreement.

Like, “Please don’t leave my X on the floor” would get, “Oh, I’m a horrible person!”

HERE’S WHY THIS IS A HUGELY PROBLEMATIC BEHAVIOR, and if you think I”m calling you out and you think you’re about to shut down, take a breath, remember that this is about learning, and keep reading.

What is important is what happened after. My boyfriend might say, “Oh, I’m just an awful boyfriend” and instead of him acknowledging the BEHAVIOR and working on fixing it, he’d get me trying to buck him up for the next half hour, telling him he was a good person. The behavior that started it all would not change.

Well, things led to things and I went back home to live for a while, and found that the same exact thing was happening… with my mother.

And then I learned about pattern arguments. Pattern arguments are the ones where you keep having the same nonproductive argument over and over again. They don’t all follow this pattern, but this is a really common one.

The trick?

BREAK THE PATTERN

First you have to know what the pattern is. In this case: 1. Grievance 2. Self deprecation 3. Ego stroking So, with my mother, we started in on one of these, and she said, “I guess I’m just a terrible mother.” And instead of reassuring her, instead of derailing the issue and letting it go… I said, “When you say that, it makes me wonder how terrible a daughter I could be that you would think you were a bad mother. We have this conversation this way over and over, and the problem that I have always gets pushed aside in favor of trying to make you feel better. When you’re willing to have a real conversation about this, I’m happy to talk to you, but I’m bored with this argument, so I’ll see you later if you want to really talk.” And I left the room. Now, my mom is a reasonably self-aware person, and does a lot of hard emotional work, and so she got it, very quickly. 10 minutes later she came out and found me, and we had a real conversation about whatever the hell the issue really was, and we have literally NEVER had that particular pattern argument again in 23 years. Boyfriend came to visit. I was upset about something, he started in on the “I’m just a shitty boyfriend” thing… and my response? “Yep. You are.” His jaw dropped. He blinked. And I said, “Look, that’s what you do. You say shit like that and it means you don’t have to change your behavior, and I’m tired of the pattern we have where I tell you something isn’t working for me, you tell me you’re terrible, and I spend half an hour making you feel better. I’m tired of it and I”m not doing it anymore. If you’re willing to have an actual conversation about this, and not just the same old argument, I’m game. But this thing we do where you talk yourself down and I butter you up? Is boring. And I’m over it.” We also did not have that argument again. (The relationship finally ended for real a while after, but it ended in a grown-up way, and not with a ridiculous meaningless fight.) When you knock yourself down, the gut instinct for the people around you is to pick you up. But that means you’re not pulling your weight in the relationship. You’re making them do the work and you’re not actually hearing them. So that brings us to another point:

How to deal with criticism

Okay, so if you’re not going to knock yourself down when someone says something negative about you, what DO you do? We don’t actually train people to take criticism well. But it is an art and a skill and NECESSARY to finding emotional stability in the face of a critical world.

I see it as a flow chart, but since the flow chart I made for it ended up in a book that I don’t own the copyright to (not a big deal) I’ll write out the decision tree here instead: 1. Someone offers criticism (constructive or not!)

2. Listen and think about it without immediately trying to defend yourself. You can say, “Okay, I need a moment to take that in and think about it because I want to understand it.” Or something else appropriate to the situation. It is okay to ask for time to think in most circumstances. Most people will appreciate that you are thinking about their words instead of immediately getting defensive or counterattacking. Think about whether what they are saying is valid, might be valid or is not valid.

3A. If it is valid, then you have a choice. You can try to fix the behavior or you can acknowledge that it is a valid criticism but decide you aren’t likely to fix it. Start by acknowledging the validity of the criticism, and then say what you’re going to do to fix it, or say that it’s valid but it isn’t something you’re willing (or possibly able) to change, or say that it’s a valid criticism and you’ll need to think about possible solutions. They may have a suggestion. Taking it or not is also a choice.

3B. If you’re not sure it’s valid, but it might be, tell them, “I really need to give this some more thought.” or “Can you tell me more about this? I’m not sure I understand the issue well.” Or “If you can point me at some reading material or search terms, I’d like to study this before I decide what I’m going to do.”

3C. If you know it is not a valid criticism, STOP a moment, and look at WHY they are making it. This is where Active Listening can be very helpful. “I hear you saying that X is a problem. I don’t see it that way right now but I’d like to understand better why you do.” Or if you think they don’t have enough information, “I hear you saying X, but my understanding of the issue is Y. Here’s what I know about it if you’re ready to listen.” If they’re just looking for a fight, tell them you’re not interested in fighting, and disentangle yourself.

4. If the criticism is something you are going to listen to and take action on, tell them what kind of action you’re going to take. If it’s something you’re hearing and thinking about, tell them that. If it’s not something you’re going to do anything about or it’s just wrong, thank them for their input and move on.

Literally never is it going to be helpful to say, “Oh, I’m just a terrible person.” That’s very much like a nonapology-apology in terms of how unhelpful it is to any conversation. It’s kind of worse because it actually expects emotional labor from someone who is already having to bring up something unpleasant with you. Think about what they say Decide whether you’re going to do something about it Do the thing, or tell them you’re not going to do the thing. Don’t demand emotional labor from other people when you were the one who messed up.

Apologize if appropriate. This is all predicated on the notion that you’re talking to someone who actually wants to communicate and isn’t just an asshole on the attack. Because seriously, the whole “I’m a terrible person” thing? Boring as fuck. Knock that shit off. Maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t. But take responsibility and have a little self-respect and don’t make others pick your emotional dirty towels off the metaphorical bathroom floor.

dr-dendritic-trees

Yeah, I want to reiterate all of the above, because I feel like the top post doesn’t do an especially good job of conveying that mostly when people do this its not on purpose, its generally because they’re feeling real distress.

Its just that it doesn’t matter.

If every single criticism of you ends in an emotional crisis, you become uncriticisable, and its unbelievably difficult to deal with someone when you can ask them to stop doing something, or to fix something.

9 times out of 10 when someone asks you to stop doing something, or fix a behaviour, its not that big a deal, they were a little upset, they said something about it, and a quick apology and not doing it again, or even just making a sincere effort to do it less, and they’ll probably not even think about it again.

And yeah, it can feel really, really bad to realize you’ve upset someone, even if its only a little bit. But it is unbelievably difficult to maintain a relationship with someone who makes all their feelings your problem. Not because it means you’re evil, or abusive, or being deliberately manipulative, but because most people just don’t have enough emotional energy to process for two. They just don’t.

wildharpy

This would have been amazing to have when I was 16 and an arsehole, but thank God for the people who helped me break that behaviour.

veeeejaaay

Jesus fuck thank you for this post. Gonna share it with someone who does this to me a lot but I’ve been unable to explain properly why their reaction is so paralyzing. I give them criticism and then I’m somehow responsible for dealing with their emotional crisis when I give them criticism. It’s exhausting.

sunny (@isaiahrashad) Tweeted:

BRUH 😭😭😭 https://t.co/pQE2nI9l4i https://twitter.com/isaiahrashad/status/1253368984977588225?s=20