I know where you are going, but your example isn't particularly useful. If someone says that they hate vegetables, then they hate vegetables, regardless of whether their vegetable-eating experience is limited.
Not quite. They hate their idea of vegetables. They don't have any idea whether they actually hate actually eating actual vegetables, because they've never really done it.
Similarly, this guy is welcome to hate his impoverished notion of philosophy, but it shouldn't be mistaken for somebody actually hating philosophy.
Hate is a subjective term and describes a feeling, not an objective fact. You are correct in that the author is wrong in that scientists should ignore philosophy based on his limited and ignorant article, but you are incorrect that his feelings towards philosophy is not one of hatred.
Put it this way: I can hate that which I have never experienced. I've never been raped, but I definitely hate it!
The feeling is indeed subjective. I'm not denying the hatred. I'm saying that they misunderstand the object of their hatred, confusing their cartoon notion of vegetables with the actual world of experiences that you have eating vegetables.
The may be speaking the truth when they say "I hate vegetables", but the implication that they won't like eating them doesn't logically follow because they don't actually know.
Spend time around small children and you see this pattern all the time. "I hate it!" "You haven't tried it. Here, try this." "That's good! Can I have more?"
I have two small children of my own, so I know the behaviour :-) None of what you say negates the fact that at the point in time that the child says that they hate the thing they hate, they really do. As I say, hatred is a subjective emotion not necessarily informed by objective reason.
I'm not denying the emotion or the words. I'm just saying they're wrong about what they hate, because what they hate isn't what they're saying.
If I say I hate you and your lying ways, the hate is real whether or not you've lied. But if you've never lied, then I'm not actually hating anything real, just my false idea of a real thing. I literally don't know what I'm talking about.
And now I think we've demonstrated why people hate philosophers.
Sure, they can be wrong about that, but up till that point their feeling is that they hate them. Hatred is not necessarily a permanent state.
Incidentally, I neither bungled anything, nor am I playing word games, nor have I been "trained in philosophy". I thought most people knew that hatred is an emotion, that emotions can be based on subjective perception and that perceptions can change over time.
"I hate vegetables" doesn't mean "I am seething mad at vegetables right now." As for my other comment, it was a cheap shot but I couldn't resist. Sorry :).
Indeed, "Hatred" doesn't meaning seething mad. It means "a feeling of intense dislike; enmity"; if you "hate" vegetables it doesn't mean you are angry at them but rather at that point in time you have an intense dislike of them. Note that at a later date this can change to enmity's polar opposite, love.
The point being, is that hate is a subjective emotion, often based on perceptions that are not fully informed. To hate something you don't need to fully understand or know everything about the subject of the hatred. Witness Hitler and the Jews (I feel that this is an appropriate metaphor to allow someone to invoke Godwin's law so I can stop talking hatred towards innocent vegetables!)
The point is that to me, there is a difference between "I hate my boss" and "I hate vegetables." If I go out drinking with my boss and determine he's not that bad, I might express that as "I don't hate him anymore." If I try several new kinds of vegetables and determine that I like them, I wouldn't say "I no longer hate them" but rather "I was wrong - there are some I like."
This is because "I hate vegetables" doesn't mean I'm feeling something in the same way "I hate my boss" does. Again, what it really means is "if I eat a vegetable, I will not enjoy it."
