A flattering analysis. I hope there's actually this much involved.
Member
Starting Strength and a Rational Philosophy
Dear Rip,
The podcasts you did with Ms. Sims made me think of how well the SS approach to training comports with a rational philosophic outlook.
There are four main branches of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics.
The essence of a rational metaphysics is the belief in an objective reality. On this view, as Bacon wrote, "Nature to be commanded, must be obeyed". Another way of saying the same thing is "our wishes or feelings won't make something so".
This jives well with what you discussed with Ms. Sims about feelings, their importance notwithstanding, not being relevant to how one ought approach one's training. I would add, as with training, so with life.
In epistemology, a rational philosophy holds that reason is man's only means to knowledge and his only reliable guide to action. This is definitely consistent with your emphasis in the SS seminar and elsewhere on the use of reason applied to experience to arrive at the various features of the SS model such as which exercises to perform, how to perform them, how many reps are ideal, etc. I remember your saying at the seminar I attended that you didn't want the audience taking your word on any of these issues. That you thought it was your responsibility, as a coach, to explain the reasons why the SS model is the way it is. This is an good example of a rational epistemology in action.
The cornerstone of a rational approach to ethics is that each man is an end in himself and therefore his highest purpose is to pursue his rational self-interest. Given all you and the other coaches have written about how central strength is to a life well and fully lived, I would argue that everyone has the moral obligation to pursue the strongest selves they are capable of attaining.
And SS has obvious implications for politics as you pointed out in the Woods podcast. The essence of a rational politics is an embrace of laissez-faire capitalism. As Patrick Henry put it, "Give me liberty or give me death". Well, to be confident enough in oneself to embrace a life of liberty requires a deep-seated belief that we are competent to deal with whatever challenges life throws at us. Being strong and developing the grit that results from the process of becoming strong, along with developing our capacity to reason effectively, must, I would argue, be mutually fundamental to the task of developing one's competence to live, to deal with adversity and to triumph as a free man.
I would love to know what you think of foregoing.
Yours in strength,
Francisco
TMPHBITEU
A flattering analysis. I hope there's actually this much involved.
Member
I'd argue with your assessment of philosophy. Politics above aesthetics and logic? Political theory is a specific field of philosophy, and only part of politics. It is not a main branch of philosophy. There are some other very questionable parts to your post too. However, the main point is the epistemological. Really it's much more conspicuous than all that. The SS model is as it is because it has been arrived at by means of rational inquiry. We could do a backwards analysis to lay out the philosophical meat of why SS works versus other programs, but we won't get anything out of it because firstly, we already know the philosophy and secondly, discussion board philosophy is an arduous and barren affair. To put it simply, SS is a superior program because it has been arrived at by superior means. In that way it has been properly engineered rather than irrationally contrived.
Member
I guess in today's culture it's flattering to say someone or their intellectual product is rational. So be it. Yours is a wonderful achievement and I think it fits in well with a rational philosophical outlook and the project of living well and fully.
Member
Dear Tom,
There are many sub fields of philosophy I didn't mention, such as philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and aesthetics, because I didn't think they bore much relevance to what makes SS a unique intellectual contribution in exercise science.
But I agree with what I think is the central point of your post: that SS is a superior program because Rip arrived at it by superior means. That means is broadly called induction--he derived training principles from decades of experience with trainees. And when experience proved him wrong he changed his mind and edited SS and PP accordingly. And outside of theoretical mathematics, this is not only the superior way to arrive at new knowledge, it's the only way.
Member
Of course, but aesthetics is a main branch not a subfield, whereas 'politics' is a subfield and not a main branch.Originally Posted by donfrancisco
Member
I think "reason" and "rationality" more often than not lead people astray when it comes to training. It's easy to reason one's way to any number of plausible sounding training principles that don't pan out, like "a weightlifter who trains primarily the low bar squat will revert to a horizontal torso position under heavy loads". Or "high bar squats should be substituted in SS since the deadlift already stress the posterior chain".
Of course this happens in all fields, politics and economics very much included: "lower taxes rates for the wealthy will benefit the economy by causing more investment back into business and therefore creating jobs". (hehe I kid...maybe...)
Starting Strength Coach
The post is a welcome departure from some of the primate-mounting and excrement-flinging behaviors we see in here sometimes, and donfrancisco is a welcome addition to our community.
For my part, I'll set aside the OP's assertions in re: metaphysics, epistemology, politics and ethics, preferring as I do to assume he is well aware that his stated positions are, shall we say, not lacking for serious challenge in the philosophical canon.
However, one not need be a materialist, an epistemological rationalist, or, for heaven's sake, a capitalist to value, pursue, or promote training for strength, any more than one need be of any particular philosophical persuasion to see the value of getting your oil changed, learning to cook, or saving for retirement. Everybody needs to be strong, even people who don't think they do. This isn't a particularly philosophical position. I believe that any argument against strength will ultimately boil down to sophistry (looking at you, Marenghi) or an irrational appeal to some arbitrary, irrational, and probably bizarre metaphysical, religious, or ethical precept (see: Jainism). We can argue about the best way to get strong, and we will surely continue to do so, but to say "it's good to be strong" is a proposition that seems to me to be almost analytically true ("good stuff is good"). It's valid on its face.
Or, if you'd rather: It's biology. And it sure as hell isn't either dependent upon nor exclusively supportive of any particular political or economic philosophy, amusing as the frequent attempts to make it so may be.
I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos, and it's a trivial exercise to draw a bright line from the political and cultural predilections of the Third Reich (or from Soviet Marxism, or anarchism, or socialism, or Kantian ethics, or Heideggerian existentialism, or Hobbesian Social Contract theory, or Epicurianism, or what-the-fuck-ever-ism) to training for strength. Trivial.
Strength training doesn't need a philosophical endorsement, any more than saying a man's gotta eat requires a nod from Rorty or Spinoza. And strength training doesn't endorse any particular philosophical position, any more than making your breakfast or learning to paint a house validates Wittgenstein or Hume.
As I said: a welcome post. Great fun to talk about this stuff...but a bit silly, too.
Member
An ill informed reason or rationality will come to poor conclusions, but that doesn't make them inferior tools in the general sense...and in fact there is no alternative anyway. Even people who let their emotions rule them have reasoned on some level that that is rational.
✓ Member
Sully.
All this hoity toity hifalutin talk about strength and philosophy and you fail to mention Nietzsche?
You talk about Kant who couldn't write anything worth parsing through more than twice and Heidegger who was too in love with words to make anything practical happen, and neglect the author of Man and Superman.
Shame. Shame upon you. Most Germans after Goethe had their heads screwed on the wrong way. Their last success was the Franco-Prussian War.
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