[pfortuny]

You are not alone. Composition and the general idea of type is enough for most of us. You do not need Schopenhauer to discover that life is hard, or Hegel to know that opposites exist and sometimes their relation creates something different “not in the middle”.

[benrutter]

Just gonna unecessarily jump in to defend Schopenhauer, and maybe Hegel! (I'll leave category theory to look after itself)

I think especially in our fast moving, low attention society, there's a tendency to reduce philosophers like Schopenhauer to a few bullet points. I definitely was really guilty of doing this when I studied philosophy in university a while back. But you get so much more out of spending time reading Schopenhauer than just those bullet points- you get insight into a whole person's way of seeing things. That's such a great thing to spend time doing!

I do realise I'm mostly arguing against a point that you didn't make, or at best, made only tangentially, but, as a pedant on the internet, I couldn't turn down the opportunity to give my unsolicited opinion.

[pfortuny]

Right you are, indeed. I was first annoyed by your comment but (miraculously) I stepped aside for a few seconds!

Of course. But nevertheless, Category Theory or Schopenhauer are good ways to get interesting insight which may (emphasis) be useful. But not as a tool (which is how CT is usually sold in those tutorials), but as a (long) path to knowledge. Only some times and some people get "useful" results from studying them.

Trying to sell CT as a means to a utilitarian end is prostituting it. Like selling Hegel to learn how to body-build.

Thanks for taking the time!

[benrutter]

I'm glad I did- I think the utilitarian distinction you made is such a good point.

Interesting as category theory is, and even while it does have applications, I think claiming that it's value is somehow in helping you learn Haskell/Elm/Gleam etc is just dishonest and misleading.