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Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

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Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#171
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It says more about our society that the person who chooses to study philosophy. Making more money is valuable and not making much is looked down upon. But, how happy are we? What philosophy can do is expand your mind beyond what society has told you. Consider these questions in looking at your existence, What can I know? What must I do? What is man? What is God? They're not to be scoffed at, waved away with a dismiss…

You are conflating "philosophizing" with "the modern academic study of philosophy." To most people, the second has nothing to do with the first. Your grandparents, uncles, and aunts have better answers to those questions. Maybe a two semester survey of the history of philosophy and reading the great works to hear some different perspectives. Neither of these involve a full course of study in philosophy.

This kind of dismissive, condescending attitude towards philosophical concerns which are clearly important to a lot if not most people is one of the main things that really ticks me off about some contemporary analytic philosophers, and especially their predecessors, the logical positivists.

They would have the subjects they have anointed be the only True Philosophy, and anything else as mere "philosophizing". But this "philosophizing" has been largely what philosophy was for its entire existence. It's almost the definition of philosophy.

The grandparent poster mentioned four questions: "What can I know? What must I do? What is man? What is God?"

The first two are epistomological and ethical questions, and it's not like either epistemology or ethics have gotten short shrift from analytics, which currently dominate academia. Some analytics aren't interested in those questions, but that doesn't mean they're not philosophical questions or that they're "meaningless" (a favorite dismissive tactic of the logical positivists).

The last two questions could arguably have to do with ontology and metaphysics: not analytic favorites by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly traditionally considered philosophy. You don't need to go to your anunts or uncles to get a bit of "folk philosophy" (yet another dismissive term from some other analytics) but look to thousands of years of philosophical literature on the subject, or attend school in a non-analytic philosophy department (good luck with that in English-speaking countries, which are dominated by analytics). But even analytics have on occasion tackled ontological issues (see the more recent attention to Heidegger from some of them as an example).

The last question is really on shakiest ground as far as philosophy goes. It could arguably be a theological question, but again, theology is an actual academic discipline and you don't have to settle for survey of the opinions of the average person on the street, but actually go to a university and study it, even if it'll be outside a philosophy department. But there has been plenty of philosophy in history which has engaged in theological concerns in some fashion (some common examples being the existence of God, and the problem of evil). It's just not fashionable to consider those questions in academia these days, but again, that doesn't make them non-philosophical.

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#172

I'm going to reproduce a reddit post I made recently that I think is relevant: Analytic philosophy has made my mind a razor. It forged in me the confidence and mental discipline to learn anything, and I'm now dominating the tech scene despite having little in the way of formal coursework. I was lucky to choose one of the few disciplines that can be fruitfully studied at Brown. As any student of a rigorous discipline,…

Question -- you say that you are a person who is able to learn in solitude. Would you have been able to pursue your dive into Philosophy without the environment that Brown offered you? I ask this for a few reasons. 1) I have a fairly strong interest in the discipline, but have found rigorous self guided study to be a challenge, beyond cursory readings of the classics and a smattering of modern theorists like Singer.…

Who studies philosophy in school when graduates becomes a historian of philosophy, not a philosopher. Requirement of a diploma to philosophise contradicts philosophy itself. One can be a historian of philosophy and a philosopher at the same time, but the former does not require the latter and viceversa.

Philosophy is not a job, it's a personal trait, like honesty, faith, generosity, aggressiveness, asocialness, timidity, etc. If you want to enhance your philosopherness, then you think about things systematically, and learn as much as you can so that you have more raw material to use as proofs --pro and contro-- your ideas when you think. Reading others' philosophy is always useful as it expands your toolbox and knowledge.

Philosophy is love of wisdom. Just like love of your significant other is not a job, philosophy is not too. No-one gets to determine whether you're a lover of wisdom or not, just like no-one gets to determine whether or not you're a lover of your s/o.

So you don't need the school nor to quit your job to philosophise.

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#173
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Analytic philosophy has made my mind a razor. [...] Formal mathematical training (graduate) will do that to you too. I often find myself thinking with abstract algebra ideas (groups, vectors, vector spaces, commutation relations, etc).

I'm well trained in mathematics. It's certainly healthy. However, I often find that outside of their professional work, mathematicians are more willing to part with rigueur than the philosophers across the hall. Notice how most mathematicians aren't particularly interested in foundations of mathematics, for example.

I'm a mathematician working in industry and I'm not at all interested in foundations. That's partly because I trust that all that stuff was worked out in the last century, and partly because there's so much more exciting stuff in math to be interested in instead.

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#174

"Philosophy is the discipline whose adherents kick up a load of dust, then complain they can't see". Murray Gell-Mann. Mind you, I do have a degree in Philosophy from a faculty very firmly in the analytic school. Logic, metaphysics and ontology have been helpful in thinking about software problems. For instance, you can think of Russell's On Denoting ("the king of France is bald") as being about null pointers, or dan…

Kripke was a philosopher first ? I never thought to look at his biography before this and always expected him to be a CS guy.

I don't think Kripke has ever been anything but a philosopher. His work has influenced computer science, but he hasn't ever really directly worked in that field himself. The closest he's come to a CS journal or conference is publishing in a few philosophy of computing conferences, and a bunch of logic journals (but generally the ones more in the philosophical-logic tradition, not computational logic).

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#175
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll come out of university with no transferrable skills whatsoever I think this reflects a common misunderstanding about either philosophy or what constitutes a "transferable skill." Philosophy teaches writing (quite intensively, in a good program) and abstract analytical skills. I have a philosophy degree and not only have I found it valuable, prospective employers have too. This especially true in my field (law)…

Philosophy/(Pure) Math double major here. I would argue that my Math degree made me a "better" writer than my Philosophy degree did. Writing quality in philosophy is generally much poorer than other disciplines; you pretty much have to use passive voice everywhere, which is the first thing your college writing lab will tell you not to do. On the other hand, in my Math classes, I had to turn in 5-10 pages of proofs ev…

What philosophy program is this? At my school the professors explicitly told us to write in active voice. Also, what material are you studying? It's been a while since I've been in school, but most analytic philosophy material I read were written in very clear and precise prose.

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#176
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophy/(Pure) Math double major here. I would argue that my Math degree made me a "better" writer than my Philosophy degree did. Writing quality in philosophy is generally much poorer than other disciplines; you pretty much have to use passive voice everywhere, which is the first thing your college writing lab will tell you not to do. On the other hand, in my Math classes, I had to turn in 5-10 pages of proofs ev…

Where in philosophy is using passive voice common? At least in Anglo-American analytic philosophy, first-person active voice has been the norm for decades, since the days when in other fields it was seen as too informal to start a sentence with "I". Even today, scientists love to write things like "three types of experiments were performed to test this hypothesis". While a philosophy paper is more likely to contain a…

The idea that passive voice is used in philosophy doesn't seem to be a novel idea [0].

For what it's worth, I don't think undergraduate CS degrees develop students' writing abilities at all. There are only a few proof-based courses I can think of, and those courses (e.g., Theory of Computation, Algorithms) need not necessarily be taught in a mathematically rigorous manner (which is to say, proof writing in these courses may be minimal, depending on the instructor).

[0] http://wehaveneverbeenblogging.blogspot.com/2010/02/on-activ...

Edit: grammar!

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#177

I love this bit: "I prefer to spend my college years searching, exploring, and wondering, as opposed to training to become an "asset" in the file cabinet of a "human resource" department. Rock on fellow baristas, rock on." Translation: "I'll come out of university with no transferrable skills whatsoever. Dreadfully unintellectual dead-end jobs are where I'll be able to keep pursuing my love of knowledge". Dude. The a…

You and the OP have a difference in opinion regarding what higher-education should be used for. You're concerned with potential job prospects while the article seems to deal with developing yourself as a main priority.

I went to an art school, studied theory there and wouldn't trade it for anything. They gave me the tools to teach myself and to understand the things around me - which I see as much more valuable than any specific job-oriented training. And from my experience employers are very impressed with these types of skills too.

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#178

I love this bit: "I prefer to spend my college years searching, exploring, and wondering, as opposed to training to become an "asset" in the file cabinet of a "human resource" department. Rock on fellow baristas, rock on." Translation: "I'll come out of university with no transferrable skills whatsoever. Dreadfully unintellectual dead-end jobs are where I'll be able to keep pursuing my love of knowledge". Dude. The a…

I don't think he's boasting about how poorly it prepared him for the job market. Rather, he's saying studying philosophy is worth it form him despite being poorly prepared for the job market, because he's interested in "searching, exploring, and wondering" -- which he might not be able to do on the job if he got a menial job, but could continue on his own time, after hours.

I doubt he will be working as a barista, though. With his double major, he'll probably have the option to work in academia after he graduates. Economists are also valued in industry these days, and even a philosophy major could always go to law school, which tend to accept more philosophy majors than any others.

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#179
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophy/(Pure) Math double major here. I would argue that my Math degree made me a "better" writer than my Philosophy degree did. Writing quality in philosophy is generally much poorer than other disciplines; you pretty much have to use passive voice everywhere, which is the first thing your college writing lab will tell you not to do. On the other hand, in my Math classes, I had to turn in 5-10 pages of proofs ev…

What philosophy program is this? At my school the professors explicitly told us to write in active voice. Also, what material are you studying? It's been a while since I've been in school, but most analytic philosophy material I read were written in very clear and precise prose.

See, e.g., Quine's "Translation and Meaning,"[0] as well as the blog post I linked to further down the page. Not every philosophy program consists solely of analytic philosophy; continental philosophy writing is rife with passive voice.

[0] http://faculty.washington.edu/stevehar/quine.pdf

Re: Why I Majored in Philosophy Despite Everyone Telling Me Not To (2013)

#180
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question -- you say that you are a person who is able to learn in solitude. Would you have been able to pursue your dive into Philosophy without the environment that Brown offered you? I ask this for a few reasons. 1) I have a fairly strong interest in the discipline, but have found rigorous self guided study to be a challenge, beyond cursory readings of the classics and a smattering of modern theorists like Singer.…

Who studies philosophy in school when graduates becomes a historian of philosophy, not a philosopher. Requirement of a diploma to philosophise contradicts philosophy itself. One can be a historian of philosophy and a philosopher at the same time, but the former does not require the latter and viceversa. Philosophy is not a job, it's a personal trait, like honesty, faith, generosity, aggressiveness, asocialness, timid…

> Who studies philosophy in school when graduates becomes a historian of philosophy, not a philosopher.

No, when they graduate, they become a degree holder in philosophy. What they do afterwards determines if they become a historian of philosophy, a philosopher, or something else entirely (or some combination.)

> Requirement of a diploma to philosophise contradicts philosophy itself.

Perhaps (though I think its more accurate to say that it contradicts some particular philosophies), but pursuing a diploma to improve your ability to do something doesn't mean that there is a diploma requirement for that task.

I mean, "requiring a diploma to do science contradicts science itself" is at least as accurate, and probably more accurate, than the version with "philosophy" in place of "science", but few people would dispute that, in many fields of empirical science, the education which goes into a diploma, particularly at certain schools, is useful to one wishing to do science well.

Similarly, formal education in philosophy can be useful to those wishing to do philosophy well.

> Philosophy is not a job, it's a personal trait, like honesty, faith, generosity, aggressiveness, asocialness, timidity, etc

No, its not. "Philosophy" has at least two related senses, one of which is a thing one does (perhaps as a job, perhaps not), and the other of which is an a label for a class of belief systems, the holding of one of which is a personal trait, but philosophy itself is not a trait that you have more or less of like the ones you named, but instead something which you have one or another specific version of. (The first sense of "philosophy" discussed previously is approximately developing, refining, and critiquing instances of the second sense.)

> Philosophy is love of wisdom.

The English word "philosophy" derives from Greek for the love of wisdom, but that's not what it means. Etymology is distinct from definition.

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