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The revenge of the philosophy majors

nytimes.com

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Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#171

Post by alephnerd »

Wissenschafter wrote: post #114

I have an undergrad in Philosophy. Our required math classes were formal logic, which we shared with the comp sci. majors. Those classes basically taught me how to program. I am now a senior engineer at a F500 and I just have a BA in Phil. It is a highly underrated degree, and going forward with knowledge specialization becoming unnecessary, and eventually unfeasible due to the triviality of AI making it not needed f…

> I have an undergrad in Philosophy ... It is a highly underrated degree

I agree with that. A philosophy major is the ultimate interdisciplinary major because it is essentially the theory of knowledge. That said, I wish universities mandated humanities and social science majors dual major with a STEM field and vice versa.

Interdisciplinary knowledge is critical now that fields are starting to merge and overlap heavily.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#172

Post by RugnirViking »

satellite2 wrote: post #133
b450 wrote: post #66

Philosophy students tend to be understandably insecure about the value and prestige of their field, and study often ends up indirectly training students to defend philosophy. Impressive-sounding pontificating, problematizing, cranking out arguments and fallacies and refutations, deploying jargon and historical references. There's a whole toolkit used to dazzle, bewilder, and cow the untrained. Not to mention outright…

You have a great build up for an argument but why this conclusion? At some point who should be doing ethics? Lawyers? Computer scientists? (I'm not asking ironically, who really is well placed to make population level and extremely though questions like balancing the protection of the few against a global important health interest/gain?)

Presumably, a reasonably repræsentative cross section of society. So my cop out answer is "all of them, plus the stay at home mother, the farmer, and the lumberjack"

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#173

Post by SoftTalker »

palmotea wrote: post #53
SoftTalker wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a vocabulary that is known only to themselves.

> Using a vocabulary that is known only to themselves. So? Almost all professions have jargon known only to themselves. You think most people have any clue what a garbage collector is?

Law and medicine seems to go overboard with e.g. latin terms for everything.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#174

Post by john_strinlai »

malfist wrote: post #168
john_strinlai wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is no reason to be this rude edit: okay, considering im downvoted more than you, apparently you should be more rude. lesson learned.

You're not being downvoted because you're wrong, but because the general rule of thumb is that replies should be _more interesting_ than what is being replied too.

i find it hard to remember what non-interesting things i can write and get upvoted ("this is ai", "slop", "awfully designed site", "clickbait title", "typical microslop", "fuck microsoft", etc.) and the non-interesting stuff i am downvoted for ("that was rude").

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#175

Post by asdfman123 »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #108

Hilarious that the article is framed as a humanities vs sciences thing even though the caliber of philosophers who can get these jobs at labs are the top 0.1% in their field, and wouldn't have trouble finding a job elsewhere, whereas you could get a good-paying job as an engineer at a relatively lower percentile.

They're doing well because philosophy majors are usually just very smart people.

Not sure if the degree itself is necessarily that helpful beyond signaling intellectual competence.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#176

Post by commandlinefan »

port11 wrote: post #149
commandlinefan wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with some professional coders who were philosophy majors - there's some overlap between formal computer science and philosophy for sure. I was sort of surprised when one guy started talking about using diagonalization to prove Godels theorem of incompleteness - I thought, "ok, I guess they do teach y'all a thing or two". On the whole, though, it's _way_ easier to bluff your way through a philosophy degree…

It was easier, I imagine. Now you can vibe code your way out, no?

I hear from my son that, yes.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#177

Post by dgs_sgd »

Wissenschafter wrote: post #114

I have an undergrad in Philosophy. Our required math classes were formal logic, which we shared with the comp sci. majors. Those classes basically taught me how to program. I am now a senior engineer at a F500 and I just have a BA in Phil. It is a highly underrated degree, and going forward with knowledge specialization becoming unnecessary, and eventually unfeasible due to the triviality of AI making it not needed f…

Hypothetically if universities were a place for knowledge and truth instead of vocational training then would it really matter what my major was?

Why would Philosophy still be a better major than say, English or Physics? In that world, you should still pursue whatever interests you most because critical thinking is fostered regardless of major.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#178

Post by l33tbro »

commandlinefan wrote: post #146
Wissenschafter wrote: post #114

I have an undergrad in Philosophy. Our required math classes were formal logic, which we shared with the comp sci. majors. Those classes basically taught me how to program. I am now a senior engineer at a F500 and I just have a BA in Phil. It is a highly underrated degree, and going forward with knowledge specialization becoming unnecessary, and eventually unfeasible due to the triviality of AI making it not needed f…

I've worked with some professional coders who were philosophy majors - there's some overlap between formal computer science and philosophy for sure. I was sort of surprised when one guy started talking about using diagonalization to prove Godels theorem of incompleteness - I thought, "ok, I guess they do teach y'all a thing or two". On the whole, though, it's _way_ easier to bluff your way through a philosophy degree…

Interested to hear how you think one "bluffs" their way through a philosophy degree. Could you sketch that out?

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#179

Post by dwaltrip »

l33tbro wrote: post #178
commandlinefan wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with some professional coders who were philosophy majors - there's some overlap between formal computer science and philosophy for sure. I was sort of surprised when one guy started talking about using diagonalization to prove Godels theorem of incompleteness - I thought, "ok, I guess they do teach y'all a thing or two". On the whole, though, it's _way_ easier to bluff your way through a philosophy degree…

Interested to hear how you think one "bluffs" their way through a philosophy degree. Could you sketch that out?

Philosophy treatises don’t trigger compiler errors.

More seriously, the main issue with most philosophical investigations is a question of grounding.

When you start stacking abstract concepts on top of each other, things can get dicey very quickly. Moreso if you are smart.

Re: The revenge of the philosophy majors

#180

Post by EoinB »

commandlinefan wrote: post #146
Wissenschafter wrote: post #114

I have an undergrad in Philosophy. Our required math classes were formal logic, which we shared with the comp sci. majors. Those classes basically taught me how to program. I am now a senior engineer at a F500 and I just have a BA in Phil. It is a highly underrated degree, and going forward with knowledge specialization becoming unnecessary, and eventually unfeasible due to the triviality of AI making it not needed f…

I've worked with some professional coders who were philosophy majors - there's some overlap between formal computer science and philosophy for sure. I was sort of surprised when one guy started talking about using diagonalization to prove Godels theorem of incompleteness - I thought, "ok, I guess they do teach y'all a thing or two". On the whole, though, it's _way_ easier to bluff your way through a philosophy degree…

Something to ponder...

I have a PhD in mathematics and have worked in tech for more than 30 years as a programmer. I went to a Renaissance era university in Scotland which is required by law to require of me a broad education rather than something very specialised. Because I entered the science faculty, as an undergraduate, I had to balance that with something from the humanities and I chose Philosophy, naïvely thinking that it would be easy. Philosophy is in no sense of the word "easy" and not something you can "bluff your way through". In fact, it is more difficult than mathematics and more difficult and arduous than computer science.

I also teach at a university level and would advise young people reading this to pursue, these days, a philosophy education (or a mathematics education) over a software engineering/computer science education.

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