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Majoring In Philosophy Actually Quite Practical, New York Times Reports |
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 by Daniel Koffler, April 8, 2008 |
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Gottlob Frege: Like a hedge fund manager, except about the logical foundations of mathematics This past weekend, the New York Times ran an education feature on the recent upswing of college students majoring in philosophy. The Times piece comes on the heels of a similar MSN report several weeks ago, in which a young hedge fund analyst and philosophy BA memorably explained that his work is "like reading Russell, Frege or Wittgenstein, except it's about money." Some of the purported practical benefits of a philosophy education are gaining critical and analytical skills that would be useful in virtually any industry, pursuing the closest thing to a pre-law undergraduate course there is (if nothing else, classes in formal logic ought to pay off on the LSAT), and in at least one case, sexual conquest. ("That whole deep existential torment" philosophers are known for is a major turn on to a 20-year old cog sci major.)
Most of my writing for Jewcy is on politics, but as a former philo major, these really hit a nerve with me. It's quite true, for example, that the tools required for doing philosophy have perhaps a wider practical application than those of any other field --- it used to be that philosophy was the only subject you could study; all the other sciences and humanities are spin-offs --- but that has always been the case, and doesn't explain why more college students are taking philosophy courses and majoring in it now than in the past. There are two more plausible explanations of the surge of interest in philosophy:
(1) Students are increasingly recognizing just how petrified most of the academic humanities have become. If you're at all interested in doing original work, rather than employing decoder rings and worshipping the bones of past masters, stay far, far away from comparative literature.
(2) Students (and presumably, in many cases, their parents) are finally recognizing that the predominant mode of doing philosophy in Anglophone universities has nothing to do with wearing black, chain smoking, and thinking about how everything is a social construct (though you can do that if you want!), but is and has for more than half a century been what's generally called "analytic philosophy" --- a rigorous method of philosophical investigation based on, informed by and constrained by formal logic and theoretical linguistics. Analytic philosophy doesn't resemble any other field very closely, but resembles math more closely than it resembles anything else.
One word of warning, though. No matter what anecdotes you find in New York Times education features, do not go into philosophy thinking it's a path to an incredible sex life. It is not.
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Ismail
"...do not go into
"...do not go into philosophy thinking it's a path to an incredible sex life. It is not."
Maybe not at Yale, but back at CCNY it was the Golden Ticket.
Daniel Koffler
Heh
Actually, the problem is Yale.
Jon
Philosophy...
..still offers less opportunity to do original work than many of the sciences (I have a BA, MA in Philosophy). Here's my reasons for promoting it:
(1) You can use it to score chicks
(2) It is stunningly easy to write an entire paper by bullshitting
(3) It is good prep for law school (what I did)
As for Analytic Philosophy being "a rigorous method of philosophical investigation based on, informed by
and constrained by formal logic and theoretical linguistics," I would emphasize constrained.
It is also completely harnessed by knee-jerk empiricism and epistemic skepticism traps that more or less lead it no where. I'm not saying that so-called continental philosophy is better (unless you're on acid, then it all makes sense), I'm just wondering when we move on to the next phase.
Daniel Koffler
completely harnessed by
completely harnessed by knee-jerk empiricism
Jon, this just isn't true. There has been a rationalist renaissance underway since at least, I would argue, David Lewis established the regnant methodological model in analytic philosophy, but if you look at the work of the biggest rising stars today, e.g. David Chalmers, John Hawthorne, Jonathan Schaffer, I don't see how you could sustain your claim. Hawthorne is a three-dimensionalist for Christ's sake. Apropos of Lewis, would you say that extreme modal realism, a theory grounded in a semantic analysis of modal logic, is unduly constrained by logic?
Contemporary analytic philosophy is a metaphysician's playground. There is too much exciting new ground being covered to keep up with it all.
I do agree with you in theory that hard science holds the most sheer potential for original work, but the way that science has become professionalized brings in a series of practical barriers unique to science, that, say, a young patent officer probably couldn't overcome today. (The analogous joke about philosophy is that Wittgenstein couldn't get tenure.) Professional philosophy offers a bit more of a sandbox right from the get-go. That may not be attractive if you don't see a purpose to the exercise, but as Lewis might have put it, all we can do when faced with these kinds of choices is measure the costs.
I should have said more about your point (2), by the way. I think strict bullshitting has limited utility --- I saw plenty of undergrads take philosophy courses thinking it was all bullshit, neglect their work and try to fake something at the end of a term, and receive the grade they deserved --- and certainly less than in Lit, but one of the definite advantages of studying philosophy, if you have the right inclination, is that the research burden is minimal.
Ali Eteraz
philosophy major here
its the best major. short of saying "im a writer" its the next best way of getting (smart i.e. neurotic) girls (the kind i prefer).
Anonymously
not all the smart ones are neurotic...
Those visual art majors have it good too...they use their work to strike up conversations all the time. (and some of them send you a painting they made of you a week later - thats just plain creepy.)
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