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Philosophy Degrees
- Thread starter colcifer
- Start date
I used to give this advice to philosophy students: "Learn these words and learn them well: 'Did you want that with the meal sir, or just the sandwich?' "
However, in a conversation with Steve Weber, recently retired President of San Diego State University, I learned that his PhD is in philosophy. It's probably a very good thing I didn't tell that joke.
However, in a conversation with Steve Weber, recently retired President of San Diego State University, I learned that his PhD is in philosophy. It's probably a very good thing I didn't tell that joke.
Megazap63 said:
I'm with Mark on this one. Arts degrees need to be coupled to a vocational degree to make a candidate genuinely desirable in Australia. From 2005 to now the unemployment rate in Australia has been ~5-6%, so anyone with a pulse has a job. Entry requirements, particularly in 2006-2007, became artificially low.
Liberal arts/humanities degrees are designed to prepare people with skills of critical thinking, analysis, and writing. Not just philosophy. They are to train people to be aware of and argue out the bigger issues facing society and not just to get themselves jobs and make money. Job training comes after, in graduate school, when you get your master's or doctorate in law or medicine or management or whatever. Philosophy BAs are not designed to produce car salesmen.
It amazes me sometimes how many people seem to have trouble grasping this basic expectation and go whining about their "useless" degrees. If you just want to do undergrad and get a job, get a job-training degree. If you want to understand the world, get a humanities degree and do your job training after. Yes, it's more expensive that way. Deal with it. Simple as that.
It amazes me sometimes how many people seem to have trouble grasping this basic expectation and go whining about their "useless" degrees. If you just want to do undergrad and get a job, get a job-training degree. If you want to understand the world, get a humanities degree and do your job training after. Yes, it's more expensive that way. Deal with it. Simple as that.
In my experience, critical folks tend to scare the corporate types. That whole don't rock the boat mentality. Sad but true.
joshmat said:
That's a convenient excuse, but far from the truth. Business people are, however, scared of folks with no practical skills.
I got a degree from a Lib. Arts school; majored in Math, minored in Philosophy. The logic and critical thinking are really what it's all about. You can learn a lot asking "why".
Some other famous mathematicians that were philosophers include Newton, Hobbes, Plato and list goes on and on. It's amazing how many contributed to multiple fields. It's also interesting how philosophy hindered the development of mathematics and science in various ways. Remember that guy named Galileo?
Poincare and Sacchari (sp?) were advancing geometrical math to new heights (disproving Euclid's parallel postulate; aka non-euclidean geometry) and couldn't get their work considered since Kant's work was so influential.
Some other famous mathematicians that were philosophers include Newton, Hobbes, Plato and list goes on and on. It's amazing how many contributed to multiple fields. It's also interesting how philosophy hindered the development of mathematics and science in various ways. Remember that guy named Galileo?
Poincare and Sacchari (sp?) were advancing geometrical math to new heights (disproving Euclid's parallel postulate; aka non-euclidean geometry) and couldn't get their work considered since Kant's work was so influential.
I'd agree with the OP in as far as philosophy by definition requires critical thinking, and physics and maths are both disciplines that require that skill and develop it. You can't BS your way through physics like you can through most other subjects.
I think facility in the hard science subjects would enhance the credibility of any philosophy graduate. It would be pretty hard to take any philosopher seriously if their lack of critical thinking skills prevented them from grasping physics and maths.
I think facility in the hard science subjects would enhance the credibility of any philosophy graduate. It would be pretty hard to take any philosopher seriously if their lack of critical thinking skills prevented them from grasping physics and maths.
Not universally true, but definitely common, unfortunately.
I was on an interview panel a while back for an important post in our organisation. One of the candidates was very clearly head and shoulders above the rest in terms of skills, qualifications and experience. He'd identified some key issues for us very analytically and asked some questions at the end of the interview to clarify some points about what would be his role in addressing those issues if he came to work for us - questions that made my boss feel awkward as he personally didn't know the answers. The guy didn't get the job, despite me pushing to appoint him. We hired a different person who was very quickly revealed as a total incompetent. The talented guy was basically too intelligent to get hired in the existing management environment.
Weak bosses want people who won't challenge their thinking. Stronger bosses want people that will.
Oddly enough, I've found a lot of philosophy students who don't seem to have much regard for physics (my original major). Some appear to feel that philosophy is "above" mere science. Personally, I think that part of holding a rational world view is ensuring that one's commitments are empirically grounded wherever possible, and that entails at least a basic familiarity with science and its methods.
True.... although valuable, many see those with good critical thinking skills as a threat, perhaps because they are less likely to blindly accept the status quo (as is often expected in the business environment). Sad that academics wouldn't realize the opportunity, however.....
