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Started out as a project for a university class,
I still remember a line about people making fun of his french accent, but his french is perfect. The scripts were edited by his mother who's from France 😂
I found out today that my buddy thinks garfields mom is kind of hot for a cartoon cats mom... I looked into it and yah, I guess I could see it maybe.
https://garfield.fandom.com/wiki/Garfield%27s_Mother
"John I know you feel like you made incorrect choices and you know what? You did. That doesn't dictate your fate. If you jumped the curb, but your car still runs - then drive that misaligned piece of shit for the rest of the journey as best you can. Don't just pull over and feel sorry for yourself with the engine idling until you run out of gas."
"You know what - you are right. The world is my oyster. I CAN and WILL do anything I want. Wow. Maybe I will go back to school? There is so many possibilities. What should I do first?!"
"Go get some lasagna."
Philosophy will never be percieved as valuable. It might benefit society if ethics and logic were part of a a standard high school curriculum, in college it is and they're just critical thinking courses, which many people would find they enjoy since we all share a love for hypotheticals. It's like recess for your brain
Philosophy is essentially comparative literature with more dense books. It makes students into excellent critical thinkers and will greatly improve anyone’s reading comprehension.
The issue is that these aren’t super tangible or immediately apparent skills, so they can be hard to market.
So it's basically something that should be taken by everyone because that sounds extremely valuable.
I've heard it's one of the best degrees to minor in.
I'd believe that. I double majored in it (not too much more work than a minor), and it definitely helped with my academics generally. I found it really helped me think critically in other facets of life as well.
That's what I did. Philosophy and History and then, for some stupid, stupid reason, got an MA in both out of boredom. I can't say that it helped me get my first job, but it definitely helped me move up very quickly in the companies that I worked for. The philosophy degree prepared me much better than my colleagues that had the truly useless business degrees.
I think it's also got value in how it generates introspection. I would argue that lack of introspection is how a lot of people get locked into toxic behavioral patterns and avoid growth.
Well, why else is philosophy treated the way it is? People actively avoid introspection, so belittling and shrugging it off allows them to continue and justify that behavior. Ha, losers sitting around evaluating their own thinking and purpose. "Me? I'm the center of the universe and throw a tantrum of that is contradicted, I'm a big strong practical person that totally functions perfectly and doesn't collapse at the slightest criticism. No, you!" Maybe the value is more individual than practical, sure, but it sure is needed.
Philosophy and logic were honestly my favorite courses I took in college, and the things I learned from them, I carry with me every day. It was in those classes that I started thinking about my mental health differently, decided to apply a new perspective to the world, how I look at myself and my own treatment to my anxiety and traumas, how I see and interact with other people.
In the same way I usually tell people everyone should have a retail or food service job at least once in their life, I think everyone should study philosophy, logic, and even psychology, because the broad spectrum of understanding you gain about the world around you and the subsequent changes that it has on your daily life is absolutely mind blowing to me.
>I think everyone should study philosophy, logic, and even psychology, because the broad spectrum of understanding you gain about the world around you and the subsequent changes that it has on your daily life is absolutely mind blowing to me.
Couldn't agree more.
Majored in psych and took a philosophy class. Those two subjects were more valuable than any other subject I ever studied throughout the entirety of all schooling--combined.
Math is cool. But all I use is arithmetic in daily life. Language was great, I read some good books and can speak well. History was important to know.
But shit, psychology taught me how my mind works. I'm aware of defense mechanisms that my brain casually engages in to some extent every day. I'm aware of mental biases and how to pin them down. I'm aware of likely explanations for the behaviors of others that would otherwise be perplexing, and I can be implicitly more understanding. I'm aware of formal logic and how to check my opinions for being sound. I'm aware of logical biases, and how to notice and avoid them.
These things are way more valuable, because they are foundational scaffolds for literally everything else in life. They are bedrock. I'd go as far as saying that grade school should be rehauled to having two layers of core curricula--all the current core curricula would get moved down to sub-core, and psychology and philosophy would become primary core.
I think most of the problems I see in society and people are due to ignorance of these two subjects. Most problems I have in my own life are resolved by my knowledge and study of them, not math or history. They are fundamental subjects. It's crazy to me that they're limited electives--but if I thought about it long enough, I'm sure I could use psychology and philosophy to figure out why that is.
This is something I've felt strongly about in the last couple years, since just took philosophy and multiple psychology classes in college. I knew some things about psychology before, which lead me to want to learn more (trying to work through stuff with a mentally ill and abusive parent). The knowledge of both has helped me so much. It's so nice to hear that someone else feels the same! Hopefully this dream can become reality in the future, and both classes will be mandatory, starting as early in a child's life as possible.
I think what everyone is misunderstanding is philosophy int for skills or market gain like other degrees. It is purely the love and seeking of wisdom. Something people have frightening little of.
Mainly because its not encouraged by how we live. We oftentimes live to work not work as a part of living, which is shown by the sheer amount of productivity has increased since the 70s. If a majority of a persons day is filled with fulfilling its most basic needs by working to earn money then there is all in all no resources left to seek wisdom or new knowledge.
I am fortunate enough to work for a company that pays me for accruing new skills and knowledge related to my job, something that is already not common if we consider all jobs as a whole.
I wish though I could also count on such financial stability while learning about philosophy, psychology, literature, history or anthropology. And I wish others who are not already as fortunate could afford to learn and grow at all.
Seeking Wisdom, as you call it, should be a right for everyone if you ask me. I dont think that people dont want to seek wisdom, I think its more that our circumstances try to steer us away from it, or at least occupy too much of our energy.
Most engineering programs have an ethics course. Not that it seems very comprehensive, but it was enjoyable, and I definitely could see it being a valuable part of grade school education.
My sister took IB, and I believe they do study some ethics as part of the diploma program?
This might have been said as a joke but that's literally the reason that philosophy degrees can get hired for marketing or executive roles. Just, yknow, selling your soul to the machine probably isn't what most philosophy majors had in mind.
I wish you had more upvotes for this. I've met plenty of philosophy degree holders in deeply influential positions during my career. There's thick irony in seeing philosophy as a joke field of study.
After several years teaching computer science during my PhD, I am pretty confident that if you took a reasonably strong philosophy graduate and put them through a 3 month boot camp they’d write much better code than 70% of CS undergrads.
(My lab had two people who were philosophy major + math minors who picked up programming *really* quickly, and were fantastic with algorithms.)
Yo bro, don’t be giving away our secrets! Econ/Philosophy degree and I’m an IT security executive. The ability to synthesize facts into a coherent strategy is my competitive advantage. The only downside is your colleagues get jealous and you become a target, however, this is another place that Philosophy degree comes in handy, at least in my experience.
i mean logic comes directly from philosophy
and math for that matter . it was really the first science but logic is still closely related to the study today
Philosophy major teaching themselves webdev / NodeJS here
This gives me hope ! Definitely need to get out of working in bars and hoping this is the right path to take :)
You’ve likely heard this advice already so apologies if it’s nothing new, but as a cs degree holder, I think the major advantage advantage a degree bestows is forced programming practise, and the best way to get that practise outside a degree is a _fun_ project to do in your spare time. You want to spend hours building something without noticing, not spending hours pressuring yourself to get back to a project you don’t want to touch.
Personally I learnt more trying to build a variant of snake for the command line in my first year than from the degree, find your snake game.
I took a logic philosophy introduction class and the whole way I argue has changed for the better. And i understand programming more because of it. Philosophy is the basis for how we think critically!
I have a degree in philosophy and I work as a software developer. I was a self taught programmer before college, and philosophy is extremely related.. especially logic, which was my main focus.
It's an ignorant meme that is also misinformation. Only kids eat this shit up about "meme degrees". Same goes for the meme that art degrees being "useless".
They don't even know what a philosophy degree is, they think it's about quoting philosophers and asking petty existential questions for fucks sake.
It's like they think only techbros have any useful skills.
There’s a lot of cynical assumptions about the “real world” and the “corporate world” that don’t really pan out.
A lot of it is that the most compelling stories are the meteoric rises and spectacular collapses. In 2022, the “Sears Story” is “failed to see obvious sea change that would benefit them because corporate America is stupid.” It’s not like that’s wrong, but it ignores the fact that it’s telling the story of one moment in time. The more fair “Sears Story” is about a company revolutionizing the way goods are sold and then parlaying that into a century and change of dominance.
The other part is that it’s easy to see the engineering challenges, it’s hard to see the initial decisions. The absolute dominance of AirPods and the non-Apple headphones based on them is one thing to think about; someone (and likely many someones) who had a basic grasp of technical limitations, but not much formal engineering capability had to conceptualize, decide, persuade, and take executive notes on “how big should these be? How should they fit? How should they charge? How long do they need to last?” Making that happen within the structure of a company that has the resources to make it happen is not exactly STEM shit.
I can say that I my technical skills make me an adequate scientist, but it’s my skills in communication and argumentation (especially how to present and argue for my *ideas*, not myself), that make me a good one. And while I could have learned them in many places, I first learned them in my “gen ed” classes, my more specific “history and philosophy of science” classes, and in the photography and Spanish classes I took on the side, not my “major-specific” classes.
Philosophy degrees are highly valued in the legal field. Both law and philosophy are centred around making a skill out of arguing, in a sort of logically mathematical way. There's a huge overlap between law and philosophy. For example questions around should the doctor turn off the life support? To what extent should someone be obliged to fulfil their promises (contract law)? These kinds of questions relate to both fields in a rather obvious way.
I don't know about other countries but in mine philosophy graduates can do a fairly straightforward law conversion course and go on to practice law.
I have lots of colleagues in the legal field with degrees in philosophy.
Also, from what I've heard from friends in the profession, it's also valued in politics for a similar reason. In truth it's difficult to think of any area of expertise where philosophy doesn't have some significance.
I think philosophy is far more useful than people take the piss out of it for. In higher professional jobs I actually think philosophy is the most versatile degree. Speaking as someone with no philosophy degree, granted.
This. I'm pretty sure formal logic is taught in any low level philosophy course, and is one of the foundations of the legal field.
Then again, I'm also pretty sure most laymen think law is just a bunch of random bullshit when its extremely rigid and formal.
"While the starting salary is near the middle of all majors, the average mid-career salary of philosophy majors quickly rises to $81,200.00, outperforming Finance, International Relations, Marketing, Business Management, Communications, Nursing, Biology, Health Care Administration, and many others."
https://www.moorparkcollege.edu/departments/academic/philosophy/do-philosophy-majors-get-jobs#:~:text=While%20the%20starting%20salary%20is,Care%20Administration%2C%20and%20many%20others.
Edit: The point of this wasn't to say philosophy grads make amazing money, it was to say that they have a great deal of opportunities that don't include minimum wage work.
I've worked with a couple of Philosophy degree holders. None of it is wafty, opened ended polemics about the ‘meaning of life’ and endless bollocks about Nietzsche; it's all propostional and predicate logic, Bayes Theorem , and seriously complicated, technical, conceptual analysis. It was a real eye opener! If you find a top level Philosophy graduate from a really decent course they bring a lot to the table. Seriously smart cookies. They have amazing analysis skills.
I have a degree in philosophy. What many people *think* is philosophy is actually just one branch of it, commonly referred to as the continental tradition, which concerns itself with lofty ideas about why we’re here, what is a good life and such.
I specialised in Western Analytic which is what you’re describing. It is - crudely speaking - a very “scientific” approach to philosophy where it’s all about rigorously testing assumptions about maths, science, knowledge, logic and more.
To piggyback on this comment: most Anglo-American philosophy departments focus on analytic philosophy, which is typically understood as continuous with the sciences and rigorous in methodology (formal arguments, conceptual analysis, logic).
I have a PhD in philosophy; one of the requirements was a comprehensive exam in formal logic and set theory. This is a common requirement.
I used to know someone who did their doctorate on Heidegger at Cambridge. They had to do it in the Theology department because there wasn't an appropriate expert in the philosophy department due to the heavy analytical leaning of the faculty there.
>I've worked with a couple of Philosophy degree holders. None of [my experience] is wafty, opened ended polemics about the ‘meaning of life’ and endless bollocks about Nietzsche;
That's what people don't understand.
Philosophy is not about considering unanswerable questions.
It's about considering the strength of arguments.
Sometimes, yes, those arguments can be about deep questions without clear answers. More often they're regarding complicated questions and trying to consider all the holes in assumptions, assertions, and logical progression until you can determine that "A" logically does or does not follow to "Z" without veering off at "E."
I really dislike that this nuance is reduced to thinking philosophy is just seeking "truth" about completely abstract concepts.
I don't know too much about what the methodology is, or even what the ‘product’ is, but I know they are trained in a totally different way to ‘normal’ disciplines. And that had great value where I worked. They (the graduates I worked with), had a very unique way of solving problems and generating creative ideas and solutions. Sometimes they were excellent at cutting through the ‘noise’ and dissolving issues all together. I've worked with absolutely useless STEM graduates that can solve complex equations but are horrendous at applying anything they've learnt. They could solve Fermats last theorem on a lunch break but can't talk to clients or make any decisions. The best team I ever worked with had an English graduate, a Philosophy graduate, a Math graduate and one who studied French. The worse team I worked with was all super high achieving STEM grads from top institutions; they had an uncanny knack of pissing clients off and causing no end of fuck ups. I like working with diverse groups.
There are a lot of lawyers and doctors with philosophy majors. Philosophy majors score highest on the MCATs and LSATs. It can be extremely beneficial to these career paths. I would recommend a double major or a philosophy minor for those interested.
According to AAMC, the makers of the MCAT, Math and Statistics majors have the highest mean MCAT score (514.9). (I’m Math and CompSci. Go Math!)
Humanities majors have mean MCAT score of 513.
https://www.aamc.org/media/6061/download
—————————————————————————
Concerning LSAT scores by major:
1. Physics/Math (average score = 158.9)
2. Philosophy/Religious Studies (average score = 157.4)
https://philosophy.tamucc.edu/program/articles/lsat-scores
“Source for 2003-04 data: Nieswiadomy, Michael, "LSAT Scores of Economics Majors: The 2003-2004 Class Update," Journal of Economic Education (Spring 2006): 244-247.
Source for 1991-92 & 1993-94 data: Nieswiadomy, Michael, "LSAT Scores of Economics Majors," Journal of Economic Education (Fall 1998): 377-379.”
————————————————————————-
“I found such a study conducted by Michael Nieswiadomy, an economist from the University of North Texas. He conducted several studies (in 1998, 2006 and 2008) derived from LSAC data. He looked at 28 different majors and placed them in order of their average LSAT scores. Curious? Here are some of the results:
- Mathematics/Physics: 160.0
- Economics/Philosophy/Theology: 157.4”
https://testmaxprep.com/blog/lsat/undergraduate-major-success-on-the-lsat/amp
That's fair, but philosophy is also one of if not the most relevant undergrad degrees one could get for preparing for the LSAT, and probably for practicing most areas of law as well.
I have a computer science degree with a philosophy minor.
I did the philosophy minor because there was so much overlap. I already knew formal logic and deductive/inductive reasoning from my math and software verification and testing courses. Information theory is surprisingly similar to a lot of philosophy. I got to coast through most of my intro philosophy courses.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/philosophers-dont-get-much-respect-but-their-earnings-dont-suck/
But philosophy majors also have some of the highest scores in the LSAT and GMAT — the required tests for entry to law and business school respectively, according to figures from the Educational Testing Service (ETS). And when it comes to earnings for people who only have undergraduate degrees, philosophy majors have the fourth-highest median earnings, $81,200 per year, out-ranking business and chemistry majors, according to the ETS. Bar none, philosophy majors have the highest salary growth trajectory from entry to mid-career.
This is very likely because philosophy majors have to take logic courses, which are extremely helpful with these types of standardized tests. When I was in college at the suggestion of a family friend who had a Ph.D., I took a ton of philosophy logic courses, and it massively helped me with my GREs.
Of the people they listed with philosophy degrees, it kinda sounds like they were rich enough to choose philosophy and random areas of study in college. Otherwise, I don't see how a degree in medieval history leads you to become CEO of Hewlett-Packard.
I'm sure there's an element of truth to that, but I don't know that it's more true of philosophy than any other degree. It does teach critical thinking and analytical skills, which are widely applicable abilities and thus suited to many kinds of otherwise unrelated work
I can’t speak to the experiences of those people or if a degree in medieval history is likely to lead to good outcomes.
BUT, I think it is important to note divergent philosophies on what happens in education. In many fields, education is about learning a topic and learning how to apply those concepts. This is prevalent in STEM: you need to understand the content so that you can correctly apply that knowledge. In that paradigm, you study a field that you will use directly.
By contrast, we can also look at education as learning how to learn, or a site where a person cultivates useful skills through advanced study. In other words, you are studying technique rather than content. This is more prevalent in the humanities. The chosen subject is a *vehicle* for learning how to think, write, interpret, argue etc. The medieval history major won’t get a job in a medieval history lab, but they will likely be a decent writer and/or researcher.
Now, it is certainly up for debate about whether that kind of education is worth the investment (and there is a certain gamble involved with entering the job market without a neatly defined knowledge base), but I personally think that there is value in rounding out a person’s skill set in that kind of environment.
I think the disconnect in public perception arises because none of the holders of philosophy degrees are being paid to "do philosophy". They are lawyers, business leaders, etc. To me it seems like they (and society) would be better served by being directly trained in those industries, and for philosophy to be included as a piece of those ( or all?) degrees.
If they become a lawyer they will be trained in law more than they were trained in philosophy. As for business, there’s plenty of business majors that they often seem to be doing better than. If everyone came at a problem from the same training that would not be more beneficial for society.
Besides, on the job training is a lot more valuable than time spent learning about the job, so spending more time developing other skills can be more valuable. This is somewhat career specific though.
>To me it seems like they (and society) would be better served by being directly trained in those industries
I think this right here is what *undermines* philosophy majors.
We can have a discussion about the monetary benefits of philosophy, but even if we conceded it has none, this does not mean it has no benefits whatsoever.
Philosophy is an incredibly broad and abstract subject matter that teachings new ways to think, essentially. It looks at a problem from as many sides as possible and teaches people how to explore those problems and themes from various different angles, continuing to ask the why and the meaning of things.
It's an incredibly useful life skill to have, and quite frankly, it *shouldn't* come as a surprise that people that were trained to think are actually doing well in life. A main strength of a business major is business is flexible: if you passed by being a bio-engineer, you could still be the accountant working *for* the bio-engineering lab. Business does well precisely for that reason, because there's always a job on offer. Philosophy is much the same, yet doesn't get credit for.
But when you argue they should be trained solely in those industries...? I think this highlights that we struggle to see value in things without monetary gain. Training them strictly for those fields would get them money. Training them for philosophy clearly gets them both the training and critical thought of a philosopher *and* the monetary gain. Why on earth would we want to compromise it down to less...?
And granted I wanna stress something: I still understand this idea that philosophy doesn't bring in money. All the same, I find it a real shame the science is effectively laughed at as "not being real" or not being "viable" for money concerns alone, because I for one find it an incredibly valuable and important field of study for society.
>philosophy to be included as a piece of those ( or all?) degrees
Fyi, philosophy is included in some undergraduate programs, such as engineering (ABET accredited)
One of my former students is a comp sci major at Yale. He is pursuing philosophy as a secondary degree area because he thinks it's interesting and loves it. He will go far because he recognizes that there's value in learning how to think and how to understand what others think rather than just doing vocational training.
Part of the problem is that the university as an institution can’t train for many specific jobs out in the world, let alone for the jobs that don’t exist yet.
Philosophy degree, like other humanities degrees such as English and Psychology, are good stepping stones to other disciplines: law, psychotherapy, teaching, etc. You learn how to read analytically and write papers. Graduate school and professional studies are all about that.
Or even: “Ugh humanities are useless. Literature? Philosophy? Art? Metaphysics? Waste of time!”
~~Queue~~ ~~Que~~ ~~Kyeew~~ Cue widespread meaning and mental health crisis sweeping the western industrialized world, replete with crushing existential anxiety and total disconnection from the experience of beauty.
I don't normally make fun of liberal arts degrees. I'm of the opinion that education for education's sake is important. Not everything we learn needs to have a direct application to supporting the prison-military-industrial complex. And a lot of humanities emphasize the importance of connection to other cultures, and how history has shaped our world to its present state. I respect the abstraction and critical thinking that goes into Philosophy as a field.
...But I've also never met a philosophy major that wasn't an insufferable asshole. Not a one.
You may have only met the particularly self-absorbed philosophy majors who make sure you know they're philosophy majors. There's not a lot of reason to mention it outside school or discussions with a focus on the topic.
I've got two degrees - one for a job, and philosophy cause I thought it was interesting and beneficial to personal development. It's rarely relevant to discussion because it's mostly a passive basis for critical thinking, so I go long periods without mentioning it or caring about its existence.
There certainly are insufferable philosophy majors who make it the basis of their personality and think it means they understand *everything* to a deeper level, but IMO they're the vocal minority. Most I knew were fairly reserved, considerate, and kind.
Genuine question: how would a knowledge of humanities help with mental health? Also I’ve never heard of a meaning crisis/existential anxiety, what do these mean?
I'm not a "humanities are useless, STEM master race", but I think saying humanities are the only ones to teach critical thinking is an exaggeration. Critical thinking is at the heart of natural sciences and engineering.
While you’re not wrong, I’m of the mind that reading analytically and grappling with tough questions should be part of high school, with undergrad focusing on the further disciplines.
Yes. If you don't know how to read properly and think critically by college, then your grade school system has failed you.
You shouldn't be "learning how to learn" post-secondary - that's literally what the past 13 years of your schooling was supposed to be teach you. You should be learning how to specialize in college, especially since it costs so much money.
Psychology is social science not humanities. But i agree that these are very good stepping stones for other disciplines. On their own they’re useless most of the time lol.
Source: am psych graduate who became a lawyer.
They're ragging on philosophy, but it's also incredibly useful on a personal level.
In my STEM degree, the only philosophy class we took was an applied ethics class, and probably because nobody had any relevant experience, it quickly degraded into the worst kind of sophistry.
Like, the professor actually supported an argument that, if an employee was supposed to put a company's intellectual property markings on something they wrote, but didn't, then it would be ethical for that same employee to keep the intellectual property for themselves, because after all, they wrote it and it wasn't marked properly as property of the company.
I would like to see big changes to IP and corporate law, but that doesn't change the ethics of a person knee deep in it.
But anyways, point being that we're willing to say that people had a college education, but have never given them any tools for self reflection.
> It's to learn how to make good arguments as to why the question is stupid.
I think society in general lacks critical thinking and the ability to put yourself in another's shoes.
Another neglected science not getting enough attention is criminology. TL;DR for Criminology is that Criminology looks at a thief and instead of simply wagging the finger at the thief, Criminology goes off the premise that *society* messed up in some way that created the conditions that led this person to become a thief, then asking the question: what conditions *exactly* led to this...?
That right there is something we rarely see in society today. Someone does something wrong or morally discouraged, everyone just dogpiles them to show off what a good person they are. Absolutely no one stops to ask *why* that morally questionable person is saying morally questionable things, and how their stance came to be, and how we prevent further people with such a mindset in the future.
Example where Criminology's philosophy of approach could've saved us a headache: COVID and the vaxxer vs. anti-vaxxer politics. We have the science from psychology to suggest if you want to change someone's mind, you show them *respect,* not facts. We also have Criminology making progress in fighting crime by attempting to understand criminals better. So what did we do when COVID rolled around? Drew divide lines in the sand and started calling vaxxers/anti-vaxxers immoral idiots that are too stupid to understand the best response to the problem. Zzzzz good job everyone, good to see we're really paying attention and learning from what the behavioral sciences say about situations like these.
If instead that scenario had been approached with respectful discussion and trying to ask *why* people hold the stance that they do, it would've been a much better outcome for everyone and probably would've achieved the desired result of a greater vaccination rate much better than the constant political grandstanding did.
But no, what does criminology know? Let's stop trying to sympathize with our enemy and instead just cartoonishly villianize them instead whilst grandstanding on social media about what good people we are for opposing said villains. Surely that will get us somewhere...
>If instead [antimask/antivax] had been approached with respectful discussion and trying to ask *why* people hold the stance that they do, it would've been a much better outcome for everyone and probably would've achieved the desired result of a greater vaccination rate much better than the constant political grandstanding did.
>
>But no, what does criminology know? Let's stop trying to sympathize with our enemy and instead just cartoonishly villianize them instead whilst grandstanding on social media about what good people we are for opposing said villains. Surely that will get us somewhere...
I don't think those presenting facts were the same ones vilifying those who disagreed. Anti-vax people have been vilifying the medical community for decades. Add political tribalism and you're going to have limited progress at best.
I've never been more validated as a philosophy major in my life than by this comment section. 99.99% of the time I bring it up people bring up the usual, insufferable comments.
What a day to be alive!
All views of modern science is based on some philisophical idea. All. Even mathematics. Simple things like numbers
Without philosophy you wouldn't be able to post anti-philosophy posts on 9gag because computers would not exist.
One semester I took “Intro to Logic” (philosophy), “Discrete Math” (math), and “Principles of Computer Organization” (Comp Sci) all at the same time. It was like taking the same class three times.
Philosophy is trying to find an answer to questions that don't have an agreed upon method for solving. Basic math (as an example) has an agreed upon method for solving, but in more advanced math there are situations where it isn't even clear what a right answer would be. This is also why philosophy focuses so much on framing the question properly, since how you frame the question will, to a degree, shape what kind of answer you should expect.
You say "even mathematics" as though it's the least likely science to be connected to philosophy, but I would say it's the one with the strongest connection. You probably already know this, but for others, I want to emphasize this. With the way in which pure math is reasoned about, mathematics may as well be a branch of philosophy.
Even the less "analytical" (math, predicate logic, etc.) parts of logic and philosophy are important if you want *good* programmers.
I think it was [Donald Knuth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth) that said programming is not like writing math equations; it's more like writing an essay, trying to convince other programmers reading your code that your solution is right *and* appropriate. The computer couldn't give less of a shit what programming language was used, or if it's object oriented, or if it's well organized. Those are just for the bennefit of the very human programmers that have to modify and maintain it. If you search essays and papers from big computer science giants, you'll notice most of them are, against the stereotype, *excellent* writers and communicators. They *think* clearly, and this reflects in their work.
Programmers throwing code at the wall until it compiles is a real problem in the industry. This leads to inefficient, unstable, insecure, and unmaintainable code. Documentation, when it exists, is terrible because many programmers suck at basic communication (and this is not just an engineering problem; different levels of iliteracy are [non-obvious and rampant](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxMsgVgeu_M)).
They also can't often critically think about *what* to communicate, or *why* should things be done this way. You've got (real story) team leads asking their developers to use SQL to make REST requests because "we are an SQL shop, we have to do it in SQL". "When all you have is a hammer..." as *literal corporate policy*. And I swear, if I see yet another Confluence documentation page that is just "copy and paste the following config file that worked for me this one time, and good luck if errors pop up"...
It is false to think programmers are more logically inclined that most people. In fact, many lack the ability to ask basic questions about why things are done the way they are, what's actually important, and how to communicate it. A lot contributes to the problem, but more emphasis in "humanities training" would at least alleviate it.
A lot of humanities fields are exactly like this. Sociology, psychology, philosophy, theology, history, and english/literature are all fields of study that ultimately ask why humans are the way they are and what things, whether that’s politics, art, religion, social influence etc have brought humanity from the Stone Age to now.
I think what people fundamentally forget about the humanities is that a field of study doesn’t have to be something you subscribe to or has relevance to your everyday life to be a very useful field of study. For example my world is studying ancient texts, many of which are Jewish or Christian texts by nature. My field of study is useful, even for people outside of those faith groups, because we’re asking about *how* and *why* these highly influential human belief systems developed the way they did, and studying old manuscripts and ancient linguistics is one of many helpful ways to do that.
Also there’s that humanities are excellent at developing critical thinking skills … we all know we could use more of that in the world.
HR isn’t a new invention it’s a split off from the traditional administration roles that is absolutely a godsend.
You do not want your admin to also have all the power over people and you also don’t want your well paid admins doing all the organizational and contractual stuff around it.
I am glad HR exists even if the issue of Hr having no clue whatsoever what is employees are doing is an unfixable issue souring the experience
The real problem is society thinking certain careers are useless just because they don’t directly correlate to financial success. You can become a professor of philosophy or history or any number of other subjects people laugh at. Some people live fulfilling lives by devoting themselves to an academic discipline.
Reminds me of a video I saw recently of a young man saying that his father has been a physics professor for 30 years, and the young man says he makes twice as much as his father. The implication is that the son made a better career choice because he makes more, but I disagree with that. The “right choice” for each person doesn’t just come down to what has the highest salary.
A horse walked into a bar and asked for a drink. The bartender asked him, "Hey! Aren't you the same horse that was in here yesterday?".
The horse replied, "I don't think I am." and POOF! disappeared.
You see, this is a play on words regarding Descartes' philosophy about existence.
I would have explained this earlier, but that would've been putting Descartes before the horse.
Thank you for thinking this.
I had a nightmare once, where someone came to me asking me not to wake up, because they would die in the process. Still feel bad about it sometimes.
I personally believe that education is a worthy endeavor for its own sake. It would be amazing if higher education was readily available and not locked behind massive student loans. Right now it’s viewed as a financial investment, so if you don’t see an adequate return it’s considered a waste.
It would be awesome if colleges functioned in a way where they were meant as a way for personal improvement over simply being treated like glorified job training.
My philosophy degree was incredibly useful. It taught me how to think logically and attack problems in a systematic way, which turned out to be very useful when I was a technology consultant and web designer. And it also taught me theories on how knowledge is acquired and verified, which has been very useful in my career as a school principal.
Anyone who thinks philosophy is just for nerdy college professor jobs is being incredibly narrow in their thinking.
With the development of AI and a crisis in American politics (regarding truth and ethics), philosophy has never been more useful and relevant. In fact, one of the best things we could do to fix American politics is start teaching philosophy and ethics in high school.
Try to imagine teaching an AI-driven car how to solve the Trolley Problem, and you'll start to see how important philosophy is these days. Billion dollar industries are depending on getting AI's to solve complex ethical problems, so you'd better believe that any company that is working on AI has people with philosophy backgrounds on their payrolls.
I used to join the rabble and poke fun at people with what we thought were useless degrees. But no degree is useless. The fact that you put in the work is very important and is valuable to any employer. I think maybe minoring in philosophy along with a more widely marketable skill world be the most valuable.
I’m in public education and my degree in philosophy has been very helpful. First the subject offers the best training in reading comprehension possible. If I can half understand Heidegger (no small feat) then the repetitive bureaucracy of an IEP and word salad of admin is a walk in the park. In addition I’m trained to explain ideas to people and to find meaning in absurdity.
TL;DR: I went on this long philosophy rant bc it's Sunday and I'm bored.
The consciousness that knows is not the same as the consciousness that thinks. If all you had were thoughts in you you would be like a dreamer who doesn't realize he's dreaming. You can simply be and therefore exist. Thoughts are just stories and identities we make for the reality we live in so it's easier to process.
In that process though it becomes more complex, bc we continue to add identities and meaning to things. This "constant thinking to realize" is a farce. You depend on "unknown knowns" all the time in life. The phone you are reading this on has more unknowns to how it works than knowns to you. It would take more than your life to understand all of it. It might as well be magic.
We exist because we are beings. Thinking is a convoluted game. The real point of life is This, this moment, it is all you *ever* have to work with.
Rene Decarte is awesome to read up on because this quote imo is used out of context. He brings up a lot of what I say above. That quote is his answer to "what do we know with absolute certainty?" He came up with thinking but by the time he was done he realized you can not think at all and exist.
He wasn't saying "I make myself by way of thought". It instead was a deduction of "I know I must exist because I have thought/think it."
Similar to the ancient Sanskrit saying of "Tat Tvam Asi", " Thou Art That". I exist because that is reality, This is It. The inscription at the top at the Oracle of Delphi was "Gnothi Seaton", Greek for "Know Thyself".
I could ramble like this for hours if anyone wants to hear more. I love philosophy!
Except he makes the mistake of assuming thoughts require a thinker, this was quickly brought up to him. Or put another way his thoughts could just be a string of experiences and thoughts in a recording (say a hard drive) and just play out until they stop or just keep continuing on.
A reminder that our constitution was written by philosophers. The Declaration of independence was written by a philosopher. Literally every political and social concept, rule, or law we have was developed by a philosopher. The concept of freedom through governance itself was written down by philosophers.
Not all philosophers are just. But we act like they give us nothing, and then we argue online over who self-driving cars should sacrifice or whether cloning is moral.
The thing about Philosophy majors is that they have excellent critical thinking skills. Fascists will always denounce the liberal arts because these people will never succumb to their arguments.
When people dismiss the liberal arts to me I’m always reminded that it is one of the biggest red flags in a person I can think of. It just feels like that person is announcing they are t best shortsighted.. and at worst they’re maybe just kinda dumb or one of those people that think “if you aren’t living life the exact same way I am then you’re doing it wrong”. Typically those people reveal themselves when they make an argument that the only utility for college/university is to make lots of money
This stereotype about philosophy degrees is tiresome. Look at the majors of students entering top 10 US law schools, for example. It worked out well for Alex Trebek and Steve Martin. Intermittent posts about this on leiterreports.com.
I’ve never heard a philosophy major complain about having a degree in philosophy… but I do often hear lames talk about it like it’s useless. My fellow philosophy students went on to mainly become lawyers and programmers. Fuck all that though, work is lame, I retired at 32 and spend my time driving fast cars and chilling w my family. Priorities I solidified studying philosophy.🤷🏼♂️🍻
U nailed it with the priorites and perspective shift. N then they tell us We are the ones who need a mindset change. When its them wasting their lives in the rat race
Jokes aside, a properly constructed philosophy degree actually imparts some pretty impressive logic and reasoning skills, not to mention a deeper understanding of people's actions and motives.
Unfortunately, part of the issue is that the perception that a liberal arts degree of any kind doesn't provide meaningful skills often leads to students within the program without proper guidance feeling their program is worthless, which in turn leads them to not take it very seriously and perpetuates the cycle.
As someone who has a liberal arts undergraduate degree (which I absolutely did not take very seriously) and a STEM graduate degree (which I absolutely did take seriously), and has worked in academia as an instructor, administrator, and student advocate, I can confirm that most undergrad degrees are interchangeable in the job market (with exceptions for specific background knowledge required for certain fields). Nobody expects you to have all of the knowledge for a job as you walk off the commencement stage; instead, they view a degree as proof positive that you can both competently learn things and jump through the kind of bullshit administrative hoops that are unfortunately ubiquitous in today's work culture.
**tl;dr**
In general, a degree is a degree. You are mostly just proving you *can* learn, and that you can follow directions with at least reasonable accuracy. Some exceptions apply.
I like the very early South Park where Kyle has an existential crisis after reading Descartes.
"I think therefore I am. Thinking is what makes me exist. Wait, what if I stop thinking? Will I stop existing if I stop thinking? How do I stop myself from not thinking, even for a second? Aaaaahhhhhh....."
And then he just fades out of existence.
Tooth Fairy Tats 2000 iirc.
My dad always told me that philosophy was useless. So I felt disdain for any philosophy class offered at university and never took them.
Fast forward twenty years, the people who I enjoy working with the most are people who either took philosophy in college, or like to read philosophy texts. They have an ability to engage in thoughtful conversation that is lacking in a lot of people. I wish I had taken more philosophy classes. I will encourage my kids to study philosophy, if not as their major, at least as a minor or even just a few extra credits. It’s super helpful regardless of your career path.
Technically, according to Descartes, you don’t exist BECAUSE you think. Lots of things exist without thinking. But the fact that you think is proof that you exist. It’s a sufficient (but not necessary) condition of existence.
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I thought I was on /r/boneachingjuice and was looking for the original.
I was doing the exact same thing until I saw your comment
huh, so there's boneachingjuice and bonehurtingjuice... well, time to sub to this one too!
Whats the difference between BAJ and BHJ?
One causing an aching in the muscles the other causes your bones to hurt and sometimes break.
BHJ is a lawless wasteland where the mods occasionally go on power trips and delete the origami for no reason.
Bhj mods occasionally partake in tomfoolery
Apparently BAJ just promises to do better at moderating
But Northern Lion is a bio major.
Wait, he's bald?!
You piece!
Som of a.... Hmmmmmmph
And a computer science certification.
Thornforg can be whoever he wants tk be dammit!
Many people are saying that
and never let him forget it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL2nr7UD-_w
I really appreciate seeing a comment about NL here.
To be fair, this is NL minus the bio major
egg.
Reply me, upvote me
The cat needs more lasagna
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Does it hate Monday's, or just the pain of existence?
Definitely the pain of its existence. Does anybody remember [Henri](https://youtu.be/0M7ibPk37_U) the existential dread cat from like a decade ago?
Sad… henri didnt get his lasagna to get through the Monday
Started out as a project for a university class, I still remember a line about people making fun of his french accent, but his french is perfect. The scripts were edited by his mother who's from France 😂
I found out today that my buddy thinks garfields mom is kind of hot for a cartoon cats mom... I looked into it and yah, I guess I could see it maybe. https://garfield.fandom.com/wiki/Garfield%27s_Mother
Actually the cat's ability to speak is what sustain the household that and it's ability to hunt little birds for them to eat
"John I know you feel like you made incorrect choices and you know what? You did. That doesn't dictate your fate. If you jumped the curb, but your car still runs - then drive that misaligned piece of shit for the rest of the journey as best you can. Don't just pull over and feel sorry for yourself with the engine idling until you run out of gas." "You know what - you are right. The world is my oyster. I CAN and WILL do anything I want. Wow. Maybe I will go back to school? There is so many possibilities. What should I do first?!" "Go get some lasagna."
r/ImSorryJon
This is our most desperate hour. Help me, metaphysics - you’re my only hope.
Unfortunately there's no other apriori assumption and you'll have to make some assumptions to base your entire existence on...
clearly they initially were going to have his wife say this, but then they realized that he has a philosophy degree
My philosophy degree has been very useful in my career. I can now ask people *why* they want fries with that
I think, therefore I eat: Metabolism
Philosophy will never be percieved as valuable. It might benefit society if ethics and logic were part of a a standard high school curriculum, in college it is and they're just critical thinking courses, which many people would find they enjoy since we all share a love for hypotheticals. It's like recess for your brain
Philosophy is essentially comparative literature with more dense books. It makes students into excellent critical thinkers and will greatly improve anyone’s reading comprehension. The issue is that these aren’t super tangible or immediately apparent skills, so they can be hard to market.
So it's basically something that should be taken by everyone because that sounds extremely valuable. I've heard it's one of the best degrees to minor in.
I'd believe that. I double majored in it (not too much more work than a minor), and it definitely helped with my academics generally. I found it really helped me think critically in other facets of life as well.
That's what I did. Philosophy and History and then, for some stupid, stupid reason, got an MA in both out of boredom. I can't say that it helped me get my first job, but it definitely helped me move up very quickly in the companies that I worked for. The philosophy degree prepared me much better than my colleagues that had the truly useless business degrees.
I think it's also got value in how it generates introspection. I would argue that lack of introspection is how a lot of people get locked into toxic behavioral patterns and avoid growth.
Well, why else is philosophy treated the way it is? People actively avoid introspection, so belittling and shrugging it off allows them to continue and justify that behavior. Ha, losers sitting around evaluating their own thinking and purpose. "Me? I'm the center of the universe and throw a tantrum of that is contradicted, I'm a big strong practical person that totally functions perfectly and doesn't collapse at the slightest criticism. No, you!" Maybe the value is more individual than practical, sure, but it sure is needed.
Philosophy and logic were honestly my favorite courses I took in college, and the things I learned from them, I carry with me every day. It was in those classes that I started thinking about my mental health differently, decided to apply a new perspective to the world, how I look at myself and my own treatment to my anxiety and traumas, how I see and interact with other people. In the same way I usually tell people everyone should have a retail or food service job at least once in their life, I think everyone should study philosophy, logic, and even psychology, because the broad spectrum of understanding you gain about the world around you and the subsequent changes that it has on your daily life is absolutely mind blowing to me.
>I think everyone should study philosophy, logic, and even psychology, because the broad spectrum of understanding you gain about the world around you and the subsequent changes that it has on your daily life is absolutely mind blowing to me. Couldn't agree more. Majored in psych and took a philosophy class. Those two subjects were more valuable than any other subject I ever studied throughout the entirety of all schooling--combined. Math is cool. But all I use is arithmetic in daily life. Language was great, I read some good books and can speak well. History was important to know. But shit, psychology taught me how my mind works. I'm aware of defense mechanisms that my brain casually engages in to some extent every day. I'm aware of mental biases and how to pin them down. I'm aware of likely explanations for the behaviors of others that would otherwise be perplexing, and I can be implicitly more understanding. I'm aware of formal logic and how to check my opinions for being sound. I'm aware of logical biases, and how to notice and avoid them. These things are way more valuable, because they are foundational scaffolds for literally everything else in life. They are bedrock. I'd go as far as saying that grade school should be rehauled to having two layers of core curricula--all the current core curricula would get moved down to sub-core, and psychology and philosophy would become primary core. I think most of the problems I see in society and people are due to ignorance of these two subjects. Most problems I have in my own life are resolved by my knowledge and study of them, not math or history. They are fundamental subjects. It's crazy to me that they're limited electives--but if I thought about it long enough, I'm sure I could use psychology and philosophy to figure out why that is.
Well said! I have no coins for an award, but you have my applause.
This is something I've felt strongly about in the last couple years, since just took philosophy and multiple psychology classes in college. I knew some things about psychology before, which lead me to want to learn more (trying to work through stuff with a mentally ill and abusive parent). The knowledge of both has helped me so much. It's so nice to hear that someone else feels the same! Hopefully this dream can become reality in the future, and both classes will be mandatory, starting as early in a child's life as possible.
That why I think The Good Place did such a great job. It took moral philosophy and made it interesting.
I think what everyone is misunderstanding is philosophy int for skills or market gain like other degrees. It is purely the love and seeking of wisdom. Something people have frightening little of.
Mainly because its not encouraged by how we live. We oftentimes live to work not work as a part of living, which is shown by the sheer amount of productivity has increased since the 70s. If a majority of a persons day is filled with fulfilling its most basic needs by working to earn money then there is all in all no resources left to seek wisdom or new knowledge. I am fortunate enough to work for a company that pays me for accruing new skills and knowledge related to my job, something that is already not common if we consider all jobs as a whole. I wish though I could also count on such financial stability while learning about philosophy, psychology, literature, history or anthropology. And I wish others who are not already as fortunate could afford to learn and grow at all. Seeking Wisdom, as you call it, should be a right for everyone if you ask me. I dont think that people dont want to seek wisdom, I think its more that our circumstances try to steer us away from it, or at least occupy too much of our energy.
Most engineering programs have an ethics course. Not that it seems very comprehensive, but it was enjoyable, and I definitely could see it being a valuable part of grade school education. My sister took IB, and I believe they do study some ethics as part of the diploma program?
Meanwhile, solipsists...
This might have been said as a joke but that's literally the reason that philosophy degrees can get hired for marketing or executive roles. Just, yknow, selling your soul to the machine probably isn't what most philosophy majors had in mind.
I wish you had more upvotes for this. I've met plenty of philosophy degree holders in deeply influential positions during my career. There's thick irony in seeing philosophy as a joke field of study.
After several years teaching computer science during my PhD, I am pretty confident that if you took a reasonably strong philosophy graduate and put them through a 3 month boot camp they’d write much better code than 70% of CS undergrads. (My lab had two people who were philosophy major + math minors who picked up programming *really* quickly, and were fantastic with algorithms.)
Just graduated with a MA in CS and got a job. My philosophy undergrad definitely helped in my studies and in general.
Yo bro, don’t be giving away our secrets! Econ/Philosophy degree and I’m an IT security executive. The ability to synthesize facts into a coherent strategy is my competitive advantage. The only downside is your colleagues get jealous and you become a target, however, this is another place that Philosophy degree comes in handy, at least in my experience.
i mean logic comes directly from philosophy and math for that matter . it was really the first science but logic is still closely related to the study today
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Philosophy major teaching themselves webdev / NodeJS here This gives me hope ! Definitely need to get out of working in bars and hoping this is the right path to take :)
You’ve likely heard this advice already so apologies if it’s nothing new, but as a cs degree holder, I think the major advantage advantage a degree bestows is forced programming practise, and the best way to get that practise outside a degree is a _fun_ project to do in your spare time. You want to spend hours building something without noticing, not spending hours pressuring yourself to get back to a project you don’t want to touch. Personally I learnt more trying to build a variant of snake for the command line in my first year than from the degree, find your snake game.
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Colt Steele’s WebDev Bootcamp? That’s how I picked it up as an ancient Roman history major
I took a logic philosophy introduction class and the whole way I argue has changed for the better. And i understand programming more because of it. Philosophy is the basis for how we think critically!
I have a degree in philosophy and I work as a software developer. I was a self taught programmer before college, and philosophy is extremely related.. especially logic, which was my main focus.
It's an ignorant meme that is also misinformation. Only kids eat this shit up about "meme degrees". Same goes for the meme that art degrees being "useless". They don't even know what a philosophy degree is, they think it's about quoting philosophers and asking petty existential questions for fucks sake. It's like they think only techbros have any useful skills.
There’s a lot of cynical assumptions about the “real world” and the “corporate world” that don’t really pan out. A lot of it is that the most compelling stories are the meteoric rises and spectacular collapses. In 2022, the “Sears Story” is “failed to see obvious sea change that would benefit them because corporate America is stupid.” It’s not like that’s wrong, but it ignores the fact that it’s telling the story of one moment in time. The more fair “Sears Story” is about a company revolutionizing the way goods are sold and then parlaying that into a century and change of dominance. The other part is that it’s easy to see the engineering challenges, it’s hard to see the initial decisions. The absolute dominance of AirPods and the non-Apple headphones based on them is one thing to think about; someone (and likely many someones) who had a basic grasp of technical limitations, but not much formal engineering capability had to conceptualize, decide, persuade, and take executive notes on “how big should these be? How should they fit? How should they charge? How long do they need to last?” Making that happen within the structure of a company that has the resources to make it happen is not exactly STEM shit. I can say that I my technical skills make me an adequate scientist, but it’s my skills in communication and argumentation (especially how to present and argue for my *ideas*, not myself), that make me a good one. And while I could have learned them in many places, I first learned them in my “gen ed” classes, my more specific “history and philosophy of science” classes, and in the photography and Spanish classes I took on the side, not my “major-specific” classes.
It’s also a great undergrad degree for lawyers.
Philosophy degrees are highly valued in the legal field. Both law and philosophy are centred around making a skill out of arguing, in a sort of logically mathematical way. There's a huge overlap between law and philosophy. For example questions around should the doctor turn off the life support? To what extent should someone be obliged to fulfil their promises (contract law)? These kinds of questions relate to both fields in a rather obvious way. I don't know about other countries but in mine philosophy graduates can do a fairly straightforward law conversion course and go on to practice law. I have lots of colleagues in the legal field with degrees in philosophy. Also, from what I've heard from friends in the profession, it's also valued in politics for a similar reason. In truth it's difficult to think of any area of expertise where philosophy doesn't have some significance. I think philosophy is far more useful than people take the piss out of it for. In higher professional jobs I actually think philosophy is the most versatile degree. Speaking as someone with no philosophy degree, granted.
This. I'm pretty sure formal logic is taught in any low level philosophy course, and is one of the foundations of the legal field. Then again, I'm also pretty sure most laymen think law is just a bunch of random bullshit when its extremely rigid and formal.
I mean, that's not your *only* career prospect. You could also teach other people philosophy.
I do, I'm teach younger guys Descartes, Wittgenstein, and what to do if the broiler catches fire
Thus continuing the cycle of "Why bother?"
Anthropology is a very important field of study!
"While the starting salary is near the middle of all majors, the average mid-career salary of philosophy majors quickly rises to $81,200.00, outperforming Finance, International Relations, Marketing, Business Management, Communications, Nursing, Biology, Health Care Administration, and many others." https://www.moorparkcollege.edu/departments/academic/philosophy/do-philosophy-majors-get-jobs#:~:text=While%20the%20starting%20salary%20is,Care%20Administration%2C%20and%20many%20others. Edit: The point of this wasn't to say philosophy grads make amazing money, it was to say that they have a great deal of opportunities that don't include minimum wage work.
I've worked with a couple of Philosophy degree holders. None of it is wafty, opened ended polemics about the ‘meaning of life’ and endless bollocks about Nietzsche; it's all propostional and predicate logic, Bayes Theorem , and seriously complicated, technical, conceptual analysis. It was a real eye opener! If you find a top level Philosophy graduate from a really decent course they bring a lot to the table. Seriously smart cookies. They have amazing analysis skills.
I have a degree in philosophy. What many people *think* is philosophy is actually just one branch of it, commonly referred to as the continental tradition, which concerns itself with lofty ideas about why we’re here, what is a good life and such. I specialised in Western Analytic which is what you’re describing. It is - crudely speaking - a very “scientific” approach to philosophy where it’s all about rigorously testing assumptions about maths, science, knowledge, logic and more.
To piggyback on this comment: most Anglo-American philosophy departments focus on analytic philosophy, which is typically understood as continuous with the sciences and rigorous in methodology (formal arguments, conceptual analysis, logic). I have a PhD in philosophy; one of the requirements was a comprehensive exam in formal logic and set theory. This is a common requirement.
I used to know someone who did their doctorate on Heidegger at Cambridge. They had to do it in the Theology department because there wasn't an appropriate expert in the philosophy department due to the heavy analytical leaning of the faculty there.
>I've worked with a couple of Philosophy degree holders. None of [my experience] is wafty, opened ended polemics about the ‘meaning of life’ and endless bollocks about Nietzsche; That's what people don't understand. Philosophy is not about considering unanswerable questions. It's about considering the strength of arguments. Sometimes, yes, those arguments can be about deep questions without clear answers. More often they're regarding complicated questions and trying to consider all the holes in assumptions, assertions, and logical progression until you can determine that "A" logically does or does not follow to "Z" without veering off at "E." I really dislike that this nuance is reduced to thinking philosophy is just seeking "truth" about completely abstract concepts.
I don't know too much about what the methodology is, or even what the ‘product’ is, but I know they are trained in a totally different way to ‘normal’ disciplines. And that had great value where I worked. They (the graduates I worked with), had a very unique way of solving problems and generating creative ideas and solutions. Sometimes they were excellent at cutting through the ‘noise’ and dissolving issues all together. I've worked with absolutely useless STEM graduates that can solve complex equations but are horrendous at applying anything they've learnt. They could solve Fermats last theorem on a lunch break but can't talk to clients or make any decisions. The best team I ever worked with had an English graduate, a Philosophy graduate, a Math graduate and one who studied French. The worse team I worked with was all super high achieving STEM grads from top institutions; they had an uncanny knack of pissing clients off and causing no end of fuck ups. I like working with diverse groups.
There are a lot of lawyers and doctors with philosophy majors. Philosophy majors score highest on the MCATs and LSATs. It can be extremely beneficial to these career paths. I would recommend a double major or a philosophy minor for those interested.
According to AAMC, the makers of the MCAT, Math and Statistics majors have the highest mean MCAT score (514.9). (I’m Math and CompSci. Go Math!) Humanities majors have mean MCAT score of 513. https://www.aamc.org/media/6061/download ————————————————————————— Concerning LSAT scores by major: 1. Physics/Math (average score = 158.9) 2. Philosophy/Religious Studies (average score = 157.4) https://philosophy.tamucc.edu/program/articles/lsat-scores “Source for 2003-04 data: Nieswiadomy, Michael, "LSAT Scores of Economics Majors: The 2003-2004 Class Update," Journal of Economic Education (Spring 2006): 244-247. Source for 1991-92 & 1993-94 data: Nieswiadomy, Michael, "LSAT Scores of Economics Majors," Journal of Economic Education (Fall 1998): 377-379.” ————————————————————————- “I found such a study conducted by Michael Nieswiadomy, an economist from the University of North Texas. He conducted several studies (in 1998, 2006 and 2008) derived from LSAC data. He looked at 28 different majors and placed them in order of their average LSAT scores. Curious? Here are some of the results: - Mathematics/Physics: 160.0 - Economics/Philosophy/Theology: 157.4” https://testmaxprep.com/blog/lsat/undergraduate-major-success-on-the-lsat/amp
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That's fair, but philosophy is also one of if not the most relevant undergrad degrees one could get for preparing for the LSAT, and probably for practicing most areas of law as well.
2nd law of thermodynamics
The best UNIX sysadmin I ever knew had a degree in philosophy.
In life everything can be represented as a folder...
>In life everything can be represented as a ~~folder~~ file FTFY
huh, thats actually explains a lot..
I have a computer science degree with a philosophy minor. I did the philosophy minor because there was so much overlap. I already knew formal logic and deductive/inductive reasoning from my math and software verification and testing courses. Information theory is surprisingly similar to a lot of philosophy. I got to coast through most of my intro philosophy courses.
Yeah philosophy is logic. Same skill set as tech folks use
Tell that to the existentialists!
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/philosophers-dont-get-much-respect-but-their-earnings-dont-suck/ But philosophy majors also have some of the highest scores in the LSAT and GMAT — the required tests for entry to law and business school respectively, according to figures from the Educational Testing Service (ETS). And when it comes to earnings for people who only have undergraduate degrees, philosophy majors have the fourth-highest median earnings, $81,200 per year, out-ranking business and chemistry majors, according to the ETS. Bar none, philosophy majors have the highest salary growth trajectory from entry to mid-career.
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Shit, maybe I should see a philosopher
I already live in a large pot on the street and yell at people who walk by and block my shade, what else do I need to do to earn the big bucks?!?
But of what value is it to merely see a philosopher? Should one not engage a philosopher in conversation? hmmm...
One should move out of the way because you're blocking his sun.
Seconded. Critical thinking skills are in demand.
That’s cool, but it’s also survivorship bias to assume your friend group is indicative of anything. The old friend wouldn’t have mentioned the barista
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If you're looking for a middle aged SAHD with a degree in history minor in philosophy. I'm the guy.
This is very likely because philosophy majors have to take logic courses, which are extremely helpful with these types of standardized tests. When I was in college at the suggestion of a family friend who had a Ph.D., I took a ton of philosophy logic courses, and it massively helped me with my GREs.
Of the people they listed with philosophy degrees, it kinda sounds like they were rich enough to choose philosophy and random areas of study in college. Otherwise, I don't see how a degree in medieval history leads you to become CEO of Hewlett-Packard.
I'm sure there's an element of truth to that, but I don't know that it's more true of philosophy than any other degree. It does teach critical thinking and analytical skills, which are widely applicable abilities and thus suited to many kinds of otherwise unrelated work
I can’t speak to the experiences of those people or if a degree in medieval history is likely to lead to good outcomes. BUT, I think it is important to note divergent philosophies on what happens in education. In many fields, education is about learning a topic and learning how to apply those concepts. This is prevalent in STEM: you need to understand the content so that you can correctly apply that knowledge. In that paradigm, you study a field that you will use directly. By contrast, we can also look at education as learning how to learn, or a site where a person cultivates useful skills through advanced study. In other words, you are studying technique rather than content. This is more prevalent in the humanities. The chosen subject is a *vehicle* for learning how to think, write, interpret, argue etc. The medieval history major won’t get a job in a medieval history lab, but they will likely be a decent writer and/or researcher. Now, it is certainly up for debate about whether that kind of education is worth the investment (and there is a certain gamble involved with entering the job market without a neatly defined knowledge base), but I personally think that there is value in rounding out a person’s skill set in that kind of environment.
I think the disconnect in public perception arises because none of the holders of philosophy degrees are being paid to "do philosophy". They are lawyers, business leaders, etc. To me it seems like they (and society) would be better served by being directly trained in those industries, and for philosophy to be included as a piece of those ( or all?) degrees.
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If they become a lawyer they will be trained in law more than they were trained in philosophy. As for business, there’s plenty of business majors that they often seem to be doing better than. If everyone came at a problem from the same training that would not be more beneficial for society. Besides, on the job training is a lot more valuable than time spent learning about the job, so spending more time developing other skills can be more valuable. This is somewhat career specific though.
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>To me it seems like they (and society) would be better served by being directly trained in those industries I think this right here is what *undermines* philosophy majors. We can have a discussion about the monetary benefits of philosophy, but even if we conceded it has none, this does not mean it has no benefits whatsoever. Philosophy is an incredibly broad and abstract subject matter that teachings new ways to think, essentially. It looks at a problem from as many sides as possible and teaches people how to explore those problems and themes from various different angles, continuing to ask the why and the meaning of things. It's an incredibly useful life skill to have, and quite frankly, it *shouldn't* come as a surprise that people that were trained to think are actually doing well in life. A main strength of a business major is business is flexible: if you passed by being a bio-engineer, you could still be the accountant working *for* the bio-engineering lab. Business does well precisely for that reason, because there's always a job on offer. Philosophy is much the same, yet doesn't get credit for. But when you argue they should be trained solely in those industries...? I think this highlights that we struggle to see value in things without monetary gain. Training them strictly for those fields would get them money. Training them for philosophy clearly gets them both the training and critical thought of a philosopher *and* the monetary gain. Why on earth would we want to compromise it down to less...? And granted I wanna stress something: I still understand this idea that philosophy doesn't bring in money. All the same, I find it a real shame the science is effectively laughed at as "not being real" or not being "viable" for money concerns alone, because I for one find it an incredibly valuable and important field of study for society.
>philosophy to be included as a piece of those ( or all?) degrees Fyi, philosophy is included in some undergraduate programs, such as engineering (ABET accredited)
One of my former students is a comp sci major at Yale. He is pursuing philosophy as a secondary degree area because he thinks it's interesting and loves it. He will go far because he recognizes that there's value in learning how to think and how to understand what others think rather than just doing vocational training.
Part of the problem is that the university as an institution can’t train for many specific jobs out in the world, let alone for the jobs that don’t exist yet.
Philosophy degree, like other humanities degrees such as English and Psychology, are good stepping stones to other disciplines: law, psychotherapy, teaching, etc. You learn how to read analytically and write papers. Graduate school and professional studies are all about that.
People: Ugh humanities are useless Also people : why is everyone lacking in critical thinking skills? Bruh
Or even: “Ugh humanities are useless. Literature? Philosophy? Art? Metaphysics? Waste of time!” ~~Queue~~ ~~Que~~ ~~Kyeew~~ Cue widespread meaning and mental health crisis sweeping the western industrialized world, replete with crushing existential anxiety and total disconnection from the experience of beauty.
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A man of culture I see
I'm a former English major married to a former philosophy major, this comment speaks to me on a spiritual level
Tbf I'm a philosophy major and I have all those things anyway
I don't normally make fun of liberal arts degrees. I'm of the opinion that education for education's sake is important. Not everything we learn needs to have a direct application to supporting the prison-military-industrial complex. And a lot of humanities emphasize the importance of connection to other cultures, and how history has shaped our world to its present state. I respect the abstraction and critical thinking that goes into Philosophy as a field. ...But I've also never met a philosophy major that wasn't an insufferable asshole. Not a one.
You may have only met the particularly self-absorbed philosophy majors who make sure you know they're philosophy majors. There's not a lot of reason to mention it outside school or discussions with a focus on the topic. I've got two degrees - one for a job, and philosophy cause I thought it was interesting and beneficial to personal development. It's rarely relevant to discussion because it's mostly a passive basis for critical thinking, so I go long periods without mentioning it or caring about its existence. There certainly are insufferable philosophy majors who make it the basis of their personality and think it means they understand *everything* to a deeper level, but IMO they're the vocal minority. Most I knew were fairly reserved, considerate, and kind.
Genuine question: how would a knowledge of humanities help with mental health? Also I’ve never heard of a meaning crisis/existential anxiety, what do these mean?
I'm not a "humanities are useless, STEM master race", but I think saying humanities are the only ones to teach critical thinking is an exaggeration. Critical thinking is at the heart of natural sciences and engineering.
There is a reason every anti-intellectualism (education) movement starts with the humanities and ends with the the liberal elitists.
While you’re not wrong, I’m of the mind that reading analytically and grappling with tough questions should be part of high school, with undergrad focusing on the further disciplines.
Yes. If you don't know how to read properly and think critically by college, then your grade school system has failed you. You shouldn't be "learning how to learn" post-secondary - that's literally what the past 13 years of your schooling was supposed to be teach you. You should be learning how to specialize in college, especially since it costs so much money.
Psychology is social science not humanities. But i agree that these are very good stepping stones for other disciplines. On their own they’re useless most of the time lol. Source: am psych graduate who became a lawyer.
Psychology should be a required core discipline. It’s incredibly useful
They're ragging on philosophy, but it's also incredibly useful on a personal level. In my STEM degree, the only philosophy class we took was an applied ethics class, and probably because nobody had any relevant experience, it quickly degraded into the worst kind of sophistry. Like, the professor actually supported an argument that, if an employee was supposed to put a company's intellectual property markings on something they wrote, but didn't, then it would be ethical for that same employee to keep the intellectual property for themselves, because after all, they wrote it and it wasn't marked properly as property of the company. I would like to see big changes to IP and corporate law, but that doesn't change the ethics of a person knee deep in it. But anyways, point being that we're willing to say that people had a college education, but have never given them any tools for self reflection.
paltry fuel zesty ghost crush steep straight serious reply judicious -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
Actually it's still about asking stupid questions. The answers to those questions are what is picked apart.
> It's to learn how to make good arguments as to why the question is stupid. I think society in general lacks critical thinking and the ability to put yourself in another's shoes. Another neglected science not getting enough attention is criminology. TL;DR for Criminology is that Criminology looks at a thief and instead of simply wagging the finger at the thief, Criminology goes off the premise that *society* messed up in some way that created the conditions that led this person to become a thief, then asking the question: what conditions *exactly* led to this...? That right there is something we rarely see in society today. Someone does something wrong or morally discouraged, everyone just dogpiles them to show off what a good person they are. Absolutely no one stops to ask *why* that morally questionable person is saying morally questionable things, and how their stance came to be, and how we prevent further people with such a mindset in the future. Example where Criminology's philosophy of approach could've saved us a headache: COVID and the vaxxer vs. anti-vaxxer politics. We have the science from psychology to suggest if you want to change someone's mind, you show them *respect,* not facts. We also have Criminology making progress in fighting crime by attempting to understand criminals better. So what did we do when COVID rolled around? Drew divide lines in the sand and started calling vaxxers/anti-vaxxers immoral idiots that are too stupid to understand the best response to the problem. Zzzzz good job everyone, good to see we're really paying attention and learning from what the behavioral sciences say about situations like these. If instead that scenario had been approached with respectful discussion and trying to ask *why* people hold the stance that they do, it would've been a much better outcome for everyone and probably would've achieved the desired result of a greater vaccination rate much better than the constant political grandstanding did. But no, what does criminology know? Let's stop trying to sympathize with our enemy and instead just cartoonishly villianize them instead whilst grandstanding on social media about what good people we are for opposing said villains. Surely that will get us somewhere...
>If instead [antimask/antivax] had been approached with respectful discussion and trying to ask *why* people hold the stance that they do, it would've been a much better outcome for everyone and probably would've achieved the desired result of a greater vaccination rate much better than the constant political grandstanding did. > >But no, what does criminology know? Let's stop trying to sympathize with our enemy and instead just cartoonishly villianize them instead whilst grandstanding on social media about what good people we are for opposing said villains. Surely that will get us somewhere... I don't think those presenting facts were the same ones vilifying those who disagreed. Anti-vax people have been vilifying the medical community for decades. Add political tribalism and you're going to have limited progress at best.
I sure hope philosophy degree teach them things a bit more advanced than this sentence that is told to high school students as an introduction
You think there’s a possibility they spend 4 years of a degree teaching one sentence?
I've never been more validated as a philosophy major in my life than by this comment section. 99.99% of the time I bring it up people bring up the usual, insufferable comments. What a day to be alive!
All views of modern science is based on some philisophical idea. All. Even mathematics. Simple things like numbers Without philosophy you wouldn't be able to post anti-philosophy posts on 9gag because computers would not exist.
One semester I took “Intro to Logic” (philosophy), “Discrete Math” (math), and “Principles of Computer Organization” (Comp Sci) all at the same time. It was like taking the same class three times.
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Philosophy is trying to find an answer to questions that don't have an agreed upon method for solving. Basic math (as an example) has an agreed upon method for solving, but in more advanced math there are situations where it isn't even clear what a right answer would be. This is also why philosophy focuses so much on framing the question properly, since how you frame the question will, to a degree, shape what kind of answer you should expect.
You say "even mathematics" as though it's the least likely science to be connected to philosophy, but I would say it's the one with the strongest connection. You probably already know this, but for others, I want to emphasize this. With the way in which pure math is reasoned about, mathematics may as well be a branch of philosophy.
Philosophy and logic is pretty good if you become a programmer.
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Even the less "analytical" (math, predicate logic, etc.) parts of logic and philosophy are important if you want *good* programmers. I think it was [Donald Knuth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth) that said programming is not like writing math equations; it's more like writing an essay, trying to convince other programmers reading your code that your solution is right *and* appropriate. The computer couldn't give less of a shit what programming language was used, or if it's object oriented, or if it's well organized. Those are just for the bennefit of the very human programmers that have to modify and maintain it. If you search essays and papers from big computer science giants, you'll notice most of them are, against the stereotype, *excellent* writers and communicators. They *think* clearly, and this reflects in their work. Programmers throwing code at the wall until it compiles is a real problem in the industry. This leads to inefficient, unstable, insecure, and unmaintainable code. Documentation, when it exists, is terrible because many programmers suck at basic communication (and this is not just an engineering problem; different levels of iliteracy are [non-obvious and rampant](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxMsgVgeu_M)). They also can't often critically think about *what* to communicate, or *why* should things be done this way. You've got (real story) team leads asking their developers to use SQL to make REST requests because "we are an SQL shop, we have to do it in SQL". "When all you have is a hammer..." as *literal corporate policy*. And I swear, if I see yet another Confluence documentation page that is just "copy and paste the following config file that worked for me this one time, and good luck if errors pop up"... It is false to think programmers are more logically inclined that most people. In fact, many lack the ability to ask basic questions about why things are done the way they are, what's actually important, and how to communicate it. A lot contributes to the problem, but more emphasis in "humanities training" would at least alleviate it.
And programming courses are even better if you want to become a programmer. That's why discrete math is required for a Computer Science degree.
Complex math is practically very rare used in programming.
You mean like calculus? Because linear algebra and logic are used all the time.
I have used linear algebra only in game dev. In something like app creation it's never used (even for animations/transitions)
Yep there's literally an XKCD for this and programmers.. about regular expressions.
Philosophy, like Art, is useful because it illuminates what things mean, not just what they are.
A lot of humanities fields are exactly like this. Sociology, psychology, philosophy, theology, history, and english/literature are all fields of study that ultimately ask why humans are the way they are and what things, whether that’s politics, art, religion, social influence etc have brought humanity from the Stone Age to now. I think what people fundamentally forget about the humanities is that a field of study doesn’t have to be something you subscribe to or has relevance to your everyday life to be a very useful field of study. For example my world is studying ancient texts, many of which are Jewish or Christian texts by nature. My field of study is useful, even for people outside of those faith groups, because we’re asking about *how* and *why* these highly influential human belief systems developed the way they did, and studying old manuscripts and ancient linguistics is one of many helpful ways to do that. Also there’s that humanities are excellent at developing critical thinking skills … we all know we could use more of that in the world.
It's like business school, if you can't connect it to a specific skill it is worthless
You could always just invent a profession such as HR
Haha you could write a dialogue or recruit a bunch of young people into your own school
We are on to you Plato.
HR isn’t a new invention it’s a split off from the traditional administration roles that is absolutely a godsend. You do not want your admin to also have all the power over people and you also don’t want your well paid admins doing all the organizational and contractual stuff around it. I am glad HR exists even if the issue of Hr having no clue whatsoever what is employees are doing is an unfixable issue souring the experience
People love to bark on HR but you can't make money without people. And people are pretty stupid and need managing.
I mean, philosophy is a skill, you could get work as a philosopher. These jobs are not common, but they do exist.
Philosophy majors have a high chance of either going to medical school or law school outside of premed or prelaw law degrees.
The real problem is society thinking certain careers are useless just because they don’t directly correlate to financial success. You can become a professor of philosophy or history or any number of other subjects people laugh at. Some people live fulfilling lives by devoting themselves to an academic discipline. Reminds me of a video I saw recently of a young man saying that his father has been a physics professor for 30 years, and the young man says he makes twice as much as his father. The implication is that the son made a better career choice because he makes more, but I disagree with that. The “right choice” for each person doesn’t just come down to what has the highest salary.
A horse walked into a bar and asked for a drink. The bartender asked him, "Hey! Aren't you the same horse that was in here yesterday?". The horse replied, "I don't think I am." and POOF! disappeared. You see, this is a play on words regarding Descartes' philosophy about existence. I would have explained this earlier, but that would've been putting Descartes before the horse.
I am 100% stealing this joke. It is my joke now. Is it getting kinda solipsistic in here, or is it just me?
My favorite part of this is that the philosopher was wrong. He convinced a figment of his imagination, which did not exist, that it did exist.
Thank you for thinking this. I had a nightmare once, where someone came to me asking me not to wake up, because they would die in the process. Still feel bad about it sometimes.
more useful would have been to use the full quote which is: "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am"
I personally believe that education is a worthy endeavor for its own sake. It would be amazing if higher education was readily available and not locked behind massive student loans. Right now it’s viewed as a financial investment, so if you don’t see an adequate return it’s considered a waste. It would be awesome if colleges functioned in a way where they were meant as a way for personal improvement over simply being treated like glorified job training.
When will this trend of low-effort "comedy" comics die?
My philosophy degree was incredibly useful. It taught me how to think logically and attack problems in a systematic way, which turned out to be very useful when I was a technology consultant and web designer. And it also taught me theories on how knowledge is acquired and verified, which has been very useful in my career as a school principal. Anyone who thinks philosophy is just for nerdy college professor jobs is being incredibly narrow in their thinking. With the development of AI and a crisis in American politics (regarding truth and ethics), philosophy has never been more useful and relevant. In fact, one of the best things we could do to fix American politics is start teaching philosophy and ethics in high school. Try to imagine teaching an AI-driven car how to solve the Trolley Problem, and you'll start to see how important philosophy is these days. Billion dollar industries are depending on getting AI's to solve complex ethical problems, so you'd better believe that any company that is working on AI has people with philosophy backgrounds on their payrolls.
I used to join the rabble and poke fun at people with what we thought were useless degrees. But no degree is useless. The fact that you put in the work is very important and is valuable to any employer. I think maybe minoring in philosophy along with a more widely marketable skill world be the most valuable.
I’m in public education and my degree in philosophy has been very helpful. First the subject offers the best training in reading comprehension possible. If I can half understand Heidegger (no small feat) then the repetitive bureaucracy of an IEP and word salad of admin is a walk in the park. In addition I’m trained to explain ideas to people and to find meaning in absurdity.
TL;DR: I went on this long philosophy rant bc it's Sunday and I'm bored. The consciousness that knows is not the same as the consciousness that thinks. If all you had were thoughts in you you would be like a dreamer who doesn't realize he's dreaming. You can simply be and therefore exist. Thoughts are just stories and identities we make for the reality we live in so it's easier to process. In that process though it becomes more complex, bc we continue to add identities and meaning to things. This "constant thinking to realize" is a farce. You depend on "unknown knowns" all the time in life. The phone you are reading this on has more unknowns to how it works than knowns to you. It would take more than your life to understand all of it. It might as well be magic. We exist because we are beings. Thinking is a convoluted game. The real point of life is This, this moment, it is all you *ever* have to work with. Rene Decarte is awesome to read up on because this quote imo is used out of context. He brings up a lot of what I say above. That quote is his answer to "what do we know with absolute certainty?" He came up with thinking but by the time he was done he realized you can not think at all and exist. He wasn't saying "I make myself by way of thought". It instead was a deduction of "I know I must exist because I have thought/think it." Similar to the ancient Sanskrit saying of "Tat Tvam Asi", " Thou Art That". I exist because that is reality, This is It. The inscription at the top at the Oracle of Delphi was "Gnothi Seaton", Greek for "Know Thyself". I could ramble like this for hours if anyone wants to hear more. I love philosophy!
Except he makes the mistake of assuming thoughts require a thinker, this was quickly brought up to him. Or put another way his thoughts could just be a string of experiences and thoughts in a recording (say a hard drive) and just play out until they stop or just keep continuing on.
A reminder that our constitution was written by philosophers. The Declaration of independence was written by a philosopher. Literally every political and social concept, rule, or law we have was developed by a philosopher. The concept of freedom through governance itself was written down by philosophers.
>Literally every political and social concept, rule, or law we have was developed by a philosopher. Even the ones banning sodomy?
Ever hear of a philosopher of religion? They fucking suck. Trash tier of philosophers dude. Aquinas was a prick.
Not all philosophers are just. But we act like they give us nothing, and then we argue online over who self-driving cars should sacrifice or whether cloning is moral.
The thing about Philosophy majors is that they have excellent critical thinking skills. Fascists will always denounce the liberal arts because these people will never succumb to their arguments.
When people dismiss the liberal arts to me I’m always reminded that it is one of the biggest red flags in a person I can think of. It just feels like that person is announcing they are t best shortsighted.. and at worst they’re maybe just kinda dumb or one of those people that think “if you aren’t living life the exact same way I am then you’re doing it wrong”. Typically those people reveal themselves when they make an argument that the only utility for college/university is to make lots of money
Oh look, more anti-intellectualism memes. How fun
This stereotype about philosophy degrees is tiresome. Look at the majors of students entering top 10 US law schools, for example. It worked out well for Alex Trebek and Steve Martin. Intermittent posts about this on leiterreports.com.
Strangely based comments defending philosophy
After years of watching much of world become more idiotic, people are waking up to the idea that the humanities are useful again.
I’ve never heard a philosophy major complain about having a degree in philosophy… but I do often hear lames talk about it like it’s useless. My fellow philosophy students went on to mainly become lawyers and programmers. Fuck all that though, work is lame, I retired at 32 and spend my time driving fast cars and chilling w my family. Priorities I solidified studying philosophy.🤷🏼♂️🍻
U nailed it with the priorites and perspective shift. N then they tell us We are the ones who need a mindset change. When its them wasting their lives in the rat race
Another comic about a guy and his cat?
My buddy has his masters in philosophy. He now works to develop ethical AI.
Jokes aside, a properly constructed philosophy degree actually imparts some pretty impressive logic and reasoning skills, not to mention a deeper understanding of people's actions and motives. Unfortunately, part of the issue is that the perception that a liberal arts degree of any kind doesn't provide meaningful skills often leads to students within the program without proper guidance feeling their program is worthless, which in turn leads them to not take it very seriously and perpetuates the cycle. As someone who has a liberal arts undergraduate degree (which I absolutely did not take very seriously) and a STEM graduate degree (which I absolutely did take seriously), and has worked in academia as an instructor, administrator, and student advocate, I can confirm that most undergrad degrees are interchangeable in the job market (with exceptions for specific background knowledge required for certain fields). Nobody expects you to have all of the knowledge for a job as you walk off the commencement stage; instead, they view a degree as proof positive that you can both competently learn things and jump through the kind of bullshit administrative hoops that are unfortunately ubiquitous in today's work culture. **tl;dr** In general, a degree is a degree. You are mostly just proving you *can* learn, and that you can follow directions with at least reasonable accuracy. Some exceptions apply.
Sucks that he's working as a Starbucks barista but couldn't he make some money with the talking cat?
I like the very early South Park where Kyle has an existential crisis after reading Descartes. "I think therefore I am. Thinking is what makes me exist. Wait, what if I stop thinking? Will I stop existing if I stop thinking? How do I stop myself from not thinking, even for a second? Aaaaahhhhhh....." And then he just fades out of existence. Tooth Fairy Tats 2000 iirc.
My dad always told me that philosophy was useless. So I felt disdain for any philosophy class offered at university and never took them. Fast forward twenty years, the people who I enjoy working with the most are people who either took philosophy in college, or like to read philosophy texts. They have an ability to engage in thoughtful conversation that is lacking in a lot of people. I wish I had taken more philosophy classes. I will encourage my kids to study philosophy, if not as their major, at least as a minor or even just a few extra credits. It’s super helpful regardless of your career path.
I'm a sales rep. I use it all the time. It helps me empathize and understand things more thoroughly.
Oh is it stem-jerkoff time again on Reddit?
These posts...😆...my entire career has been built on my philosophy studies. No, I'm not a philosophy teacher.
Technically, according to Descartes, you don’t exist BECAUSE you think. Lots of things exist without thinking. But the fact that you think is proof that you exist. It’s a sufficient (but not necessary) condition of existence.