major in Philosophy is useless and meaningless ?
major in Philosophy is useless and meaningless ?
Bachelor degree of philosophy useful ? master degree ? doctor degree in philosophy ?
philosophy is dead ?!
Philosophy is useful.
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philosophy is shit !
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I do not believe philosophy is extremely useful, nor do I believe it is completely worthless, but rather something in between. By my understanding of philosophy (which is probably lacking compared to some others), they attempt to assert their conclusions through thought experiments. These arguments do use a healthy amount of critical thinking, rationality, and logic. But as far as I'm aware, they mostly remain thought experiment. If I understand things correctly, if a philosopher were to find a way to perform his thought experiment in real life, he would from that moment on be a scientist. Correct? Side: Philosophy is useful.
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As someone who is going to apply to university, taking Philosophy, in a few months, I feel this is especially relevant to me. I see a degree in philosophy as having two main benefits over a different degree (I'm not going to argue for a degree in itself). First of all, philosophy is immensely interesting to many people. Having learnt most of what I know about it in the last year, I've self taught myself to a decent level of knowledge in most areas, and simply love it. It allows me to know myself better, and to amuse myself for hours, reading various books, or researching various ideas. A philosophy degree will give me a chance to apply better structure to my learning, and better understanding of concepts, and I look forward to that greatly (much more so than a degree in Maths interests me, and I really enjoy Maths too). Secondly, learning more about philosophy teaches you an entirely new way to think, as well as a much better understanding of other concepts. Through logic courses, you learn the various types of proof, the structure of arguments, critical thinking. It has cross overs into maths, computer science, religion, history, science, morality, and many other things that come into day to day living, yet is often ignored. How many times do we wonder about questions we can't answer? Philosophy teaches us about the assumptions that we can make in certain questions, the answers that can come from these, and how it affects us. Everyone can gain from it, and its benefits spread far from the tree. Side: Philosophy is useful.
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Philosophy has merit in the real world, but it had lost some value due to complex modern economies. It is probably good for critical thinking if someone plans to go onto graduate school in law, business or public policy. Also, if it wasn't for philosophy, science wouldn't exist. Science is derived from epistemology, which is how knowledge obtained both empirically and rationally. Side: Philosophy is useful.
I think having a structure to your learning, the opportunity to listen to and debate with tutors and students, examinations to prepare for and extensive resources for research are invaluable to any subject choice - no less so for Philosophy. A university provides all of these. Your argument could equally apply to an English or History degree. Side: Philosophy is useful.
That may be and I discussed this issue with several of my professors and almost all of them discourage me from taking a philosophy degree, especially if I have to pay for it. Their reasoning was essentially that in this day and age where info is so easily accessible, independent research about a subject that only revolves around thinking doesn't require and should not require money and time in universities. They have instead encouraged me to join debate teams, critical thinking clubs, socialize with like-minded people etc. While they did say that a college course in philosophy will certainly develop your ability for abstract thought - they reasoned that in this day and age of information, it really isn't necessary for you to have a good understanding of the grand majority philosophical disciplines. And yes I agree with your comparison to history. English as a language, I would not know as I'm not a native speaker, but from what I can tell from my own tongue, academic learning of my language is actually quite technical and difficult to attain without external help, though it is still very much possible. History, however, is very much accessible given the flow of information, books and the internet today. Side: philosophy is shit !
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