Is A Philosophy Degree Useful?

MayCaesar

You have only provided reasons for why studying philosophy is useful. You have not addressed how specifically earning a philosophy degree can provide these benefits.

Any challenging program is going to force you to think critically, develop writing and other communication skills. In this respect there is no difference between an electric engineering degree from the MIT and a philosophy degree from Oxford. What does differ is the specific knowledge and skills that the graduate acquires. Unless the graduate is planning to dedicate his life to studying and developing philosophy, what specifically the philosophy courses and projects he has to complete during the program put on the table that other programs do not?

If we were to build a hierarchy of degrees in terms of their overall impact on one's thinking, I would put the math degree at the very top. Mathematics teaches you to think logically and precisely, in the way no other discipline does, and a strong math program will have your mind tortured, broken down and put together multiple times, as a harsh physical training would do your body. You will develop ways of thinking that are applicable in every field, including philosophy.
The reverse is not true: completing a program in philosophy will not make you noticeably better at grasping mathematical concepts. Who do you think will do better: a Bachelor's in math taking a Master's program in philosophy, or a Bachelor's in philosophy taking a Master's program in math?

In this hierarchy, the lower you go, the less rigorous disciplines become. Below mathematics is applied statistics and computer science; below those is physics; then chemistry and biology... Philosophy will be somewhere in the middle, at best, with all of its fuzziness. It is still far better for your intellectual development than something like sociology, but given lack of direct marketability of the skills acquired, I would only study philosophy seriously at a university if I was planning a career in this field.

JulesKorngold

Argument Topic: Careers Available To Philosophers (Other Than Academic)

@MayCaesar said:  I would only study philosophy seriously at a university if I was planning a career in this field.

• Public policy: Philosophers can use their critical thinking and problem-solving skills to work in public policy, helping to develop and implement policies that address social and economic issues.
• Business: Philosophers can use their skills in ethics, logic, and rhetoric to work in business, helping companies to make ethical decisions and communicate effectively with stakeholders.
• Law: Philosophers can use their skills in reasoning and argumentation to work in law, helping lawyers to develop cases and argue their cases in court.
• Nonprofit: Philosophers can use their skills to work in the nonprofit sector, helping to improve the lives of others.
• Consultant: Philosophers can use their skills to provide advice and guidance to businesses, organizations, and individuals.
• Writer: Philosophers can use their writing skills to communicate their ideas to a wider audience.
• Researcher: Philosophers can use their skills to conduct research on a variety of topics, including ethics, politics, and philosophy of science.
• Advocate: Philosophers can use their skills to advocate for social justice and other causes.

jack

MayCaesar said:

You have only provided reasons for why studying philosophy is useful. You have not addressed how specifically earning a philosophy degree can provide these benefits.

Hello May

Simply having a degree in your pocket, whether it's in basket weaving or philosophy, guarantees you NOTHING.  If a person KNOWS how to market themselves, some schmuck WITHOUT a degree can land a good job, whereas the degreed philosopher sweeps the floor. 

excon

RayanSajjad

@JulesKorngold
These are all oversaturated fields of work where people without degrees can even get jobs. 
Some philosophy majors are barely able to get a salary of 30,000USD after graduation while others get 120,000USD. It's a risky field.

MayCaesar

JulesKorngold said:

@MayCaesar said:  I would only study philosophy seriously at a university if I was planning a career in this field.

• Public policy: Philosophers can use their critical thinking and problem-solving skills to work in public policy, helping to develop and implement policies that address social and economic issues.
• Business: Philosophers can use their skills in ethics, logic, and rhetoric to work in business, helping companies to make ethical decisions and communicate effectively with stakeholders.
• Law: Philosophers can use their skills in reasoning and argumentation to work in law, helping lawyers to develop cases and argue their cases in court.
• Nonprofit: Philosophers can use their skills to work in the nonprofit sector, helping to improve the lives of others.
• Consultant: Philosophers can use their skills to provide advice and guidance to businesses, organizations, and individuals.
• Writer: Philosophers can use their writing skills to communicate their ideas to a wider audience.
• Researcher: Philosophers can use their skills to conduct research on a variety of topics, including ethics, politics, and philosophy of science.
• Advocate: Philosophers can use their skills to advocate for social justice and other causes.

That is all well and good, but, as I have already pointed out, being a philosopher and having a university degree in philosophy are different things. Besides, a "philosopher" is a very wide term, and there are philosophers specializing on very narrow issues and unable to do most of the things you listed.

I also fail to see how the tasks outlined in these bullet points are done better by philosophers than other specialists. Say, in research I am much more interested in what a researcher with 30 years of experience has to say on the topic, than a philosopher. Someone developing a novel sorting algorithm would have little use for a philosopher. 
Now, allegedly, philosophers are supposed to help researchers understand what things are worth developing in the first place. Is it better to develop an algorithm doing a narrow set of tasks faster than anything existing at the moment, or is development of a more general theory allowing others in the future to spawn such algorithms like chocolate pies more prudent? Partially such questions are answered by understanding the state of the research field, and partially by more general ethical, moral and otherwise value considerations.

A good philosopher's work is valuable, but its payoff is uncertain and an extremely long shot. It sometimes takes many centuries for a philosophical idea to be assimilated into the culture, or even into a small segment of the culture. There is a reason a company like Google or Tesla does not offer the position called "philosopher". I am also not aware of any company whatsoever hiring a philosopher for any reason other than general staff education.

I have long argued that there should not be "philosophers"; instead, there should be accomplished experts in multiple fields, with knowledge and some experience in many fields, drawing novel insights from all the baggage they have accumulated over the years. Someone who has been designing bridges for 50 years is likely to understand all the ethical, moral and other meta-considerations of engineering far better, than someone who has been reading "philosophers of science" for 50 years. People naturally become philosophers as they live, if they put a lot of intellectual effort routinely and learn about the world around them, if they wrestle with real world problems and, through trial and error, find the hard truths of this world. I do not see how one can become a good philosopher by sitting in an ivory tower and fantasizing.

Barnardot

@MayCaesar I tend to agree with what you said and when you really analize it it comes down to philosophy being a real girly boy sort of thing really.
Because Jesus said that it does no man no good to put thought to matters and that makes a lot of sents. For example what would happen if Kernel Sanders just philosophized over making KFC and thinking about all the secret herbs and spices all day. No instead he went our and actually did it and if he constantly thought about all the ins and outs he would never have got to make KFC at all.

Dreamer

Argument Topic: No, a degree is just a piece of paper. Valuable only because people have faith in that paper, like paper money.

@JulesKorngold

In one Philosophy class a Jehovah's witness who was probably auditing the course for free droned on and on. Religion has a privileged place in society. Therefore, the professor didn't interrupt or stop the religious person.

From what I've seen philosophy works much better for pseudo-science and religion. Theists can abuse philosophy to cast metaphysical doubt on any science. Often using logical fallacies, word puzzles, and gish gallop to bamboozle the audience, see below link.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_first_cause

Overall, I believe that philosophy is obsolete. Now we can prove with hard science and facts rather endlessly debating whether we exist or not.

To understand science we need to prebunk psuedo-science.  Half of biology should be devoted to disproving creationism and intelligent design. Just as the philosophy professor should have held up Richard Dawkin's God Delusion against the Jehovah's witness.

Yet, most professors are buffoons. Knowledge needs to be critically examined. We have mediabiasfactcheck and newsguard for websites. We can use snopes and fullfactuk for fact checking.

Yet, professors and universities seem to be immune to fact checking. Teachers preach instead of teaching students. The sheeple students uncritically accept the professors' words. We are in a crisis of disinformation and misinformation.

I think it is time for all college professors' lessons to go public. Just as many already have with online courses. That way we can repeat the lesson, make sure we heard correctly and fact check. Just like we should do with any book, journal, article, newspaper, etc.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/evidence-based-medicine-vs-basic-science-in-medical-school/

As you can see in the pyramid expert opinion that's college professors are on the very bottom. We need much more vigorous standards.

MayCaesar

@Dreamer

That pyramid makes no sense whatsoever. It is absolutely ludicrous to say that randomized control trials represent a higher "quality" of evidence than cohort studies: they are both inherent part of the general research workflow in biology.  As for expert opinion, it is not evidence at all, hence the quality of the evidence is undefined.

Rather than pulling out random diagrams from random websites (which appears to be your general research workflow), you have to actually spend some time and concentrated effort understanding how the research in the field is conducted and why.

Dreamer

Argument Topic: Sciencebased medicine is a great website.

@MayCaesar

Randomized controlled trials are higher quality evidence than cohort studies. Cohort studies are observational in nature, survey questions. Randomized controlled trials take an interactive role ruling out many coincidences and confounding factors.

MayCaesar

@Dreamer

That is not what a cohort study is at all. A cohort study is a study in which the predictor variables of interest are preset, while in a randomized control trial they are drawn from a (potentially unknown) distribution. In a cohort study we say, "Here is a group of objects having property A, and there is a group not having it; let us see what differences result from that". In a randomized control trial we say, "Here is a group of objects randomly drawn from distribution X, and there is another group randomly drawn from distribution X; let us see if application of property A to the former group leads to different results than application of it to the latter group". 

These are completely different approaches with different goals in mind. For instance, randomized control trials are frequently used to validate existing theories, while using cohort studies for that purpose makes little sense unless the cohorts in question happen to be balanced with respect to the overall distribution (in which case there is no difference between a cohort study and a randomized control trial); on the other hand, a cohort study is very useful when we are interested in the properties of particular members of a relatively small set of objects, while a randomized control trial would defeat the whole purpose of the study.

These are not particularly hard things to understand if you just try to really think about what these methods are, rather than blindly parroting something some blogger with a degree in nursing or sociology somewhere wrote.

Dreamer

Argument Topic: Cohort are observational and RTC experimental.

@MayCaesar

"Cohort studies are types of observational studies in which a cohort, or a group of individuals sharing some characteristic, are followed up over time, and outcomes are measured at one or more time points."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32658655/

I was not sure what your last comment was getting at. Could you clarify please?

Bogan

Is a philosophy degree useful?      Answer, no.     What are you going to do?    Go to an employment agency and when they ask you what marketable skills you have, you tell them you are a philosopher?    Yair, that will go down well.    The bloke behind the counter will just yell out "NEXT!"

Dreamer

Argument Topic: Great funny argument, good job.

@Bogan

Made me laugh because that's exactly what would happen.