What’s So Good About Studying Philosophy?


This piece in the UC Berkeley alumni magazine brings together the answers of a number of people, from current students to professors to people who have pursued a wide range of careers outside of academia. This quote from John MacFarlane, chair of the Department of Philosophy at Berkeley, is great:

“There’s a kind of pre-professional way of looking at it as, ‘Well, this is training for other things I could do for my profession, to make a living,’ but it’s also training for living itself. That’s what a lot of people find valuable about it. They think when they finish, ‘Well, maybe I’ve still got some work to do to get a job. But I’m really glad I did this because my practice in thinking about things in this way enriches my life. It makes everything more interesting for me.’  It’s very difficult to be bored if you’re a philosopher.”

 

Warwick University MA in Philosophy
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Alan White
Alan White
10 years ago

Dewey said it: Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.

D Sharp
D Sharp
9 years ago

It’s easy to praise the lofty, intangible value of a philosophy major when you’re one of the few fortunate enough to make a decent living doing philosophy …