Academic Philosophy is Not A Waste
(This is a reply to “Is Philosophy a Con?” by Benjamin Cain I highly suggest reading his article to get a dichotomic view of this issue. I thank Ben for his article being thought provoking and inspiration to this article.)
I was originally intending on writing a lukewarm defense for Utilitarianism, however, when I read the article by Ben, I starting writing a comment. That comment turned into its own essay, and I figured, instead of taking up so much space in the comments, since this is something I am quite interested it, why not make it an article all on its own in response?
Where To Start?
I am currently an undergrad in Philosophy, with plans of graduate school, one year left, still need to do my GRE, but I have good letters of recommendation. So maybe one might call me “gullible” still. When I happened upon Bens’ article, I was quite intrigued, and wanted to grasp his view as much as I could. I have a few things that I agree with, and others that I disagree with.
Ben had stated that “Most people in Western societies aren’t interested in what philosophers are selling.” And this, I think, is entirely untrue, especially when it comes to employment opportunities. Sure, if one thinks of an academic Philosopher purely as someone employed at a University as a professor, yes, we can agree. This seems to be the way that Ben defines an academic Philosopher, the lie of the tenure track. But I have got to say I disagree on a fundamental level for that which is to be considered an academic Philosopher, and who is buying a Philosophers product. Me and Ben seem to have a differing view on what it is to be an academic Philosopher.
All Employers Are Buying Philosophers’ Products
With Philosophy having such a large emphasis on not only understanding alternative perspectives to our own, or reading and writing skills, it also has that heavy emphasis on practical reasoning and critical thinking. Those with great reasoning skills are able to think outside of the box, because they work from their axioms as premises to arrive at a conclusion, not just jumping to a conclusion they instinctively have (sticking to their axioms), or the same ideas that they have always held, and this is invaluable to any employer. Used in any career or job. A Philosophers product is their reasoning abilities, mainly, but also includes its comprehension and (attempt at) eloquence in conveying their ideas. The problem I think most people are having is having a fundamental misunderstanding between Philosophers and employers. Employers generally are outside of the field, and have a skewed perception of what Philosophy actually entails. What needs to be done is to change their perception as to have the general public (employers) understand what skills are actually taught to academic Philosophers. This is also to say academic Philosophy can be done outside of the walls of a tenure track professorship, or even an adjunct position. As reasoning skills can be used in any industry, in any position. While the obvious (to me at least) is marketing (as I work in sales) as far as how to draw in customers, and finding what the “good” product for a customer is, one can also do this in, say, the construction industry; how do we best get the wheelbarrow up the incline slope without dropping any materials, as an example. Do we just grit our teeth and push as hard as we can, or do we think about how to “work smarter not harder?” What does it mean to be a good worker (in my industry)? This is a large question that can be tackled from many different angles.
Philosophers Outside of University Professorship Can Still Be Academic Philosophers
Now, this may only mean any old Philosophy undergrad (or autodidact), and not necessarily a graduate student (or grad) in Philosophy. I wish to expand upon this. The main issue here is that practical reasoning/critical thinking, reading comprehension and being receptive to ideas contrary to our own is a set of skills that requires more than just a single lesson to build. They are skills that need to be repetitively practiced. Doing so, I think, is the practice of the academic Philosopher. One may consider themselves a Philosopher if they practice one Philosophical school, but being an academic Philosopher and “just” a Philosopher (or armchair philosopher, if done in an academic manner, that is to say, politely, educatively, and logically) are the same. The prior, I would say, are a stoic (or whatever specific school they follow) instead of a(n) (academic) Philosopher. If you are not convinced, an example may be that of Gregory B. Sadler, Ph.D.’s students. Prof. Sadler has been (and I think is technically still, correct me if I am wrong) an adjunct professor. He has produced many videos that have helped me and many others through lessons that we didn’t understand from our professors. These videos are not (other than a few playlists) from a University. They are from him, directly. I would say that the work he is doing would still be classified as academic Philosophy. More so, the people who follow and study along with Prof. Sadler, but are not technically students at a university, I would also consider academic Philosophers. I commend these people the most as there are many people who start to learn Philosophy with a perception of what it is, then they refuse to accept what the field actually pertains to. However, these students of Prof. Sadler continue to learn and I would certainly consider them as part of academia. There is no need to be seated as a Professor at a University to be considered an academic Philosopher, or part of academia by extension. A good argument is a good argument at the end of the day, no matter what degree one holds.
But Is Philosophical Education A Waste?
The last thing that will allow me to make my peace is that I think Philosophy is the most important subject for anyone to take on. On an advertisement I frequently get on social media from an online university, it says “Don’t let your college credits go to waste.” I couldn’t help but to think that you are in the wrong field if you can’t take what you’ve already learned and apply it to a career without a piece of paper with a human made marker of “this is how much information I have gathered” attached to it. Philosophy is such a field that if someone dropped out, their educational value is still high, and applicable to any field. A drop out in Philosophy still takes that information and wisdom with them to any career. The skills don’t leave so easily (so long as they continue the practice afterwards). If one thinks their “credits get wasted” then all that says is their university did not teach them enough (unless they dropped out after maybe one semester without any of the field specific classes). In Philosophy, you really don’t need a degree for the education to be valuable in any career you choose. I think one could easily get started on their own as an academic Philosopher by just a few courses, an intro class, a practical reasoning/critical thinking class, and an ethics class (Prof. Sadler has all of these as class recordings by the way, I highly highly recommend them). That’s not to say they should stop there by any means. I don’t think anyone who wants to call themselves an academic Philosopher should stop there at all, or ever stop learning academically (that is to say, seeking out views contradictory from their own, and diving further into the Philosophical canon, perhaps into their specific niche as one would do for grad school). However, if you have these three classes, one could gain the skills that employers are looking for that I spoke of.
I will say, however, doing it through a University (whether one drops out or not) is going to be more beneficial in the long run, as there are self proclaimed Philosophers who have never even glanced in the direction of academia and essentially “don’t know what they don’t know.” In other words, the self proclaimed Philosophers that really don’t have a clue of what the field actually is and are really perpetuating the view that most employers have of “its all just opinion anyways, not useful or applicable in any way to the real world.” Which, simply isn’t the case. However, thanks to a lot of work from people like Prof. Sadler or Yale’s open courseware, the Open Culture website, Coursera and many many other means, people have legitimate access to legitimate rigorous Philosophical study. The people I reference in the beginning of this paragraph are those that tend to comment on social media about how “right” they are, if anyone is curious as to what I am referring to.
I do give, however, that if we are talking about academic Philosophy as the tenure track, and the publish or perish model mainly looked at in his article, Ben is absolutely correct. Tenure track for Professorship is dead. However, being an academic Philosopher, outside of the university setting, I think, is just beginning. I would go as far as to say that the article first posted by Ben is a piece of academic Philosophy, and our discourse herein as part of academic Philosophy as well. I think I have this view mainly thanks to Karl Jaspers, who I have spoken about on Medium before. The idea that learning, and extending upon Philosophical ideas is done through companions in thought. I see Jaspers talking about this similarly to following a map of a national park. You see the road signs say “go this way for the falls” or “go that way for the wildlife” and you follow the roads to get where your going more quickly. We then get there and forge a path beyond the established one and act as a road sign for the next travelers who will hopefully make our path a bit more defined. This is the act of academic Philosophy as I see it. We could come to the same conclusions as Kant if we spent an entire lifetime thinking about it, but why would we when that road is already built? Especially since it is much more well maintained than the dirt path I can maybe carve out. The classic “standing on the shoulders of giants.” I see academia outside of University the same way, and academic Philosophy, by extension. We don’t need an institution dictating the course of academia. However, it is still an effective means of going about academic research, especially if one gets a stipend, for now.
I also understand that Ben may already have this in mind, as he seemed to be really more so focused on the academic circles in Universities. Within the University setting, I couldn’t agree more, at least if your plan is to be a tenured Professor. However, I cannot agree that academic Philosophers only have the goal of becoming Professors, at least in a University setting (although I will agree it’s a lie perpetrated by the institution, certainly, but I think the jig is up, we all know its a lie by now). What I wrote here in this article is more just the thoughts that came to mind while reading his (and by extension “The Perils of Pursuing a PhD in Philosophy” by Rachel Anne Williams) article.
Want More?
Firstly, thanks for taking the time to read this essay. If you want more of a lesson type essay, I do produce those as well here on Medium so why don’t you give me a follow if you want to learn more Philosophy, in an academic sense? On top of this, I run a page on Facebook called Five Minute Philosophy where I make memes and share others, daily.
