What Software Engineers Can Learn From Studying Philosophy
While an energetic team of developers interviewed me for a software engineering position, one of the interviewers peeked at my resume and asked, “What does philosophy have to do with software development?” Before I could reply, his colleague interrupted and said, “That’s easy, philosophers and engineers both like to argue about pointless things!” Putting all joking aside, here are the reasons why every software engineer should give studying philosophy a try. Oh, and yes, I did get an offer!
Philosophers use Formal Logic
Mathematics and philosophy have more in common than you might initially realize. Some of the earliest mathematicians were also philosophers. You might even recognize the name George Bool (boolean operator sound familiar?). Philosophers spend a significant amount of time writing formal proofs (proof shown above). Writing these proofs allows us to detect logical fallacies in arguments and prove whether an argument is valid. Take, for example, the following premises and conclusion:
p) All programmers are human
