Philosophy-- Who's Interested?

[Legend]

Josh-- actually, that's not entirely true. A lot of the time these days it doesn't matter -what- you have a degree in, as long as you have a degree. Admittedly, Lawyers and Doctors usually have to have specific types of degrees, and there are a few others that do, but a lot of jobs don't care as much about the specific major you had as they do about the fact that you made it through school.

I know my degree would be completely useless if that weren't the case, given I'm an English major who doesn't want to teach.

[Jaena]

My calculus teacher was an english major and my english teacher senior year was a law major...

o.O

So yeah, the type of degree doesn't really matter. A lot of it comes down to certifications now anyway.

[reaper]

Philosophy was always one of my favorite classes when I was doing my gen ed stuff. But like they said school has become more of a place to build your resume than build your mind.

It still matters what you get your degree in as well, not as much as it used to but still. If there are two equally capable aplicants and one has a degree in a subject related to the job, and one has a degree in philosophy 9 times out of 10 it won't go to the philosophy major.

[Tobias]

I remember being told straight out that i should have been a philosophy major by my philosophy professor. Pulling As in subjects regarding presocratics, plato, christian philosophers and the like, i became interested in it.

I ultimately decided not to major in it. But i did take more classes on it. Philosophy is a strange thing that rewards those who delve into it. I know one of the reasons why I'm as good as i am in writing is that i delve into my writing, get into it, fascinated with it, and argue against it. Philosophy does this to me to - makes me argue; makes me think; makes me want to try.

Unfortunately, as a teacher of mine put it once, College is one of the only investments where people are trying to get as little as they can for their money. They don't want to learn about philosophy, just what they want to do in their lives. When writing a resume, while having a degree is good, listing concentrations in classes such as accounting, marketing, journalism, bio-technology is very powerful. For me, it tends to be my creative writing strengths and my skill with screen-writing, filming and editing.

I have to agree with Josh on this one: The almighty dollar seems to me to be the biggest factor in the college experience. People want to just get philosophy done with and get on with it. Furthermore, people never want to sit through a class where they are REQUIRED to think...especially in gut classes like required philosophy courses. Students in this situation want to just recieve material, regurgitate it, get a good grade and add it to their GPA. I was the exception: I pulled off my good grade due to my enjoyment and involvement in Philosophy.

As far as the different worlds of philosophy, I'll agree with Ming on the fact that Both Greek philosophy and eastern philosophy are very intriguing. As well, european philosophers, much like Kant, are quite difficult to understand. Not saying that they're doing it primarily due to hubris, but they come off as arrogant in a way due to their english and the fact that some of their words don't fall into any known dictionary. I remember taking a class on ethics, and half of the class was dedicated to "The groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals" by Immanual Kant, and by the end of each reading we had to do for class, i was ready to cry.
Like a baby.

But in all, to add my idea of my favorite: It would be socratic philosophy. The idea that the smartest man in the world is the man who knows that he knows nothing. That indeed can be applied to practically everyone in the world at some point or another. Also, the Republic is astounding in my eyes for the fact that it clearly hits (in my humble opinion) why we can't have a perfect government, or why we have a government reliant on trade to begin with. Furthermore, one can identify with the several forms of governments that rule that we have possibly moved from the aristocracy to the tyrocracy, moving from argumentative debate into aggressive debate and war.

Anywho, I think I'm done now.
*explodes*

[shadokastur]