<< Linking about: Illustrating Milton | Front Page | Vonnegut, Fish >>
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Philosophy Rising
The New York Times reports that the number of undergraduate philosophy majors is rising:
Once scoffed at as a luxury major, philosophy is being embraced at Rutgers and other universities by a new generation of college students who are drawing modern-day lessons from the age-old discipline as they try to make sense of their world, from the morality of the war in Iraq to the latest political scandal. The economic downturn has done little, if anything, to dampen this enthusiasm among students, who say that what they learn in class can translate into practical skills and careers. On many campuses, debate over modern issues like war and technology is emphasized over the study of classic ancient texts.
. . .
Nationwide, there are more colleges offering undergraduate philosophy programs today than a decade ago (817, up from 765), according to the College Board. Some schools with established programs like Texas A&M, Notre Dame, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, now have twice as many philosophy majors as they did in the 1990s.
The article notes that these students gravitate toward interdisciplinary approaches. “Other students said that studying philosophy, with its emphasis on the big questions and alternative points of view, provided good training for looking at larger societal questions, like globalization and technology.”
Comments
I think the word “interdisciplinary” is the key one here. Like many traditional subjects, the remit of academic philosophy has shrunk as generations of graduate students have hooked up with people in other disciplines and whole areas of philosophy suddenly find themselves part of mainstream science (most notably the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind and political philosophy).
In a way, studying philosophy now is a bit like studying geography. Why would you study geography rather than atmospheric and environmental science, political economy or sociology? well… because it’s there and it’s a decent generalist degree. I think philosophy is going down the same route.
In fact, if you wanted to be really controversial you could say that a BA in philosophy is good grad school fodder; you get the basis in critical thought and a bit of everything as an undergrad, then you do an MA in which you specialise and then you do your research drawing from both.
Geography is underrated. Geographers have tools of their own, and they can teach a lot to sociologists and political economists.
If this is true about philosophy, it might be good. My past horrible experiences may be obsolete now.
The best historian of our time, Jared Diamond, is a geographer.
Reminds me of T. Kaori Kitao’s The Usefulness of Uselessness.
Te reason I suspect the news is not as good as it seems is that I suspect philosophy still is all about argument ("technicians of argument”, in what I think are Rorty’s words).
The most important thing missing in most political discussions isn’t rigorous argumentation, but an adequate statement of the question. Analytic philosophers (and academics generally) customarily cheat by narrowing the question until a rigorous argument can be made.
I used to go to the site Left2Right occasionally. Granted, I was deeply unsympathetic to their project, but I gave them a reasonable chance. I just never felt they brought much to the table. It would seem that philosophy would have powerful insights to contribute, but I couldn’t see that they did.
NB: just prior to what you note the article also notes, there’s this (my emphasis):
[Rutgers dept chair Barry Loewer] said that many students have double-majored in philosophy and, say, psychology or economics, in recent years, and go on to become doctors, lawyers, writers, investment bankers and even commodities traders.
As the approach has changed, philosophy has attracted students with little interest in contemplating the classical texts, or what is known as armchair philosophy. Some [...] see it as a pre-law track because it emphasizes the verbal and logic skills prized by law schools — something the Rutgers department encourages by pointing out that their majors score high on the LSAT.
I’m afraid that nnyhav has completely destroyed my scrap of optimism. I probably should have read the article before commenting.
Consider me one of those with little interest in contemplating the classical texts.
Honestly, the problems of philosophy are more interesting than the thousands of years of ill-founded attempts to solve them. I guess I just ran into too much pedantic exegesis and not enough actual attempts to answer questions and thus was I driven off into a cognitive science department. Not that the historical approach isn’t a good source of scholarship, it’s just when I want to answer questions about philosophy of mind, I don’t feel the need to take into consideration the opinions of someone who thought that cognition occurred in the heart. Looks like I’m headed back to the philosophy department for my next degree though, we’ll see how that one turns out.
But I’ll join in lamenting the “philosophy as rhetoric training” trend. Not that rhetoric isn’t worth studying, but the goals of pre-law students and MBA types studying philosophy and the goals of academic types studying philosophy are very different and make for a different focus in the curriculum. Trying to meet both of those sets of needs pulls the department in opposite directions. Departments are being pulled in too many directions already.
Not sure how the “philosophy as rhetoric training” is really so much worse than the “English as grade inflation haven for jocks” trend that I encountered as an undergrad. Or for that matter “English as critical thinking training”—rather than, you know, training in literary scholarship. There are lots of undergrads enrolled in lots departments for lots of reasons.
As soon as philosophy decided it wanted to be scientific, and as soon as it became defined as philosophy of mind, it was doomed. Especially when those two factions got a stranglehold on hiring and promotion.
Just so everybody reading this is clear what’s going on, this is the New York Times using the phrase “armchair philosophy” without scare quotes to refer to reading classical texts.
This is one armchair philosopher who needs a drink.
John Emerson said: “The most important thing missing in most political discussions isn’t rigorous argumentation”
I think that’s exactly what’s missing from most political discussions: the idea that there are reasons for and against political and moral positions, and that these reasons connect up with larger issues about human nature, justification, legitimation, history, etc. Or is that not what you meant by ‘rigorous argumentation’? You’re right that academic philosophers tend to cut problems up into smaller and more tractable pieces; but the trouble with large, intractable problems is that they’re, well, intractable.
On the question of why undergraduates do philosophy degrees, my own students tend to have some combination of the following reasons:
1) they realise that a degree - any degree - is increasingly a necessary credential for getting a decent job.
2) they’re interested in the problems philosophy addresses.
3) they’ve been so institutionalised by their schools that they don’t know what else to do with themselves but find more exams to take.
4) they like to read.
1 and 3 are depressing, but 2 and 4 are there too, and it’s possible to engage and encourage them.
My dad’s a philosopher, one of the guys who started doing philosophy of sport back when it wasn’t cool. I’ve been trying to get him to branch out into philosophy of fantasy and science fiction for years, but he insists on keeping work and pleasure separate in that regard.
My mom told me when I went to college that I could be anything I wanted to be so long as it wasn’t a philosopher. So I double majored in English and Math.
I think I trot out these anecdotes every time you all start talking about philosophy!