I think this reflects a common misunderstanding about either philosophy or what constitutes a "transferable skill." Philosophy teaches writing (quite intensively, in a good program) and abstract analytical skills. I have a philosophy degree and not only have I found it valuable, prospective employers have too. This especially true in my field (law), but I have heard it is true in others as well.
Of course, your experience will vary depending on the type of jobs you're looking at. Some industries will expect specific concrete skills that a philosophy degree will not teach you. And others will tend to be less populated, largely for cultural reasons, by people who understand its value. But this is no different from any other area of study: you have to have some idea of what you want to do in order to determine what field of study would be helpful.
I would argue that my Math degree made me a "better" writer than my Philosophy degree did. Writing quality in philosophy is generally much poorer than other disciplines; you pretty much have to use passive voice everywhere, which is the first thing your college writing lab will tell you not to do.
On the other hand, in my Math classes, I had to turn in 5-10 pages of proofs every week/every other day for problem set work. It was this work that taught me how to write clearly and parsimoniously, much more so than my Philosophy courses.
Of course, YMMV.
As a computer science major with a philosophy minor, I personally found my philosophy minor much more useful in learning how to write clearly than my CS major was.
[1] Arbitrarily chosen example from a recent abstract http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/content/125/499/627.abstract
For what it's worth, I don't think undergraduate CS degrees develop students' writing abilities at all. There are only a few proof-based courses I can think of, and those courses (e.g., Theory of Computation, Algorithms) need not necessarily be taught in a mathematically rigorous manner (which is to say, proof writing in these courses may be minimal, depending on the instructor).
[0] http://wehaveneverbeenblogging.blogspot.com/2010/02/on-activ...
Edit: grammar!
And at any rate, I don't believe I ever claimed that a Philosophy degree was the best way to develop your writing.
This poor writing is certainly not limited to any particular philosophical discipline, or even to philosophy in general. Math and science tend to be just as bad (often even much worse, except sometimes on the issue of clarity -- at least as far as their intended audience is concerned).
I think the common laborous style comes from the desire to seem "objective", the tradition of presenting very long, drawn out arguments in a "logical" fashion, and the attempt to efface the author from the work (so as to make the argument seem to be self-evident given the premises, and not at all biased or based on one person's experience or opinion). That's hard to do in an engaging manner.
More recently, the practice of revealing who the author is and where he stands is starting to become a little more common. That helps to make the writing more engaging and helps the reader to make more of a connection with the author, but I think this still is very much a minority style. Most of philosophical writing is still mired in "objective" style, and it's difficult to foresee when or if it'll ever make it out.
PS: I'm guilty of this myself, and should really take some writing courses! :)
What can I know? What must I do? What is man? What is God?
They're not to be scoffed at, waved away with a dismissive.. well how much do you make? You don't need much to live you'll find when you get into those questions in your life instead of how much more money can I make to buy stuff I don't need.
Your grandparents, uncles, and aunts have better answers to those questions. Maybe a two semester survey of the history of philosophy and reading the great works to hear some different perspectives. Neither of these involve a full course of study in philosophy.
They would have the subjects they have anointed be the only True Philosophy, and anything else as mere "philosophizing". But this "philosophizing" has been largely what philosophy was for its entire existence. It's almost the definition of philosophy.
The grandparent poster mentioned four questions: "What can I know? What must I do? What is man? What is God?"
The first two are epistomological and ethical questions, and it's not like either epistemology or ethics have gotten short shrift from analytics, which currently dominate academia. Some analytics aren't interested in those questions, but that doesn't mean they're not philosophical questions or that they're "meaningless" (a favorite dismissive tactic of the logical positivists).
The last two questions could arguably have to do with ontology and metaphysics: not analytic favorites by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly traditionally considered philosophy. You don't need to go to your anunts or uncles to get a bit of "folk philosophy" (yet another dismissive term from some other analytics) but look to thousands of years of philosophical literature on the subject, or attend school in a non-analytic philosophy department (good luck with that in English-speaking countries, which are dominated by analytics). But even analytics have on occasion tackled ontological issues (see the more recent attention to Heidegger from some of them as an example).
The last question is really on shakiest ground as far as philosophy goes. It could arguably be a theological question, but again, theology is an actual academic discipline and you don't have to settle for survey of the opinions of the average person on the street, but actually go to a university and study it, even if it'll be outside a philosophy department. But there has been plenty of philosophy in history which has engaged in theological concerns in some fashion (some common examples being the existence of God, and the problem of evil). It's just not fashionable to consider those questions in academia these days, but again, that doesn't make them non-philosophical.
For me that's like having sex compared to studying porn, or like walking around the block instead of watching sports. You can belittle it while I enjoy its fruits.
If anything I was belittling the academic study of philosophy.
I bet this taught me way more than an academic program with a narrow focus run by one or more people probably within same or similar political leanings. Plus, I learned business and tech skills. :)
They are exploited as much as any other "human resource" and they don't even make a lot of money to compensate.
You would in another society, that doesn't prioritize monetary success and the job market above all things.
Such a capriciously specific command makes it sound like you'd be more of a run-of-the-mill tyrant à la Creon.
Beware: Those lacking a sense of humour will be sentenced to impalement.
Besides, I'm not like Creon. Creon was into Delphi, and I'm not into Pascal.
His dispute with Antigone is about law vs personal/religious ethics, not about him being a capricious tyrant (besides in the end he relents). Her brother was a traitor.
Now there's a statement. The "good of city" is itself a moral concern.
So, "good of the city" as in "doing what the city deems good", not as in moral.
But I do like Yeats's line in the poem prefixed to Responsibilities: "Only the wasteful virtues earn the sun."
(Full disclosure: yes, I too was a philosophy major.)
[edit: for spelling]
I went to an art school, studied theory there and wouldn't trade it for anything. They gave me the tools to teach myself and to understand the things around me - which I see as much more valuable than any specific job-oriented training. And from my experience employers are very impressed with these types of skills too.
In the UK the Oxbridge PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) is a well know route into politics.
This is what I don't get: why is there an assumption that what you study at university has to be in any way related to the job market? You study something because you have an interest in developing it further, being able to get a job doing it is just a secondary perk.
However, a good education is much more than this. It includes the opportunity to engage in back-and-forth discussions with professors and classmates, building social and professional networks that can pay innumerable dividends, and to pursue experiences that aren't immediately related to career advancement.
College shouldn't merely be about vocational training. While that's one valuable outcome, there is much more that can be gained. Of course, many colleges (and individual students' experiences) fall far short of this—I wish I thought this way when I was in school, and didn't just see it as another hurdle to full adulthood—but that doesn't mean that the concept is flawed.
The big distinction that ends up causing all these arguments is that when people say it's a bad decision, they mean it's a bad financial decision when you go to college and take on debt to get a degree that won't lead to a well paying job. Of course everything is about context, so it might not be a bad life choice, but the debt certainly should not be ignored in evaluating that decision.
My local public library doesn't have a book on advanced logic design, for example. It favors a more 'general' collection, and thus books with heavy reliance on math tend to be omitted. Same with in-depth law books, they just aren't there.
Because, like it or not, the majority of people's education is the means to obtain a job in a related field. People don't go tens of thousands of dollars into debt for some l'art pour l'art interest development; they do it because they expect the benefit from the degree (i.e., as a ticket into the job market in a field related to the degree) to outweigh the cost.
The community college system is more than enough for those who view postsecondary education as a mere vocational program and doesn't require going "tens of thousands of dollars into debt".
I'm not arguing for the status quo, but let's be honest about the current state of higher education in America: a ton of people have too much debt because of the pressure to attend a 4 year university. This pressure is usually of the form, "good education => good job". Moreover, "good" is often conflated with "expensive" or "prestigious" with regards to education, and conflated with "high-paying" with regards to a job.
I think the problem is on the employer/recruiter side. They use college/university degrees as a signaling mechanism to weed out candidates. To make sure that everyone can get the signalling degrees the government offers student loans. The tuition costs rise for everyone including those who don't want a signalling degree. They end up paying more without reaping the benefits of the signalling mechanism.
Because you've borrowed an extraordinary amount of money, sometimes 2 or 3 years of what many Americans would consider a great salary, to attend said institution and the bank would like that money back at some point, they outline that fairly well in the documentation none of us read.
Honestly I think it's insane that one day, your given graduating high schooler has to raise his/her hand to go to the bathroom, and the next day they're entrusted to decide more or less how the next 70 years of their life will play out with incredibly little information at their disposal.
There's nothing wrong with philosophy or any of the classical educations, they are no doubt important. But priority #1 should be making sure your university's newest graduate doesn't starve to death in the street holding a $90,000 degree with "ANYTHING HELPS" written on the backside.
I doubt he will be working as a barista, though. With his double major, he'll probably have the option to work in academia after he graduates. Economists are also valued in industry these days, and even a philosophy major could always go to law school, which tend to accept more philosophy majors than any others.
Translation: "I'll come out of university with no transferrable skills whatsoever. Dreadfully unintellectual dead-end jobs are where I'll be able to keep pursuing my love of knowledge".
Dude.
The author's bio is probably the most important part of this article:
"Grant studies at Wake Forest, where he majors in philosophy and economics."
Translation: "I'm passionate about half the university course I'm currently doing and have absolutely no idea how the job market will treat me when I'm done with it."
Full disclosure: I myself studied philosophy at university. I'm proud of it, but I'd never boast about how poorly it prepared me for the job market.