Is Philosophy Worth Studying Anymore?

What, exactly, is in it for me?

It’s an unusual time to be a professor of the humanities. It seems that from every direction, these foundational disciplines—religious studies, classics, history, literature, art history, etc.—are being attacked on a scale unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime. Every week, a new op-ed piece celebrates the “death of the humanities,” encouraging students to instead choose a major that is more “practical” and more compatible with today’s technologically dominated job market. 

Most maligned among these disciplines is the humanity of humanities—philosophy. After all, at least a history or literature major might ultimately teach in public schools (for as long as public education, also under unprecedented attack, lasts in this country). But where in God’s name are you going to “use” a philosophy major? Toilet clogged? Well, allow me to explain Kant’s categorical imperative! Computer buggy? Have you heard of Leibniz’s monads?

This maligning of philosophy is nothing new. I recall thunderous audience laughter in response to jokes about philosophy made on ’90s television shows such as Friends and That ’70s Show. And that’s just off the top of my head! According to the tradition, philosophers have been the targets of ridicule since they first began challenging popular conceptions of the gods and the operations of nature over two millennia ago. 

Philosophy is scary

Image: The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David, 1787

Let’s be real. There are good reasons why we are culturally predisposed to dislike philosophy. The first of these is that; honestly, philosophy is scary for all involved. Most of us are raised with a particular set of family values—ethical, religious, political—which tend to be a subset within a larger cultural value structure, and this structure, through much of our lives, goes unchallenged. 

In the US, we stand for the national anthem, bow our heads during prayer, grill out on the Fourth of July, sell our labor power to a capitalist economy, etc. When you go off to college and return home, only to start questioning those values on some level, it can make your family members uncomfortable. 

Imagine sitting around the family dinner table at Thanksgiving, the first time you’ve been back home since August, and you begin talking to Grandma about the problems with divine command ethics or about how maybe Karl Marx had some good ideas! Or maybe you’re questioning the morality of eating the turkey that your mother spent all day preparing! Family dinners can get uncomfortable really quick. 

But it’s also scary, even terrifying, for the person doing the philosophical study. First, as we just saw, our communities can become suspicious of us when we start questioning our shared values. And when our communities become suspicious of us, it’s very possible that we may soon find ourselves on the outside of those communities. 

If you’re a member of a devout religious community, and you begin to question those beliefs, it’s not inconceivable that your entire social group may soon, whether officially or unofficially, cut you out of it. Friends and family members may block you on Facebook, etc. Our entire sense of sociality may be upended when our values change, and that’s scary. 

It’s also scary to the individual because, for many of us, the way that we understand our own sense of values and our own answers to those questions—religious, ethical, political, etc.—are deeply intertwined with our sense of personal identity. So when we begin to challenge these beliefs, it’s not simply a question of altering a few of our cognitive states in the abstract sense. Rather, it’s truly a question of becoming someone else. Almost as though we follow a path of inquiry to a precipice where, if we continue, we might very well not recognize ourselves on the other side. This is terrifying.

Philosophy is “worthless”

Besides being scary, there is the fact that, from our cultural perspective, philosophy is, simply put, “worthless.” And honestly, from the standpoint of strict utility, it’s difficult to argue with this criticism. Philosophy is unlike any other field in that it’s inherently interminable. Let’s look at mathematics, for example. 

As a student of mathematics, you’re given problems, and your job is to solve those problems. And make no mistake; there are solutions to be found. You might run into obstacles, have to backtrack, etc., but eventually, there is a solution to the problem that, once found, yields a sense of satisfaction and completion. I’ve solved it! Time to play Diablo IV! 

In philosophy, however, it is typically the case that our philosophical problems are like the hydra—we “solve” one only to discover that three new ones have taken its place. And no solution is ever permanent. Even the professors don’t have definitive answers to the questions! Well, what’s the point in that??!!! 

Furthermore, of its very nature, philosophy is not quantifiable, and in a social-political system that operates so much on quantifiability—increasing outputs while minimizing inputs, generating the highest profits, etc.—quantifiability is the name of the game. But one doesn’t take their philosophy degree, get a job at the philosophy factory, and stamp out a certain number of “ideas” daily. It just doesn’t work that way. So what’s the point? 

Wait a second, you say; I thought you were supposed to be telling me about why I should study philosophy. Don’t worry; we’re getting there. In spite of these drawbacks, I think that not only is philosophy a valuable field to study, it may, in fact, be one of the most valuable to study. In fact, the very aspects that make it the chief target of the cultural talking heads are also what makes it so vital. 

What counts as valuable?

Let’s start with the last point and work our way backward. Philosophy is “worthless.” We admitted that, from a particular perspective, this is correct. But a major, unchallenged assumption is embedded in this charge, namely, an understanding of what “counts” as “worthwhile.” In other words, a sense of value. The criticism takes for granted that direct observability, quantifiability, and the production of money are what count as valuable. But why should we take this for granted as obviously true? 

In fact, this very question is sort of the point: it is impossible for us to claim that philosophy is worthless without simultaneously relying upon assumptions that pertain to philosophical questions. It just so happens that value is one of the central things that philosophers explore. The critic is engaging with philosophy; they’re just doing it badly. 

The study of philosophy fires our imagination and helps us relearn our lost skill of asking questions. Remember when you were a child? How you’d ask your parents or teacher a question, and they’d provide a response that would yield another question, and so on? For most of us, that authority figure would very soon reach the point where they would shut down the questioning, either with the “because I said so” response or with the bald truth: “I don’t know.” With time, we’re conditioned to stop asking questions. 

X is the solution because the teacher says so; this political-economic system is the best because the textbook says so; we believe this or that because our religious leader says so. We stop questioning. Philosophy reconditions us to see the world as mystifying, endlessly fascinating, and worthy of ceaseless inquiry. It once more estranges for us the familiar. It enables us to once again ask those questions that first occurred to us as children, but with the increased intellectual awareness that living and encountering the paradoxes of the world can provide.

But wait, there’s more! The study of philosophy also supplies us with an enormous assortment of tools for addressing these questions. First, it puts us into the arena of the history of ideas, placing us courtside, where we bask in the splendor of watching some of history’s greatest minds as they wrestle with these timeless questions through their own interactions with the history of philosophy, their cultural assumptions, and their own personal prejudices. 

We analyze their genius as they deftly attempt to negotiate the tensions between orthodoxies of all sorts and the exercise of reason. We connect with Plato’s understanding of immortality, maybe even recognizing it in our own religious views. We feel the anguish as St. Augustine recounts his spiritual odyssey. We marvel at the Stoic worldview, a philosophy embraced by both slaves (Epictetus) and emperors (Marcus Aurelius). We see the philosophers’ cultural blind spots and how these blind spots impede certain insights and philosophical advances. 

Logic and critical thinking

More importantly, through these analyses, we exercise and sharpen our own strategies for addressing these questions. We assiduously hone our application of logic and critical thinking skills, learn to identify good and bad arguments, learn to spot informal fallacies, and to illuminate unfounded assumptions; we become more attuned to our own blind spots. We learn to live philosophically. 

Well, who wants that??!! Let’s return for a moment to the charge that philosophy is “scary.” It’s scary, we said, because it conditions us to ask fundamental questions, to critically evaluate the status quo. It’s scary because it compels us as individuals to explore the basics of what we believe about such things as justice, morality, love, responsibility, family, spirituality, faith, poverty, race, gender, individuality, and community. 

In other words, philosophy challenges us to think deeply, intentionally, constructively, and systematically about our core beliefs—the beliefs that define who we are and that shape the foundations of all of our decisions, from the most banal to the most impactful. They inform the causes that we choose to support, the partners and friends that we align ourselves with, our choices on family and community, our thoughts about religious institutions, our views on political parties and candidates, and basically every other thing that really matters to us as human beings. 

We said that philosophy is deemed “worthless” because our culture tends to identify “value” with quantifiability and the making of money. The goal in life is to get a good job and make a good salary, and education is treated as little more than an entrepreneurial investment, with the hopes of a lucrative return. Who dies with the most toys wins, as the 80s mantra goes. But I’d wager that, deep down in our core, very few of us truly believe that. 

In fact, I’d wager that, if we’re being honest with ourselves, more important than financial prosperity to most of us is having a developed sense of personal identity, understanding who we are, what we believe and why, dedicating ourselves to work and to projects that matter to us, fostering and cultivating healthy friendships and loves, following through on our religious, moral and political convictions; and a thousand other choices, large and small, all stemming from our values. 

Living life fully

Living life fully requires ongoing thoughtful engagement with these values. Philosophy, that oldest of the academic disciplines, still does this more effectively and more enduringly than any other field of study. It leaves its imprint on its students to last a lifetime. 

Finally, we said that philosophy is scary from the perspective of the status quo. When individuals dissect their own assumptions, they cannot help but bring that insatiably inquisitive and critical spirit into their engagements with the world’s values. But this is precisely why you should study philosophy and why it is arguably the most important discipline you can study. 

In a world of unprecedented immigration and refugee crises, ecological catastrophe, unbreathable air, economic precarity, global resurgences of fascistic movements, with the very fabric of society coming undone like never before, nothing could be more worthwhile, nothing could be more practical, than to engage the world—thoughtfully, critically, and honestly—to challenge the values that have brought us to where we are, and to have the courage to imagine the world differently.