Why is Studying Philosophy
Relevant: The Practical Value of Philosophy
In Chapter 1 the author does a good
job in providing many reasons for why the study of philosophy is
"invaluable in whatever career you choose to follow." (p. 11).
Keep in mind though that in addition to giving you skills for being more successful in
any job, there is another part of education in general and philosophy
in particular that is not much emphasized in today's
performance/results based society. Education in general and the
study of philosophy can change who you are.
So with the author's basic points in
mind and the above additional consideration, let's elaborate and
summarize.
1. Critical Thinking
Everyone involved in education agrees
that learning to be a critical thinker is a good thing. (Chapter
2
is mostly on the details of some of the logical tools one uses for
critical thinking.) As the author
explains, learning to be a critical thinker is simply learning to be a
careful thinker. Do we really have good reasons to buy a
particular product (car, computer, cell phone service, etc.) rather
than another? Do we really have good reasons to vote for one
candidate running for a public office versus another? At this
stage in
your life you probably have some beliefs that you have clarified for
yourself. Probably most of you either believe in a God or
not. But do you have good reasons? Suppose you live your
whole life, making many judgments for happiness based on believing in
God, and He does not
exist? Suppose you live your whole life thinking God is a myth
that people created to feel good, but HE does
exist!
Presumably at this stage in your life you
have bought something based on what you thought were good reasons and
then discovered that you did not really have good reasons and the
product was a rip off. Advertisers attempt to brainwash and
psychologically persuade us to buy products all the time.
Suppose you really wanted a new Apple iPhone. Suppose you see an
advertisement:
"No one can beat Best Buy's prices and
this weekend everything is up to 50% off."
Suppose Best Buy sells
iPhones and you assume that you can get a great deal at Best Buy this
weekend on an iPhone. But wait. Think carefully. What
does it mean that no one can beat Best Buy's prices? Suppose that
the price at Best Buy is $399.99. (Notice the the ".99" part is
also part of the trick psychology. We all know this is really
$400 but it just feels better if the price is some .99 number.)
Well what if we went to another store and also found the price to be
$399.99? Notice that the first part of the advertisement is true
-- the second store did not beat Best Buy! So what is this part
of the ad really saying? Nothing. It is not saying that
they have the lowest prices -- the mistaken conclusion many people will
come to . It is simply claiming in a fancy, deliberately tricky,
psychologically persuasive way that Best Buy's prices are the same as
everyone else's. They
could have said, "Come to Best Buy today and we guarantee that we have
the same prices as everyone else." But obviously they don't have
ads like that because they would not be as psychologically persuasive.
But what about the second part of the
advertisement? Usually you see these ads like this:
up to 50%
OFF
The "50%" part is huge and the "up to" is barely
visible. They deliberately engineer this so that you will focus
on the 50% part and not see the "up to" part. But the "up to"
part is very important to think about what the ad is really
saying. Here you need to know a little mathematics, and of course
the advertisers are counting on the average person having poor math
skills. Suppose I owned Rainbow Boutique and I tell
everyone, "Today everything in my store will be up to 50% off."
How many things would I need to have on sale and how much off would
they be off the regular price? Legally, logically, and
mathematically ONLY ONE ITEM and the one item would have to be 50% off!
What you say? You said "everything." How can this
be? Here is where the "up to" comes in. Since the numbering
system starts at zero (0), zero is the first number, my statement means
that everything has to be in this range, 0 to 50% off. So,
everything can be 0% off but
one thing at 50% and the advertisement is
true. Get it? The ad from Best Buy really does not
say much
of anything, but it says it in a deliberately tricky, psychologically
persuasive way to get you to take the trouble to go to that store
rather than another one.
Major point: Generally advertisements tell the truth, but
many who write and produce them will rely on the reader or listener not
thinking carefully, on not
being a critical thinker.
So, one major reason for being a critical thinker is to avoid exploitation and manipulation.
You don't want to be a pawn and let others push you around.
But what if the beliefs you have about happiness, God, and war
are the results of similar tricks?
On war and major life choices, philosophers tell the famous story
of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates (470 BCE-399 BCE).
Initially Socrates was very loyal to his Athenian
society. He volunteered and fought bravely as a soldier.
But eventually he discovered that the politicians that controlled his
city state of Athens, Greece had phony, but psychologically persuasive
reasons for going to war with Sparta, another Greek city state.
The politicians appealed in fancy speeches to loyalty and blind
patriotism. They demonized the people of Sparta and made everyone
think that their entire way of life would be destroyed if they did
not attack Sparta. (Athens started the war.) But the real
reason was economic. Athens wanted to control all of the shipping
lanes and commerce in the Aegian sea part of the Mediterranean
ocean. Athens lost this war, called the Peloponnesian war.
This experience had a powerful effect on Socrates. He
realized that there were so many important beliefs about life that he
did not know if he had good reasons for. As we will read later,
he spent the rest of his life trying to get the people of Athens to
think more critically about what they were suppose to believe.
But this eventually upset the people in authority. Socrates'
critical thinking was blamed for Athens losing the war. He was
eventually arrested and tried for the capital offenses of impiety
(questioning the existence of the gods) and corrupting the youth of
Athens. He was convicted and put to death.
So, obviously a major value of using critical thinking is to gain more control over one's life.
If one wants to be truly free, then one's decisions should be based on
not only the best available information, but one wants to reason about
that information correctly.
However, critical thinking will often produce insecurity.
What if you carefully examine the beliefs you have and the ones you
inherited from your family, and you find that the reasons for these
beliefs are very weak! The story of Socrates shows that in
general people don't like someone rocking the boat with questions about
what one's culture or society believes. It produces confusion and
insecurity. Some students will claim that philosophy courses
undermine their family beliefs and just leave them with lots of
questions on life's major issues.
But philosophers see this insecurity as positive. Learning
that one's beliefs are weakly supported provides one with two
choices. Either see if better reasons exist for your beliefs or
change your beliefs to better supported beliefs. Either way
philosophers argue the value of this insecurity is personal growth.
Hopefully in learning what is true, or at least learning what is
probably not true (because of poor reasons for the beliefs) one grows
in awareness as an individual. In general, philosophy accepts as
positive an ongoing process
of critical thinking compared to security and stagnation of dogmatic
answers.
2. Communication Skills
Philosophy forces one to read, write, and think about big
ideas. It exercises the mind to the max because it deals with
abstract ideas. Students often complain that abstract ideas are
hard to understand. Yes they are and they take time, but the pay
off is huge. Abstract
ideas are the secret to life. They help you organize
details. They are like a big net that can be placed over a lot of
detailed information so that the "dots" of the detailed information are
connected into a meaningful whole. Smart people see the big
picture of the forest and they don't get lost in the forest of trees so
to speak.
Generally managers and people who get high salaries are people
who are very good at the
process of organizing and adopting a perspective on lots of information.
They can see the big perspective because they can network ideas.
These people are good at presentation skills also. They can write
and speak well, and they are able to take the process of organizing and
adopting a perspective on lots of information and communicate to others
the same perspective. They are able to take the big ideas in
their minds and put them into other minds.
Philosophy teaches these same valuable skills. You are
constantly encouraged not only to understand big ideas and to
critically evaluated those ideas, but also to communicate your thoughts
to others, especially in writing. So, as the author of our
textbook
notes, recent studies show that studying philosophy is actually very
valuable for careers in business.
See the article, "I Think, Therefore I Earn."
3. Clarification of your beliefs and values
Consider that your philosophy is simply your package of
beliefs. Hence, you cannot escape being a philosopher! Even
if you believe that philosophy is a waste of time, that is still a
philosophy and requires an argument to be supported. Believe it
or not there have been philosophers who believed that most traditional
philosophical questions and issues were a waste of time, and that
humanity would be much better served by just concentrating on
science. Read about the philosophers known as Logical
Positivists.
But many students do not even know
what they believe and they need to put some time into clarifying what they
believe. Notice obviously one must do this first
BEFORE one can take aim with one's critical thinking skills
to see if there are good reasons for the beliefs. It is
also very difficult to maintain consistency in belief unless one thinks
hard about one's beliefs. Typically, as we grow up we pick up one
belief in one situation and another belief in another situation, and
only later might realize that the beliefs conflict. For instance,
many students in our age will believe that women should be treated
equally to men and that men and women should have the same
rights. Also, generally many students will believe it is wrong to
kill children. But what about abortion? For some people the
issue of abortion reveals a conflict between the right of a women to
choose what takes place in her body and the rights of a fetus to life.
Philosophy forces you to clarify
your beliefs and examine them for consistency by constantly providing
you with challenging but conflicting opinions on the big questions of
life.
4. Global Awareness
In our age business leaders tell us every day that in addition to
critical thinking and communication skills understanding other cultures
is vital for our economy. One can even find statements like this
in the Want Ads, "Must be able to work in a multicultural setting."
In studying philosophy we not only prepare our minds for being open enough to understand the views of others, but we also study the details of intellectual history. By studying the history of philosophical ideas we study not only past cultures, but also the origin of the beliefs that people have today. So, in many ways philosophy trains one to be open to understanding prior to judging. Philosophy is critical, so it will train you not to accept the beliefs of just anyone. But it will train you to always make an attempt to fully understand the beliefs of others BEFORE you judge them.
5. Tolerance and Understanding
It can be confusing to think hard about life. Studying and
hearing about so many different beliefs can indeed make one insecure
about his or her own beliefs. But this uncertainty can have a
very positive spin-off: humility
and less violence. Comparing
ideas casts a little doubt on the certainty of
your
own beliefs and usually makes one more openminded. With a
little doubt a person is less likely to push ideas on
others
and will at least take a lot more time before he or she is
willing
to fight over belief differences.