It's a perhaps unfortunate fact of academic life that credentials (degree, university affiliation) are very important to being taken seriously. Although it's not a hard-and-fast necessary condition (i.e., it's not impossible to be taken seriously without them, as would be if it were hard-and-fast necessary condition), and it sure isn't a sufficient condition, either (i.e., not everyone with credentials is automatically taken seriously). I'd suggest joining an online community devoted to philosohical discussion, such as the AskPhilosophers Group linked on the left menu bar. I imagine there are also online philosophy courses you can take, or at least follow ( MIT has been doing some wonderful work in this area). The internet is a virtually limitless resource; I can't even remember how we did intellectual work without it. Good luck!

I'll be interested in seeing what other answers you get to this question. Phil grad programs vary widely in reputation, as well as in both entrance and graduation requirements. There's also variation in the quality of work that gets published, as well as the amount and venue of publication that will count, in the eyes of colleagues and potential employers, as a "significant contribution to the field." I consider myself a constructive contributor every time I answer a question on this site or help a previously befuddled undergrad distinguish between a sound argument and a fallacious one...though the American Philosophical Association would probably be inclined to disagree. For insight into programs and their respective requirements, see University of Texas professor Brian Leiter's Philosophical Gourmet Report , especially the links on Graduate Study. For insight into the process of getting through graduate school and into a philosophy professorship, see A Philosophy Job Market Blog, ...

Whether an act is moral or immoral will vary depending on the moral system that's assumed. For example, some people think morality is matter of doing one's duty, while others think it is a matter of the best overall consequences, or of building a virtuous character, and so on. I'm not suggesting that all of these moral systems are equal, but they do lead to different answers, and which system is better is a different question (a meta-ethical question) than whether a given act is moral or immoral. That being said, most moral systems would recommend the husband in this scenario not tell his wife. Confession may be good for the soul, but it's not an end in itself. It's a means to something else of moral worth: duty to God, perhaps, or character-building, or good consequences. In the absence of these ends, confession seems to be a rather selfish act. One consideration in assessing the morality of this confession would surely be whether the wife ought to know: does she have a right to this...

This is one of the more contentious and continuing questions that I've encountered in philosophy...and the way you put it makes perfect sense. So you are likely to get a great variety of answers. I like J. David Velleman's account of triadic, reflexive selfhood: he argues that the "self" has different meanings depending on the question it is used to answer: questions about metaphysical persistence (how is the entity I call my "self" the same thing now as it was in the past and will be in the future, which I take to be the focal point of your question); about psychological self-regard (when I think about my "self," what is it I'm thinking about?); and about the generation of autonomous action (how does a particular action have its source in my "self" as opposed to some outside force or influence?). You can find this account in Contours of Agency:Essays on Themes from Harry Frankfurt , ed. Sarah Buss ( Cambridge , MA :MIT Press, 2002), pp. 91-123, and criticism that it is overly...

I'm inclined to agree that there's something strange in asking politicians to recuse themselves from personal integrity (which is how such compartmentalization might be characterized). One interpetation of the politician's statement that he's able to separate his religious belief from his work in office is that his policy justification for X will not rely on his religious beliefs, even though his religious beliefs happen to endorse X; he will offer justification that a democratic majority is able to accept, one that doesn't violate any constitutional principles. I don't think this poses any threat to personal integrity. There may certainly be more than one reason for believing X, not all of them religious. A different case occurs when the politician endorses something incompatible with X. Then I'm inclined to agree with your last statement...although a single belief system may entail X but also the belief that itis wrong to force someone to act against his/her conscience, which the politician...

I couldn't resist adding to Saul's thorough response. The combination of technology and philosophy raises many issues, of which two have intrigued me particularly, both of which were inspired by observing the online interactions of my teenagers. First is how the real-time communication technology so embedded in young people's social practices can be used in teaching philosophy. The second pertains to Saul's comment (above) about philosophy's role as an interpreter of conceptual change: I believe technology is very definitely shifting some of our standard philosophical concepts, especially in ethics (though this "especially" may be a reflection of my own specialization). Like Saul, I've put some of the more casual forms of computer-mediated communication to use in my classes with great success, including an instant messaging account that I also call "virtual office hours" (here I thought I'd invented the term!). My students love it, especially when they're studying for exams, working on papers,...

Oh, and one more brief comment, an anecdote: Saul noted that "[m]ost philosophersstill read prepared talks, and few use multi-media aids." This is quite true, at philosophy meetings, but can be a source of considerable anxiety for the philosopher invited to present at interdisciplinary conferences. I was fortunate to be on the program for the Society for Business Ethics annual meeting this past summer, where I expected to read my paper, without any multi-media enhancement, the way I always did. I soon discovered that everyone else -- except for the Presidential Address, on which level my paper was definitely not -- seemed to have PowerPoints, about which slides they spoke conversationally. Luckily, I'd made the acquaintance of a fellow philosopher who also happened to be a KPMG consultant, and he converted my paper into a very polished Keynote (Mac version of PowerPoint), which he operated remotely from his PDA, wowing the attendees -- and especially, me.

My favorite recommendation is the novel Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, which provides a comprehensive -- and comprehendible! -- overview of the history of western philosophy in the form of a highly entertaining (in my view, anyway) bloodless mystery. From there, you can easily choose further routes of investigation. The late Robert Solomon also has some very approachable works, such as A Passion for Wisdom. Another possibility: Kierkegaard's The Present Age. Happy reading!

That's a very good question, John, and one without a better answer, I suspect, than the limits of practicality. So many topics for philosophical reflection, so little time! As a matter of practicality, many philosophers feel the pressure of researching and publishing in the more traditional philosophical categories, in the interest of a respectable and marketable curriculum vitae. But like other "philosophies of" areas of ordinary human life, like food and wine, philosophy of sport seems to be gathering a number of citations in recent years. The Philosopher's Index returns 189 hits for abstracts published since 2001 with "sport" in the title (a better indicator of topic than if "sport" appears anywhere in the text), and there is a semi-annual Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, which also began publication in 2001.

The questions that should be asked are those for which you'd like answers, I'd say. (How's that for a " right back atcha" response?) You might ask what makes an answer to a given question a good one. You might ask what it is about philosophy that makes questioning philosophers worth your while. When I teach undergraduates with no background in or plans to pursue philosophy, I start with rudimentary logic, because this is the area that sets the ground rules for the philosophical "game." But seriously, the best philosophical questions to ask really are the ones whose answers you want to know.

You seem to have encountered a problem my friend and mentor, John Marshall, once described as follows: "There is a sense in which utilitarians and Kantians pass in the dark in the way in which representatives of different cultures are said by moral relativists to do.What is more, utilitarians and Kantians will not even agree at a deep level about what at a more superficial level belongs to the core content of morality. Murder is wrong, they both say, but they do not mean exactly the same thing." Normative moral theories, like utilitarianism and deontology (of which Kantianism is perhaps the most popular, at least in philosophical circles), often operate on radically different conceptions of what makes something morally right. For utilitarians, like your friends, whatever action achieves a result adding up to a better outcome overall is, by definition, the morally right thing to do. For a deontologist, moral rightness is determined by duty, regardless of consequences. (Obviously, I'm simplifying a great...