I want to major in philosophy because I love everything about it,, I am not interested in the physical matter of things. Rather , I am intrested in the morals of it, why is it created, how does it affect us, what is the value of it, is it right or wrong. I am so into these things, however, what am I gonna dowith this major in the future ? what is my future with it ?. When I tell my parents that I want to major in philosophy, they will go like what there is no future being a philosopher and so on. I need to know what is my future as a philosopher ? what can I work at, how am I going to use philosophy to gain money and support my family ? I need to know to convince myself about it , and to make my family appreciate philosophy and allow me to major in it. Please help me.

What books would serve as a comprehensive overview of philosophical and mathematical logic?

Why is philosophy not taught in high school? I have heard some arguments against it, but they all seem pretty poor such as: "parents would not like their children questioning their views". It seems like philosophy has a lot to give in a high school setting, at the very least classes like Critical Thinking would give students tools for assessing arguments. I could understand if most people went on to college, but many don't and it seems like some of the skills which philosophy bestows could greatly benefit our society. I really don't see why professional philosophy has not ventured down this route. I would be very thankful for any insight on this topic. Thanks, William P.

Why do parents have the right to decide anything about a child's upbringing, or their moral, social, political and spiritual education? Young children are trusting when it comes to their parents, and may even believe falsehoods if their parents are the ones who are repeating these falsehoods. So why do we recognize a unilateral right for parents to teach their children whatever they want, and to withhold whatever information from their children that they deem appropriate? Why do we let parents pull their children out of sex ed class, or teach them a religion as a unilateral source of truth? Shouldn't parents have responsabilities, instead of rights? Surely shaping a child's mind, personality and outlook is not the "reward" parents get for feeding and clothing them! Is this just a practical issue ("There's nobody in a better position to take care of the kids, and there's no way we can stop people from teaching them whatever they want")? Or is there some fundamental moral reason parents have the...

What schools have the best undergraduate philosophy departments in the US? By "best", I mean most academically rigorous, most qualified faculty, and most extensive course offerings. I've been trying to research this online but every opinion I can find on the subject seems to come from one website - philosophicalgourmet.com - and I have no idea what this site's credentials are. If anyone has an opinion based on their own research or personal experience, I am eager to hear it.

Why do so many Anglo-American philosophy departments still prefer to teach ideas that depend on symbolic logic? Or in another light, why is so much contemporary philosophy in America still dedicated to analysis and ideals of "clarity" that depend on "higher order" languages?

I have heard that undergraduate philosophy majors are some of the most imbalanced university programs when it comes to gender, being a bastion of male enrollment even though most universities now have more women than men, and other traditionally male fields are seeing near-equal enrollement, and even female majorities. First off, is it true that a disproportionate majority of undergraduate philosophy majors are men? Where might I find such figures? And second and more interestingly, if this is the case, why do you think things have turned out this way?

Reviews for Russell's History of Western Philosophy are all over the map. I get that he's an early positivist, and since his book is written from this particular perspective it will turn away people who are really into Hegel, Kierkegaard, etc. But one would not expect a book about philosophy written by a guy like Russell to include much on Hegel, right? Likewise, one wouldn't expect to find much Russell in a survey of philosophy written by Foucault, right? So I guess I'm asking this: if one generally likes Russell, will this individual benefit from reading his History of Western Philosophy, or is it too full of poor generalizations such that it obfuscates history more than sheds light upon it? Did that question make sense? I hope so.

I presently working through Grayling's Introduction to Philosophical Logic (Blackwell), after studying philosophy at university in the late 1960s. Can anyone recommend a follow-on text (for when I feel I have assimilated this book)? (I have seen the interesting replies to the August post about further reading on symbolic logic.) Peter

I have been reading discussions on this site about the Principia and about Godel's incompleteness theorem. I would really like to understand what you guys are talking about; it seems endlessly fascinating. I was an English/history major, though, and avoided math whenever I could. Consequently I have never even taken a semester of calculus. The good news (from my perspective) is that I have nothing to do for the rest of my life except for working toward the fulfillment of this one goal I have: to plow through the literature of the Frankfurt School and make sense of it all. Understanding the methods and arguments of logicians would seem to provide a strong context for the worldview that inspired Horkheimer, Fromm, et al. So yeah, where should I start? Do I need to get a book on the fundamentals of arithmetic? Algebra? Geometry? Or do books on elementary logic do a good job explaining the mathematics necessary for understanding the material? As I said, I'm not looking for a quick solution. I...