Topics Philosophy

Question Is philosophy useful? I recently abandoned a course of philosophical study because I became overwhelmed by a sense that all I was doing - all I could ever do - was produce more philosophy. It was fun, it was interesting, I improved my research skills and now have a wider circle of strongly opinionated friends. But I couldn't escape the sense that real ideas were being abandoned in favour of increasingly intricate, but ultimately unhelpful semantic constructs and their counterexamples - for some reason, I am reminded of a paradox involving some ravens.

Accepted:
February 6, 2007

Comments

As you suggest, studying and practicing philosophy improve's one's analytical and creative skills: reading, writing, thinking. So, that is one significant way that philosophy is useful -- and especially so if it were true that doing philosophy is a comparatively powerful means of refining those skills. Likewise, studying philosophy (and perhaps especially the history of philosophy) can give you powerful insights about yourself, the history of your culture, and your world.

Exactly what use you make of those increased skills and powerful insights is for you to determine, and I would submit that there are many opportunities to use them in productive and interesting ways. How to do this depends on your exact interests, goals, and passions with respect both to philosophy and your life goals, but certainly these opportunities extend far beyond publishing philosphical literature.

About studying philospohy: If after thoughtful reflection you find some areas of philosophy narrowly uninteresting or overly pedantic and technical, that strikes me as a good reason not to continue to work in those areas. You may find that there are other areas of philosophy that matter more to you. If not, hopefully you will find other subjects or endeavors that do, in which case you could to apply to that new context the skills and insights you have gained in your prior study of philosophy.

So, in sum, I think it would be a mistake to conclude that studying philosophy is only useful for producing more philosophy -- the key to answering your question is thinking creatively and energetically about other ways to apply the benefits that you have gained from your philosophical work.