Topics Profession

Question Dear established philosophers, I would like to be an established, professional philosopher some day, by which I mean I want to teach philosophy in a university. I have studied history at degree level but realised in my last year that philosophy is for me. I have been accepted to study for an MA in History of Philosophy at King College London. I have heard that the road to being an academic philosopher can be a difficult one. This question may be unanswerable to any of you for any number of reasons, but what should my next step be? What should I being doing in the run up to, and during, my MA to improve my chances? Is a PhD the best, or only, thing to do after an MA? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Accepted:
December 3, 2009

Comments

Thanks for your question. KCL is an excellent program. If your aspiration is to become a professional philosopher in a relatively traditional sense, meaning teaching and doing research in a university, then I'd say the best things to do are the following:

1. Read voraciously, and *actively*, so that you are always thinking of ways in which one might challenge the author's position. Think of reading philosophy as a conversation, not as an activity in which you're at the receiving end of information.

2. Surround yourself with other students who are passionate about philosophy and spend lots of time discussing issues--before or after class, in pubs, on walks, etc. At least half of what you'll learn is in conversation with peers.

3. Make sure that at least six days/week, you have three or four hours of uninterrupted thinking time to read and/or write about philosophy. (Writing is a central part of your craft, and you should be doing it constantly. And then do it some more.)

4. Go to as many talks and workshops in philosophy as you can. London is chock full of them year round.

5. Keep in mind that a good way of determining whether you understand something is to see whether you can teach it to someone who knows nothing about it. Look for every opportunity to teach what you know to others, be it in a formal academic setting or elsewhere.

6. You will need a doctorate if you want to remain in the field as a professional, but this should come pretty naturally if the above things are in place.

Best of luck!

Mitch Green

It sounds as if you have relatively little background in philosophy. So I would suggest that, after doing an MA in the History of Philosophy, it would be wise to do another one in contemporary philosophy before doing a PhD, both for intellectual and for career purposes. Intellectually, because a lot of the best work in history of philosophy involves a kind of conversation between the Great Dead Philosophers and contemporary philosophy -- you need to appreciate both sides of the conversation. For career purposes, as many departments are not minded to appoint those they see as narrow specialists in the history of philosophy.