Question Do grades during high school and university show the ability of a person to think? Can someone who does not have immaculate grades still be an excellent philosopher? Or is the success of a student in school directly related to their ability to think in a critical way that is required by philosophers?

Accepted:
May 20, 2010

Comments

Strong performance in a rigorous college-level philosophy class is a good positive indicator of philosophical talent, but poor grades, whether in college or in high school, cannot generally be taken as evidence that a person lacks philosophical talent. The reason is that there are just way too many reasons why a student might do poorly in the classroom that have nothing to do with philosophical ability. I know of at least a couple prominent philosophers who were indifferent -- or, in one case, lousy -- students until they discovered philosophy, and were really grabbed by it. Some students are handicapped by depression, stress, or other personal difficulties, and do not do their best work. Many students are just not that into school, or don't care about grades.

Another thing that makes it difficult to predict who will make a good philosopher is that there are lots of different ways one can be a good philosopher. I spoke above of "philosophical talent," but there's really no particular way to do philosophy well. There are some necessary conditions: you must be able to think clearly and logically (but most people can do that if they are sufficiently motivated to do so), and you must have a taste for abstraction. Beyond that, though, there are lots of different kinds of mental talents that can compose an excellent philosopher. Some philosophers have excellent memories, some are adept at thinking up illuminating examples, some are good at synthesizing ideas from different domains, some seem possessed of sound "hunches," some have a facility with formal methods. But for every one of these "sub-talents," I could probably name a prominent philosopher who lacks it.

Some people -- administrators of liberal arts colleges, for example -- will insist that there is some general mental ability -- "critical thinking" or "general intelligence" -- that is implicated in all academic work. But others, like psychologists Stephen Ceci and Richard Nisbett, think that "intelligence" is domain-specific -- that is, you can do very well in one subject and very poorly in another, or you can do well in "applied" contexts, but poorly in the classroom. Factors like your level of interest and your level of effort turn out to be very important in explaining academic success.

In sum -- the only way to see if you're any good at philosophy is to give it a try. But be prepared to try hard.