Dear Friend - I have a couple of ideas about careers, but we can get to that in a minute. Since you are already a fan of philosophy, I won't bother telling you its virtues. But you might want to try telling your parents what you love about it and show your passion for it so that they have a sense that your interest is sincere and lasting. Some ideas about careers: First of all, studies show that (at least in the US) a young person starting out today will have an average of 6 different careers in her lifetime. That is not 6 different jobs -- I mean 6 entirely different careers (first a soldier, then student, then nurse, then nursing administrator, then medical salesperson...you get the idea). So a degree today should be flexible in that it will help you in the many different paths you will follow. A degree in today's accounting practices, for example, won't help you if accounting practices change tomorrow. So a philosophy degree is a good fit for someone starting out because philosophers know...

This is a very nice question because what you are asking speaks to the heart of all inquiry, not just philosophical: How will I know I have the answer to a question if I truly don't know what the answer is? The logician might say you are asking about the difference between testing for local sufficiency and then global sufficiency (and I am borrowing heavily from my favorite critical thinking textbook, which is Susan Gardner's Thinking Your Way to Freedom ). Here is how the local vs. global sufficiency falsification works. First, throw out possible answers that are obviously wrong. What counts as obviously wrong? Let's say answers that are obviously wrong are those answers which don't fit the facts, or don't match the truth of the world. This is the first (local) step in falsification. Next, look at what remains - you may still have a few possible answers on the table. The one of these which seems the least wrong is likely your best answer. This is the global sufficiency test. When you say,...

Hi Jon, This is a really difficult question! First I offer my short list, then I'll tell you which is the most important (to me, at any rate). - The concept of the soul is certainly important in Western philosophy. Maybe related - or repackaged in different terms - would be the concept of the individual. -Certain principles of logic (such as the law of non-contradiction) have had a great influence on Western philosophy. It is interesting that non-contradiction - which has been taken to be a hallmark of rationality - is seen in a completely different light in Eastern philosophy. -The golden rule (i.e., do not do to others what you yourself would hate, also phrased as do to others as you would like to be done, love your neighbor, etc.) is found in some form in all ethical and religious systems that I know of - East, West, African, Native American. I am sure there are other ideas that could also go on this short list of candidates. For my money: I think the golden...

I am glad you got in touch. It is always nice to (virtually) meet serious students like yourself. Your question seems to acknowledge two strategies, each with its own pitfalls. (1) Fight every inch to understand the original texts on your own and then go to the videos and lectures or (2) use the supplements first, even though they may unduly influence your own interpretations of the texts once you get to them. Surely either way you will make some headway in terms of understanding philosophy. I bet the purists would say only (1) will do. But these purists may be biased, being already trained in philosophy. I think whether strategy 1 or 2 is better may depend your own personal learning style. Some people love to tinker; they love to take things apart to see how it all fits together. More than once I have begun a knitting project, for example, just to see how all those knots are supposed to come together. (Memo to the brown wool sweater: I will figure you out yet!) If this metaphor describes how...

If I remember correctly, the first department of psychology in the United States came from the basement of Harvard's philosophy building (or so one story goes). Today it is not uncommon in Britain to find physics departments of universities still identified as departments of 'natural philosophy.' A jaundiced view of these trends is that once a philosophical enterprise begins to gain acclaim it gets a new name and more funding. The Greek word 'philosopher' means 'lover of wisdom.' I think this means anyone interested in contemplating the human condition has a good claim on the title. As far as the psychoanalyst vs. philosopher debate goes, I think the authors you mentioned surely count as both. I think what marks psychoanalysts as separate sub-group is that they belong to a school of thought (i.e., they have shared ideas about method, ontology, and epistemology). Those who would identify themselves as 'cognitive scientists' or 'philosophers of mind' are investigating very similar questions...

Since you have checked out the Leiter page you must have seen the Continental rankings there. My understanding is that his report has been expanded in the past few years to include Continental philosophy, feminist theory, applied ethics and other approaches that are not 'analytic,' so that is a step in the right direction. I do disagree with the assessment that there are few good departments doing Continental philosophy, however. I would recommend SUNY Stony Brook - I think it is the best, no matter what the rankings say, because most of the graduate students I have met from there have jobs and seemed to enjoy their grad school experiences. I believe that program has an active exchange with a German university. DePaul University also has a very good program, though I happen to know less about it. You might want to check out this list on the web, it's a couple of years old but should still be helpful: http://www.earlham.edu/~phil/gradsch.htm Good luck!

I feel your pain. You like philosophy and want it to be relevant, but when confronted by real-life problems the theories always seem to fall flat. As you observe, most ethical writing tends to be abstract, removed from actual cases, and too densely packed with fancy terms to be of use. There are major exceptions to that generalization; much of applied ethics or feminist ethics might meet your demands for less speculative and more concrete writing. I recommend both approaches absolutely! However, I would like to try sticking up for the good old boys (Mill, for example). Even if reading about the 'decided preference criterion' might not tell you how to raise your child, Mill might arm you with a helpful set of principles that seem appropriate, or even wise. (Example: if sending my daughter to her grandparents will likely cause more overall good than ill, I ought to do it, even if I personally regret seeing her go.) So I think there is good stuff in ethical theory, stuff worth...

In my experience, a good way to start an introductory course in philosophy is by topics - beginning with ethics, politics, or social philosophy. Most students will not be jazzed about epistemology, for example, from the get-go because the questions asked in that discipline will be unfamiliar. But most everyone will have some background knowledge and life-experience of ethics, say. If it is a class of returning/older students, you can use this life-experience to your benefit in the classroom by asking students to write about an ethical dilemma they personally had to resolve. As the course unfolds, have the students rewrite the papers to incorporate 'What Plato would have said' or 'What Martin Luther King would have done,' and so on. Having gained some confidence that they, too, can be philosophers students will be ready to move on to related topics. (To keep with the above examples, how we should treat others is integrally related to what we know.) I also would...