Thank you. Okay, so there's something that has
been a kind of a trend in academics over the
last like decade or so, probably longer actually,
where academics have to constantly defend the
value of the work that they do. And I mean...
defended in the sense of the pragmatics for students
on whether or not they'll be able to find a job
with the major that they have, whether or not
they're getting the training they need in order
to find a job, to make a living, to advance in
the workplace, yada, yada, yada, right? And it's
honestly frustrating. I don't know many academics
who enjoy doing this. It seems more like a necessary
part of the job to ensure the survival of the
department by getting enough students to, you
know, major in that particular academic field
or to, you know, secure funding from donors or
from administrators of universities to convince
them to throw money to that department. And,
you know, I had to play along with a lot of this.
You know, anytime there's like a major fair,
you know, where students are going around and
asking different departments about the different
majors, I had a whole spiel that I would have
ready for students, right? It would go something
along these lines, right? Philosophy teaches
you the basic reading, writing, and critical
thinking skills that you need to be successful
at any job. And it trains you really well, probably
better than any other field. The evidence is
in reports of earnings that students tend to
make with that particular degree, maybe 10 years,
15 years after college. You know, I could also
point to how philosophy majors tend to score
some of the highest scores on standardized tests
for professional and graduate schools, particularly
the LSAT, which a lot of philosophy majors are
planning on doing is going to law school. So
they need to take the LSAT. Or the GREs, this
is for people going to graduate school or for,
I think they accept it for business schools now,
the GRE exam, right? I have all these things
that I could point to as pragmatic reasons to,
you know, major in philosophy, to convince students
that it's something worthwhile, that they're
not going to be a miserable failure and be living
in their parents' basement playing video games
for the rest of their life or end up teaching
at some mediocre, you know, like, you know, school
somewhere that has nothing to do with philosophy
and they don't ever make use of anything they
learn in philosophy classes, right? Like, I'm
trying to ease a lot of these anxieties that
people tend to have, even if they might be interested
in philosophy in terms of the topics that we
discuss, right? So there's a lot of this selling
of the major, and this is... Primarily because
it feels like education has become some kind
of a commodity. People are looking to get a return
on their investment. We use a lot of these economic
terms that has creeped into the educational sector.
And so you're not going to pay for college, especially
given how expensive college is nowadays. You
don't want to pay for college unless you're going
to get something monetarily out of it, a return
on your investment. So they want to make sure
that whatever they major in will help them get
a job. to get their money's worth, get something
in return. And this is actually, from my experience,
not something that most of these instructors
actually want to do. Most instructors just want
students to be genuinely interested in whatever
it is that philosophy explores. And for students
to value philosophy for its own sake, not as
some instrumental benefit to their career. Plus,
I personally feel dirty. This is just the personal
side. I feel dirty trying to spew out these data
points on philosophy majors of success and all
this stuff. The truth is that the discipline
attracts deep thinkers. So I imagine there's
a lot of self -selecting going on. So more correlation
maybe rather than actual causation. It's not
as if philosophy necessarily produces the most
intelligent people. I think a lot of people who
are quite intelligent, who love challenges. love
to think deeply are just naturally kind of drawn
to philosophy as a field. It is true that philosophy
does train you well. I mean, one of the core
classes we teach in philosophy is critical thinking
and logic, right? And these two are fundamental
for any sort of evaluating of arguments or analyzing
of data, right? I'm not going to try to sell
you on philosophy as an instrumental value, right?
I want to do something different. Rather, I want
to explain how the deeper, more abstract questions
in philosophy are genuinely relevant to the way
you view the world and the way that you approach
real -life decisions. If you thought that philosophy
just contemplates stuff that you will never actually
use, that it's just an exercise in abstract thinking
for the sake of abstract thinking, I want to
argue that... That kind of perspective of philosophy
is actually a mistake. So one of my goals in
this series is to attempt to sway the general
public in understanding that there's a deep importance
in engaging with these philosophical questions,
that it is not a mere abstract exercise. that
it has real implications for the way that you
navigate your day -to -day life, the way that
you view the world, view relationships, the way
that you view your role in society, the way that
you just view truth, reality, right? These all
are shaped by fundamental philosophical questions
that, I'll be honest with you, I'm assuming that
most people... have some sort of position. It's
just that they haven't necessarily grappled with
it directly. And I think philosophy is one of
those spaces where you're kind of forced into
grappling with the deeper questions, whether
you might have wanted to or not sometimes. It
could be very difficult and personally challenging.
But there's also actually a secondary reason
that I'm starting this series on explaining why
philosophy matters. And the reason is that it
has to do with learning, right? People don't
actually learn anything well unless they see
the relevance in what they're learning. I mean,
there's plenty of research in this area about
what motivates people, when we feel drained while
we're learning. One of the reasons we might feel
disconnected from the stuff that we're learning
is that we don't see its relevance, right? It's
hard to get excited or to be invested in learning
something if you can't see that it has some relevance
to you. And by relevance, I'm not talking about
pragmatic relevance. I'm not talking about like
how it'll help me with my job. I mean, that's
one way to see there's relevance in what you're
learning. But no, what I mean is something much
more deeply personal for you, right? Like relevance
to the things that you already value, not instrumentally,
but inherently, right? Does this stuff that I'm
learning matter to me given my own life experience
given the things that i care about given the
things that you know really are important to
me right does it actually does the subject matter
connect to something in my personal life right
Which, I mean, this makes perfect sense, right?
Why care to learn something if you don't see
any reason for learning it, right? So one of
the things that I do want to point out in this
series are the many ways, and again, it's going
to be different for each person because each
person has a different set of stuff that they
really care about, right? What they really value.
But one of the things that I'm hoping to get
out of it is to throw, to give students these,
you know, ways of connecting. what seems to be
very disconnected, abstract ideas and thoughts
to something that actually might matter more
to the students than they might have initially
thought. So the secondary reason for this series
is to provide specifically my students and specifically
in all my introductory courses to give them a
way of connecting with the material in a much
more personal way. In a way that, you know, directly
addresses some of the concerns, some of the decisions,
some of the topics that matter in their day to
day life. The hope is a show that through philosophical
inquiries that we are. In the background, there's
so much that is actually shaping the way that
we make sense of the world and the way we engage
with others and the way we make decisions. And
as we make these connections a little bit clearer,
then I hope that students find something much
more meaningful in what it is that they're actually
studying. Right. Whether it's like some of these
old thinkers that you might think are from generations
ago who don't understand what's going on today
or like all the random stuff that we tend to
throw out there as reading requirements for a
philosophy course. I hope that students can make
those connections in part. in the hopes that
they actually end up being more motivated to
learn, but also, as a result, learn much more
effectively and produce much better results,
both in terms of outcomes of whatever testing
method there is, but also just in terms of what
they carry with them moving forward. So for my
students who are having difficulty with philosophy,
with the readings, who are feeling disconnected
from it, This might be a good place to start.
Let's consider exactly how the bigger questions
that we are trying to answer in these courses,
how it's connected to something a bit more personal
to you. And you'll find that the material becomes
much easier to digest, much easier to understand,
and that you'll find yourself a lot less disinterested
when you understand these connections. In that
respect, I hope that you gain something truly
valuable from my introduction, my selling of
why philosophy matters.