NY Times Reports Philosophy Majors on the Rise: Both St. Paul and I Say "Beware!"
I ran across this article from the NY Times about how Philosophy is becoming a hot new major for college students today. Here's an excerpt:
"Once scoffed at as a luxury major, philosophy is being embraced at Rutgers and other universities by a new generation of college students who are drawing modern-day lessons from the age-old discipline as they try to make sense of their world, from the morality of the war in Iraq to the latest political scandal. The economic downturn has done little, if anything, to dampen this enthusiasm among students, who say that what they learn in class can translate into practical skills and careers. On many campuses, debate over modern issues like war and technology is emphasized over the study of classic ancient texts."
Here's an excerpt from one of those "classic ancient texts."
"Don't let anyone lead you astray with empty philosophy and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the evil powers of this world..." [Col. 2:8].
And if you're a college student deciding on a major and Paul's words don't phase you, here's another excerpt from someone who would warn people to think twice before delving into the deep study of philosophy. That someone is me. The excerpt is from my (hopefully) soon-to-be-published book, Parables of a Prodigal Son: The Theologically Grounded Testimony of an Ordinary Scoundrel:
"I was a philosophy major at UCLA at the time. The focus of the department during those years, as was the case within the discipline of philosophy as a whole, was in the field of Philosophy of Language. Keith Donnellan, whose paper “Reference and Definite Descriptions” in 1966 made him one of the leading academics in the field, was my mentor. He actually wrote me a pretty stellar letter of recommendation to law school, which I think went a long way in getting me in (my grades weren’t remarkable).
Philosophy of Language was a field that really took off in the last half of the twentieth century. It was born out of a realization that unless we analyze the meaning and structures of language, we would have a hard time ascertaining the objective truth of the statements we make, especially when making statements about abstract philosophical concepts. If you can really hear what’s going on here, it’s sadly humorous. Millennia of philosophical thought had failed to answer the big questions and had led directly to the existentialist proclamation that life is basically meaningless. The philosophers of the late twentieth century, for some reason not content with that answer, concluded that there was a problem in the language that we humans were using to express the abstract topics of philosophy. So what did they do? Philosophize some more.
They expended their considerable intellects on analyzing and solving the problem of “what is truth.” Abstract philosophical reasoning itself could not be the problem, and since the Enlightenment had taught us that everything that is not objectively demonstrable is of no import, something had to be done to ensure the objective demonstrability of abstract principles. The future of philosophy was at stake! I sometimes imagine pre-Enlightenment people sitting in heaven, either sobbing or giggling, and thinking, “What’s all the hubbub about reducing truth to objectively-demonstrable propositions? That’s all good for mathematics and physics and such, but don’t these guys realize that the grandness and beauty of it all will never be reducible to precise words? Hey, Yahweh! Isn’t that why You gave them symbols, metaphors, apocalyptic imagery, parables, poetry, music, and stuff like that?”
The problem was that philosophical reasoning about language and meaning turned out to suffer from precisely the same problems as philosophical reasoning about that which led to the ascendancy of Philosophy of Language in the first place. It was becoming clear that it, too, could not answer the “big questions” about language, though some interesting points were raised and tossed around. Maybe we needed a “Philosophy of Language of Philosophy of Language.” Or maybe we needed to compose a symphony about the whole damned thing.
In any event, this was the intellectual setting that solidified my worldview. Thousands of years of pondering the great questions had led us nowhere, and the perceived solution had likewise failed. It was all hopeless. Thinking about it was intellectually stimulating but ultimately hopeless. Trying to express what we were thinking about it was utterly hopeless. Hopelessness abounding. Might as well have some fun. Might as well make some money, fool people into thinking you’re a respectable, idealistic young professional, delve into some debauchery and party like its 1999.
So, off to law school I went."
Bottom line, like Paul said: BEWARE!
Grace and Peace,
Raffi
"Once scoffed at as a luxury major, philosophy is being embraced at Rutgers and other universities by a new generation of college students who are drawing modern-day lessons from the age-old discipline as they try to make sense of their world, from the morality of the war in Iraq to the latest political scandal. The economic downturn has done little, if anything, to dampen this enthusiasm among students, who say that what they learn in class can translate into practical skills and careers. On many campuses, debate over modern issues like war and technology is emphasized over the study of classic ancient texts."
Here's an excerpt from one of those "classic ancient texts."
"Don't let anyone lead you astray with empty philosophy and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the evil powers of this world..." [Col. 2:8].
And if you're a college student deciding on a major and Paul's words don't phase you, here's another excerpt from someone who would warn people to think twice before delving into the deep study of philosophy. That someone is me. The excerpt is from my (hopefully) soon-to-be-published book, Parables of a Prodigal Son: The Theologically Grounded Testimony of an Ordinary Scoundrel:
"I was a philosophy major at UCLA at the time. The focus of the department during those years, as was the case within the discipline of philosophy as a whole, was in the field of Philosophy of Language. Keith Donnellan, whose paper “Reference and Definite Descriptions” in 1966 made him one of the leading academics in the field, was my mentor. He actually wrote me a pretty stellar letter of recommendation to law school, which I think went a long way in getting me in (my grades weren’t remarkable).
Philosophy of Language was a field that really took off in the last half of the twentieth century. It was born out of a realization that unless we analyze the meaning and structures of language, we would have a hard time ascertaining the objective truth of the statements we make, especially when making statements about abstract philosophical concepts. If you can really hear what’s going on here, it’s sadly humorous. Millennia of philosophical thought had failed to answer the big questions and had led directly to the existentialist proclamation that life is basically meaningless. The philosophers of the late twentieth century, for some reason not content with that answer, concluded that there was a problem in the language that we humans were using to express the abstract topics of philosophy. So what did they do? Philosophize some more.
They expended their considerable intellects on analyzing and solving the problem of “what is truth.” Abstract philosophical reasoning itself could not be the problem, and since the Enlightenment had taught us that everything that is not objectively demonstrable is of no import, something had to be done to ensure the objective demonstrability of abstract principles. The future of philosophy was at stake! I sometimes imagine pre-Enlightenment people sitting in heaven, either sobbing or giggling, and thinking, “What’s all the hubbub about reducing truth to objectively-demonstrable propositions? That’s all good for mathematics and physics and such, but don’t these guys realize that the grandness and beauty of it all will never be reducible to precise words? Hey, Yahweh! Isn’t that why You gave them symbols, metaphors, apocalyptic imagery, parables, poetry, music, and stuff like that?”
The problem was that philosophical reasoning about language and meaning turned out to suffer from precisely the same problems as philosophical reasoning about that which led to the ascendancy of Philosophy of Language in the first place. It was becoming clear that it, too, could not answer the “big questions” about language, though some interesting points were raised and tossed around. Maybe we needed a “Philosophy of Language of Philosophy of Language.” Or maybe we needed to compose a symphony about the whole damned thing.
In any event, this was the intellectual setting that solidified my worldview. Thousands of years of pondering the great questions had led us nowhere, and the perceived solution had likewise failed. It was all hopeless. Thinking about it was intellectually stimulating but ultimately hopeless. Trying to express what we were thinking about it was utterly hopeless. Hopelessness abounding. Might as well have some fun. Might as well make some money, fool people into thinking you’re a respectable, idealistic young professional, delve into some debauchery and party like its 1999.
So, off to law school I went."
Bottom line, like Paul said: BEWARE!
Grace and Peace,
Raffi
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