Philosophy Is Practical

Philosophy has long had a reputation for being the least practical of all the impractical majors. I was a philosophy major. When people find out, there’s the inevitable question, “What can you do with that?” The answer, unfortunately, is teach philosophy. Philosophy has been the butt of jokes for years. My favorite is Kent Brockman on The Simpsons saying, “Things aren’t as happy as they used to be down here at the unemployment office. Joblessness is no longer just for philosophy majors. Useful people are starting to feel the pinch.” New research, though, shows that studying philosophy does build useful skills.

This article over at The Conversation, Studying philosophy does make people better thinkers, according to new research on more than 600,000 college grads, describes the study by Michael Vazquez and Michael Prinzing. Philosophy majors simply do better than all other majors with verbal and logical reasoning. They are also more open minded and curious. Vazquez and Prinzing wanted to know if this was because philosophy attracted people who were already good at these things or if studying philosophy made people better at them. They found that philosophy makes people better at them.

The fact that philosophy majors do better than all other majors at thinking ought to be a game changer. What’s more practical than thinking? It should make more people go into the major and make more employers eager to hire the philosophy graduates. That’s not going to happen, though. I predict that this study will do nothing to change the game. Colleges will continue to close philosophy departments. Fewer people will get philosophy degrees. And those that do will still struggle to find work.

The most that this study is going to do is give those of us who studied philosophy some satisfaction. Especially those of us who didn’t go on to teach philosophy. It never helped me get a job or anything, but it did make me a better thinker. That’s not nothing.