Philosophy, Schmilosophy

Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2004 @ 2:23 p.m.

I've always wondered: What is the practical use of philosophy as an academic subject or major in these days?

Anthropology majors graduate to join a variety of careers, like archaeology, for instance. Psychology majors could go into the health and/or behavioral sciences. Sociology graduates make great PR managers or other human-resource-related fields. Historians are important as political analysts and museum curators... and the list goes on.

So what do philosophy graduates do? I mean... there's no real practical money-making job that requires one to question his/her existence. There's no practical use in questioning if the chicken or the egg came first. And I, for one, couldn't care less if a tree made a noise if it fell in a remote jungle with no humans are nearby. All these things are great for stimulating thought-provoking conversations (and an intriguing pastime if you're stoned), but as far as I can tell, there's no real practical purpose for philosophy. At least, none in my opinion. Now, I do not profess to know everything about philosophy, and I do realize that there's gotta be a great reason why there's a philosophy department in every University... but I'd just like to see it.

Maybe hundreds of years ago, a person could be famous for thinking certain thoughts. Like Descartes or Socrates. But they mostly died in poverty. That's really sad and ironic to me at the same time... how did such intelligent people allow themselves to starve to death? Why would they spend their entire lives wondering whether they existed or not, instead of actually doing other things while they still had their lives to wonder about? And in today's world... what's a philosophy graduate to do? Who would pay a bunch of people to do nothing but sit around, drink tea, and wonder if the chicken or the egg came first?

And why does it really matter so much anyway? Eggs - poached, scrambled, over-and-easy, delicious. Chicken - baked, grilled, fried, yummy. Just eat them anyway you could get them, and stop wasting your lives thinking about it, for cryin' out loud!

Just imagine a man having a thousand bucks in his hand, and instead of spending it to feed himself or buying stuff that he's always wanted to buy, he ponders about the origins of money, which tree the paper came from, and if it's REALLY money in his hands or if there's really no such thing as money at all, and if the concept of currency is merely a shared hallucination. So he's just sitting there, thinking about all that crap, and he starves, and he dies.

Somehow, I don't think he'd be considered very intelligent at all, and his name certainly won't be passed on from generation to generation.

But the passer-by that picks up the thousand bucks from his cold, dead hands would certainly be very, very happy. Maybe that's how philosophy makes this world a better place?

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Philosophy, Schmilosophy