# Is philosophy really worth studying? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 9, 2017, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696 "2017-01-09T01:32:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2017, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/141 "2017-01-17T05:53:13Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I’ve also read more about Dennett’s writings than what he’s written. I vaguely recall reading an article he wrote and being unimpressed. I’ve now read that linked one and have no desire to read more of what he’s written. I think he coined the phrase [“deepity”](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Deepity)? That article is deep with deepity. To my read full of his own sense of cleverness as he presents some things as if they are profound when they are actually pretty trivial concepts. Just MHO but Hofstadter he aint. I looked at his list of books on Amazon, and was a bit surprised to realize I had read (and own a copy) of “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.” So I’m not quite as ignorant of his work as I thought I was. (I admired that book quite a lot, although I thought it was not as good as Dawkins’ “Climbing Mount Improbable,” which I thought was a brilliant masterpiece.) ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2017, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/142 "2017-01-17T11:40:41Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Oh they are for _me_ but for the man who woke up from an accident with a radioactive complete set of the OED to discover himself to be … **WORDMAN**? Say it aint so! > > 🙂 > > Yes I think you’d enjoy Strange Loop. Nice. I may have to use that IRL with the folks that call me that. But yeah - no. Wish it were so. I get to reading something like Hegel, or Spinoza and my brain shuts down. I have no shame in admitting I get most of my insights about different philosopher’s topics and positions via other writers. I read the source material but don’t apologize if my eyes roll up into my head. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/143 "2017-01-18T14:16:10Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > That article is deep with deepity. To my read full of his own sense of cleverness as he presents some things as if they are profound when they are actually pretty trivial concepts. Such as…? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/144 "2017-01-18T14:17:25Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > (I admired that book quite a lot, although I thought it was not as good as Dawkins’ “Climbing Mount Improbable,” which I thought was a brilliant masterpiece.) Dawkins is a biologist, which is where I think the difference lies. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/145 "2017-01-18T17:27:49Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I just started reading this thread, but I wanted to post my total agreement with paragraph. Philosophy is worth studying for precisely this reason. Everybody is born and raised in some environment where they absorb certain assumptions without being aware that they are assumptions, treating them as obvious and unquestionable truths instead. In order to break free from those assumptions, we must learn what they are. Then we question whether certain assumptions are right. Then we understand that other people who disagree with us are not merely stupid or evil, but are acting from different assumptions. > > I was raised in a very left-wing household and when I entered college that was the only viewpoint that I knew and understood. I broke free from that myopic viewpoint by reading Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas, Descartes and Hobbes and Locke and Hume and Rousseau and Karl Marx and William James and Bertrand Russell and many others. The only way to truly free your mind is to be exposed to other minds doing high-quality thinking about important topics. In other words, you have to study philosophy. Except philosophy doesn’t give you an answer though. There isn’t anything definite in philosophy since everything can be debated and supported. Even questions as to what’s right and wrong can go for enternity. In my study of it I just got trapped. Realizing that nothing is definite or universal, that morality is more relative than anything else, that one can’t know anything. Most early philosophers had to use god just to hold their argument together. It’s small wonder that philosophy doesn’t go anywhere or make any progress. When nothing is definite and all is subject to endless debate, how is that progress? ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/146 "2017-01-18T17:29:22Z")
> [@tvaetbjorn](#): > > In my opinion, philosophy is worth studying because it increases our understanding of human perspective. As in, it provides various lenses through which to view the world, and perhaps a perspective we ourselves hadn’t perceived will prove useful to our overall understanding of life as human beings. > > Of course, being that we have limited senses, we can only form opinions about the things we cannot take in and interpret directly through our senses, such as abstract thoughts like the meaning of life. There is no right or wrong answer because there simply is no way of knowing what the precise meaning of life is. Just as we all have differing opinions on whether or not there is a God because there is no precise definition of what God is or isn’t and most of us cannot say we’ve directly had contact from God. (I hold that such contact would be based in delusion, but that’s also my own opinion on the matter.) > > I think researching philosophy aids the critical thinker in forming their own personal perspective in regards to the complexities of human life. Philosophy doesn’t provide a solid answer to complex questions about life, and perhaps that would be more satisfying and grounding, but ultimately would be impossible to find. > > I believe philosophy “gives back” in the sense we find comfort and a sense of connectedness in our mutual struggle to understand life’s complexities. It cannot “give back” with one solid answer to every/any problem human life presents because philosophy is basically structured by perspective. Assuming that other people even exist or that we even can understand the complexities of life. What good is a school that doesn’t give a right or wrong answer? What possible use is there for such a thing? ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/147 "2017-01-18T17:35:48Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Hey. [I came here for an argument.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y) That’s just a contradiction. … Yes it is. > Again my deepest sympathies for your current condition. May you someday recover. > I do wish to avoid traumatizing you with more exposure to rational thought and analysis but I do think that a small bit of history is of interest. > It was ancient Greek philosophers who birthed the study and nature of perceptual illusions (and used them to inform their architecture in the process) and who framed the questions that gave the answers that one can now blithely state we learn from science. Most of how science now thinks about perception, the interplay between top-down expectations and bottom-up inputs, are merely refinements of the models that philosophers came up with over the centuries. > As far as nihilism goes my favorite quote is “Just because we are doomed doesn’t mean we can’t have a good time.” No idea who to attribute it to. > > Of course there’s [an XKCD for that](https://xkcd.com/167/). > > It’s actually quite a profound thought and not one that takes $500 and uncomfortable chairs over a weekend in a hotel conference room to come to. > But for those who venture off into the scary open spaces of considering existence and meaning (or lack thereof) [this XKCD](https://xkcd.com/170/) is probably even more apt. One can get lost pretty easily and want to turn back. It is kind of scary. Terrifying even. And beautiful. … Oh okay, and sometimes even a bit silly. > Of course to some degree our poor impaired **M** is correct that those who study philosophy may end up “knowing” less than they “knew” before they started. One last pertinent quote for that: “Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem.” - Woody Allen. I’m not impaired, I just realized what a dead end philosophy turns out to be. You don’t seem to understand that for most, the concept that this is an illusion is more than most can bear, it essentially unwrites everything that we know of our lives. If there even are others. Concepts like that aren’t anything that people can recover from, but that doesn’t make them impaired. It’s the fault of those who ask such a question headless of what it might do to others and don’t even offer a remedy to it. It’s almost like they get some sick joy out of watching people go mad at such a thing just because no one takes them seriously. Keep your false sympathy, you don’t hope I recover. You’re likely reveling in my agony. I have known people who have killed themselves from being exposed to such a thought and I’m pretty close to going there myself. Science is perhaps the only good thing philosophy has birthed. Not ethics, metaphysics, or philosophy of mind. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/148 "2017-01-18T17:57:27Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > I’m not impaired, I just realized what a dead end philosophy turns out to be. You don’t seem to understand that for most, the concept that this is an illusion is more than most can bear, it essentially unwrites everything that we know of our lives. You seem to be stuck on equating **philosophy** with the idea that reality is an illusion. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/149 "2017-01-18T20:31:40Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Dawkins is a biologist, which is where I think the difference lies. Biologists are better writers than philosophers? (I kid! I kid!) Dawkins certainly has the advantage that we know, for certain, a hell of a lot about evolutionary biology, while human consciousness is still (somewhat) mysterious. It’s a little harder to write about materially. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/150 "2017-01-18T20:45:43Z")
I set a personal record for dropping a college class. I went to my first Philosophy class and got the syllabus. Sat through a miserable hour listening to the professor. I went directly from class to the Admin building to drop and add a different class. I threw the syllabus into the trash on the way out. Thank goodness I hadn’t bought the textbook yet. Life is too short to waste on stuff like this. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/151 "2017-01-18T20:49:27Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I set a personal record for dropping a college class. > > I went to my first Philosophy class and got the syllabus. Sat through a miserable hour listening to the professor. > > I went directly from class to the Admin building to drop and add a different class. I threw the syllabus into the trash on the way out. Thank goodness I hadn’t bought the textbook yet. > > Life is too short to waste on bs like this. Oh, bully for you. Doesn’t that make you ejumakated. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/152 "2017-01-18T20:57:18Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > You seem to be stuck on equating **philosophy** with the idea that reality is an illusion. I don’t see a distinction between the two. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/153 "2017-01-18T20:58:23Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Oh, bully for you. Doesn’t that make you ejumakated. It would certainly save you unnecessary pain and suffering. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/154 "2017-01-18T22:04:13Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > I don’t see a distinction between the two. We’ve been trying to alleviate this ignorance. Philosophy looks at the hypothesis, “Life is an illusion,” and follows the consequences. It also looks at the contrary hypothesis, “Life is not an illusion.” This is valid in both philosophy and science. It’s how intelligent life functions. “What if I put vanilla into the cake mix… Hm…maybe not…” ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2017, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/155 "2017-01-18T23:03:21Z")
> [@Alex\_from\_CB](#): > > Philosophy? There’s a good buck in that racket. Not really. Unless “computer science” counts as a philosophy to you? (I wouldn’t argue with that, but many would.) > [@DSeid](#): > > For the fans of philosophy - what’s your biggest _problem_ with the subject? The endless navel gazing that can entrap even experienced philosophers (and I think we’ve all been in Machinaforce’s shoes, just usually not for years at a time). > [@Machinaforce](#): > > Except philosophy doesn’t give you an answer though. There isn’t anything definite in philosophy since everything can be debated and supported. Even questions as to what’s right and wrong can go for enternity. In my study of it I just got trapped. Realizing that nothing is definite or universal, that morality is more relative than anything else, that one can’t know anything. Most early philosophers had to use god just to hold their argument together. It’s small wonder that philosophy doesn’t go anywhere or make any progress. When nothing is definite and all is subject to endless debate, how is that progress? Life is a journey, bud. Not a destination. Enjoy the process, and stop being so antsy to get somewhere. Philosophy is thinking about thinking, for the most part. The study of consciousness, or morality, or solipsism is really just a tiny part of the whole. I mean, look at your experience in this thread. You’ve convinced no one to join your side. Maybe if you studied the philosophy of _argument_, aka “logic”, you’d get somewhere? You’re spinning your wheels, going nowhere, while accusing the extremely large, diverse and ancient human activity we call philosophy of doing that very thing. If you’re upset that the scenery never changes, go outside. Give it a nice long think. Maybe you’ll come to the conclusion that the problem is _you_. That’s not an insult. People change. Hell, some of us enjoy it when we change our minds. That’s evidence of growth. (Of course, it isn’t always!) Anyway, good luck, and stop taking everything so seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/156 "2017-01-19T03:51:27Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > . . . Unless “computer science” counts as a philosophy to you? (I wouldn’t argue with that, but many would.) . . . It certainly gets philosophical at some of the edges, such as information theory, computability theory, AI, and the implications of NP Completeness and Quantum Computing. Lots of these ideas mesh nicely with general epistemology: what do we know, and what can we know? Math and Philosophy have been intertwined at least since Euclid proved there were infinitely many primes, and the Pythagoreans proved that the square root of two was irrational (“not commensurate with the side.”) Those are math things…but they are also philosophy things! ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/157 "2017-01-19T04:03:09Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > I don’t see a distinction between the two. Correct. You do not. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/158 "2017-01-19T04:43:10Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Such as…? How much of a discussion of the article do you want? From the attempting to claim that everyone else is somehow setting up qualia as “special” to positioning his case as “subversive” and characterizing his case as a “radical” challenge the article is, to my read, full of him being very full of himself. His claim that anyone who would state that a machine which can give output the same as a wine tester is not necessarily having the subjective experience of a wine tester (the Turing test restated but presented as original) is engaged in “a last ditch defense of the inwardness and elusiveness of our minds” is presented as something deep but is simply false; certainly his saying so don’t make it so. All that dancing. Because he starts out presuming what others presume, “that we can isolate qualia from everything else that is going on” — but no, such a belief is not necessarily “in principle or for the sake of argument” when one believes that there is a way “the juice tastes to Dennett at time t …” Why presume such a presumption? Qualia are the variety of dimensions of subjective experience that “I” know “I” experience and that I presume others built like me and reacting similarly as me likely also experience in some manner but not necessarily the same manner as do I, impacted by many other factors, top-down, bottom-up, status of other states, past experiences. Understanding how these subjective experiences emerge is not yet accomplished even if some of the mechanisms involved have been elucidated. They still can be studied and the dimensions of those experiences elucidated. He instead seems to be trying to equate qualia as the ghost in the machine and then attempting to exorcise it. To me that effort seems to be deepity at best. A wordy cumbersome read that presents itself as a profound truth that ultimately is a bit trite if not just false. YMMV but I find that taste of Dennett to not whet my appetite for more. ---
**Author:** ![Machinaforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/aeb1de/32.png) [@Machinaforce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machinaforce)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/159 "2017-01-19T23:46:13Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Not really. Unless “computer science” counts as a philosophy to you? (I wouldn’t argue with that, but many would.) > The endless navel gazing that can entrap even experienced philosophers (and I think we’ve all been in Machinaforce’s shoes, just usually not for years at a time). > > Life is a journey, bud. Not a destination. Enjoy the process, and stop being so antsy to get somewhere. > > Philosophy is thinking about thinking, for the most part. The study of consciousness, or morality, or solipsism is really just a tiny part of the whole. I mean, look at your experience in this thread. You’ve convinced no one to join your side. Maybe if you studied the philosophy of _argument_, aka “logic”, you’d get somewhere? You’re spinning your wheels, going nowhere, while accusing the extremely large, diverse and ancient human activity we call philosophy of doing that very thing. > > If you’re upset that the scenery never changes, go outside. Give it a nice long think. Maybe you’ll come to the conclusion that the problem is _you_. That’s not an insult. People change. Hell, some of us enjoy it when we change our minds. That’s evidence of growth. (Of course, it isn’t always!) > > Anyway, good luck, and stop taking everything so seriously. It is a destination, the same one for each person on the planet. Death. But it’s not a journey. Philosophy is proof enough of that, people are eager to get to the answers of the questions they raised. The same goes for science. If I haven’t convinced anyone it’s because none of them have gone through what I am right now. Unless I can actually impart that onto others then they’ll never get it. I never spin my wheels like this prior to my study of philosophy so I can rightly blame the field for that, as have other people I know. The general opinion is that philosophy is just a hamster wheel, asking questions without giving answers or the wisdom it claims to seek. The age of something speaks nothing to its effectiveness, and as diverse as it might be it doesn’t function in any of those fields. The problem is philosophy, it changed my mind for the better in the same way someone drops you down a well and doesn’t even give you a rope to get out. You also realize that philosophy states there is no such thing as growth right? That implies an objective sense of “better” which doesn’t exist. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2017, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696/160 "2017-01-20T01:34:32Z")
> [@Machinaforce](#): > > . . . You also realize that philosophy states there is no such thing as growth right? . . . I’m torn between “Hogwash” and “Cite?” So…both. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-philosophy-really-worth-studying/776696.md?page=9)