More and more parents nowadays are urging their college-bound kids to major in fields like business, biology and engineering. These fields are more prevalent in this time because of the prevalence of their application, and more than that, they each bring about a marketable addition to society.
This is leading to the death of the humanities.
Why are the humanities important then? Why should we as college students be paying thousands of dollars of our tuition money toward funding courses like "Philosophy 100"? Why should philosophy majors and minors (like myself) spend time studying Socrates instead of biological chemistry?
Does philosophy have a place in modern universities? Many of us still think so and here's why.
Philosophy gives you a platform to think about intense existential, "bigger picture" kind of questions. Often these questions are topics we debate on our own, boundlessly weighing the possibilities in our minds. In the classroom environment, there are discussions about these topics where everyone can voice their thoughts or reflect internally. This ability to openly talk and freely about what we truly believe in, whether it be about a god or the end of our universe, is one that seldom comes about.
Philosophy is not like other disciplines that ask you to memorize the stages of mitosis, parts of the brain or what phylum a specific algae belongs to. It does not teach systems or orders, but teaches a student how to think, instead of what to think.
Georg F. W. Hegel, a 19th century European philosopher, developed a way of arriving to a reasonable conclusion known as the dialectic method. The main idea is to take a thesis (thought), counter it to its own antithesis (opposite) and arrive at a middle that would be the fruit of the argument. This method applies to endless topics, and is one that applies only to the how, and not to the topic of what to think. The how is just as important as understanding the what because it does not put a limit on thought. No one in the discipline of philosophy will tell you that you cannot think a certain way, especially if how and what you are considering is communicated effectively.
This leads me to my next point, which is possibly the most important one by academic standards: Philosophy teaches you how to write a supported argument. Many of these metaphysical questions are a Schrodinger's cat situation where they equally may or may not exist. Honestly, for a decent amount of papers I’ve written, I have frequently not agreed with or believed in the conclusion that the philosopher has come to because I did not fully understand. Learning how to write in this way is an irreplaceable experience, as it requires you to reach within yourself to make a point, instead of just the confounds of a textbook.
We owe a lot more to philosophy than I think we realize. From Socrates’ organized academics, to Kelly Clarkson using a Nietzsche quote as a chorus in Stronger. Philosophy was the first organized school of thought and it gave life to biology, psychology, astronomy and many other now well-established disciplines. Giving students the tools to think is important and allowing them to question makes way for endless opportunities.
