What do we believe and why do we believe it? Who are we and why are we here? What ought we do and why should we do it? Philosophy encourages critical and systematic inquiry into fundamental questions of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, the meaning of life, and the nature of reality, knowledge and society. More than any other discipline, philosophy explores the core issues of the Western intellectual tradition.
Philosophy encourages the student to formulate questions and follow arguments. Philosophy provides an excellent preparation for law school and other professional programs, as well as a solid foundation for a career in business, teaching, writing, or public service.
The Department of Philosophy offers an undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degree and a Doctor of Philosophy graduate degree. Those new to Philosophy might have a hard time conjuring up a clear image of what philosophers do. Popularly, Philosophy is associated with stargazing and asking questions that are as vague as they are irrelevant, and to which there are no answers. To the contrary, Philosophy deals in a clear and precise manner with the real world, its complex social and material nature, and our place in it.
Because of this, philosophical fields of studies are diverse. Philosophy — the love of wisdom — is an activity of attempting to understand the world, in all its aspects. It also emphasizes development of a sense of the new directions suggested by new hypotheses and questions one encounters while doing research. Philosophers regularly build on both the successes and failures of their predecessors. A person with philosophical training can readily learn to do the same in any field.
Among the things that people educated in philosophy can do are the following. They can do research on a variety of subjects. They can get information and organize it. They can write clearly and effectively. They can communicate well, usually both orally and in writing. They can generate ideas on many different sorts of problems.
They can formulate and solve problems. They can elicit hidden assumptions and articulate overlooked alternatives. They can persuade people to take unfamiliar views or novel options seriously. They can summarize complicated materials without undue simplification. They can integrate diverse data and construct useful analogies.
They can distinguish subtle differences without overlooking similarities. They can also adapt to change, a capacity of growing importance in the light of rapid advances in so many fields.
And well educated philosophers can usually teach what they know to others. This ability is especially valuable at a time when training and retraining are so often required by rapid technological changes. These abilities are quite general, but they bear directly on the range of careers for which philosophers are prepared.
Philosophers have the skills necessary for an enormous range of both academic and non-academic jobs. The kind of basic education which philosophical training provides is eminently useful in some major aspects of virtually any occupation.
Below are lists of philosophy courses that are particularly appropriate for people studying, aspiring to, or working in disciplines outside of philosophy, as these philosophy courses help to deepen one's understanding of other fields of study, to answer some of the fundamental questions that arise in other disciplines, and to clarify the relationship between one discipline and another field of study. These texts are available online at apaonline. Annual Security and Fire Safety Report.
Why Study Philosophy?
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