Why study philosophy?

One answer to this question supposes that “since the end justifies the mean,” studying philosophy must be “good for something.” Otherwise, there is no point in studying it. You can be sure that if you decide to take up the study of philosophy, someone will challenge you to explain what it is good for. Well, studying philosophy is indeed good for something, but the great philosophers did not puzzle over philosophical problems because they thought doing so would help them get into a good law school or land a high-paying job. They thought doing philosophy is its own reward. So one reason to study philosophy is simply that it interests you.

Fortunately, studying philosophy is not just worthwhile in its own right; it is also good as a means to a number of ends: improving one’s critical and analytical thinking skills; learning how to solve complex problems and to write clearly about them; and improving one’s score on such standardized tests as the LSAT.

What do students of philosophy do upon graduation? Some of our graduates go on to Ph.D. programs or law school, but others go into business, work for corporations, teach school, and own real estate companies – you name it. If you can do well at the study of philosophy, you’ve shown that you can learn almost anything. So don’t let the question, “What can you do with a philosophy degree?,” stop you from studying philosophy. The possibilities are limitless.

The philosophy department at Cal State Long Beach offers programs of study leading to the B.A. major and minor and to the M.A. degree. Students interested in the law can take up the pre-law emphasis and join successful graduates who have gone on to attend some of the top-rank law schools in the country. The department also sponsors a Center for Applied Ethics and a Center for the Advancement of Philosophy in Schools. Work is now progressing on the development of a Cognitive Science Center. The Student Philosophy Association hosts distinguished speakers and has organized philosophy conferences that attracted participants from across the country. If you have an interest in philosophy, the CSULB department of philosophy is the place for you.

Subdisciplines of Philosophy

Philosophy is seldom taught in high schools so it may not be clear to some people who visit this web site exactly what philosophy is. It is the search for truth and understanding about very broad and basic questions fundamental to human life.

Philosophy is typically divided into sub-disciplines such as ethics and political philosophy, which asks “What is the connection between what a person wants and what is good?” “Are we free and, if so, what relation is there between freedom and responsibility?” “What is a just or decent society?” “Why should I be moral?”

The study of metaphysics involves such questions as “What, if anything, makes me the same person who existed several years ago?” “Does God exist?” “Can a machine think” “What is truth?”

Epistemology is the study of the norms we use to evaluate our beliefs and considers such questions as: “What is the relation between knowledge, belief and truth?” “Does all knowledge derive from experience?” “What relation is there between knowledge and certainty?”

Logic is the study of inference – what are their forms and how are they to be evaluated?

Aesthetics asks how we can properly evaluate works of art and how our evaluation of them is like and unlike other kinds of evaluation.

There are some helpful resources on the Internet to answer – or, at least, to begin to answer – questions about philosophy.

A good source of links to a variety of sites in philosophy can be found at EpistemeLinks:
http://www.epistemelinks.com

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an excellent resource for the study of philosophy:
http://plato.stanford.edu/

The American Philosophical Association has a website:
http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/index.html