<p>I saw the following article on The Atlantic earlier this week. I found it fascinating.
In it, the professor relates her own background and how studying philosophy helped her think more critically and clearly about the world around her. She also expresses concerns about how the dearth of reflection could make our generation more vulnerable to demagoguery and dogmatism. </p>
<p>Is philosophy taught differently in the US? It seems to have a skeptical and/or cynical bent to it. I was relieved to find out that wasn’t the case at my uni when I first got here.</p>
<p>It is true that studying philosophy makes me think about the grounds of my opinions and that it introduces me to new ideas. It should not require you to lose most of your old opinions or to distance yourself from your family if you aren’t “liberal” enough. A full philosophy education shows you both sides. There is just as much challenging of liberal ideas as there is of conservative ideas in philosophy.</p>
<p>The article says to study philosophy to challenge your own point of view. What I say is study philosophy to learn about the world around you. Philosophy is such a broad subject that it’s hard to define, but if I had to define it I would say that it tries to explain foundational concepts of reality. Every subject tries to explain reality, but philosophy goes to the roots. That’s why it’s so important. Notice how insignificant the “you” is in this definition.</p>
<p>Interesting that Stephen Hawking argues that philosophy is dead! I didn’t know that he held that position. Also a bit strange considering that there are many good, insightful modern philosophy papers. It’s steaming ahead as good as always.
The Gettier paper published in the 1960s made a huge breakthrough in tearing down an assumption made in philosophy (epistemology to be precise) since ancient times. This being just one example. I don’t know how anyone can say that philosophy will ever die.</p>
<p>Studying philosophy consists to a large extent in examining arguments to see if they are rigorous. It goes hand in hand with a wide variety of life and work experiences. </p>
But then why would this seem to clash more with students who have a conservative background then a liberal one? I’m not saying that she has a conscious agenda, but I don’t understand why those with a religious background would need more handholding.</p>
<p>Some religions make the claim that you must believe in certain tenets in order to go to Heaven, and if you don’t have these beliefs, you will burn in Hell.</p>
<p>A philosophy course which assumes no such thing could be difficult for adherents to these religions.</p>
<p>“Liberal” and “conservative” are not very precise adjectives; nor is “religious” very precise, either. There are plenty of people with generally conservative political views who are completely comfortable with philosophical inquiry and critical thinking, and for many of them such inquiry forms the basis of their political positions. And the same is also true of many political liberals. But there are also political conservatives whose positions stem from what their religious communities believe about God and religion, in many cases holding a strong belief in the literal truth of the Bible. These people are often unfamiliar with philosophical inquiry, and can be made uncomfortable by it (and rightly so, since it is radically opposed to how they have been educated). Some liberals are uncomfortable with philosophical inquiry, but, honestly, fewer of them, since historically liberalism has always sought support in logic and reason. (Which is why many economic theories we think of as politically “conservative” were historically “liberal.”) </p>
<p>Religion and philosophy are not necessarily opposed to one another. For centuries, many of the people we study as philosophers thought of themselves as theologians, although they not infrequently clashed with the religious authorities of their times and places. Lots of religious traditions incorporate philosophical inquiry very effectively, including (for example only, not intending an exclusive list) the Roman Catholic church, most traditional Protestant denominations, rabbinic Judaism in all its forms, most strands of Buddhism, Baha’i . . . . In general, they view reason as a support for faith. But other religious denominations actively denigrate rationalism as inimical to faith, and those denominations tend to be a little noisier these days in the U.S. (and certainly elsewhere, especially in the Islamic world).</p>
<p>On top of all of that, many 18-year-olds believe what their families and communities have taught them to believe. So it can come as a bit of a shock to them when they are forced to examine and to justify their beliefs, and to subject them to critique. That’s true of conservatives and liberals, the religious and the non-religious.</p>
<p>Where did she say she “clashes more with students who have a conservative background than a liberal one”? That’s something you’re projecting.</p>
<p>She did say adopting a critical philosophical outlook is sometimes harder for people who come from “very religious
backgrounds,” but she didn’t say anything about liberal or conservative. It’s just a fact that some (but not all) religions are predicated upon an unquestioning faith in certain beliefs or values, and philosophical questioning of assumptions can be very uncomfortable for some people from such backgrounds. But that’s not true of all religions. Many (most?) strains of Judaism, for example, highly prize philosophical reasoning, and I’d say that’s true of both liberal and conservative Jewish traditions. And learned theologians of many faiths incorporate philosophical reasoning into their understanding of their religious faith. They aren’t all liberals, either.</p>