Math Major Wondering About Philosophy Grad School

juillet
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 17:46:26 +0000

I’m going to basically repeat my comment in the other thread.

-Enjoying one class alone should not make you go to graduate school in a field. That’s especially true if the philosophy class you took was an introductory class or a class for non-majors. The professors who teach those classes are deliberately trying to make their disciplines as appealing as possible. Take an upper-level class or two in the field before you start seriously thinking about this. Remember that it is very possible to love many fields without studying them in graduate school.

-Getting a PhD in any field is a means to an end. You should get a PhD because you need it to do something, not just because a field interests you. If you love philosophy, you can take classes for the remainder of your undergrad education; if you still love it, you can borrow books at the library and attend lectures and discussions sponsored by a university. One gets a PhD in philosophy not just because one loves it, but because one wants to STUDY it in depth - for at least the next 6-8ish years of their life but preferably for their careers. You won’t just be reading and discussing the prominent philosophers, you will be expected to study their works and opine about them, writing monographs and papers that other academics will then read and build upon. That’s why I say take an upper-level class, because you’ll be doing something much closer to what philosophy scholars actually do in those classes than in an intro-level class.

-The job market in the humanities is just abysmal. I mean, there are 200-300 applications for each humanities (including philosophy) professor job, especially if the job is in a place that a large number of people would like to live (the coasts, major cities) or is a competitive top university or LAC. Most people who begin a philosophy PhD will not become a professor. That isn’t to say that there aren’t lots of other interesting things you can do, but most likely you will not have needed a philosophy PhD for any of them.

So nowadays one should only go to get a PhD in philosophy if they 1) want to study, think and write about other famous philosophers for at least 6 but more commonly 7 or 8 or even more years, 2) need the PhD to get a job that requires it, specifically being a philosophy professor at a university or college because I can’t think of any other jobs that require a PhD in philosophy; but, ironically, 3) are really okay with knowing that their chances of getting such a job are very very low and that they will probably end up doing something they could’ve done with their bachelor’s degree.

The same advice, IMO, applies to getting an MA in philosophy - since most MA programs in philosophy are designed to serve as stepping stones to a PhD.

With all that said, I actually think math is one of the better majors aside from philosophy itself that you can have going into philosophy. The kind of thinking (and sometimes scholarship) that some/many mathematicians do is similar to the kind of thinking that philosophers do.

And yes, you don’t need to major in philosophy to go to graduate school in it. But you will be expected to have taken a substantial number of classes in it (anywhere from approx. 3 to 7, depending on the competitiveness of the program and the professors’ opinions), including some upper-level classes.