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What is Philosophy?

Philosophical Subdisciplines

Philosophy Careers

Studying Philosophy at UGA

What is Philosophy?

The Study of Everything
Philosophy is concerned with fundamental questions: What is rational? What is right? What is real? It addresses foundational issues of other disciplines: What makes physics a science and numerology a pseudo-scientific superstition? What is art and what is not? What is the relation between the physical and the mental? Because philosophy asks these basic questions and explores methods for answering them, it is by nature interdisciplinary and related to every other discipline in the university curriculum.

Philosophical Method
Philosophy, from its historical beginnings to the present day, is a discipline of arguments. One cannot resolve nor even illuminate difficult questions by mere pronouncement: One must give reasons for ones positions. And support those reasons against possible objections. And propose reasons to reject alternative positions, and so on. While this can seem like an endless and frustrating pursuit on its face, philosophy is not an academic debate club where endless arguments and counter-arguments are proposed for the sake of mere amusement or rhetorical persuasion: Philosophers argue in search of truth.

Philosophers argue in search of truth. If that sentence lights your intellectual fire, philosophy may be the discipline for you. Consider some of the subdisciplines within the broad scope of the study of philosophy.

Subdisciplines within Philosophy

Rational thinking and logic constitute a broadly defined subdiscipline within philosophy, and a very important one given that the fundamental method of all philosophical inquiry is argument. To be a rational person is to "listen to reason." This means that one accepts responsibility for backing up ones own opinions with reasons and that one is prepared to consider the reaons others put forward to support their competing claims. Logic is concerned with teh proper relationship between our reasons and the opinions they are supposed to support. Rational thinking is fundamental in business, law, medicine, science and virtually every other area of human endeavor.

Ethics is a subdiscipline of philosophy that studies right and wrong. Many observers of contemporary American culture feel that we are facing an ethical crisis in business, education, medicine, government and other realms of social activity. Basic ethical issues facing all of us include abortion, euthanasia, obligations to the disadvantaged, fulfilling contracts, rights of criminals and victims in the judicial process, civil disobedience as a method for changing the law and our impact on the environment that future generations will inherit. An ethics class is not designed to promote any particular pposition on such issues: Instead, students learn about alternative approaches to evaluating ethical questions and making ethical decisions, and develop some understanding of the fundamental role of reason in ethical disputes.

Epistemology is the study of knowledge and belief. What can we know, and how do we know what we know? In epistemology, we study the role that perception, memory, reason, intuition and/or revelation play in establishing our knowledge claims. The epistemologist asks how we can explain error and how we can guard against it. Science has a special status in the modern era as a source of knowledge about the physical world, and as such is a special area of study in epistemology: What is the scientific method and why does it have this privileged role?

Metaphysics is the study of what exists. Metaphysics focuses on first principles and seeks to explain the fundamental nature of reality. What is the relationship between an object and its properties? Are objects fundamentally different from events? Is there such a thing as free will, and what is it? What is mind? What is matter? What is time? These are the sort of heady questions that many people associate most readily with philosophy and philosophers, and often such questions are thought to be unanswerable and therefore irrelevant: But even the issue of whether or not such questions are answerable can only be addressed with careful metaphysical thought, so carefuly thought about metaphysical issues is vital even to those who wish to dismiss them.

The history of philosophy is inseparably the history of ideas that have shaped history itself. Every form of modern government, including our own republic, was partly born in the minds of the great philosophers we still read today. Modern science grew out of the centuries of natural philosophy that preceded it. To see the influence of the philosophies and philosophers of the past on our present culture, one has but to open ones eyes. History looks primarily at the development of the events that have shaped our world, but the history of philosophy examines the development of the ideas that guided the people who precipitated those events.

Some undergraduate philosophy majors go on to study philosophy in graduate school and eventually become philosophy professors. But was is the practical value of a philosophy major or minor to the vast majority of students who will not become career academics?

Philosophy does not provide specific vocational skills for a non-academic career: A lawyer must still study law, and a chemist must study chemistry. But in most professions, the person who achieves the highest degrees of professional success, the person who not only practices the profession but shapes it, is the person capable of making sound policy decisions for his business or other institution. The higher a person advances in her profession, the more she needs the breadth and clarity of mind to address the complex relations between her profession and the rest of society. This is where training in philosophy is invaluable: Because philosophy is intrinsically interdisciplinary and because it is concerned with the underlying issues of other disciplines, it provides the background for people to see their own discipline as a part of a larger culture.

Philosophy also teaches basic problem-solving skills that apply to all disciplines: Clarity of thought and expression are the hallmarks of excellence in philosophy, and they are certainly useful in any and every other aspect of human life and work. While it is important to know how to keep books if you are an accountant or how to prepare a specimen if you are a pathologist, these job-specific skills usually don't apply outside of their particular context. But logic, ethics, epistemology and other philosophical subdisciplines provide the tools for thought itself, techniques for attacking conceptual problems that can be found everywhere.

Increasingly, some businesses are recognizing the value of philosophical training, and the value of a truly liberal education in general. Humanities majors, especially philosophers, are increasingly valued by a (small but growing) sub-set of employers who seek college graduates who know how to learn new things and think for themselves, rather than specifically trained employees. While it would not be wise to rely too much on this trend, it certainly indicates that it couldn't hurt to have a second major or a minor in philosophy on your transcript. (And if you are at all interested in a philosophy major or minor, you probably aren't the sort of person who would want to work for any company that considered educational and intellectual breadth to be a liability!)

Many students have philosophy as a second major or as a minor. These students recognize the need for the kind of interdisciplinary perspective that training in philosophy provides, a complement to teh more specialized training they receive in some other discipline. Philosophy is also one of the traditional majors for pre-law students, and is becoming more attractive to business employers as well (see above).

The requirements that must be met by any student majoring in philosophy are detailed in the 2003-2004 Undergraduate Student Handbook, but you will want (and are required to seek) the help and advice of a Philosophy Department undergraduate advisor when choosing courses and preparing your portfolio.

To minor in philosophy, a student must complete an 18 hour program of study that includes PHIL 1000, 2200, 3000, 3010, and two PHIL courses numbered above 3010. Again, requirements are in the handbook and you need to see your advisor.