1.4 An Overview of Contemporary Philosophy

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Identify the role of professional philosophers in academics and beyond.
• Identify the structure, organization, and thematic goals of the textbook.

Contemporary academic philosophy bears minimal resemblance to the classical traditions we have discussed in the previous sections. Philosophers today, like other academics, focus on specific areas of research expertise with the goal of producing new research that advances our philosophical understanding of specific problems or topic areas. That said, philosophical investigation is still motivated by the same desire to make sense of things in the most general way possible. In this section, we will introduce you to what philosophy majors do. Additionally, we will provide a brief summary of the themes and organization of the textbook.