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Philosophy

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Majoring in philosophy is a great way to complete a liberal arts degree. Philosophy will introduce you to fascinating ideas and teach you to think analytically and creatively. If you enjoy the topics in this book, you should consider a philosophy major.
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<OpenstaxH3>Becoming a Philosophy Teacher</OpenstaxH3>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	To pursue a career in academic philosophy, you must major in philosophy as an undergraduate and continue your studies in the field by doing some graduate work. Community colleges and some four-year schools employ instructors with a master’s degree in philosophy. However, it is very common for these jobs to be occupied almost entirely by people with PhDs. Academic jobs, particularly in the humanities and liberal arts, are extremely competitive. Even with a PhD, it will be difficult to find a job in an academic department. That said, it is much more common to find jobs teaching than doing research, but many teaching jobs still require some research. A philosophy professor or instructor may be asked to teach on a wide variety of subjects, depending on the needs of the school. By contrast, when doing research, academic philosophers tend to focus on a very specific area with the goal of becoming an expert in that topic. Expertise is generally marked by the production of research work, such as a dissertation, book, or several research articles on the topic. Academic research jobs are typically secured with tenure, meaning that there are strong protections against unjustified firing. However, recent studies of federal data show that 73 percent of all academic jobs are not on the tenure track (meaning there is no chance to secure tenure). Additionally, 40 percent of all academic teaching positions are occupied by part-time faculty. The distribution of tenured, tenure-track, non-tenure track, and part-time employees varies greatly by institution type, with community colleges employing far more part-time instructors and far fewer tenured and tenure-track instructors. Meanwhile, research universities employ more tenured and tenure-track faculty and fewer part-time faculty (AAUP 2018).
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxH3>Alternatives to Academic Philosophy</OpenstaxH3>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Philosophy undergraduate and graduate degree majors have many options outside of teaching and research in an academic environment. There is a widespread and somewhat mistaken belief that the purpose of selecting a college major is to prepare you for a specific career. While that may be true for some technical degrees, like engineering or nursing, it is generally not true for degrees in the liberal arts and sciences. Many students enter college with a desire to pursue a career in some area of business or commerce. Others plan to go on to a professional graduate school in medicine or law. While it may seem like the best career decision would be to major in business, premed, or prelaw, this notion is probably misguided.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The original idea behind a liberal arts and sciences education was that high school graduates could study a broad range of fields in the core areas of knowledge that are foundational for our culture, society, and civilization—areas like the natural and social sciences, literature, history, religion, and philosophy. By studying these fields, students gain insights into the key ideas, methods of investigation, questions, and discoveries that underlie modern civilization. Those insights give you a perspective on the world today that is informed by the history and learning that make today’s world possible. And that perspective can have a transformative effect that goes far beyond job preparation.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	When philosophy majors are compared to other majors in terms of their long-term career earnings, it appears that philosophy majors do very well. While the starting salaries of philosophy majors are lower than some other majors, their mid-career salaries compare very favorably with majors in areas like finance, engineering, and math.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00001" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/b98ebbd5f1f2820d6ff9cf9eb4b71ac4ab2fc65d" alt="A graph presents the median mid-career salaries (10 years after graduation) of a range of college majors. The graph shows that philosophy graduates fall in the middle of the salary range. The data is as follows: Information Technology graduates earned approximately $50,000 after 10 years; Accounting graduates, approximately $48,000; Geology, approximately $45,000; Chemistry, approximately $42,000; Political Science, approximately $42,000; Marketing, approximately $42,000; Philosophy, approximately $41,000; Nutrition, approximately $41,000; Healthcare Administration, approximately $40,000; Biology, approximately $40,000; English, approximately $39,000; Hospitality &amp; Tourism, approximately $39,000; Psychology, approximately $38,000; Graphic Design, approximately $38,000; Education, approximately $37,000; and Spanish, approximately $35,000." mediaType="image/png" width="1799" height="1455" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="1799">
	<strong>Figure 1.10</strong> Median mid-career salaries (10 years after graduation) by college major. Philosophy majors make more, on average, than those majoring in many other areas. (source: Wall Street Journal) (attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax under CC BY 4.0 license)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Additionally, philosophy majors have some of the highest LSAT and GMAT scores of any major (these are the tests generally required for admission to law school and business school, respectively). Quite a few former philosophy majors have gone on to become CEOs of large corporations, such as Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn, and Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard (Chideya 2015).
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Many philosophers who have earned a graduate degree in philosophy and held positions as professors and instructors have made successful transitions to other careers, including start-ups, technology, business, ethics review boards, and public philosophy. Nigel Warburton, a former philosophy professor, started the philosophy podcast “Philosophy Bites” that is one of the most downloaded podcasts on academic topics. He also is an editor-in-chief of the online magazine <OpenstaxEm>Aeon</OpenstaxEm>. David Barnett, a former philosophy professor, founded the company PopSockets in 2012 after leaving academia. That company now employs over 200 people and generates hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue. Additionally, there are a growing number of technology, neuroscience, and medical firms that are specifically looking to hire philosophers to help with research and ethics reviews. Marcus Arvan maintains a public directory of academic philosophers who have found work outside of academia at <a href="https://openstax.org/r/philosopher">Philosophers in Industry</a>. In short, philosophers can be found nearly everywhere doing useful work and making good money. You should not let concerns about career prospects drive you away from studying philosophy.
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1.4.1 What Can You Do with a Philosophy Major?

1 Introduction to Philosophy

1.1 What Is Philosophy?

1.1.1 Historical Origins of Philosophy

1.1.2 How It All Hangs Together

1.2 How Do Philosophers Arrive at Truth?

1.2.1 Sources of Evidence

1.2.2 Logic

1.2.3 Conceptual Analysis

1.2.4 Trade-offs

1.3 Socrates as a Paradigmatic Historical Philosopher

1.3.1 “The Life Which Is Unexamined Is Not Worth Living”

1.3.2 Human Wisdom Is Worth Little or Nothing

1.3.3 The Importance of Doing No Harm

1.4 An Overview of Contemporary Philosophy

1.4.2 An Overview of Your Philosophy Textbook

2 Critical Thinking, Research, Reading, and Writing

2.1 The Brain Is an Inference Machine

2.1.1 The Brain’s Adaptive Ability to Plan Ahead

2.1.2 The Evolutionary Advantage of Shortcuts

2.2 Overcoming Cognitive Biases and Engaging in Critical Reflection

2.2.1 Critical Reflection and Metacognition

2.2.2 Cognitive Biases

2.3 Developing Good Habits of Mind

2.3.1 Strive for Objectivity

2.3.2 Adopt Epistemic Humility

2.4 Gathering Information, Evaluating Sources, and Understanding Evidence

2.4.1 Start with a Strong Foundation

2.4.2 The SIFT Method (Four Moves for Student Fact Checkers)

2.5 Reading Philosophy

2.5.1 Prepare to Read

2.5.2 Engaging with Philosophical Texts

2.5.3 Pre-reading

2.5.4 First Read

2.5.5 Close Read

2.6 Writing Philosophy Papers

2.6.1 Identify Claims

2.6.2 Collect Evidence and Build Your Case

2.6.3 Organize Your Paper

3 The Early History of Philosophy around the World

3.1 Indigenous Philosophy

3.1.1 Challenges in Researching Indigenous Philosophy

3.1.2 Indigenous African Philosophy

3.1.3 Indigenous North American Philosophical Thought

3.1.4 Mesoamerican Philosophy

3.2 Classical Indian Philosophy

3.2.1 The Vedic Tradition

3.2.2 Classical Indian Darshanas

3.3 Classical Chinese Philosophy

3.3.1 Early Chinese Philosophical Thought prior to Confucius

3.3.2 Confucianism

3.3.3 Daoism

3.3.4 Mohism

4 The Emergence of Classical Philosophy

4.1 Historiography and the History of Philosophy

4.1.1 Presentist Approach

4.1.2 Contextualist Approach

4.1.3 Hermeneutic Approach

4.2 Classical Philosophy

4.2.1 Egyptian Origins of Classical Philosophy

4.2.2 Ancient Greek Philosophy

4.2.3 The Presocratics

4.2.4 Socrates and Plato

4.2.5 Aristotle

4.2.6 Epicureans

4.2.7 Roman Philosophy

4.3 Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Philosophy

4.3.1 Defining Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Philosophy

4.3.2 Early Jewish Philosophy

4.3.3 Early Christian Philosophy

4.3.4 Islamic Philosophy

4.3.5 Late Medieval Philosophy in Christian Europe

4.3.6 Jewish Philosophers in the Christian and Islamic Worlds

4.3.7 The Rise of Reason in the Early Modern Era

5 Logic and Reasoning

5.1 Philosophical Methods for Discovering Truth

5.1.1 Dialectics and Philosophical Argumentation

5.1.2 The Use of Reason to Discover Truth

5.1.3 Testing Hypotheses

5.1.4 Laws of Logic

5.1.5 Normativity in Logic

5.2 Logical Statements

5.2.1 Conditionals

5.2.2 Universal Statements

5.3 Arguments

5.3.1 Getting to the Premises

5.3.2 The Difference between Truth and Logic

5.4 Types of Inferences

5.4.1 Deductive Reasoning

5.4.2 Inductive Inferences

5.4.3 Abductive Reasoning

5.5 Informal Fallacies

5.5.1 Fallacies of Relevance

5.5.2 Fallacies of Weak Induction

5.5.3 Fallacies of Unwarranted Assumption

5.5.4 Fallacies of Diversion

6 Metaphysics

6.1 Substance

6.1.1 Fundamentality: The One and the Many

6.1.2 Ontological Perspectives on Substance