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b450today at 4:09 PM1 replyview on HN

Philosophy students tend to be understandably insecure about the value and prestige of their field, and study often ends up indirectly training students to defend philosophy. Impressive-sounding pontificating, problematizing, cranking out arguments and fallacies and refutations, deploying jargon and historical references. There's a whole toolkit used to dazzle, bewilder, and cow the untrained. Not to mention outright self-promotion, like Chalmers in this article: oh yeah these companies totally desperately need more philosophy graduates!

It's great preparation for law school, as a commenter has already pointed out, since skill in one game carries over to the other. The value of philosophy outside a self-referential intellectual game is extremely dubious, and I think one can reasonably argue that philosophical training does more harm than good by inculcating bizarre/narrow/counterproductive intellectual habits/commitments/bugaboos. But philosophers have tricked themselves into places where they really have no business being, like hospital ethics panels. Cool for these guys though, it seems harmless.


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samrustoday at 4:14 PM

> The value of philosophy outside a self-referential intellectual game is extremely dubious

I wouldnt go that far. I think your clutching at straws a little bit. Its a real stretch from philosohers are insecure to they are useless. This is the sort of thing confident ignorance gets you, when you dont know how philophy impacts mpdern life so you assume it doesnt because you think you know everything

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