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I had a think about the people from Philosophy I kept track of and I can honestly say they are now predominantly upper-middle, unless they stuck to academia, wh

• eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  >There's a schism in philosophy between analytic - the more "logical" side, with rigorous proofs and arguments - and continental - the more "what is art/ethics/love" side. I was firmly interested in the continental side. Of those that left philosophy, I found that continental people would often end up in some kind of community-oriented area, like education or sociology or social work or the like, whereas on the analytic side, people tended to end up doing physics/maths/comp sci type stuff. Ironically, I'm a comp-sci/math type person, and I regard continental philosophy a bunch better than analytic. Continental philosophy usually considers matters inside their social and historical context, so at least sometimes, when they can be bothered to refer to the real world, they're referring to it with a solid context. Whereas analytic philosophy often seems to me to suffer from math-envy, and to formalize too early and too often. The result is that analytic philosophers spend a lot of time debating over what they think are rigorous, scientifically-grounded concepts when in fact our best science says that things just don't work that way or the theories aren't "done cooking". (I'm thinking of a Stanford Philosophy Encyclopedia page someone directed me to last night on "reductionism", which was given three definitions, none of which matched what a working scientist would usually call reductionism. Or of the very concept of supervenience, which needs less metaphysics and more information theory. Or of the perennial debates over the "Hard Problem" of consciousness.)
  • tomlock 11y ago
    Yeah, I feel like I'm totally on the same page as you. Analytic philosophy always seemed like a bit of fun to me, but seemed to boil down to logic games that have as much application to the real world (as a simulation and explanation of it) as boolean, programmed representations of it do. Which is to say, some. That doesn't mean I don't have immense respect for analytic philosophers, but I have the type of respect for them that I also have for fiction writers that create immensely consistent and engaging fantasy worlds. Zing! Continental seemed to me to more generally have the view that all debates and philosophies were necessarily making ontological and epistemological claims. That immensely appeals to me.
• noobermin 11y ago
  Thank you for your reply. I was downvoted perhaps because people read my identification of the stereotype and thought that was my emphasis, but I honestly was curious. I myself am a physics type but I'm an armchair (or kiddie chair, really) philosopher. I specifically love philosophy of math and science because it's closest I can get to it without feeling too guilty with wasting free time on something other than grad school (cough). My two favorite non-physics courses in undergrad were humanities types, a "Presidential Leadership" (history writing) course, and a general ed philosophy course. I would say that the philosophy course was one of the most important classes for I took in my five years in undergrad. The reason I asked about whether it was a rule or even common is I hear about it often that I wanted to believe it was true, so I wanted others' experience. Philosophy, hell, history is hard, at least it was for me, so I don't doubt people who think about such things are really intelligent...and that intelligence can't translate well to something like hacking of mathematics. It's good to hear it in your case it worked in your favor.
  • tomlock 11y ago
    No worries, I appreciated the question! I think it got downvoted because it is a question or thought that is posed quite a lot.