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To answer the baity headline: >William H. “Bill” Miller III ... attributes “much” of his success ... to the “analytical training and habits of mind” his philos

To answer the baity headline: >William H. “Bill” Miller III ... attributes “much” of his success ... to the “analytical training and habits of mind” his philosophical study at Johns Hopkins inculcated. The way he sees it, more students should have the chance for that intellectual stimulation.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago
As SMBC put it - is philosophy valuable? Yes, every day, a thousand times. Is a philosophy credential valuable? No.
- dajohnson89 9y ago
  FWIW I would consider philosophy degree a plus when reviewing job applications.
  - ChrisRR 9y ago
    Depends what the job is for
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - tw1010 9y ago
    A positive addition, sure. But when accounting for opportunity cost (not getting a degree in something more valuable) then I think the balance shifts in favour of graduating in something else.
  - meddlepal 9y ago
    I have a philosophy degree with a CS minor... it has served me well so in my career and I think it's absolutely a killer combination whether you do it as Phil major/CS minor or CS major/Phil minor or even double major.
    - throwawayjava 9y ago
      Ditto for most humanity+(high-paying STEM field) combos, really.
  - Waterluvian 9y ago
    Oh absolutely. But not if it substitutes for the geomatics degree ot whatnot that I'm looking for.
  - dsacco 9y ago
    In what context, and a plus over what other degrees? I don't agree that it's a plus unless the candidate has double majored in a relevant degree, or did a philosophy BSc. and a relevant MSc afterwards. If I were reviewing applications for a software engineering role, I would primarily prioritize computer science and electrical engineering degrees, then secondarily mathematics and physics degrees. Of the subset without a degree in STEM, I'd probably weight philosophy higher than some alternatives, but they still wouldn't have priority unless their professional experience was more impressive than other candidates. I was initially a philosophy major during my undergrad (up to and including 300 and 400 level courses in Kant). I don't think philosophy degrees are a useful signal to compare against more targeted degrees. They can certainly teach logical and abstract thinking; however, at at the default level of effort I've observed, most students do not graduate a philosophy degree with significant enough critical thinking skills to overcome the sheer amount of domain knowledge they're missing by not having studied computer science. And it gets difficult to specify exactly what it would look like for a philosophy major to make up for the lack of computer science education by having superlative reasoning ability, if that's the case. Ideally you want a student who demonstrated that they put significant effort into their academic work, enough to intellectually grasp it, apply it and reason about it. If you have two students who appear to have put equal effort into their studies, I can't see why philosophy would be a plus. A philosophy degree will be a net negative for the professional functions of a software engineering role unless the applicant has spent significant time overcoming the lag in programming experience and computer science understanding. In other words, I think people use philosophy degrees as a proxy for overall intelligence and reasoning ability, or maybe even academic effort. But I consider that to be a red herring - philosophy studies are useful, but they don't intrinsically encourage more effort and engagement than more relevant degrees do, and the skills they offer are far less relevant for the professional work of engineers (not irrelevant, just missing quite a lot). If a candidate demonstrates strong suitability for a software engineering role with a philosophy degree, they probably would have excelled with or without it because they had to be motivated enough to self-study computer science anyway. The philosophy major in particular doesn't encapsulate or confer that kind of motivation and engagement, so it's better to just look for a targeted degree. Again, this isn't to say philosophy isn't useful - much of my dialectic style comes from Wittgenstein. It's just that on its own philosophy is like arithmetic: fundamentally useful and broadly applicable in everyday life, but not nearly enough to prepare one for a software engineering job.
  - oelmekki 9y ago
    Totally agree. I went to philosophy section of university myself (although, I didn't go up to a degree, it was mostly for my own interest) and later recruited a developer who attended too. It was a pleasant surprise to realize it was so much easier for us to write specs and discuss issues and possible solutions on github together. We were just more used to think on "paper" and to articulate our ideas by writing them, which allowed us to be really comfortable doing async work and to communicate complex ideas. It was really appreciated, among all those "hum... I'll call you, it will be easier".
    - peoplewindow 9y ago
      But I studied CS and never studied philosophy, and I also prefer to write my thoughts down and not do things via calls. I also like to think of myself as a critical thinker skilled in logic (whether I am or not is hard to say in the absence of an objective definition and test). I learned logic, writing and debating skills from sites like Slashdot, Hacker News and other online forums. Might sound silly, but these sites host huge online written debates all day every day around the clock, for years on end, with real-time scoring and feedback based on what you write and not who you are. It's a pretty great gladiatorial training ground for philosophy.
      - oelmekki 9y ago
        Oh yeah, totally, I'm not saying thinking on paper is something that can't be achieved without studying philosophy, just that it's something all philosophy students are trained to do. Certainly, a willing and rigorous individual will get there anyway :) You also probably find the same skill in other domains specialized in written rational thinking, like History or law. A note about debating skills, though: from the second year (at least in my university), we were asked to try to explain why someone is right, rather than why they're wrong. I found this shocking at first, especially because teachers were making us study the authors they loved and then ask us to explain why they were right. It sounded like brainwashing, at first. But later I realized it was actually the best skill I learned there. When you're discussing an author, a developer's work, almost any kind of work, really, you're basically taking 10 minutes of your attention to refute work that took maybe years, or even a life. Most likely, the objections you'll have will be superficial and author/creator will have figured them for a long time. Starting first by trying to understand the goal and the reasoning of author/creator allows to really take advantage of their creation. You may then refute it if you still have problems with it :) (but you'll almost always have a cool idea or two to take away, so it's not lost time)
- aje403 9y ago
  You can make that case for education in any field. A philosophy degree with a strong GPA from a highly ranked school can get your foot in the door in many career paths.
  - dsacco 9y ago
    I think the "highly ranked school" is what matters in that case, not that the degree is in philosophy in particular. If you graduate with a 3.9 from Harvard, your specific degree doesn't matter for many lucrative fields, and you'll have access to connections for the interviews.
    - aje403 9y ago
      Yep, of course. And there's definitely a lower bar of a school pedigree than Harvard to get into a great company or great postgrad or whatever. I guess the general point is, a philosphy degree is really not a big handicap IF you're very bright and/or hard working and on a good trajectory. Unless you want to go into HFT or intern at NASA.
- kijin 9y ago
  There are places in this world for departments of philosophy and degrees in philosophy to exist, and a prestigious research institution like Johns Hopkins is probably one of those places. In most other colleges and universities, I think it would be much more beneficial, to both students and teachers, for philosophy to become part of a common curriculum for everyone rather than remaining its own department with its own major. Knowledge of philosophy is a kind of force multiplier. It can help you become a more thoughtful and ethical person no matter what you do. But if you do nothing apart from philosophy, well, zero multiplied by a force multiplier is still zero. Disclaimer: Got a Ph.D. in philosophy. Currently running my own business.
  - shaki-dora 9y ago
    A degree in philosophy is at least as helpful as any other degree in many jobs where having a degree matters while the specifics don’t. And, yes, there are many such jobs: consulting (McKinsey, BCG,..), finance, politics (not just elected, but staff), journalism, etc.
    - pqh 9y ago
      I think it may be the degree in those cases.
  - justin66 9y ago
    > In most other colleges and universities, I think it would be much more beneficial, to both students and teachers, for philosophy to become part of a common curriculum for everyone rather than remaining its own department with its own major. I don't see how that would benefit anyone more than the current situation, where a degree program will typically require one or two philosophy classes. It seems to me that the only reason to simply not have the philosophy degree program would be if there weren't enough faculty to teach the classes. (unless you're arguing for a sort of common "humanities" degree, which I guess I would have to think about) > Knowledge of philosophy is a kind of force multiplier. It can help you become a more thoughtful and ethical person no matter what you do. But if you do nothing apart from philosophy, well, zero multiplied by a force multiplier is still zero. > Disclaimer: Got a Ph.D. in philosophy. Currently running my own business. Did it seem to you that philosophy drew the kind of students (other than you, of course) who had no "force" to multiply, such that the philosophy degree program was a waste of time for them? I didn't take my study of philosophy as far as you did (I got a BA), but I bet you saw a lot of your fellow students go on to be successful professionals, as I saw.
harrisjt 9y ago
Couldn't he have donated to a different university that could effect more students rather than a school with a $3.381 billion endowment?
- bvod 9y ago
  Sure but we can always find an arbitrarily 'better' use of any donation by looking at it from a utilitarian perspective

JoeAltmaier 9y ago

As SMBC put it - is philosophy valuable? Yes, every day, a thousand times. Is a philosophy credential valuable? No.

dajohnson89 9y ago
FWIW I would consider philosophy degree a plus when reviewing job applications.
- ChrisRR 9y ago
  Depends what the job is for
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- tw1010 9y ago
  A positive addition, sure. But when accounting for opportunity cost (not getting a degree in something more valuable) then I think the balance shifts in favour of graduating in something else.
- meddlepal 9y ago
  I have a philosophy degree with a CS minor... it has served me well so in my career and I think it's absolutely a killer combination whether you do it as Phil major/CS minor or CS major/Phil minor or even double major.
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    Ditto for most humanity+(high-paying STEM field) combos, really.
- Waterluvian 9y ago
  Oh absolutely. But not if it substitutes for the geomatics degree ot whatnot that I'm looking for.
- dsacco 9y ago
  In what context, and a plus over what other degrees? I don't agree that it's a plus unless the candidate has double majored in a relevant degree, or did a philosophy BSc. and a relevant MSc afterwards. If I were reviewing applications for a software engineering role, I would primarily prioritize computer science and electrical engineering degrees, then secondarily mathematics and physics degrees. Of the subset without a degree in STEM, I'd probably weight philosophy higher than some alternatives, but they still wouldn't have priority unless their professional experience was more impressive than other candidates. I was initially a philosophy major during my undergrad (up to and including 300 and 400 level courses in Kant). I don't think philosophy degrees are a useful signal to compare against more targeted degrees. They can certainly teach logical and abstract thinking; however, at at the default level of effort I've observed, most students do not graduate a philosophy degree with significant enough critical thinking skills to overcome the sheer amount of domain knowledge they're missing by not having studied computer science. And it gets difficult to specify exactly what it would look like for a philosophy major to make up for the lack of computer science education by having superlative reasoning ability, if that's the case. Ideally you want a student who demonstrated that they put significant effort into their academic work, enough to intellectually grasp it, apply it and reason about it. If you have two students who appear to have put equal effort into their studies, I can't see why philosophy would be a plus. A philosophy degree will be a net negative for the professional functions of a software engineering role unless the applicant has spent significant time overcoming the lag in programming experience and computer science understanding. In other words, I think people use philosophy degrees as a proxy for overall intelligence and reasoning ability, or maybe even academic effort. But I consider that to be a red herring - philosophy studies are useful, but they don't intrinsically encourage more effort and engagement than more relevant degrees do, and the skills they offer are far less relevant for the professional work of engineers (not irrelevant, just missing quite a lot). If a candidate demonstrates strong suitability for a software engineering role with a philosophy degree, they probably would have excelled with or without it because they had to be motivated enough to self-study computer science anyway. The philosophy major in particular doesn't encapsulate or confer that kind of motivation and engagement, so it's better to just look for a targeted degree. Again, this isn't to say philosophy isn't useful - much of my dialectic style comes from Wittgenstein. It's just that on its own philosophy is like arithmetic: fundamentally useful and broadly applicable in everyday life, but not nearly enough to prepare one for a software engineering job.
- oelmekki 9y ago
  Totally agree. I went to philosophy section of university myself (although, I didn't go up to a degree, it was mostly for my own interest) and later recruited a developer who attended too. It was a pleasant surprise to realize it was so much easier for us to write specs and discuss issues and possible solutions on github together. We were just more used to think on "paper" and to articulate our ideas by writing them, which allowed us to be really comfortable doing async work and to communicate complex ideas. It was really appreciated, among all those "hum... I'll call you, it will be easier".
  - peoplewindow 9y ago
    But I studied CS and never studied philosophy, and I also prefer to write my thoughts down and not do things via calls. I also like to think of myself as a critical thinker skilled in logic (whether I am or not is hard to say in the absence of an objective definition and test). I learned logic, writing and debating skills from sites like Slashdot, Hacker News and other online forums. Might sound silly, but these sites host huge online written debates all day every day around the clock, for years on end, with real-time scoring and feedback based on what you write and not who you are. It's a pretty great gladiatorial training ground for philosophy.
    - oelmekki 9y ago
      Oh yeah, totally, I'm not saying thinking on paper is something that can't be achieved without studying philosophy, just that it's something all philosophy students are trained to do. Certainly, a willing and rigorous individual will get there anyway :) You also probably find the same skill in other domains specialized in written rational thinking, like History or law. A note about debating skills, though: from the second year (at least in my university), we were asked to try to explain why someone is right, rather than why they're wrong. I found this shocking at first, especially because teachers were making us study the authors they loved and then ask us to explain why they were right. It sounded like brainwashing, at first. But later I realized it was actually the best skill I learned there. When you're discussing an author, a developer's work, almost any kind of work, really, you're basically taking 10 minutes of your attention to refute work that took maybe years, or even a life. Most likely, the objections you'll have will be superficial and author/creator will have figured them for a long time. Starting first by trying to understand the goal and the reasoning of author/creator allows to really take advantage of their creation. You may then refute it if you still have problems with it :) (but you'll almost always have a cool idea or two to take away, so it's not lost time)
aje403 9y ago
You can make that case for education in any field. A philosophy degree with a strong GPA from a highly ranked school can get your foot in the door in many career paths.
- dsacco 9y ago
  I think the "highly ranked school" is what matters in that case, not that the degree is in philosophy in particular. If you graduate with a 3.9 from Harvard, your specific degree doesn't matter for many lucrative fields, and you'll have access to connections for the interviews.
  - aje403 9y ago
    Yep, of course. And there's definitely a lower bar of a school pedigree than Harvard to get into a great company or great postgrad or whatever. I guess the general point is, a philosphy degree is really not a big handicap IF you're very bright and/or hard working and on a good trajectory. Unless you want to go into HFT or intern at NASA.
kijin 9y ago
There are places in this world for departments of philosophy and degrees in philosophy to exist, and a prestigious research institution like Johns Hopkins is probably one of those places. In most other colleges and universities, I think it would be much more beneficial, to both students and teachers, for philosophy to become part of a common curriculum for everyone rather than remaining its own department with its own major. Knowledge of philosophy is a kind of force multiplier. It can help you become a more thoughtful and ethical person no matter what you do. But if you do nothing apart from philosophy, well, zero multiplied by a force multiplier is still zero. Disclaimer: Got a Ph.D. in philosophy. Currently running my own business.
- shaki-dora 9y ago
  A degree in philosophy is at least as helpful as any other degree in many jobs where having a degree matters while the specifics don’t. And, yes, there are many such jobs: consulting (McKinsey, BCG,..), finance, politics (not just elected, but staff), journalism, etc.
  - pqh 9y ago
    I think it may be the degree in those cases.
- justin66 9y ago
  > In most other colleges and universities, I think it would be much more beneficial, to both students and teachers, for philosophy to become part of a common curriculum for everyone rather than remaining its own department with its own major. I don't see how that would benefit anyone more than the current situation, where a degree program will typically require one or two philosophy classes. It seems to me that the only reason to simply not have the philosophy degree program would be if there weren't enough faculty to teach the classes. (unless you're arguing for a sort of common "humanities" degree, which I guess I would have to think about) > Knowledge of philosophy is a kind of force multiplier. It can help you become a more thoughtful and ethical person no matter what you do. But if you do nothing apart from philosophy, well, zero multiplied by a force multiplier is still zero. > Disclaimer: Got a Ph.D. in philosophy. Currently running my own business. Did it seem to you that philosophy drew the kind of students (other than you, of course) who had no "force" to multiply, such that the philosophy degree program was a waste of time for them? I didn't take my study of philosophy as far as you did (I got a BA), but I bet you saw a lot of your fellow students go on to be successful professionals, as I saw.

harrisjt 9y ago

Couldn't he have donated to a different university that could effect more students rather than a school with a $3.381 billion endowment?

bvod 9y ago
Sure but we can always find an arbitrarily 'better' use of any donation by looking at it from a utilitarian perspective