/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15766557]

I'm at a crossroads and thought I should ask you guys for advice.

At present I can take the short and easy route to study law, or the long and difficult route to study philosophy. I prefer philosophy.
My question is: to what extent is a university education in philosophy essential to philosophical understanding?
Is it possible to reach an university-level understanding of philosophy on your own?
How much would you miss out by not going through curriculum and fringe philosophers?
I think the possibility to study both philosophy and law is present, but I want to know first whether I need bother at all about curriculum.

TL;DR 'CAN I LEARN PHILOSOPHY ON MY OWN OR SHOULD I GET A DEGREE?'

[Anonymous No.15766667]

are you planning on getting employment with a philosophy degree? it would be hard to do so and you would be better off doing law for occupation and studying philosophy in your own time and not pay thousands for it.

i am a 22 year old neet whom dropped out of uni twice so and has never worked so you can tell i obviously know what i am talking about

[Anonymous No.15766679]

I had a similar thought 20 years ago. I went the money route.

Study law. Take as many electives as you can squeeze in philosophy courses. Read philosophy books for fun. Start with the Greeks obviously start branching out.

Then when you have the money, take one or two courses per semester. Get a PhD in philosophy if you want.

I think it's dumb to try to evaluate and self-reflect life as a peasant.

[Anonymous No.15766693]

philosophy is a honeypot for losers
you won't get wiser studying philosophy, you do it living and thinking, philosophy won't teach you that, it will teach you modes of thinking.

[Anonymous No.15766703]

>>15766667
That was my thought aswell but I don't think it's too hard if I went to a military academy afterward.
>>15766679
Can you have a job and study at the same time?
Also, what tools do you use to make sure you're really getting the full picture and not just reading pop-psy like Neech and Plato? The more obscure stuff that you only get recommended in academic environments?

[Anonymous No.15766718]

>>15766693
Bro... what if like ... bro what you said was actually true... dayum hadn't thought 'bout it that way, my niggah.

[Anonymous No.15766731]

>>15766718
you welcome friendo
it took me years to get it and you have it for free in a couple of seconds

[Anonymous No.15766735]

>>15766731
Cool, bro.
I'll go back to watching The School of Life videos and afterward, I think i'll bingewatch Marvel again.
Just saved me a whole lot of effort.

[Anonymous No.15766740]

>>15766735
upvote

[Anonymous No.15766741]

>>15766557
The job market for philosophical degrees are terrible - if you pursue a PhD you'll have toil through your dissertation which I heard is fucked, and once you get it all that's pretty much open to you is academic positions, where there's usually like 60 spots for 1000 candidates and you'll have to be actually a genius or networked properly enough to land a job in that case. Study law bro.

[Anonymous No.15766753]

>>15766735
those are ok but if you really want a comprehension of moral and political issues i suggest you check stephen west and his youtube channel philosophize this!

[Anonymous No.15766755]

>>15766741
I'm probably going to study law, but how much am I missing out by not going through curriculum?

[Anonymous No.15766762]

>>15766753
Yeah and skeptic channels are also really good.
Why get a degree when you can just hang back and crack open a cold one with ya boy BlackPigeonSpeaks.

[Anonymous No.15766778]

>>15766718
hes right. people who go to focus on philosophy were too stupid for any other major. philosophy is one of the easiest majors you can do, the philosophy majors I know are all retards who couldn't get by in other majors but needed to graduate. besides, philosophy by itself and for itself is useless and peak pseud. theres a reason for why philosophy majors are unemployable and for why its an easy degree. its a brainlet pseud pursuit. study law and take as much philosophy on the side as you can and also read by yourself. law is close enough to philosophy that understanding both will prove to be an extremely valuable combination if you can effectively apply philosophy to law. this is where philosophy becomes useful and also becomes hard and starts requiring creativity: in its application. you can change entire fields this way.

[Anonymous No.15766779]

>>15766762
you have everything figured it out
good luck bro

[Anonymous No.15766811]

So you're seemingly interested in philosophy for the sake of understanding, but you're also interested in law because it'll feed you. So, for you to choose philosophy, your university would need to guarantee you understanding greater than you could get on your own to such a degree that it's worth compromising your otherwise increased potential to feed yourself. Can it do that? Probably fucking not. They're reading the same books you could buy off Amazon right now, what the fuck are they gonna tell you? The only thing your retardedly large investment is gonna give you is some old fuck walking you through the material, and you have absolutely no way of confirming that old fuck's interpretation of the material is more valid than yours until you know at least as much as he does anyway.

You might as well remortgage your house to have me stand behind you telling you what you're supposed to think and whipping you with a riding crop when you like something I don't.

[Anonymous No.15766837]

>>15766778
Law does seem really adjacent to philosophy, content wise. Recently read Hannah Arendt's review of the Eichmann case and the line between legal and philosophical commentary is really blurred.
I'm just scared that i'll get a biased and amateur philosophy perspective like those WW2 history buffs that know every detail of all the most irrelevant shit but couldn't talk about anything outside of that to save their life.

That's what I most would like to avoid, so i'm wondering how other anons have tried to find ways of keeping it professional, in a sense.

[Anonymous No.15766855]

>>15766811
That's a pretty good description of the situation.
When I visited the university during an open day it did seem to be a rich kid's bookclub.
Law is pretty much applied philosophy anyways.

[Anonymous No.15766866]

>>15766557
i took history and basically just focused on the history of philosophy lol. so basically i studied philosophy but got a domewhat useful degree out of it. i would recommend my cheat route desu.

[Anonymous No.15766887]

>>15766866
What's the difference between history of philosophy and philosophy? What about post-modern philosophers?

Also, how is history more useful than philosophy? Seems like with philosophy you could get into judicial work, at the very least.
Probs going to study law.

[Anonymous No.15766999]

>what do
I have hit an absolute motivational dead end with my current major (engineering) despite not failing any classes because I'm good at maths etc. which doesn't help me with the practical stuff. After recently getting a bit of job experience at a research institute I have concluded that I would rather live in the streets or off myself than work as a demotivated engineer for my entire life. I had decided to switch to philosophy and give it my all but threads like these are really demoralizing. Are they from a purely American "100.000 dollar debt" perspective or is it universally hopeless?

[Anonymous No.15767012]

>>15766999
i'm south american
it's even worse here
Americans and europeans come here because they fail in their countries and take positions that should be for us

[Anonymous No.15767020]

Can't you get into law school with a philosophy BA?

[Anonymous No.15767054]

>>15766999
I'm European but from a working class background. If you have money, do what you want. If you are like me, and have to strategically choose a route because of debilitating factors and circumstances, then you should probably not study something fancy like arts, philosophy or even physics.

Philosophy is for people whose father is a surgeon or CEO.

[Anonymous No.15767064]

>>15767012
Wtf lol, thirdies do the same for us but in reverse.
>>15767020
Problem in my case is deciding the bachelors. The Netherlands isn't flexible. I have to go through HBO (Applied Sciences) in order to study at a University. There's no philosophy courses for applied sciences, expectedly.

[Anonymous No.15767079]

>>15767064
Opression and diversity quotas at work but the ones you take are the better ones while the ones we take are the worst ones of you

[Anonymous No.15767093]

>>15767079
We're both fucked. I don't care about the best Indians or the worst Indians. Jobs are kiked from under our noses just the same.

[Anonymous No.15767209]

>>15766557
Before you listen to all the fatalists who'll tell you that philosophy majors invariably end up cooking french fries, do look into your country/state/whatevers statistics on philosophy majors' employment. Mostly, the philosophy-majors-are-chronically-unemployed meme is complete and utter bullshit. Look into that, and see how they fare in your area. Most do quite well. You do not need to go into academia after doing philosophy.

Another thing to keep in mind is that philosophy tends to attract many different people - a not insignificant minority are complete and total fuck-ups who like to smoke weed for breakfast and talk about like, the universe and stuff, man, while others, many, are highly intelligent and extremely capable. This will invariably skew the statistics. If a complete and utter fuck up studies something gay and vocational at his "university"/trade school, such as accounting or software development, he will still find a job. A philosophy major will not, because philosophy does not give you credentials which open doors automatically. It requires that you apply yourself more, not only during the studies, but afterwards as well.

>At present I can take the short and easy route to study law, or the long and difficult route to study philosophy. I prefer philosophy.
Think long and hard about whether you could live with the could-have-been. Think long and hard on whether you want to do legal work. Do some research on what philosophy majors end up doing, and think about whether you could see yourself doing this. You get one shot at consciousness. Never take the "safe" route if you don't really want to just because it is safe.
>My question is: to what extent is a university education in philosophy essential to philosophical understanding?
>Is it possible to reach an university-level understanding of philosophy on your own?
I genuinely believe that it is possible to develop philosophical understanding entirely on your own, but I think it is much, much harder. Further, philosophy, unlike what many may believe, is not an entirely solitary activity. It is invaluable to have partners you can discuss with on a high level of expertise. You may be able to find that outside the network you'd make at a university, but it will be incredibly difficult. And you really should not underestimate how much of a head-start you get with several years of dedicated, full time study of a subject. Even if you manage to squeeze in an entire hour a day of solitary study after your lawyer-job, which is unlikely, as philosophy is a highly intellectually demanding pursuit, it is likely you will spend almost an entire lifetime reaching what you could have reached with concentrated study at the university.

>>15766679
This man is +40 and posts on 4chan. Be mindful of what kind of people give you advice.

>>15766778
Philosophy majors rank third highest in IQ, cope more with your bug life. Go be useful.

[Anonymous No.15767250]

Is it possible to effectively self-study critical thinking and logic, given I already have the learning material like a textbook and workbook, or would it be better to take college courses in them to get feedback and prevent the potential for misunderstanding?

[Anonymous No.15767303]

>>15767064
Oh, my bad I always forget that other countries don't have America's retarded undergrad system

[Anonymous No.15767332]

>>15766557
You should only get a philosophy degree if you’re getting it from one of the very best schools, because if you aren’t good enough to get in there then you won’t make a sizeable enough contribution to the field to study it