If you never had a crisis when studying philosophy during which you were wondering wether it is worth studying at all, did you even really study it in depth?

So, where do you work?

I think Western capitalist culture has slowly eroded the value of thinking in favor of doing and, through gradual financial coercion via the International Monetary Fund, this has slowly become the global dominant worldview.

In other words, you were born a few centuries too late for philosophy to be valued. Even in the past it was often met with scrutiny (though often commanded respect).

Nowadays thinkers are expected to ascend corporate ladders and embed themselves within instituions with the ultimate goal of extracting excess capital beyond ones needs from said institutions. That is what the current global value system supports.

Quality of life wise philosophy is the best. Its the basis of most everything. I would be scared as heck to be looking for work with just that though. When I had an opportunity to get a masters I picked up education partially because I was interested in it but also because its largely a mix of philosophy, psychology, and statistics. Likely as close as I could get to philosophy while still being sellable on my resume.

I personally think anybody here saying your negative response is because people hate thinkers or anti intellectualism or whatever are totally missing the point. Those things are certainly true. But probably not why you get weird looks.

Probably it’s a combination of 2 things:

1. In 2025 philosophy, English, history, poetry, etc are to greater or lesser extents “hobby degrees”. People enjoy the topics generally but don’t see a way to repay loans using that degree, because if you’re not going to go teach it or write the next book, there’s no money in it. These are things we do with our free time for the love of it.

2. By extension of 1, if you CAN have one of these degrees you either a) have a boatload of money, b) you must be naive of the fact (according to people you are talking to) that your job prospects are very limited, or c) you have extreme aptitude to be part of the small group that can make it, but everybody will still limp you into b.

I have a friend who majored in music in college, but not to teach: it was specifically to play timpani. He also was perplexed at the negative reactions he would get. Unfortunately that’s when someone told him that there are only like 10 professional concert timpanist positions in the country that provide a salary you can live from, and the rest just moonlight and have other jobs. After 1 year if hunting a good position he sold his drums and got a job in marketing selling windows and siding.

Of course the world would be less vibrant without professionals in these areas, but there are a lot more philosophy majors working in, say, marketing than there are Humes, Kants, Socrateses, Hegels, and so on.

Basically it doesn’t look practical so it seems like either a bad financial choice or that you’re a spoiled rich kid unless you mention “double major” type stuff.

BUT HOW DO JOB WIF HUMAMBNETEES DUGREE?

That’s basically why.

I think it’s cool as hell. We all need to read philosophy. I really wish I’d had the bandwidth to do something similar along with my own chosen path. Mad respect.

Just imagining the wasted time and brain power makes me uncomfortable

I have a degree in philosophy and a degree in therapy and i promise the therapy part makes people way more uncomfortable than the philosophy part. I never really encountered weird attitudes about philosophy tbh. maybe it’s how I own it. I very earnestly live like a Socrates - Diogenes hybrid and try to make smart stuff sound dumb and safe to engage the community neurons. and my general excitement about it, if my philosophy background comes up, it’s from a place of passionate curiosity where we’re already talking about interesting shit and me using the ph word just makes them think “oh we’re about to get into it”.

it could also be the context with which ppl get to know me is more receptive to philosophical conversations. I genuinely believe that therapy is literally just a modern philosophy practice.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours outside a university course studying epistemology. It’s one of the most valuable skills I’ve ever learned.

I spread epistemology like a virus. Thank you philosophy, for the vessel you lend your brother.

I think a philosophy degree is cool as hell. Fuck anyone who thinks otherwise.

I find philosophy fascinating. I’m especially fascinated by logic and logical fallacies.

When you repeatedly call out a theist for faulty logic, its so satisfying.

Those crappy old chairs in the classrooms have no lumbar support.

In this dissonant world people are afraid of logic as they may be vexed by what is discovered.

it makes me sleepy

Philosophy gets a bad rap, even by fellow academics sometimes. Commonly cited criticisms are that it has become too prosaic and detached from society at large. Maybe that’s true of some philosophers but I don’t see a problem with people studying something purely for the joy of learning and there are philosophers who do an excellent job of explaining philosophical ideas to lay audiences, Alain de Botton immediately springs to mind. Status Anxiety is among my favourite videos.

The reality is that we have too few people who think about what it means to live a good life and make a wholesome society