Who here studies or studied philosophy at the graduate level? How was it and what do you do now? I'm considering going into academia but terrified by the job market
Very bad. Philosophy is one of the few holdouts of the human sciences that haven't been overrun by broads, unlike sociology, anthropology, and history. It still has a tinge of autism to it. But it suffers from the same overspecialisation and has few "uomini universali." But if you really love philosophy, and you're already committed to going into academia (this is the kicker), you can sort of find your place in it. It will be moderately less torturous than going to study cultural anthropology and being drowned in people studying Fat Acceptance in Transgender Communes.
Academia is an extremely bad prospect right now, across the board. Only go into it if you love it and you're willing to suffer for it. You should not go into academia if you're looking for a mildly interesting job to keep you stimulated. You should go into it if you're a weird dude who wants to be a scholar at any cost.
Also, do some research into the continental / analytic divide in the Anglosphere. Its starkness is slightly exaggerated, but not all that exaggerated. I'm studying stuff that is pretty considerably off the beaten path, and I had to pull a few miracles to find a niche that will accept me. Stuff like Comp Lit or even one of the cucked disciplines in the Humanities might be a better choice, depending.
>>8154777
I studied philosophy.
>What I expected: Deep and ground-breaking debate involving Plato/Aristotle/Socrates/Kant/Schopenhauer/Nietzsche and pretty much all the names we associate with philosophy.
>What I got: A glorified maths class, brimming with analytic bullshit and all sorts of stupid symbols/equations and generally everything dull about philosophy. The turd sandwich was topped off with generous amounts of Post-Structuralism/Modernism.
>>8154801
You got philosophy. You should have studied literature, sounds more up your alley.
Graduate student in a highly ranked "analytic" department here.
As far as getting a job: it's unspeakably abysmal. Pedigree matters. Ranking of your graduate program matters. Who your advisor knows matters. Networking matters. Publishing is crucial. If you want to get anywhere, you have to work on a hot topic, and you have to interface with the prevailing discourse surrounding whatever topic you work on. That's part of any academic field, but it's especially frustrating, since a lot of highly visible professional philosophy is a linguistic shell-game, and having to adapt to that discourse can be disheartening. Even if you do all this, your prospects are still bleak. Also, as a grad student, you're fucking poor.
Moreover, it's extremely hard. Philosophy tries to see how everything hangs together. That is extremely difficult. Making an original, interesting and plausible contribution is extremely hard. That's partly why most people in field are like custodians; they make a minor contribution to a research program or question set by one of the handful of geniuses/rock-stars in the field. It's also partly why so many philosophers regard themselves as empirical scientists working at a particularly abstract level: read some empirical literature, draw some distinctions with or about it, produce something serious-looking, call it a day.
Moreover, it's extremely easy for your enthusiasm for philosophy to wane. For the above two reasons, but also because you start off with some grand topic that seems urgent to you (how does language work? what gives me the right to believe in an external world? what is the ultimate justification for the claims of morality?), but you realize that these grand topics hide enormous complexity that you have to be utterly precise about. So the only way to pursue your grand topic is to get into the details, and surprise: you started off wanting to know about moral truth, and now you're working on the formal semantics of modals in natural language.
The common advice is absolutely true: avoid entirely unless you are absolutely certain that studying philosophy brings you more satisfaction than any other activity, and will continue to do so indefinitely. And be sure you understand what "studying philosophy" actually entails.
>>8155112
No, what I got was the opposite of philosophy.
What I wanted was philosophy.
>>8154801
You sound like a retard.
>>8154801
This is sort of what I meant by "enthusiasm waning." You start off thinking: ah yes, I'm going to tackle the big and important questions. But the only way to do that in a responsible manner is to be utterly precise and meticulous in your reasoning. Analytic philosophy may go overboard with this, I admit, and I have nothing to say in defense of post-structuralism. But what you got was philosophy. It sounds like what you wanted was stoned undergraduate speculation.
>>8155875
>But the only way to do that in a responsible manner is to be utterly precise and meticulous in your reasoning.
I realized this, which is why I'm writing a Nietzsche/Schopenhauer-style book of essays and aphorisms that removes the need for all of that bullshit.
>>8155886
Well I wish you the best of luck in that project. Care to post an aphorism for us?
>>8155886
That's not philosophy. That's called having opinions.
>>8154777
Forget it, and go into a field that actually has a solid job market. Every tenure-track position I apply for has 200+ qualified applicants, so I'm in adjunct hell, making less than a McDonald's manager. Become an MD and read whatever you like in your free time in your nice house.
>>8155858
t. Analytic Anglo
>>8155916
Adjunct hell is indeed hell. You poor bastard.
>>8155900
#32
Paguroidea moribus - Advocating or espousing that belief or ideology which you do not believe to be true, but merely useful: this is 'paguroidea moribus', or, 'hermit crab morality.' Whosoever engages in this behaviour, for that is what it is, doubles his enemies at the expense of his friends; for those who truly subscribe to the belief or ideology in question, will have no time for these impostors, whilst those who do not subscribe will hold such a pantomime in terrible esteem. Nowhere is the former more evident than with so-called 'Cultural Christians', who find themselves more viscerally despised by the 'true' Christian, than by his fellow unbelievers (for that is what he truly is) whom he has forsaken in his folly. Why is this? No doubt, it is because they know that such a man sees them (and their beliefs) as mere means, rather than an end. Should any other creeds provide the things he wants: whether positively, in the form of broad values such as justice and love, or negatively, acting as a bulwark against those things he does not want ('degeneracy', the decline of filiality, etc) - he will feel himself drawn to it, irresistibly so, if it is proven to be more powerful and enduring than whatever came before. Like the hermit crab, he will always seek a bigger shell to better suit his needs (and wants?) - but where none can be found, he will feign contentment (affection, even, if he happens to betray himself) for whichever one he has at any given time.
>>8154793
Why do you assume everyone has far right views?
>>8155968
He's assuming the opposite, dumb shit, and he's right.
>>8154801
Get lost.
>>8155947
That's not philosophy. That's the mad raving of a child
>>8154801
Analytic philosophy is a complete dead end. Just ignore it altogether. You can even enjoy the benefits of the few brilliant Anglos without knowing much logic.
>>8157236
> That's not philosophy. That's the mad raving of a child
Why even say post this? It doesn't even make sense? 'mad ravings?' - what about it i mad, or has a raving-like quality? 'Of a child' - why?
Lit is so fucking shit I swear
>>8154793
>>8154801
>>8155843
>>8155886
>>8155917
>>8155947
>>8157249
>>8157272
it's simply trash. A shallow, derivative attempt to mimic the few continental philosophers that had anything of worth to say. Anything said here has already been said and said better
>>8154777
Well I just returned my master's thesis in philosophy few weeks ago. I completed my studies in a mediocre European university ranked at 350-401 in "THE" world uni rankings.
I worked few years after high and contemplated which subject to pursue at uni level. I decided to go with philosophy since it was basically the only thing that I could see myself doing for the rest of my life. I still don't regret my decision, but academic philosophy is nothing like you would expect as an outsider.
Basically I have completed all my studies with excellent grades, including my bachelor's thesis and probably my master's thesis too. It is mandatory to be able to speak, write and understand three different languages in addition to your native language if you want to graduate from philosophy in my uni. I guess they demand this so that philosophy majors have better chances at getting a job. They also force you to study basics in math and logic, which can be really hard for some students who are not that talented in those subjects. I'd say the first 2-3 years you spend 80% of your time doing stuff that has actually nothing to do with philosophy, since the study program is full of fillers and courses that teach you practical academic or work related skills.
After finishing your bachelor's degree you are thrown into the master's program which consists of highly specialized courses held by professors who have done work on those subjects. These courses are extremely hard to pass and only few people per year get the best grades from these classes/seminars. Then there is the master's thesis which you have to do basically all by yourself on a subject someone from your uni might or might not have even heard of. In my uni the requirement for the extensiveness of the master's thesis is actually so large, that the estimated time reserved for it is 12 months working as a full time student. Out of 15 people graduating each year only 0-1 people get the highest possible score from their master's thesis.
Basically after doing all this you graduate with no chance of getting a job unless you have done teacher studies on the side. You can get a permission to pursue as a postdoc student pretty easily, but the problem is that no one will fund your studies. Usually people wait 2-5 years after graduation before they get their first grant, after which they can study as a postdoc student for 3-6 months.
My advice is that if you have some specific philosophical subject that you want to study full time often with no one else to help you or study with you, then go for it. You have to be really persistent, and actually talented too, if you want to make it anywhere in life with philosophy. The positive side is that those who make it, get to do what they love for the rest of their life while getting paid well also.
>people unironically defend sterile analytic sperging as the only way of doing real philosophy
rec for anyone put off by shit philosophy:
http://againstprofphil.org/
>>8157295
One day you'll have to grow up and realize not all of philosophy is a collection of witty aphorisms and obfuscate sophism. There is good in both continental and analytic philosophy. There's nothing sterile about it if you're interested in the subject matter
>>8157284
First you said it was 'mad ravings' - now it's derivative...right, yeah, you seem like a guy who knows what's up.
I don't know why i'm doing this but...
> A shallow, derivative attempt to mimic the few continental philosophers that had anything of worth to say.
What continental philosophers have you read in depth? What one's have you read even a book of? Can you tell me why Nietzche has important things to say, but Lacan doesn't? I'm not expressing an opinion here on what's worthwhile or not, or that you're worthless, but you're clearly the kind of guy who fronts.
There's absolutely no point in having an anonymous imageboard if people who post on it are still willing to behave as if their personal reputation is at stake.
>>8157296
>here is good in both continental and analytic philosophy.
no shit dumbass, but one tradition traditionally dismisses ways of doing philosophy and certain philosophical problems as not really philosophy.
>>8157296
I agree with this so much!
People need to understand that analytic definition concerns can be just as much an intellectual parlor game as contential obstructiveness
Continental 'philosophy' isn't a thing, except on /lit/. What you people call 'analytic philosophy' is what philosophers actually do.
>>8157301
Positivism was a blip in the history of analytic philosophy and literally died out as a strain of analytic thought in the 50s. Shows what you know.
>>8157301
Positivism is not synonymous with analytic philosophy.
>>8157307
Continental philosophy is still a thing. You just need to do it in a analytic style if you want to get it published in a journal.
Analytic/Continental is more of a historical distinction nowadays. Even the distinction in to theoretical and practical philosophy is getting out of fashion in academic philosophy. There really is no distinction, you just need to do academic philosophy in certain style, the content does not really matter that much.
>>8157308
>analytic narrow-mindedness is exclusive to positivism
someone has never spent time in a university philosophy department
>>8157307
>What you people call 'analytic philosophy' is what autists in anglophone countries do. In non-anglophone countries no one gives a shit about them and they do continental philosophy instead aka what philosophers actually do.
ftfy
>>8157314
This is an English-speaking board, shitskin. Go back to your degenerate shithole country.
>>8157314
>someone has never spent time in a university philosophy department
A few bad apples allows you to make sweeping generalizations about an entire philosophical tradition? How fascinating. The main objection to philosophy (and metaphysics specifically) as a source of substantive questions was epitomized in logical positivism, which is dead. Analytic metaphysics/epistemology/ethics/etc. is alive and well and practiced by the majority, not the minority.
>>8157295
The right way to do philosophy is to prize, above all, clarity and carefulness of argument. But that's not just the ideal of analytic philosophy, it's the ideal of all of Western philosophy up to (and possibly including) Hegel and Continental philosophy thereafter.
Kant and Aristotle deserve criticism for being extremely hard to read, but if you study them even just a little bit, you'll see that just beneath the dense text there is actually extremely sophisticated and considered argumentative structure.
>>8154801
>DUDE Plato/Aristotle/Socrates/Kant/Schopenhauer/Nietzsche LMAO
>>8157290
It's funny. I'm doing my MA at a university whose philosophy program is about #15 in the world rankings, and it's about 10x easier than your supposedly mediocre university.
Our language requirements were a joke. We had to "learn" one language, but the course was a fake, non-graded course, designed to pass everybody who took it.
The running joke of the MA coursework was that everyone gets A+'s as long as they show up, because the professors don't want to fail people and derail their short program.
None of the courses were really with specialists. They were all busywork in fields unrelated to your thesis or specialty.
And the MA thesis? I'm writing it right now. I've read the theses of my classmates, and they are hilarious - 40~ page papers, on the level of an undergrad term paper. I left mine to the last minute, and basically your adviser tells you that he'll pass it no matter what, because what's he going to do, fail your entire year?
And I've already been accepted to one of the top 3-5 universities in the world for philosophy for my PhD, fully funded.
North American academia is a joke tb h.
>>8154801
and then they hit you with peter singer
jdimsa famalam
I am a 36 year old with a PhD in Philosophy. I am $450k in debt and currently working two minimum wage jobs in order to stay alive. I work alongside 18 year olds and whenever they ask about my background I just tell them I've been in prison for a long time, which is less embarrassing than admitting the truth. I am probably the most well-informed Husserl scholar on the North American continent, perhaps in the world. My 1,500 page biography of his life has been rejected several dozen times. No college will take me on since they don't think Husserl is relevant, and that other applicants are therefore pushed to the head of the line. I have had 6 Husserl-related papers published in different journals and philosophical quarterlies, but have earned no money or recognition for having done so. I just moved to Abbeville, Louisiana since there is a job opening at the university in Lafayette and I decided to go all out in order to get it. But I've just found out that my application was rejected and now I'm stuck working at a Wendy's three shifts a week and a Barnes & Noble the rest of the time. I have no wife, no children, and at this point no friends I'm willing to talk to due to the shameful nature of my existence.
>>8158076
want to play cs
>>8158089
I only play Pharaoh (1999)
>>8158076
write your memoirs lad it's a compelling story
>>8158126
I have already written my debut six-part memoir. I am waiting for a worthy publishing house to acknowledge my talent.
>>8155947
This is pretty poorly written my man :/
this thread is really depressing and i want to die
>>8154793
Pretty much this
As a philosopher, I must advise you to stay as far away from university philosophy as possible if you have any real interest in the discipline.
>>8155947
This is actually not bad, but you should both expand a little and then refine it.
/lit/ just hates people who devote thought and effort to anything besides shitposting/Stirnerposting.
>>8158294
as someone who's about to enter into a philosophy undergrad degree course after this summer
>hugging_pepes.jpg
>>8155947
...what
>>8157896
How were you in High School? I have a hard time believing top universities are this easy, though they're often easier than the lower colleges. Maybe the coursework is easier because you're used to it.
>>8157896
>academia is a joke tb h.
Ftfy faggot
>>8154777
>academia
>I think, therefore I am. Offended.
Jesus this board really is full of blue pilled cucks
It's extremely obvious that there is an infinite space for unfalsifiable ideas and even choosing the criteria for ranking ideas is completely subjective. How could you expect philosophy in academia to be anything other than a shitshow? It's mostly just cronyism and PR. It's plainly obvious that everything is subjective.
>>8157896
Everybody knows the more subjective the field the more your institution matters compared to the quality of your work (quality as a social construct obviously). Economics is about the even point where institution and work quality matters equally.
>>8158317
There's nothing wrong with majoring in Philosophy as an undergraduate. It's graduate study that's only for the hardcore.
>>8157896
MA programs are purely revenue-generators. They exist to help subsidize the PHD programs.
Besides teaching and academia, what kind of job can you get with a MA in philosophy?
>>8158591
You have it precisely reversed. Quality of work in Philosophy is rigorous and objective. Economics, in contrast, is junk pseudo-science that exists only to support the status-quo distribution of material resources.
>>8155947
overwritten
>>8158632
Rigour is just avoidance of errors. There is no such thing as objectivity. The is ought problem is staggeringly obvious and unsolvable objectively (I.e. you can only set up your own subjectively chosen axioms).
I could spend 500 pages talking about my Philosophy Of Toilet Aesthetics and stating my axioms and be rigorous.
>>8158076
>I work alongside 18 year olds and whenever they ask about my background I just tell them I've been in prison for a long time, which is less embarrassing than admitting the truth.
i'm saving this as copypasta
>>8158643
>There is no such thing as objectivity.
That may be your philosophical outlook, but it has no objective relevance to this discussion.
>>8158076
Serves you right. You should've studied more authors, even phenomenologists, instead of writing about how many times Husserl drank beer before bed.
>>8158076
>this thread
You guys have bad luck, here's my situation:
> Study for a PhD at a European University with a grant from the government, previously got my Bachelor's and Master's at the same Uni
> No debt since Welfare State baby
> Uni not taken over by Analytics, we studied a bit of formal logic as undergrads, but most of the proper Analytic Philosophy is optional (some of it is great though, I really liked the Philosophy of Science and Epistemology courses and even the Institutional Theory of Art course was decent albeit nothing compared to Aesthetics which was a Continental course)
> Studied Continental Philosophy from the Pre-Socratics to the Poststructuralists (including Structuralists), quite a bit of Phenomenology & Frankfurt School included and even had really interesting optional courses in Psychoanalysis (both Freudian and Lacanian, sadly no love for Jung or Adler), Cognitive and Social Psychology and Sociology; even had the option to do paid translation work in Medieval Philosophy, but it's not really my thing
> Professors cooperate on all sorts of interdisciplinary projects and include PhDs as helpers
> Almost weekly conferences with professors from all over Europe and occasionally the US
> Yearly summer camps, plenty of them international
> Professors are really chill about the authors we work on as long as we take it seriously
> Got to hang out and discuss Philosophy with people who are just as interested in it; in fact the Undergrads, Grads and PhDs all hang out, sometimes even the professors join us for a beer after hours
I don't have any first hand experience with job prospects, but the graduates I talked to all got decent jobs since they knew how to sell their qualifications (critical thinking, analytical reading, communicational skills and other bullshit that the employers eat up).
Not trying to brag, in fact I know that I'm really lucky to be where I am (even the grant I got was due to low competition that year, I'm not exactly a prodigy), I'm just saying look into the Uni before deciding since you might get a similar experience.
>>8158889
>I don't have any first hand experience with job prospects
Let me translate that for you: you have no job prospects.
>>8158898
Oh please, today you can even go into Philosophical Counseling™ and people eat it up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_counseling
Besides, the Uni offers individual paid courses and plenty of jobs require very specific skills which can be learned without spending another several years getting the complete package.
>>8154793
I´m getting an MA in English because I was interested in Continental Philosophy. Most programs in the USA are analytic. It´s been pretty interesting. If I don´t just get some real world job after I finish, I´ll probably go get a PhD in Comp lit. It´s been alright so far.
Can I study philosophy without going to uni?I'm sure that most of the material is on the internet isn't it?
>>8158913
depends on your goals, but of course you can technically do all of the readings on your own, without going to university.
>>8158913
Yes. In fact you can probably get official curriculums off the Universities' sites for various courses if you want to imitate the activity.
In fact, if there's a University in your area you can check their Facebook page or site for conferences and, since they're normally public events, you can attend without being a student.
You'll miss out on the Student Experience™, but that's not the worst thing if it requires going into debt.
>>8158923
>depends on your goals
what do you mean by that because I want to dedicate a lot of time on it.
>>8158913
It´s pretty difficult to do it on your own. Most autodidacts end up misunderstanding something early on that keeps them from understanding anything as they go on. You can definitely casually read philosophy, but it´s really helpful to have experts in the field with whom you can discuss your readings.
>>8158913
>Can I learn something without going to university for it
Well, I gotta hand it to universities, they have established themselves as the ultimate spooks.
>>8158936
I know that but im sure there are a lot of people on the internet who explained them properly /or will explain them for you.
>>8158641
This
>>8154777
PhD student in phil at Harvard. It's grueling and a bit dismal, but there's nothing I'd rather do (this is not out of unwavering love for philosophy but out of unwavering apathy for all else). At least Harvard's stipends are generous and there's a good selection of courses/profs. The field is dominated by hairsplitting pedants working on middling issues that will simply fall out of fashion in a decade. It astounds me that they think they're doing anything worth doing (one of my cohort once described what he does as "discovering the fundamental nature of reality," which I found abysmally naive, when what he does amounts to sitting in a chair in a room and fussing with concepts).
I'm thinking of specializing in history of phil because my estimation of contemporary phil is so cynical and "deflationary." Luckily philosophy is just about the only discipline where near-total skepticism about the discipline itself is actually a position within the discipline, but that doesn't mean it's easy career-wise to do.
>>8158956
>PhD student in phil at Harvard
Is Phil your boyfriend?
Send him my regards ;^)
>>8158961
>Is Phil your boyfriend?
essentially, considering how much shit they make us do
>>8158961
God damn it I actually laughed at that and now I hate myself for it. Thanks anon.
>>8158944
The other guy is right. It will be very difficult for you. If you want to study philosophy on your own and ever amount to anything with it, keep reading until your fucking brain explodes.
You aren't going to have any convenient metrics of your progress. Grad school gives you that, because every time you think you're hot shit and have some original intuition about something, you're forced to write a paper you don't care about, and you accidentally slam into a wall of papers written in the 40s that shit all over your idea because it's been done a billion times before. Every time you think you know "philosophy" pretty well, some polymath professor reminds you that you're still a pissant.
I know a guy who never attended university and he's as smart as any philosophy professor I've met, and better read to boot. But he's one in a billion. The only reason he got that way was because he's basically insane and sat and read books nonstop for 30 years.
>>8158076
Hey man what do you think of Camus' critique in The Myth of Sisyphus?
>>8158076
this can't be real
>>8158791
>instead of writing about how many times Husserl drank beer before bed.
how many times did he then
>>8158095
>I only play Pharaoh (1999)
confirmed scholar and great human being
>>8158314
by that snippet of F's it seems Gatsby is just
>let's mask christianity in secular clothes edition #123012031203012032103
>>8158095
My father was an art director for that game lol
>>8155975
He meant everyone here, dumb shit, and he's wrong.
>>8160265
He's not as wrong as you think.
>>8160273
He is.
>>8154777
I'm right now going through the process of getting into a graduate program. Hopefully CSULA since they seem to be one of the better Master programs for analytic philosophy.
I've been poor all my life so I don't care about the job prospects. Any one of us could make it as a manager, tutor, or ESL teacher anywhere and get by comfortably.
Academic phil is the history of philosophy, not philosophy at all.
