"First, they can help articulate those questions that most of us have but that we find difficult to express. Fundamental, radical questions about life, love, suffering, death; good and evil; right and wrong; materiality and immateriality; culture and nature; and so on. The kind of question that come to us at certain extraordinary moments in life: the death of a close relative; a serious accident; falling in love. What am I doing here? What are the important things in life? Do we need to have a State at all? And others of that sort."

Nobody I know has any difficulty ARTICULATING questions like these. The problem is that philosophers don't seem to be any better at ANSWERING them than the rest of us.

I'm all for teaching people thinking skills, provided they put those skills to work on something that's useful to think about.

Pablo Jiménez Lobeira,

Thank you.

At the end of my eight-sixth year, I finally have come to know that Philosophy is a trade that can be learnt at a University.

Sir, kindly, how much does your University charge for teaching this thing called philosophy?

Come on Skeptic, you know universities are not places that teach philosophy.

They are places where people who like to refer to themselves as philosophers, among many others who have funny names for themselves, who could never survive out in the real world, can go & hide, while being supported by those "plain persons".

Not a bad article. I, too, share some of these criticisms of philosophy departments. As someone who is currently doing a Ph.D in philosophy, I've become quite dismayed at the lack of connection many doctors and professors have with the "real world". I know the term "real world" is hotly debated in academia, but if we understand it in its usual sense, the world that "plain people" inhabit - working, parenting, making ends meet - then philosophy, sadly, brings little to the table.
Philosophy really, really, really, needs to make itself more practical, more pragmatic to the concerns of "plain people". At the moment, philosophers chatter amongst themselves on issues pertaining to microscopic interpretations of a particular section of a text. They argue back and forth on what "this particular line" means in an extremely pedantic manner, all the while "this particular line" has no relevance to anyone apart from the minute number of philosophers being concerned with it. While people starve to death, the suicide rate becomes disturbingly higher, alcohol related violence remains high, these philosophers take home a nice paypacket of $80,000-120,000 a year arguing over something that concerns maybe 6 people in the world.
I am all for philosophy, it has brought me some great insights, but it's got to get outside the world of "text" and into matters that can help provide solutions to real life problems.

Tony Abbott has his masters in philosophy. Maybe we should ask him.

The author has only made a case for the practice of philosophy, not for it being paid for out of taxes. But public - translation: government - funding *always* raises the ethical question of the justification of the use of force or threats for the purpose in question, because the state uses force or threats to obtain funds by taxation. The author has not given any such justification, does not appear to be aware of the issue, and has offered us only a non sequitur (because good, therefore force and threats justified to obtain it) which I thought they would have identified as an error in any decent Philosophy 101.

Given that the teaching and learning of philosophy necessarily entails the interpretation of facts about the beneficence of the state, and that "professional" i.e. tax-funded philosophers are dependants on the state, how could such philosophy be anything but biased in favour of the state? Yet the author does not pick up on this issue and again seems completely unaware of it/. What is to stop the philosopher from being a mere shill for the state?

The state has always formed a symbiotic relationship with the intellectual class. The state is in permanent need of favourable public opinion on which depends the legitimation of its coerced expropriations which actions are serious crimes for anyone else. The intellectuals are able to gain from the state funding above the market rate for their services, which is low precisely because the plain people will not voluntarily pay for such services because they perceive their value to be low.

And so there is a systematic tendency in these state-dependent acolytes to preach that Pharaoh can do no wrong, to preach that government is a kind of benevolent institution that magically creates net social utility by what would otherwise be serious crimes. Habermas, anyone?

(cont.)

To confuse society with the state, as the author has done, is precisely to practise the kind of facile smoke-and-mirrors shysterism that we should expect of a class of professional high priests.

To earn his income as a lover of wisdom, the author must first eliminate the possibility that he is not advocating what is anti-social; and hence must refute the arguments of Murray Rothbard in "Anatomy of the State"
http://mises.org/resources.aspx?Id=c02cef89-a2fb-4d55-afb1-2d97e9e78d1c

This guy is kidding right?

NO australian child will be safe until all ANTI christian, ANTI social, loony left, humanities academics are in a labour camp.

The only philosophy we need is PROTESTANT christianity.

I'm wondering how long these people could survive if philosophy was deemed a field in which they'd have to find people to pay for what the philosophers have to sell. It's easy for them to live off our taxes which some irresponsible bureaucrats hand over to them with impunity for misappropriation.

Jesus made all others seem like fakes in His day. Nothing has changed except a few are smart enough to take word of the wisest to ever live, die and live again.

I wasn't sure for a while there whether the author was attacking or defending philosophers.

I think philosophy should be taught in school from grade one on; philosophers then wouldn't be such a rare breed and we could justifiably cut the funding, so that the only philosophers, quite properly, were the ones with a vocation.
But the fact is that the denizens of modern culture are appallingly ignorant about the important questions, and yet amazingly smug about their workmanlike verities, naively seeing their "usefulness" and "contributions" not only as irreproachable, but as activities they may justifiably take pride in and kudos from--though they do it for the money and the goodies really; it's just nice to boast the good old work ethic. It's like patriotism; you don't get it but it gives you that nice fuzzy feeling when you wrap yourself in the flag and we all have a good crocodile-cry together.
And then philosophers, some of them, go and spoil the party and put you in your place! tut tut.
For the record, Philosophy is not that difficult, and anyone could learn medicine more or less. Most of us could be performing complex surgery within a week with the right teacher and a few volunteers. As for economics, one could teach chimps to be as prescient as those guys! Though I doubt the chimps could get it so wrong.
Philosophy asks difficult, uncomfortable and inconvenient questions, and so long as laypeople believe in their childish alternatives, and think their "contributions" really are unimpeachable goods, they need them! Just as wise monarchs of yore acknowledged they needed their court jesters.

*NO australian child will be safe until all ANTI christian, ANTI social, loony left, humanities academics are in a labour camp.
The only philosophy we need is PROTESTANT christianity.*

Ah Formesnag, its good to know that you protestant christians
have no qualms about throwing people into labour camps. The
Catholic Church used to burn heretics, at least you haven't
sunk that far yet.

Your true nature is clearly revealed.

Philosophy is important but it must not be a job paid for by taxpayers. Look what happened when religion became a job, nothing but trouble, same goes for philosophy.
Writers sell their books & if they're good they make a lot of money & they put effort & money into it so they deserve a reward. It's like any other job really. You put in an effort & someone wants to buy.

Formersnag,

Methinks you've missed the whole point of Jesus' teachings.

'I'm wondering how long these people could survive if philosophy was deemed a field in which they'd have to find people to pay for what the philosophers have to sell. It's easy for them to live off our taxes which some irresponsible bureaucrats hand over to them with impunity for misappropriation.'

Towards the end of my employment, more than half of my salary was paid for by students who chose to do philosophy of education and paid full fees for the privilege. I could have earned all of it that way, had I not other teaching obligations.

Ozbib
Great. So you admit your services were only worth half what you were getting paid?

In your philosophy classes, how did you deal with the ethics, or rather then unethics, of such coerced payments?

No of course I don't admit that. How did such an idea get into your head? My other responsibilities were to students who were government funded. My point is that there is plenty of demand for philosophy.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12713#219678

ozbib, your dreaming, there is no demand for philosophy degrees at all, there is a demand from foreign students for visas to live in australia, any bogus qualification will do for a visa to the promised land.

in between 1945 & 1965 our education system was for educating australians, especially for TAFE college trade apprenticeship diplomas & university professional degrees, so our economy could WORK.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12713#219624
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12713#219626

Yabby & TrashcanMan, you misunderstand the TRUE teachings of christianity. Jesus was not a metrosexual softie, but a spiritually, morally & ethically strong man. christian forgiveness always has required REPENTENCE, first.

What do you suggest we do with criminals who have committed treason, sedition & corporate paedophilia?

Every member of the RED/green, getup, GAYLP/alp, Socialist Alliance over the last half century has a well documented, scientifically proven track record of committing these crimes.

So far, corrupt, lazy, LNP coalition governments have not bothered to prosecute these crimes against the people committed by the loony left communazis, because they too like our totalitarian, 1984, lame stream media controlled deMOCKracy/dumbocracy.

Moderate centrist conservative progressives like Bob Katter, Pauline Hanson & Don Chip are coming soon to a parliament near you & the price of supporting an LNP government will not be a carbon tax, GLBT marriage, or a tax talkfest.

It will be a royal commission on closet communism.

i would never advocate the death penalty or burning at the stake but a humanely run jail for the term of their natural lives with hard labour on community projects like planting trees, sealing the "gun barrel highway", other important "snowy mountains" type infrastructure projects, absolutely.

Oh & confiscation of all their assetts under "proceeds of crime" legislation to pay compensation to victims of their crimes.

*christian forgiveness always has required REPENTENCE, first.*

Ah Formesnag, so as a good Christian, you are going to throw
those who happen to disagree with you, in the Gulag first.

How Christian of you. At least now we know what true
Christianity is all about, Gulags and all.

That's true, TrashcanMan, he definitely has.

>>Formersnag, Methinks you've missed the whole point of Jesus' teachings.<<

But in his defence, it is a well-known fact that Jesus was not a Protestant.

So it is not very fair to link his claim that "the only philosophy we need is PROTESTANT christianity" (whatever that might be) with Jesus. The two concepts are clearly mutually exclusive.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12713#219746
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12713#219749

Yabby & Pericles, AH here we see the usual approach of the communazis to anybody who disagrees with THEM, or questions the claims of the loony left ruling elites to the high moral ground in any discussion.

Same cheap tactic as any neurotic woman verbally, emotionally & psychologically abusing her "partner", namely "accidentally on purpose" misunderstanding what was said & deliberately misquoting.

i never said anything about people who disagree with me but people who have ACTUALLY committed crimes & the case being prosecuted if there is evidence available to PROVE it beyond reasonable doubt, which there is.

i also specifically never said anything about gulags either, they include "cruel & unusual punishment", starvation etc.

i specifically said "humanely" run jails which would include valuable work to maintain the self esteam of the prisoners & give them an opportunity to pay off thier debt to society &/or repent their sins as the good book would say.

Oh we know what you wrote, Formersnag, its there in black and white
for all to read.

But I really liked this part:

*i would never advocate the death penalty or burning at the stake*

Sheesh, you must be becoming an old softie in your old age...

"...it is a well-known fact that Jesus was not a Protestant. "

LOL. He accepted the primacy of the bishop of Rome, did he?