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Useless information to fire your imagination and then some
I love philosophy. That seems to be the teeming refrain of 1,000 overeager college freshmen, eager to
tell you, “Wait, the universe means something! Just hold on while I look it up!” Or the guy next to you at
the coffee shop, unready to let go of his tattered copy of a Nietzsche text from the 1970s. They’ll both
defend their love to the death, too. They’ll both gnaw your ear off, if you give it to them (and even if
you won’t), and explain how necessary it is, how important it is, and how “if you’d just read some Plato
you’d understand!”
The problem is that looming, demanding word that begins the headline of this post. “Useless.” No
matter how much these lovers of philosophy may defend themselves from the accusation, they rarely go
beyond their protective wall, a balustrade of dead thinkers good enough to hold up the argument but
easy for people to see through. The argument never becomes complete until we start to look at the
other side and realize the uncomfortable truth: They might be right.
I could use the same old, tired argument that you see splattered on the morning paper or flashing
angrily from the television. People who say that the economy’s down, that practicality reigns and that
we need more engineers and less thinkers. That road’s been trampled to death as it is; I hardly think it
needs another set of tracks.
Instead; a different approach. Let’s stop worrying about practicality. With tenure being scythed from
universities left and right, and entire philosophy departments along with it, it’s becoming clear that, as
of now, philosophy just isn’t considered marketable. So let’s take it off the market, chiefly because
that’s not where it belongs in the first place. Maybe the problem isn’t that we need to prove why
philosophy’s better than, say, math or engineering. Maybe the problem is that we’re trying to compare
the two in the first place.
Comparing philosophy and the more “practical” sciences is a problem precisely because in doing so,
we’re forced to relegate philosophy to a single, finite “field.” Philosophy is a mode of thinking — cogito
ergo sum, indeed — not just something that lives in a book or a classroom. To merely call it a field or
area of study isn’t just harmful to the practice; it’s inaccurate. Any time someone uses reason to solve a
problem, to build a bridge and explain why it should be there, or even to “prove” why they should be
president, they’re doing philosophy. You’re doing it right now, right this second, just by reading this.
Whether or not you’d like to admit it, the first thing your mind did when you started reading was agree
or disagree, formulate an opinion and then come up with reasons to back up that opinion. Granted, the
validity of those reasons is a whole other issue. The point is that ignoring philosophy is pointless. It isn’t
a field or a job, it just is. It’s unavoidable, and the more we start to realize that, the more useless of a
charge “useless” will become.