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.