Below is a description of how philosophy helps us develop these various important skills. The study of philosophy enhances a person's problem-solving capacities. It helps us to analyze concepts, definitions, arguments, and problems. It contributes to our capacity to organize ideas and issues, to deal with questions of value, and to extract what is essential from large quantities of information.
It helps us, on the one hand, to distinguish fine and subtle differences between views and, on the other hand, to discover common ground between opposing positions. It also helps us to synthesize a variety of views or perspectives into one unified whole.
Philosophy contributes uniquely to the development of expressive and communicative powers. It provides some of the basic tools of self-expression - for instance, skills in presenting ideas through well-constructed, systematic arguments - that other fields either do not use or use less extensively.
Philosophy helps us express what is distinctive in our views, it enhances our ability to explain difficult material, and it helps us to eliminate ambiguities and vagueness from our writing and speech. Philosophy provides training in the construction of clear formulations, good arguments, and appropriate examples. It, thereby, helps us to develop our ability to be convincing. We learn to build and defend our own views, to appreciate competing positions, and to indicate forcefully why we consider our own views preferable to alternatives.
These capacities can be developed not only through reading and writing in philosophy, but also through the philosophical dialogue, both within and outside the classroom, that is so much a part of a thorough philosophical education. Writing is taught intensively in many philosophy courses, and many regularly assigned philosophical texts are also excellent as literary essays. Philosophy teaches interpretive writing through its examination of challenging texts, comparative writing through emphasis on fairness to alternative positions, argumentative writing through developing students' ability to establish their own views, and descriptive writing through detailed portrayal of concrete examples.
Concrete examples serve as the anchors to which generalizations must be tied. Structure and technique, then, are emphasized in philosophical writing. Originality is also encouraged, and students are generally urged to use their imagination to develop their own ideas. The general uses of philosophy just described are obviously of great academic value.
It should be clear that the study of philosophy has intrinsic rewards as an unlimited quest for understanding of important, challenging problems. But philosophy has further uses in deepening an education, both in college and in the many activities, professional and personal, that follow graduation.
Two of these further uses are described below. Philosophy is indispensable for our ability to understand other disciplines. Many important questions about a discipline, such as the nature of its concepts and its relation to other disciplines, are philosophical in nature.
Philosophy of science, for example, is needed to supplement the understanding of the natural and social sciences that derives from scientific work itself. Most people go through life without questioning what they believe. Philosophy asks us to take a closer look at our lives and worldviews.
On the other side, you might become more confident in what you believe. While you may not be aware of it, philosophy has a huge impact on how the world works. We have democracy because of philosophers. Many of the issues people wrestle with daily — such as how to be a good person — are philosophical. This is because philosophy is all about caring about everything, including the questions and the thinking process. Philosophy encourages the world to take a deeper look at why things are the way they are and if they could be better.
Disclosure: TheImportantSite may be compensated by course providers. Here are ten reasons why philosophy matters: 1. Philosophy asks the important questions No other discipline is as obsessed with big questions as philosophy. Philosophy helps with critical thinking and reason Besides asking the big questions, philosophy is all about the thought process. Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn. Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer specializing in a variety of topics from healthy living to human rights and cookbooks.
The tools taught by philosophy are of great use in further education, and in employment. Despite the seemingly abstract nature of the questions philosophers ask, the tools philosophy teaches tend to be highly sought-after by employers. Philosophy students learn how to write clearly, and to read closely, with a critical eye; they are taught to spot bad reasoning, and how to avoid it in their writing and in their work. It is therefore not surprising that philosophy students have historically scored more highly on tests like the LSAT and GRE, on average, than almost any other discipline.
Many of our students combine studying philosophy with studying other disciplines. The most important reason to study philosophy is that it is of enormous and enduring interest.
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