Philosophy

I think society as a whole would benefit greatly from a stronger emphasis on philosophy in our eductional programs. Spending more time thinking about, and learning to question, the basic assumptions underlying our lives seems like something that's pretty largely lacking, at least in American society today.

I'd rather that people learn accoutability, responsibility, and respect first. Philosophy is cool too. I had an AWFUL philosophy teacher in college, she only wanted me to spew back her opinions at her so I was failing when I just stopped going. It's amazing how the wrong teacher can turn a student off to a subject completely.

I liked taking philosophy courses, but I don't think they are necessary to life. That is with the exception of Logic. Everyone should be forced to take Logic.

Seems about right. Everyone should have some lessons in philosophy, but many people just don't care about it. The people who do care tend to hunt down more information on their own. I think philosophy has some value - it helps people make sense of what is often a confusing and frightening world. I think it's as important as anger management skills and meditation and those sorts of things.

I just don't think that there's really anything to be learned by sitting around thinking about how you think things work. Some of the stuff that philosophers come up with and convince themselves has to be true is just so ridiculous!

Whatever.

I think we spend too little time on real philosophy and too much time on semantic quibbling. The "philosophy" class I tried taking at MIT spend the first half of its semester focussing on "paradoxes" that were nothing but fallout from the way people defined words. I don't know what the second half did because I quit the class.

What's philosophy?

I only had one year of philosophy, officially. Not nearly enough.

I think that it's underemphasized at many schools. It's certainly possible to get through MIT without ever getting any of it. Same is true at many of the liberal arts schools without a core curriculum. I got a lot of it, but I a) did my first two years at Columbia, where one year of it is required and b) was a poli. sci. major and had to put in my time with political theory (much of which is philosophy). I got more of it than I wanted, but I've been fairly shocked at the lack of knowledge of philosophy among my extremely well-educated friends. If you're interested in philosophy and have no background in it, allow me to recommend _Sophie's World_. It's a book aimed at children, but gives a good quick overview of trends in Western philosophy and plays some interesting games (I've seen it in adult sf sections) with what it means to be "real." Philosophy is a subject that I think benefits a lot from having other people to discuss it with.

Now, I also have to agree with steve...a lot of philosophy is extremely uninteresting to me because I don't really care how these dead guys thought life worked, but I think knowing at least a survey-course level amount of philosophy and philosophical history is interesting and useful in terms of helping to put one's own maunderings in context and thinking about how life might work. Political theory becomes interesting because it has influenced how different people's attempted to govern themselves and a lot of ideas we accept now were extremely revolutionary in their day and context.

the system as it stands blows. it churns out bunches of people who may or may not have absorbed some of the bits of knowledge that was sprinkled over them. it doesn't really teach them how to think. philosophy (as I understand it from my limited exposure) teaches people to think or at least question things. the current system is good in that we (seem) to have a good literacy rate, but knowledge doesn't mean much if you don't understand it.
*daver: three times? why does that not surprise me. I guess my biggest problem is understanding how anyone could stand to be illiterate.

I took one philosophy course in college. I was all excited because I thought finally I'd have at least one course that made me *think*. But no, all we did was memorize the work of other philosophers. Argh!

It is undervalued, but if it were valued more the school system couldn't produce mindless drones to feed the work force as effectively.

Pitifully undervalued. My own formal education essentially ignored both philosophy and the underlying skills necessary to have a good grasp of philosophy.
**reality: The illiteracy rate in the US is only three times as high as other developed countries. They must be doing something right.
**reality: "Lies, damn lies, and statistics..."
If I had told you that US average literacy rate was 97% vs 99% for most other developed countries, you probably wouldn't have reacted as much.
Mississippi, New York and D.C. lead the nation with an 84% literacy rate...
N.B. I assume that these numbers are only for literacy in english, so all those damned foreigners screw things up...

Philosophy should be the core of all education, that and Math. Everything else is frosting.
Philosophy, Who needs it? - a book by Ayn Rand in which she outlines who critically important it is for each individual to think about and develop their own philosophy and value system from the ground up. Otherwise, you're just reacting (like a lower for of life) to life, and it's likely to be the source of misery for you.
I would also recommend _Sophie's World_ (the overview of Philosophy was cool).
I guess teaching Philosophy is hard (I see how many of you had bad experiences with it, I never actually took a course, so I can't say). I guess the books I've read on my own that related to Philosophy (and Metaphysics actually) and the thinking and talking with friends I've done related to reading those books has been some of the most important stuff in my life.

I don't remember any in school. Seems like an individual's thing to me.

It seems about right to me. I'm kind of into philosophy as a hobby. Deeply thought-thoughts appear in my head every now and again.

umm, this will vary by region/nation. all in all, americans are philosophically void. that sucks and promotes dangerous selfishness, among other things. more philosophy.

I have no idea how much emphasis it receives in a typical education.

a little of several of these; would have preferred a multi-choice. We'd be better off if more people were better trained to think clearly about philosophical issues and identify their own assumptions, but the way philosophy is "typically" taught doesn't emphasize these things. We spend way too much energy on the comparatively unimportant parts of philosophy education.
Later: I agree with hunter that a general survey is a useful thing, if only to provide a shared vocabulary. Without it it's hard to even talk clearly about moral issues, let alone agree on how to legislate and enforce them. Sophie's World is a fine intro and an amusing read, but I'd suggest reading at least some of the stuff it refers to as well... the exercise of actually reading someone's words and deciding whether they are right, wrong, muddleheaded, or whatever, is far more valuable than that of reading a summary of what some third person thought they had to say. Of course, you can't read everything unless you really want to devote your life to it, but still...

I had real philosophy courses not only in college but also in high school. I don't imagine that's typical, but one course as a core requirement does seem fairly standard. More philosophy would be good, but I don't see too much point to forcing it down the throats of students who won't take it seriously.

I think that "real-life" skills are more important, but it does bother me that things like philosophy and music get the shaft as a result. It is important to be as well rounded as you can (or, at the very least, exposed to lots of things)

I cannot stress this enough. Everyone has a philosophy, whether they know it or not. Wouldn't you rather have a say in what yours is?
statements like jzp about "dangerous selfishnesS" are themselves a sad indication of how philosophically void we are, but not in the way JZP intended, I'm sure.

The one philosophy course I took in college was terrible. I don't think there should be so much more philosophy but that subjects should be approached from what I might call a philosophical perspective.

well, its certainly not overemphasized - not even emphasized in my experience. if i hadn't taken an interest in philosophy in college, i would not have studied it at all. not once in grammer or high school was philosophy required or even offered as a course of study. of the 7 philosophy courses i took at WPI, two sucked (typical read and regurgitate type classes), while the other five were excellent thought provoking, arguement filled, free-for-alls.

A few more classes in philosophy would be nice. What I'd really like to see (but isn't really practical to implement as an education standard) is general philosophy questions coming up in the course of other studies - not necessarily as an influence on your grade, but just to get you to start thinking philosophically about the entire range of subjects taught in school.