>William H. “Bill” Miller III ... attributes “much” of his success ... to the “analytical training and habits of mind” his philosophical study at Johns Hopkins inculcated. The way he sees it, more students should have the chance for that intellectual stimulation.
If I were reviewing applications for a software engineering role, I would primarily prioritize computer science and electrical engineering degrees, then secondarily mathematics and physics degrees. Of the subset without a degree in STEM, I'd probably weight philosophy higher than some alternatives, but they still wouldn't have priority unless their professional experience was more impressive than other candidates.
I was initially a philosophy major during my undergrad (up to and including 300 and 400 level courses in Kant). I don't think philosophy degrees are a useful signal to compare against more targeted degrees. They can certainly teach logical and abstract thinking; however, at at the default level of effort I've observed, most students do not graduate a philosophy degree with significant enough critical thinking skills to overcome the sheer amount of domain knowledge they're missing by not having studied computer science. And it gets difficult to specify exactly what it would look like for a philosophy major to make up for the lack of computer science education by having superlative reasoning ability, if that's the case.
Ideally you want a student who demonstrated that they put significant effort into their academic work, enough to intellectually grasp it, apply it and reason about it. If you have two students who appear to have put equal effort into their studies, I can't see why philosophy would be a plus. A philosophy degree will be a net negative for the professional functions of a software engineering role unless the applicant has spent significant time overcoming the lag in programming experience and computer science understanding.
In other words, I think people use philosophy degrees as a proxy for overall intelligence and reasoning ability, or maybe even academic effort. But I consider that to be a red herring - philosophy studies are useful, but they don't intrinsically encourage more effort and engagement than more relevant degrees do, and the skills they offer are far less relevant for the professional work of engineers (not irrelevant, just missing quite a lot). If a candidate demonstrates strong suitability for a software engineering role with a philosophy degree, they probably would have excelled with or without it because they had to be motivated enough to self-study computer science anyway. The philosophy major in particular doesn't encapsulate or confer that kind of motivation and engagement, so it's better to just look for a targeted degree.
Again, this isn't to say philosophy isn't useful - much of my dialectic style comes from Wittgenstein. It's just that on its own philosophy is like arithmetic: fundamentally useful and broadly applicable in everyday life, but not nearly enough to prepare one for a software engineering job.
I learned a lot under those conditions.
It was a pleasant surprise to realize it was so much easier for us to write specs and discuss issues and possible solutions on github together. We were just more used to think on "paper" and to articulate our ideas by writing them, which allowed us to be really comfortable doing async work and to communicate complex ideas.
It was really appreciated, among all those "hum... I'll call you, it will be easier".
I learned logic, writing and debating skills from sites like Slashdot, Hacker News and other online forums. Might sound silly, but these sites host huge online written debates all day every day around the clock, for years on end, with real-time scoring and feedback based on what you write and not who you are. It's a pretty great gladiatorial training ground for philosophy.
A note about debating skills, though: from the second year (at least in my university), we were asked to try to explain why someone is right, rather than why they're wrong. I found this shocking at first, especially because teachers were making us study the authors they loved and then ask us to explain why they were right. It sounded like brainwashing, at first. But later I realized it was actually the best skill I learned there.
When you're discussing an author, a developer's work, almost any kind of work, really, you're basically taking 10 minutes of your attention to refute work that took maybe years, or even a life. Most likely, the objections you'll have will be superficial and author/creator will have figured them for a long time. Starting first by trying to understand the goal and the reasoning of author/creator allows to really take advantage of their creation. You may then refute it if you still have problems with it :) (but you'll almost always have a cool idea or two to take away, so it's not lost time)
In most other colleges and universities, I think it would be much more beneficial, to both students and teachers, for philosophy to become part of a common curriculum for everyone rather than remaining its own department with its own major.
Knowledge of philosophy is a kind of force multiplier. It can help you become a more thoughtful and ethical person no matter what you do. But if you do nothing apart from philosophy, well, zero multiplied by a force multiplier is still zero.
Disclaimer: Got a Ph.D. in philosophy. Currently running my own business.
And, yes, there are many such jobs: consulting (McKinsey, BCG,..), finance, politics (not just elected, but staff), journalism, etc.
I don't see how that would benefit anyone more than the current situation, where a degree program will typically require one or two philosophy classes. It seems to me that the only reason to simply not have the philosophy degree program would be if there weren't enough faculty to teach the classes.
(unless you're arguing for a sort of common "humanities" degree, which I guess I would have to think about)
> Knowledge of philosophy is a kind of force multiplier. It can help you become a more thoughtful and ethical person no matter what you do. But if you do nothing apart from philosophy, well, zero multiplied by a force multiplier is still zero.
> Disclaimer: Got a Ph.D. in philosophy. Currently running my own business.
Did it seem to you that philosophy drew the kind of students (other than you, of course) who had no "force" to multiply, such that the philosophy degree program was a waste of time for them? I didn't take my study of philosophy as far as you did (I got a BA), but I bet you saw a lot of your fellow students go on to be successful professionals, as I saw.
From the point of view of students, it might be the same. From the point of view of the administration, not having to maintain a separate degree program and all the bureaucracy that comes with it frees up a lot of resources that could be better spent on other things. From the point of view of the importance of philosophy, I think it sends a better message to everyone when philosophy is officially "everywhere" than when it's confined to a tiny, chronically underfunded department known only to a select few who care about it.
> Did it seem to you that philosophy drew the kind of students (other than you, of course) who had no "force" to multiply, such that the philosophy degree program was a waste of time for them?
Fortunately, most people naturally have a range of interests.
But even if all you want to do is analyze a certain passage from Plato for the rest of your life, I wouldn't say that it's a total waste of time. That passage from Plato then becomes the force that you multiply, no matter how close to zero everyone else thinks its value is. There's a place for that kind of dedication in academia, and the true value of their work might not be apparent until centuries later. Humanity needs people like them. Our civilization can afford to subsidize them. Just not too many of them.
For 99.9% of people who have ever studied philosophy, I think the goal should be to use that knowledge to live a good life, make a difference in the world, and teach others to do the same. Focusing too much on an academic career distorts the picture.