2017
Aug
25
We are the home of James, Whitehead, Quine, and Rawls, but we aren't stuck in the past.
We are the home of Gertrude Stein, W. E. B. DuBois, and T. S. Eliot because we aren't simply a training ground for future philosophers.
Today we are home to a distinguished faculty of nearly forty women and men, working in a variety of areas, crossing disciplinary boundaries, and ranging from early career academics to esteemed emeriti/ae. We are home to more than 100 intellectually curious and talented undergraduate and graduate students. And, every year, we are home to visiting scholars from around the world.
We are also the home of ideas, of diverse and sometimes divergent views on the nature of mind, on what our ethical and political responsibilities are, and even on what it means to do philosophy.
We are home to all of these things and more because diversity and inclusivity matter to us.
Where is your home? Whether you are interested in taking an elective, declaring a concentration, or pursuing doctoral study, we invite you to consider making your home with us.
Philosophy is a lifelong apprenticeship in thinking, so the not-so-simple answer is that we teach "thinking."
Since "thinking" is a broad field indeed, it should come as no surprise that philosophers think about virtually everything. This includes thinking about very large questions on topics widely shared by human beings across time and space:
What kind of life should we live?
What kind of society should we want?
What makes one system of belief better than another?
What are the limits of human knowledge?
As well as thinking about questions that arise in particular fields, such as law, economics, mathematics, the physical sciences, psychology, art, and religion.
Philosophers seek to think about these questions in a systematic, explicit, and rigorous way, not simply to arrive at answers but to understand better just what is being asked in the first place.
Given philosophy's special focus on thinking, it might seem obvious why philosophy matters.
Because the ability to think rigorously, analytically, synthetically, and creatively is a useful ability in any field, studying philosophy is actually one of the most marketable degrees you can pursue.
But philosophy matters for more than just securing a career.
Because it increases our understanding of ourselves, philosophy helps make us more thoughtful, engaged members of our various societies while also broadening our understanding of the various ways of being and thinking that humans have and, historically, have had available to them.
Philosophy matters, then, because it places us in a conversation, one begun more than two millennia ago and continuing into the present, a conversation involving people of varying cultures and in which we are as subject to their questions as they are to ours.