Why Study Philosophy?

The study of philosophy not only has its own intrinsic value and can give you much intellectual enjoyment; it also has practical value, It can both help you to lead a productive, harmonious life, and prepare you to pursue specific careers or areas of graduate study.

By enrolling at the University of North Florida, and not a technical or vocational school, you choose to pursue a general education as well as training in a particular field. A solid liberal arts education should be a general preparation for life as well as preparation for a particular profession.

Philosophy has a special practical value for a liberal arts education, because it provides cohesion, orientation, and self-cultivation in an curriculum easily fragmented by diverse requirements. The study of philosophy greatly enhances a number of very important practical capacities that you will need to succeed in any line of work and any kind of relationship.

Doing philosophy will

• help make you an effective writer and speaker
• cultivate your analytical, critical, integrative, and communication skills;
• engender a critical attitude that enables you to understand, question, and hopefully improve common ways of conceptualizing problems;
• develop your understanding of your own culture, assumptions, and values (and those of other individuals and cultures);
• enlarge your conception of what is possible, valuable, and right (adapted with permission from The Philosophy Program Undergraduate Advising Guide of the Philosophy Department, Florida International University, with thanks to that Department).

*Robert C. Solomon, The Big Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy, fourth edition. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1994, p. V.