My introduction to philosophy was not through the study of philosophical books. Rather, it was through discussion. Whenever my friends and I discussed questions about philosophy, morality, or politics, I would take a position and present the idea to my friends. They would then ask me questions to expose the flaws in my thinking. They would criticize every aspect of my thought process, starting with my premises and axioms and ending with my conclusions. My friends would not do this as a way to spite me. Nor as a way to prove themselves superior to me. Rather, we would all do this to each other to develop our ideas and potentially find the “truth.”
I never thought of myself as a philosopher, and I always thought of philosophy as an esoteric academic process to reach true ideas. When I read Plato’s Republic, widely regarded as one of the most important philosophical works in history, I was surprised to read what I did. Socrates’s friends presented their understanding of concepts, such as the meaning of “justice.” Socrates would then ask questions to criticize every aspect of their argument. This wasn’t a bunch of abstract essays using fancy philosophical jargon to convince everyone that the author was right. Instead, they were discussions. It reminded me of the conversations between me and my friends on similar topics using similar methods of questioning and criticism.
Going through this process of critical dialogue with my friends has given me the opportunity to develop my ideas. In most cases, I had left the conversation with a more thought out position about the given subject and with a different opinion on the matter as well. I imagine the same can be said for many of my friends.
However, that is not philosophy in the academic setting. Consider a syllabus for a standard introductory philosophy class at a reputable institution like Columbia University. Though this particular course covers a variety of topics, the professor is very clear: “The point is not necessarily to answer the questions addressed, but rather to understand and to critically evaluate the traditional philosophical responses.” The syllabus consists of listing three philosophical questions and a variety of philosophers' written answers to those questions. This phenomenon is present both at the introductory level and at the advanced level, as seen in Columbia's class titled “Political Philosophy.” The students are being taught to study the works of other philosophers rather than coming to their own conclusions on the same subjects. These examples are indicative of a larger problem. A simple search for philosophy syllabi online will return similar results throughout academia. In many cases, the professor may write that they plan to teach students how to discover the answers to those questions on their own. However, the time laid out in those syllabi shows that class time is spent solely on analyzing philosophers and not philosophizing.
Philosophy in academia is treated just like the sciences and other fields when it is not like them at all. In other academic disciplines, it is recommended to study previous experts in the field in order to be able to build off their knowledge. For example, in physics, it is not worth spending the time to figure out the equation for force as people like Newton have already figured it out for themselves. Instead, Newton's conclusions can be used to help build new theories. New Theories such as Einstein's theory of general relativity could not have been developed if not for the foundation of Newton’s three laws of motion. Philosophy on the other hand is a field without conclusions. Rather, philosophy is better described as a process of thinking. Learning about previous philosophers’ thought processes doesn’t provide the same benefit from learning previous physicists’ conclusions, as the entire point of philosophy is for the student to go through the process on their own.
When one studies philosophy in academia, they come across people like Socrates, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha), and René Descartes. Despite academia’s admiration for the fathers of philosophy, it doesn’t attempt to replicate the way they studied. University students don’t sit under a tree for years trying to think about how to deal with the meaninglessness of existence, like Siddhartha did. They don’t argue with their peers and take apart the definition of every object like Socrates did. They don’t “resolve to study no books, merely to learn knowledge from ourselves or the world,” as Descartes declared he would do. Why does academia insist on abandoning the living work of our great fathers merely to study their dead words on the page?
Could a Socrates even exist in today’s philosophical environment? Socrates famously scorned the written word. He never wrote down any of his ideas and never studied the writings of other thinkers. In today’s society, would his great thinking be encouraged or would he instead be told to read the works of other thinkers until he was able to recite their views on command? Consider how many students today could have the potential to become powerful thinkers like Socrates and Decartes but are unable to thrive under the current academic system of philosophical study. Today’s academic environment has actively prevented another potential Socrates, Descartes, or any other great philosophical thinker of that stature from arising in today’s society by shifting the focus away from original thought in favor of studying the past.
Consider how art has tackled this same problem. The study of art has taken two different directions in academia: art and art history. Art history is the study of the fathers of the field. A student of art history is expected to understand and be able to analyze the styles of great artists throughout history. In the study of art itself, the major focus of the discipline is learning how to create one’s own art. Students do study the history of the field, but minimally, and only insofar as it is helpful for learning technique. The primary focus of the feld is creating art, occasionally using other great pieces as reference points.
Consider a student of art history who can recite whole discourses analyzing great artists, but has never in their life touched a canvas or sculpted a sculpture or picked up a pencil to draw. Academia would never call such a person “artist,” and yet this is exactly what they do with the title of “philosopher.” Since academic philosophy has become nothing more than studying and analyzing the past, one can earn a philosophy degree without ever having philosophized.
Why is philosophy treated differently than art? Philosophy could use the same model as art. They could teach the discipline of philosophical history and philosophy as two separate fields. And just like with art, the field of philosophy could utilize historical examples to illustrate effective methodology of thought. Philosophy should be a field where students learn how to think, criticize, and question. They should learn all tenants of logic and its flaws as well. Philosophy should be a study of action. Students should come out having spent most of their time making their own arguments and questioning others’.
In a practical sense, a philosophy syllabus should be centered around discussion, critique, and revision. To give an example of a philosophy course geared towards action and not history, the first week of such a class could make use of past works like Plato’s Republic, but purely as an introduction to the methods of discussion which the class will attempt to replicate. The coming weeks of the course would be divided up by subject matter. For each subject, the class would go through the following basic stages: First, the students would be asked to write a consistent definition of the subject matter, for example “truth,” and its basic applications. During this first stage of the unit, the focus would be to critique peers’ definitions. The students would then be assigned to write a paper criticising, and ideally disproving, a peer’s idea on the same subject matter. Stage two would use class time for discussion in small groups or pairings specifically with a goal of understanding and reacting to individual student critiques. Stage two of the unit would end with an assignment for each student to write a new essay to revise or defend their original idea considering the criticisms. In stage three, class time would be similarly spent on discussing the revisions, but this time, the professor would be actively involved with their own critiques. Then, the students would revise their paper a second time, now taking into account past critiques of students and new critiques of the professor. In the final stage of the unit, the students would read a philosopher's idea on the matter, such as Hume on truth. Finally, they would write a paper defending their position of truth against the idea of the philosopher they compared it to, not taking Hume as an all-knowing authority, but rather as another peer with his own set of critiques. This four-stage structure would be repeated throughout the remainder of the course on different philosophical subject matters.
This structure would allow students to participate in philosophy by using the methods of the fathers of the field. This would teach students how to have their own philosophical discussions in the future without the guidance of a professor. A proper implementation of this structure would result in true student philosophers instead of students who can recite the ideas of others.
This idea applies equally to philosophy, political theory, logic, and ethics. These are all fields where individual thought and reasoning should be the primary focus. Instead, the history of other people’s thinking about those fields is what academia mostly studies.
When I brought up this issue with some friends of mine who were philosophy majors, they asked “How could you even study philosophy without talking about philosophers?” They could not even imagine what a philosophy education would look like that was focused on practice instead of history. The academic study of philosophy leaves students unprepared in a real philosophical setting. Students graduate without ever participating in the art of philosophy. It is time we let them “pick up the paintbrush” for themselves.
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