He thinks, therefore he is

January 7, 2007 5:45 PM

What do people DO with graduate degrees (masters or doctoral) in philosophy?

My son plans a career in the Air Force, probably as a pilot-however he also has the goal of getting advanced degrees in, of all things, philosophy. (He is minoring in philosophy now.) In his case, it really doesn't matter squat what he studies as far as career goes, but it did make me curious what kinds of careers philosophers find themselves in. What say ye all?

posted by konolia to Education (31 answers total)

Teaching philosophy. </obvious>
posted by chrisamiller at 5:48 PM on January 7, 2007

Doug Melton has a Ph.D. in Philosophy, which I was surprised to learn, because when I knew him, he had transitioned over to doing advanced work in developmental biology.

Advanced degrees in Philosophy to me have often seemed connected with a serious commitment to the academy, and to learning for learning's sake. That's hardly a negative.

Related fields include math and computer science (or so folks who've taken upper level logic classes tell me) and legislation and jurisprudence. But I don't think the degree in itself qualifies you for future work in other fields - you have to do that on the side.
posted by ikkyu2 at 5:53 PM on January 7, 2007

It also depends what kind of philosophy you study. Some are more practical than others. I know a lot of people working in public policy and political journalism who have degrees in philosophy with a focus in ethics or political philosophy. But in general, people with advanced degrees in philosophy tend to gravitate towards careers requiring a lot of writing and analysis of ideas.
posted by decathecting at 5:55 PM on January 7, 2007

I have an MA in Philosophy.

Although I'm less than a year out of school, and thus in no position to talk about "career," I'm a "Content Developer" for a non-profit website. (Fancy way of saying I'm one of their researcher/writer-dudes.)

When you think about it, a graduate degree in philosophy teaches you to do a lot of marketable, career-oriented things.

1. Critical thinking - you learn how to think about situations, come up with creative solutions, and address the root causes of problems.

2. Communication - you learn to write! You learn how to communicate incredibly complex ideas to other people, and to critically engage your work and the work of others.

3. Research - self-explanitory. You know where to go look for information.

Basically, it's a pretty good gig! I'm sure others can chime in. There seems to be a reasonably large subset of Mefi philosophers.
posted by generichuman at 5:55 PM on January 7, 2007

Response by poster: Oh, I hope I made it clear I have no problem with my son's goal. I just find it amusing, as a mom who homeschooled him for awhile and had the hardest time getting him to write ANYTHING back in the day.

b1tr0t, are you serious?
posted by konolia at 6:51 PM on January 7, 2007

What careers to Philosophy majors find themselves it?

Anything at all, just like most college graduates.

Of all my good friends and family who have gone to university (Sampling size ~40), I know exactly two who are working in the field they got their Masters in.

One just graduated last year, and is in his first professional job.

The other graduated 25 years ago, but has only worked in the field for about 5 of those years. This year just happens to be one of them, and has to do more with his passion for the subject than education.

Everyone else I know (including me) is doing work far removed from their education. No one I know is struggling to make ends meet.
posted by Ookseer at 7:02 PM on January 7, 2007

My bro has a PhD in philosophy and is now a professor of philosophy and is enjoying it. I've had some fascinating conversations with him that unfortunately usually include a lot of "that word doesn't mean what you think it means - it's jargon and it will take a while to get to the full depth of meaning to put it into context."

One answer to the question is to become a philosopher and then you can subscribe to Jobs for Philosophers.
posted by plinth at 7:03 PM on January 7, 2007

I have a friend with a Ph.D in Philosophy, and he says, "It prepared me for a job in Something Else."
posted by frogan at 7:19 PM on January 7, 2007

FYI, traditionally Philo majors get the highest average scores on the LSAT, and my brother, with his Ivy League Philo BA is now a lawyer.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:33 PM on January 7, 2007

Without wanting to rain too much on your and his parade, he ought to be thinking at least a little bit about his long-term career path.

No matter what the encouraging people at USAFA are saying now, there are lots and lots of ways to wash out of pilot training or just be reassigned out of it because the USAF has lots of other needs.

And even if he completes pilot training, there are a huge number of ways to get reassigned out of flying, again just because the USAF needs lots of people doing lots of boring desk things, and only needs somewhere around 6--7000 pilots at any given time.

And even if he's an active pilot in a squadron somewhere, there's still a very strong chance that he'll retire after serving his 20, at which point he'll only be 42 or so. Maybe because his career prospects in the USAF are closing down, as they tend to at the LC/Col boundary. Maybe his family will want him to quit, maybe because they're tired of him being on remote and TDY and want to see more of him, or they're tired of completely uprooting themselves every 2--4 years, or his wife is tired of being denied any reasonable chance at her own career because her husband moves so often.

So somewhere in the back of his head, he should be thinking about what he might do after he leaves the USAF, because he'll probably have another 20-35 years of work ahead of him when he does leave.

There's no reason for him to get a philosophy PhD unless he plans to enter academia. An MA in any of the liberal arts could conceivably be a useful credential for any of the jillions of jobs that boil down to "information processor," but nobody except an educator should expect to make immediate active use of a liberal arts MA.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:55 PM on January 7, 2007

Master's and PhD work in philosophy here, currently an Academic Librarian. Philosophy prepares you for a lot of interesting stuff, and I wanted to stay in academia, so...worked out for me.

:-)
posted by griffey at 8:02 PM on January 7, 2007

Almost by design people who major in philosophy are people who don't know what they are doing (in a profound sense) but like to argue with others to figure out things.

Good argument skills makes some wind up as lawyers, politicians, writers, pundits, or high government officials.

Then again "knowing too much" can be overwhelming and I think "philosophy students" is the largest component of the "highly educateded homeless".
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 8:10 PM on January 7, 2007

The first time I met someone with a Master's degree in Philosophy, working outside of a University, was as an analyst for a government intelligence agency. During his career as a pilot your son will be briefed by some of these people. The reasons generichuman gives are a good indication what they bring to the job.
posted by dangerousdan at 8:16 PM on January 7, 2007

I have a PhD in philosophy and I am a philosophy professor. It's probably the most popular career path. Also, a joint PhD/JD or MD can make you a force to be reckoned with as a doctor or lawyer. People who write their dissertations in ethics or bioethics sometimes go into public service. PhDs is logic have been known to go into artificial intelligence. More than a few leave the field to work in industry.

Among professorships, there are professorships in research institutions, teaching colleges, hybrid research/teaching colleges, military academies, community colleges, correspondence schools, international universities, and some private institutions. Some also work at independent entities within universities such as ethics centers, public policy centers, and so on.

There are occasional philosophers working alongside scientists in biology, cognitive science, and physics, though I wouldn't call the numbers large except in cognitive science.

MAs are more common and more dispersed. I don't know what kinds of trends in career paths there are. I have friends who work in insurance, anthropology, politics, biology, and many other things. It wasn't uncommon where I was in grad school for a military officer to get an MA and go on to teach at West Point or other military academies.
posted by ontic at 8:18 PM on January 7, 2007

Best answer: You can find a lot of information to refute what MonkeySaltedNuts is saying here. There are philosophy majors who don't know what they want to do, just as there are many other majors who do not know what they want to do. There is no evidence that more of these people major in philosophy. There is also no evidence that philosophy majors become homeless at any greater rate. In fact, since many are prepared to think critically in many different ways, I would wager there are less homeless philosophy majors than many other majors -- but I have no direct evidence for this.
posted by ontic at 8:28 PM on January 7, 2007 [2 favorites]

I have met a lot of ex philosophy majors in law, on Wall Street and in business (with MBAs). An advanced degree in philosophy from a respect school establishes you as an intelligent, thoughtful, articulate person. A lot of places will hire on that basis alone.
posted by Pastabagel at 8:43 PM on January 7, 2007

One of my friends who majored in philosophy became a nun, then quit nunning and became a philosophy professor, then quit professoring and became part of a think tank at Lawrence Livermore Labs.

She also writes detective novels.
posted by trip and a half at 8:53 PM on January 7, 2007

My uncle has a PhD in philosphy and he's a grade school math teacher.

reg
posted by legotech at 8:55 PM on January 7, 2007

Response by poster: There's no reason for him to get a philosophy PhD unless he plans to enter academia

He's thinking of being able to go back to USAFA to teach philosophy for several years...I'm pretty sure academia would be a good fit for him. He loves to write and to argue but thinks law would be boring (!)

And ROU-Xenophobe, right now it is (relatively)easy to get a pilot slot as long as you keep your PQ-the desk jobs are the ones the AF are cutting at the moment. If all else failed he is perfectly willing to crosscommission-his desire to go to grad school is one reason he ISN'T flipping over to the Army after he graduates.
posted by konolia at 9:20 PM on January 7, 2007

I just mean that thinking about a full career in the military when you're a 20 year old kid is one thing, and actually living through one when you're 30 and 40 is something else.

The military is emphatically not structured around full work-life careers, and it's an exceedingly hard life to impose on your family, especially on kids. There are real no-shit reasons why lots of people leave right after their 20, or when their initial contracts expire.

So anyway, the real point is just that thinking about the future, at least a little bit and in the back of his head, is a smart thing for your son to be doing. A philosophy or any other liberal-arts MA is a fine thing to be thinking about, creating an easily portable skill-set.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:54 PM on January 7, 2007

Well, I used to work with a guy who had a doctorate in philosophy and he had made a career for himself working at the port of Helsinki. Make of that what you will.

(He's also responsible for this mental post on metafilter.)
posted by slimepuppy at 3:06 AM on January 8, 2007

MA in philo here.
currently commercials producer, formely vintner. the only direct application i ever mused about was philosophical counselling.
posted by progosk at 3:33 AM on January 8, 2007

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the priesthood. Here in the (very Catholic) city of Pittsburgh, most people who heard I was studying philosophy assumed that was where I was headed. Many people take a BA in philosophy before entering the seminary, and I know a few who went back for an advanced degree before getting ordained. I suspect that a similar career path may be common in other Christian sects.
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:00 AM on January 8, 2007

Teaching philosophy. I'm working on my PhD in philosophy, and the only career path that is expected by anyone I know is academia. Getting an advanced degree in philosophy is quite a different thing from getting a BA in philos. A BA is a fantastic idea - it is a rigorous and interesting major; it develops reasoning ability and writing skill, and in a good department gives you a sense of history as well. I also hear that it's a great undergrad to have going into law school.

Taking it further is a different thing. Graduate school is a more monkish experience, and you're often left somewhat to your own devices, in that you generally go hear your famous professors talk, read lots of books, and then have to write one 20 page paper at the end of the term, per class. Often there is very little in the way of written homework, regular feedback, in class tests etc - it's all about reading, writing, and lectures / class discussions. There are departmental exams or "comps"; in my dept we have four sets of two questions apiece, half written and half oral, covering eight categories of focus. And then to get a PhD you have to write a dissertation - basically your first book, 200-300 pages.

The whole process takes at least 5 years, usually more like 6 or 7 and not uncommonly longer. The only reason to do it is that you've decided learning for learning's sake is a good thing, really. Grad level philosophy can become extremely focused on what may seem like very small questions to an outsider, or they can get quite esoteric in explorations of culture, history, poetry and other aspects of human life (there are popularly two divisions in philosophy, the 'analytics' who try to work issues down to bare logical components to determine what is true, and the 'continentals' who try to catch sight of true being in more peripheral ways, though in many respects I think the gap is closing - language is inextricably both logic and metaphor, after all, and I think much of the philosophic community is coming to terms with that).

So, unless people have another source of income and just want to pursue the advanced degree for their own enjoyment, the real job qualification you earn is the capacity to write articles and books, give papers at conferences, and teach classes in your areas of specialty. Once a year there's a big conference on the eastern seaboard where any college hiring for a tenure track position sets up a table, and if you're on the market, you go and have short interviews if you're invited, or just schmooze if you aren't. If you do well with that, you might get an on-campus interview, which is a much bigger deal and involves a 3 day visit, teaching an audition class, meeting the whole faculty, etc. Then you hope for a job offer, even though it may involve moving to Kansas or wherever (I mean, if you really won't move to x, you don't apply there, but there are only so many jobs, etc )

An MA in philosophy is usually seen as a consolation prize for someone who didn't quite have it (whether 'it' is ability, love, lingo, or what, may be a matter of disagreement) for the doctorate level work. It may be appreciated by some employers but it has no common use.

Individuals do find other paths, of course.
posted by mdn at 5:17 AM on January 8, 2007

My ex-husband has a Ph.D in philosophy and he makes a boatload of money running a consulting company. I know several other philo Ph.Ds with similar careers. When you have a Ph.D in philosophy or any of the liberal arts, you can do research, analyze data, and write intelligently about what you've found. That's what all consulting is about. Ph.Ds are generally better at these things than other people.
The one big problem with Ph.Ds in academia (I know this because I am one) is that they can develop bad work habits because their schedules are so flexible and deadlines far off. But if your son is in the AF, that should take care of that problem.
posted by annabkr at 5:50 AM on January 8, 2007

I have a friend pursuing a PhD in Philosophy currently who is dissatisifed with academia and planning to complete a library science degree after she's finished her PhD. Her boyfriend, currently doing a Masters in Philosophy, has a partially completed MLIS degree which is an area he says he enjoys more than philosophy. Finally, another philosophy PhD student I know wants to become a professor but admits that the job prospects versus the number of candidates out there make it seem like it might be awhile until he gets the job he wants. (Not sure if it matters but we're all in Canada by the way.)
posted by Jaybo at 5:56 AM on January 8, 2007

Guy in my office with an M.A. in Philosophy is a legislative editor/proofreader.
posted by JanetLand at 6:54 AM on January 8, 2007

Guy I know who went ABD in philosophy works as a librarian.
posted by box at 8:22 AM on January 8, 2007

most of philosophy majors I know are lawyers
posted by matteo at 9:00 AM on January 8, 2007

Two friends with ba's in philo. One is an Episcopal priest. The other sells real estate.
posted by vronsky at 11:06 AM on January 8, 2007

sorry, that first link should have been: here
posted by mdn at 11:28 AM on January 8, 2007