I have become increasingly concerned with a recent spate of articles lambasting the decision to pursue a PhD in the humanities. At a time when the Humanities are said to be “in crisis”, when jobs are at an all-time low, when PhDs don’t earn any more than MAs and are said to be a form of “mass, cheap labour” for universities, many have seen fit to call into doubt the wisdom of pursuing such a path. The money, the effort, the time... how could it all possibly be worth it?
Hey: want to know why I’m trying to pursue a PhD? This may sound utterly quaint to the ears of these critics, but my love of philosophy actually plays a huge part in my ongoing plan. Unless someone knows of a better place to earnestly and effectively pursue philosophy at a higher level, I’m not sure how economic concerns are supposed to weigh against this love.
Hey, want to know another reason? I want to teach philosophy, and in order to teach it well, you have to know it well. How is my poor time-to-earning potential ratio supposed to weigh against this fact? Am I supposed to conclude that a more cost-effective use of my time would be to simply abandon my training after the MA level and find some place to teach? How many of us are supposed to come to this conclusion? Who will teach philosophy well?
Finally: I want to pursue philosophy because I want to become a good philosopher. If I could make just one significant and valuable contribution to the field, I would be extremely satisfied with my life. I do not think that life outside academia can provide the training necessary to accomplish this kind of goal.
The danger in attempting to quantify the value of a dedicated study in the humanities (via some economic, social or political metric) is that we alienate ourselves from the reasons each of us has to study at all. It may well be true that the humanities have beneficial effects on societies at large, though this hypothesis is far more difficult to test than many of its proponents may suppose. But I do not think that a person's choice to study ought to be held hostage to these kinds of considerations.
3 comments:
Damn straight. Not enough people do these things because they want to LEARN. It always comes back to money. It makes me sad.
Maybe this is a loaded question, but I've got to ask.
Hey: want to know why I’m trying to pursue a PhD? This may sound utterly quaint to the ears of these critics, but my love of philosophy actually plays a huge part in my ongoing plan. Unless someone knows of a better place to earnestly and effectively pursue philosophy at a higher level, I’m not sure how economic concerns are supposed to weigh against this love.
Okay: Why aren't you just reading books, studying on your own dime, etc? What is it about the PhD that makes it important to your pursuing philosophy?
I want to teach philosophy, and in order to teach it well, you have to know it well.
Sure. But again, why is the PhD - really, why is paying to attend classes at all - important for this? I suppose you could argue here that you need the PhD, the paper credentials, to even have a shot at teaching students in a classroom. Of course, then I ask 'Is there something about the classroom, the being a teacher, that is essential for you'?
Finally: I want to pursue philosophy because I want to become a good philosopher.
Same general questions.
I'll sum them all up: I accept you love philosophy, that you want to learn philosophy, and that you want to teach philosophy. But why is the PhD at all important for any of these (possibly excepting the 'teach' one, given the credential requirements)?
Hi Crude,
My experience doing philosophy inide and outside the academy is that serious, high-level discussions are almost exclusively confined to universities. It doesn't have to be this way, of course, but philosophy is necessarily a form of conversation. While it is possible to read on your own, converse online and speak to like-minded friends when time permits, nothing beats an organized, formalized discussion with people who have (ostensibly) gone through the same training you have.
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