Philosophy, as a subject, has some problems. Marketing is one of them. I suspect most people who have had little or no exposure to the subject think it is just a bunch of wooly brained nerds sitting around discussing the meaning of the word ‘is’. It’s entirely possible, and likely, to go through an entire public school education and never hear the word philosophy in context of it being a subject or a class. Ditto critical thinking. I’m fifty years out of high school, and I don’t remember it ever coming up, certainly not with any degree of seriousness.

Philosophers are not selling philosophy as something useful, at least not in any organized public way that I’ve seen. There’s the occasional little book like William Irvine’s ‘A Guide to the Good LIfe’, delineating Stoicism as a practical philosophy for everyday living. I would think that’s the sort of thing that, introduced early in education, at least in high school, might get people interested in further study of philosophy.

I suspect that a good many philosophy majors have found good jobs in the business world and other worlds, based on their ability to analyze and think clearly and so forth. Perhaps an effort on their part to speak out might help. “Hi! I’m a philosopher. I make a hundred and fifty thousand a year for thinking over at General Motors.” I doubt very many people consider a philosophy degree as a gateway to jobs in the non-academic economy. Enough people following that path might make philosophy departments viable again and support academic philosophy.

Way too early in the morning.