
Is there a point to studying philosophy? - akbarnama
https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/3of8i3/is_there_a_point_to_studying_philosophy/cvwpdy5
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weinzierl
Scott Aaronson's view on academic philosophy could maybe of help to decide
between philosophy and math/science courses:

    
    
       Scott: Well, let’s start with the positives of academic philosophy!
    
       (1) I liked the philosophy of math and science courses that I took in 
       college. Sure, I sometimes got frustrated by the amount of time spent on 
       what felt like Talmudic exegesis, but on the other hand, those courses 
       offered a scope for debating big, centuries-old questions that my math and 
       science courses hardly ever did.
    
    
       (2) These days, I go maybe once a year to conferences where I meet 
       professional philosophers of science, and I’ve found my interactions with 
       them stimulating and fun. Philosophers often listen to what you say more 
       carefully than other scientists do, and they’re incredibly good at spotting 
       hidden assumptions, imprecise use of language, that sort of thing. Also, 
       philosophers of science tend to double in practice as science historians: 
       they often know much, much more about what, let’s say, Einstein or Bohr or 
       Godel or Turing wrote and believed than physicists and mathematicians 
       themselves know.
    
    
       (3) While my own reading of the philosophical classics has been woefully 
       incomplete, I don’t feel like the time I spent with (say) Hume or J. S. 
       Mill or William James or Bertrand Russell was wasted at all. You’re right 
       that these “old dead guys” didn’t know all the math and science we know 
       today, but then again, neither did Shakespeare or Dostoyevsky! I mean, 
       sure, the central questions of philosophy have changed over time, and the  
       human condition has changed as well: we no longer get confused over Zeno’s 
       paradoxes or the divine right of kings, and we now have global 
       telecommunications and the Pill. I just don’t think either human nature or 
       human philosophical concerns have changed quickly enough for great 
       literature on them written centuries ago to have ceased being great.
    

[1]
[https://intelligence.org/2013/12/13/aaronson/](https://intelligence.org/2013/12/13/aaronson/)

