why is philosophy offered as a course in universtities?

If we learned everything there was to know about life by living it, we'd never need biology either. If we learned all there was about physics by dropping things, we'd never need classes on that. And if we learned everything there was to know about reading and writing from spending so much time on internet forums, we'd all be Shakespeare by now.

neolouphis-

Well,it provides a lot of people who don't much care to work with highly paid and comfortable chairs in warm cosy rooms at the expense of those who do work.Its quite common and it is possible that they would be a lot more trouble if let loose.
Take a good book into class and read that.

Good luck

spendius

I would say the value of learnin' philosophy and philosophers lies in exposin' the student to the abstract process of critical thinkin'. That bein' the case, it prolly oughtta start a whole lot earlier than post-secondary, IMO.

rufio-

Yeah well,biology and all.We've ended up with that not being able to tell when people are dead and it is giving us some very difficult choices to make.It is a distinct possibility that in the near future life support machines will only be turned off when the patient's assets have been liquidated.

With physics we live in fear or in futile escapism.

We could never approach Shakespeare no matter how much we read.

But then again.Antibiotics motor cars.We are schizo.
But not on Shakespeare.

Best of

spendius.

I don't know about that timber.

Have you fallen out with Lola?

I found that book.CLUCK its called.
ISBN 0 907080 15 4

Sorry neolouphis.We are like that.Its like being in a pub.What's a louphis?

spendius.

the PhD. has some philosophical origin to it as noted by the Ph...
Science is a form of philosophy too.

"Science is a form of philosophy too."
Ray, what a remarkable sentence!

It'd be my take that the PhD pretty much not only knows how somethin' is or does what it is or does, and how to go about using it, doing it or getting it done, but knows also why it is or does that, and why it might be worth doing or having in the first place.


(edit to add: whoopee! With this one, my post count hit the 10K mark! Didn't even realize that was imminent; Thanks to Region Philbis for pointin' it out to me. I hadda backtrack some to see which one did it - this was the one )

I'm dumb, but here's my sentence:

Philosophy is an attempt to find the best way to think.

They offer philosophy in college so that I'd have something to major in. :-D

You're not dumb and your definition is in a way true.
Cheers

Philosophy is a subject sometimes taught in academia ?

No ?

Philosophy is taught in colleges and universities for much the same reason that anything else is taught -- so that the student may know what others think and have thought, teach and have taught. The ideal university or college does not teach you what is or is not true -- it teaches you how to go about finding your truths and, as guideposts, shows what others have discovered. A knowledge of the thoughts of other thinkers also gives one an hstorical perspective on the development of thought.

My course teaches me the rules of formal logic, which are pretty much set in stone and therefore there's nothing wrong with teaching them - logic is like maths. The majority of the course though covers various philosophical debates that crop up a lot, and we learn the arguments and the counterarguments and how to come up with our own arguments. It's been an academic subject for centuries, and it works as well as any other academic subject, and better than some. They don't tell you what to believe, they teach you how to come to your own conclusions.