Vacationing with Philosophers

Many of you northern-hemisphere residents are living in places right now where there are actually brisk weather conditions. I’m trying hard not to be jealous (from the armpit of North America, otherwise known as Texas). So, instead of complaining I’m going to stomach my jealousy and broach the subject that many of you chilled northerners are thinking about right now: vacations—particularly vacations with your philosopher.

As wonderful a philosophers are to converse with, things can get pretty painful on a long vacation. Philosophers—being habitual creatures—get antsy and anxious when they’re away from the places where they feel safe (amongst other philosophers, in reading chairs, in the library, at usual tables in coffee shops, etc).

Vacations are different from things like philosophy conferences, because vacations are not generally filled with other philosophers, new and exciting philosophy papers, and job interviews. Philosophers know how to handle these sorts of things, but they often have a hard time when removed from their comfortable philosophy-world for a while.

So how can you minimize the bad effects that come with vacationing philosophers? Here are some suggestions that work for my philosopher:

1. Let them bring “work” along.

You know, even if there is no time to work or if your philosopher ends up not feeling like doing work, the best thing you can do is to let them (even encourage them) to bring philosophy work along. This work will sit in the background, reminding a philosopher that if things get too new, they still have the familiar lap of philosophy to fall into.

And if your philosopher wants to just work the whole vacation, try to finagle a deal out of them that they will try and do a few non-philosophy things with you a day, then spend the rest of the time doing the things that you want to do. Generally, though, philosophers will discover that there are fun non-philosophy activities on vacations and will not mind giving up work after a while.

2. Pick out a non-philosophy book on cd/tape/mp3 to listen to.

Some of you are groaning inwardly when you imagine a 20-hour card ride with a book on tape/cd/mp3. Even though I was a literature student, even I don’t like listening to books while I travel (it makes me carsick—we have to turn it up loud to hear it, and I hate loud noise). This is one of those sacrifices, though, that is really worth it in the end. If you philosopher feels like they can spend part of a trip engaging their mind, they will be less likely to get anxious about leaving the comfort of their philosophy world [Note: My philosopher hates leaving home, but since we’ve started listening to books on cd, he has reached the point where he actually talks about planning future car trips and doesn’t seem to mind them nearly as much]. Plus, if you travel by airplane, train, or bus, you can set your philosopher up with a book on an mp3/cd/tape player and then you don’t have to participate in the book at all.

Although it’s important to let your philosopher engage their mind while they travel, it is very important that you do not let them pick out a philosophical book to listen to—especially if you are driving somewhere. Remember DUIP? This is very dangerous.

3. Agree beforehand to discuss at least one philosophical topic during the trip.

Sometimes the anticipation of getting to talk about philosophy with you will help your philosopher overcome the dread they feel about leaving comfortable places. It’s best to restrict these sorts of discussions to times when you are driving or when you’re at a rest area (no DUIP for your philosopher).

These are only a few suggestions, but they have really improved my philosopher’s emotional state when we go on vacations. You may complain, “But, Katie, I wanted to get away from philosophy myself! Why do I have to bring it along on vacation?”

Whether you like it or not, your philosopher is married to philosophy. Asking them to leave it at home is like covering a canary’s cage all the time to get it to stop singing: you can make them stop, but they are going to quickly lose their life-spark because you are squelching the thing they are primed to do. It is perfectly fair to set up some boundaries on vacations, but don’t outlaw philosophy entirely.

~The Philosiologist

You can follow me on twitter (@Philosiologist), friend me on facebook (Philosiologist Qed), or add me to your circle on Google+ (Philosiologist Qed). You can also send me an email (left sidebar).

Undergraduate Philosophy Students: A Simplified Evolutionary Outline

As all of you know, this is the second in my very short series about undergraduate philosophy students. Last week, I explored the reasons why undergrads typically choose to specialize in philosophy (found here), and this week we will talk about what they become once they join philosophy programs.

Non-philosopher parents of new undergrad philosophers, I hope that you will find this especially helpful.

[As a note: When I refer to “young” philosophers, I do not mean “young by years,” but I do mean “young, as in new.” This is an important distinction].

Stage One: Starry-eyed wonder/Deer in the headlights

Depending on why an undergrad person became a philosophy major, they have different reactions at Stage One. The young philosopher who already loves philosophy or knows something about it is generally enraptured—it’s like being in a new dating relationship. This young philosopher wants to read everything they can find about philosophy, talks to everyone about philosophy, and often becomes obsessed with a particular professor (they see this professor as being a wise sage who can guide them on the one true path to philosophical wisdom). They also have a seemingly unlimited tolerance for boredom. My philosopher can remember reading huge history of philosophy volumes late into the night—thirsting to read everything he could—in a way that he doesn’t now.

The danger with a young philosopher of this type in Stage One is that they often end up wielding philosophy like a too-heavy sword, hacking down relationships and destroying connections with friends in an attempt to try and use a weapon they aren’t ready for yet. This doesn’t always happen (probably with analytic more often than continental philosophers), but I have seen it happen many times. The people most often found in the unintentional path of destruction are a young philosopher’s family members—some relationships with parents never recover from the beating they take in Stage One.

Parents: it is really important to realize that this stage will not last forever, and your young philosopher does not mean to hurt you. Eventually, most philosophers move on and become thoughtful, careful individuals. If you can just make it through this stage, you will find that your young philosopher is much easier to spend time with.

The other type of young philosopher at Stage One is the kind that didn’t really know much about philosophy, and once they open their eyes and realize what they committed to by joining a philosophy program, this philosopher is rather overwhelmed and stunned (hence, “Deer in the headlights”). This young philosopher will withdraw at first and try to process this new world. They don’t have the confidence to speak up in class, and they may find themselves overwhelmed by the hard readings.

This type of young philosopher is much less dangerous to other people, but if they aren’t offered help or made to talk about their ideas, this philosopher may get way too overwhelmed and either leave the program or do poorly in classes. Philosophers at this stage need more confidence. While the starry-eyed philosopher might be able to keep things going on their own, the deer in the headlights philosophers needs some social support to continue in philosophy. Having just one friend or philosophical mentor to tentatively talk about ideas can be a big help to them.

Stage Two: Hipster Philosophers

After a young philosopher passes Stage One, most of them end up in Stage Two as a hipster philosopher. For those of you unfamiliar with the term “hipster,” a quick look at Wikipedia (the source of all sources!) will give you a quick history of the term. It originated in the 1940s/50s to descript a counter-culture movement—particularly in music, but also in clothes and attitude—and is now used to describe a class of people (usually young) who are also into counter-cultural “authentic” stuff. For those of us who like to make fun of hipsters, we often tease them for saying things like, “I was into Indie rock/suspenders/bowties/mustaches/TOMS shoes before it/they was/were popular.” [As a note: There is a group on facebook called “Hipsters who hate other hipsters for being hipsters].

So, when young philosophers reach this stage, they know just enough about philosophy to impress their peers with “sexy” philosophy, and they often pretend a bit like they are a unique and incredibly intelligent person (very counter-cultural). Now, of course they are unique and intelligent persons, but any grad student or professor can see that the hipster philosopher really knows very little about philosophy.

Some young philosophers discover at this stage that they either don’t really like philosophy or aren’t very good at it, but they are so used to the prestige or “sexiness” (in some groups) that comes with being a philosophy major that they stay in philosophy but never get out of the hipster stage.

Stage Two is not a dangerous stage, but it is rather annoying. Most philosophers, after they have learned more about philosophy, look back at themselves when they were at this stage with embarrassment.

There are a few philosophers who never leave Stage One or Two (or they develop a certain degree of arrogance or unkindness in or beyond graduate school).  I have seen some former undergraduate philosophy students who don’t pursue further education and get stuck in Stage Two, and then they develop into internet “trolls” or that person who shows up at university philosophy colloquia events and asks those embarrassingly-bad- questions-that-they –have-no-idea-are-embarrassing-questions.

Stage Three: Sober and Thoughtful

After our young philosophers make it through the first and second stages, they reach my favorite stage, Stage Three. Philosophers at this stage have made a lot of mistakes, perhaps alienated some friends or family members, and learned more about themselves and their philosophical minds. They have developed a certain type of maturity that comes from thinking and reasoning about the world.

Philosophers in Stage Three are ready to take on the world beyond—either in “real” jobs, in law school, or in academia as a graduate student. They know better how to talk to non-philosophers, and are often excellent conversational partners. Parents: This is what you can look forward to with your young and unwieldy swordswoman/man.

So whatever stage your young philosopher is in, remember that with time and patience, your philosopher will (probably) develop into a thoughtful and engaging person.

~The Philosiologist

You can follow me on twitter (@Philosiologist), friend me on facebook (Philosiologist Qed), or add me to your circle in Google+ (Philosiologist Qed). You can also send me an email (left sidebar).

Undergraduate Philosophy Students: Choosing Philosophy

I thought it might be fun to do a short series of posts on undergraduate philosophy majors. Today, we’ll talk about why students generally pick up a philosophy concentration. My next post will discuss the evolution of the common undergraduate philosophy major. There might be a third post about common career paths for the recent philosophy B.A. [Only if I can make it clever enough. Right now the idea of discussing career paths seems much too dull].

Undergraduates become philosophy majors for a very different set of reasons than graduate students. I was an English major myself, so I know from experience that English majors generally become English majors because they either (1) love literature or (2) want to become a secondary school English teacher (sometimes both (1) and (2), but sometimes not). And English majors can really do just about anything office-y in the workforce (“Wait, you were an English major, so you can write and speak well—plus you can recite “The Lord’s Prayer” in Old English from heart? You’re hired!” [This was basically how I got my first job]).

But back to philosophers. Philosophy is one of those trickier subjects in the Humanities that, on the surface, doesn’t seem to qualify someone for a particular type of job (and students and parents of students are mostly concerned, in the U.S., at least, with pursuing a degree in higher education in order to get a better job). What, then, draws undergraduates to study philosophy?

One of my favorite groups of philosophers to work with is undergraduate philosophy majors—particularly incoming freshpersons (first-year students). No matter what class (as in, year of student, not socio-economic class), I always try to sneak in questions about why each student came to philosophy. Given this data, I’ve come up with four of the major reasons why undergraduate students decide to study philosophy:

1.  I just love it.

There are a few—a very few, I might add—something like 2% of all incoming students and 10% of all current students (who change concentrations) who come to philosophy because they just love it. I’ve had students who discovered philosophy through a high school class or from an influential sibling or just a simple, intro-level philosophy course somewhere. This type of student doesn’t really care initially about what they can actually do with a philosophy degree, they just can’t imagine studying anything else. Sometimes, usually because of parental pressure, they pick up a second concentration in something practical, but the true lovers of philosophy aren’t happy unless they are studying philosophy all the time.

2. I really liked Professor X’s Philosophy of [Something-Academically-“Sexy”] class.

Some new philosophy majors are wooed in by a particular professor or “sexy” philosophy class (Philosophy of Art or Love or Media, for example). Let’s face it: Some philosophy professors are really, really great at teaching philosophy in an incredibly interesting way (and some are as dull as dirt). These sorts of professors tend to attract a small following of undergrads who try to get away with taking all of this professor’s classes, but don’t really adore philosophy-for-philosophy’s-sake in the way that our first student does. This second student might also be wooed in by a really interesting philosophy class, but may not understand exactly what philosophy is all about [but who does?!]. This kind of student makes up about 10% of the population of philosophy majors.

3. I hear that philosophy students do well on the GRE/LSAT/MCAT/GMAT.

Our largest recruitment pool comes from this type of student, surprisingly (around 60%), and it is completely true that philosophers tend to do very well on such tests. There are some nifty charts here (link), that show how philosophers score on various tests compared to students in other fields. For those of you who are rather confused about the charts or don’t want to take the time to study them, I’ve simplified the charts here (click to enlarge):

Exhibit A: How philosophers do overall on standardized tests.

Exhibit B: How philosophers do on the Verbal/Writing portions of the GRE.

Exhibit C: How philosophers do on the Quantitative (Math) portion of the GRE.

And finally, the fourth type of philosophy student.

4. I don’t have any other options.

Okay, so philosophy is one of those subjects that has a difficult time recruiting students initially (unless they are student (3) who comes in with a purpose). We tend to attract students to the major after they take a course in philosophy and either (a) fall in love with it, (b) are wooed in by a class or professor, or (c) have no other options.

Philosophy often ends up as the most accepting liberal arts major because it’s really hard for some philosophers to turn away a hard case when this student might become a better thinker/reasoner, even if they aren’t very astute or motivated initially [philosophers tend to be divided here; one side takes the view that we should keep philosophy programs small and full of bright students, and one side think that we should accept all of the strays and hope to build them up as great thinkers].

So for all of you parents out there who just discovered that your offspring became a philosopher, there is hope. Perhaps a philosophy program will take your wandering, indecisive child and make them into a thoughtful, reasonable person. Perhaps your student will do really well on the LSAT and look forward to a great career in law. Perhaps your student has chosen the path of wisdom and doesn’t really know where this path leads, but they can’t imagine studying anything else. Whatever the case, you should be proud of your young philosopher.

And some fun. A comic that is being passed around by my philosopher friends (click to enlarge):

~The Philosiologist

You can follow me on twitter (@Philosiologist), friend me on facebook (Philosiologist Qed), or add me to your circle on Google+ (Philosiologist Qed). You can also send me an email, if you would like (left sidebar).

Childhood Tales from Philosophers

I don’t know about the rest of you non-philosophers, but I am intrigued by the tales I hear from some philosophers (and their family members) about how weird they were as children.

[Note: I’m going to preface the rest of this entry by saying that I have years of professional experience working with children in the eight-to-sixteen-years-old range, and none of the children I interacted with had exactly these sorts of dramatic philosopher-reactions to situations (though there were lots of “whys,” but most children go through a “why” phase)].

So today I thought it would be fun to share a few childhood stories that I’ve heard from my philosopher about his childhood, and then encourage you to either ask your philosopher about her/his childhood and/or share your own in the comments.

Story 1: Newton’s Third Law of Motion Must be Incorrect

My philosopher was in the fifth grade (around eleven-years-old) when his class was learning about Newton’s laws of motion. When they reached the third law (“for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”), my philosopher knew that this law was completely wrong. He envisioned a situation in which a bar attached to a machine could be moving toward another object (say, a very large boulder). At the point of impact, this bar would be stopped by the machine such that the bar did not at all bounce off the boulder, in the way that this law of motion required the bar to.

My philosopher debated about this with his teacher for several weeks in class—refusing to give in until the teacher videotaped a situation where the philosopher pushed another student. She showed him how he bounced back slightly, even though he was the one exerting the force. Despite the video evidence, my philosopher spent more time trying to explain why the so-called “evidence” proved nothing since it didn’t really challenge the thought experiment as such.

This teacher was so angry at him by the end that she made him write a long report about Newton, and then made him read it aloud to the class (a sort of punishment for being annoying).

Could you guess that this philosopher became an analytic philosopher? [The crazy, impossible thought experiment gives it away].

Story 2: Free-Will, God’s Knowledge, and Impossibilities

When my philosopher was around seven-years-old when he began to be bothered by questions of free will. He can remember sitting around for hours, trying to reason through ideas like:

Let’s say I move my hand. Does God know that I was going to move my hand? Did he know that I knew that he knew that I was going to move my hand? When does the circle of this knowing end?

My parents say that I should love God more than them. How can I measure how much I love my parents, in order to love God even more? And how can I love God when I’ve never met him? I do know that I love my parents, but I see them every day and they do all sorts of nice things for me (like give me presents and make me lunch).

So, now that you’ve started thinking about philosopher-children, do you see any of your current children on their way to becoming philosophers? I certainly hope so; the world needs more philosophers.

~The Philosiologist

You can follow me on twitter (@Philosiologist), friend me on facebook (Philosiologist Qed), or add me to your Google+ circle (Philosiologist Qed). You can also send me an email (left sidebar). Forgive me for the shorter entry today, as I am off to paint J.S. Mill's portrait on a living room pillow and tend to my zucchini seedlings.

Habitualness: One Philosopher-Quirk of Many

So I’ve been away for a while. I have lots of excuses, but the one that most of you will be able to relate to rhymes with shmrad shmool shmapplications.

[Semi-related side-note: I don’t know how you students in M.A. programs ever get any applications out to Ph.D. programs. Seriously, I had no life for six months (though I do work at a full-time job, at which we had a particularly busy semester, which didn’t help). I can’t imagine how you can write final papers for your grad classes in addition to preparing a writing sample, studying for GRE exams, and putting together all of the various statements of purpose/intent, etc. in time].

Now that I’m not perpetually stressed and sleep-deprived, with GRE words and Petrarchian sonnets dancing around in my head [like sugar plums in the “Night Before Christmas” poem, just in a creepier way] all the time, it’s time to write again. Off we go!

My philosopher often describes being a philosopher to non-philosopher this way: lots of time spent alone, studying projects that no one outside of one’s area is interested in. It makes them weird.

The “cute,” weird habits that philosophers develop early in their careers will only get worse as they get older. Part of learning to understand and/or live with a philosopher is learning how to live with some of these quirks and accept them as part of the philosopher-package, without letting them get in the way of your happiness, too.

I thought it would be fun to talk about one of the more apparent quirks, and then I’ll give some (hopefully) helpful suggestions about how to deal with it.

Habitualness

Philosophers are so habitual.

I know several Continental philosophers who will protest here that I am being unfair to them, as Continental philosophy has an air of unpredictability about it, but let me respond that I know many Continental and many Analytic philosophers, and every single one of them is habitual to an extreme. Here’s a way to test and see how habitual your philosopher is: move, hide, or disrupt something that they use/eat/do every day and see how they respond. [This can turn into a really fun game, but you didn’t hear this from me].

I had the opportunity once to view the results of a rearrangement of furniture in my philosopher’s department main office. Every professor or grad who entered the office acted shocked at the change, but here are my favorite reactions: (1) walking in, seeing the change, and freezing in the middle of the room with a look of fear on their faces; (2) looking around confusedly and not being able to form simple sentences because they were too distracted; (3) complaining about the change initially, then coming in a few days later and deciding that they liked it after all (most philosophers had this reaction).

Habitual people have a hard time when familiar things change [“Duh Katie”]. Philosophers are super-habitual. How can you lessen the blow? [Note: Some of you philosopher will think that this is patronizing in tone, but I can reassure you that it is an attempt at sympathy not patronization].

1. Prepare your philosopher

Explain that you will be making changes a few days before you actually do make them. They will grumble less if they know that something is coming.

2. Prepare Counter-Points

Have gentle responses ready when they do grumble about a change (“Yes, it is different, but you can see that it does give us more light in here, which we needed”). Philosophers are pretty rational people. They will consider your counter-points to their grumbles, as this is how they understand things in philosophy-world (philosophy-world is all about points and counter-points). Besides, it’s really fun to play at their game sometimes.

3. Sympathize

Let them know that you understand that they don’t like something. They will grumble less if they see you as an understanding person.

Just as philosophers develop habits which make it difficult for them to handle change, they can also develop habits to deal with change. Example: In our case, I always try to warn my philosopher ahead of time when something is going to change. If he can be ready for it, he will not grumble when the time comes, and he might even have responses ready for philosophers around him who do grumble about the same change. [Note: “Grumble” might not be the correct word here, as my philosopher doesn’t actually grumble. Perhaps “protest” or “panic” would be better].

Remember: habitualness is a defense for understanding and dealing with the outside world. Be patient with your philosopher and help her/him out a little with all of the unpredictableness outside of their little projects in philosophy-world. Realize that when they do protest to change, it is often because something is different rather than because they don’t like something.

~The Philosiologist

You can follow me on twitter (@Philosiologist), friend me on facebook (Philosiologist Qed), or add me to a circle on Google+ (Philosiologist Qed). You can also send me an email if you would like to (left sidebar). Thanks to all of you for your concern when I don’t post regularly. Perhaps I’ll even answer your