I have two degrees in philosophy. I quit my PhD with an MA after I realized academic life wasn’t for me.
When people find this out about me… they rarely react positivity anymore. Most are confused, some look upset, others get defensive or crack cliche jokes about how I got a job with a useless degree like that or if I work at McDonalds.
It seems to have gotten way worse the past few years. In my late 20s/early 30s people seemed to react a lot more positively to this fact about my life? People would ask me about it and why I did it and what I studied specifically. I really liked those conversations.
I feel naive as to why philosophy is so controversial for the average person, anymore than English or History is? I really enjoyed my studies and still do them as a hobby now.
I’ve known 3 philosophy majors that I know of.
One had a PhD and was absolutely insufferable. We were coworkers, and he’d often say falsehoods to try to be funny. Like, “Did you write that documentation I asked for?”, and he’d say like “I spent all morning writing it as a series of haikus”. I’m like, my guy, just answer the question. I’d ask him to stop being sarcastic so often in professional contexts and he’d be like “I’m not being sarcastic I’m being ironic.” You knew what I meant, Ryan!
He would also use language to say things that were tEcHnIcAlLy true. Like, “I finished that task (or 1 equals 1)”, except he had more subtle ones.
Was it because he was a philosophy PhD? Probably not. Some of his annoying habits he tied back to philosophy stuff, but he was probably just an asshole. But that’s who I think of (other than chidi)
The other one I knew was fine in a messy nihilist rich kid way. Fun at parties. Can’t be friends.
And the last one is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Just thoughtful and patient and a really positive person.
[edited out useless words]