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Comment by maksimur | Hacker News Reader

Generally speaking university gives you the tools and guides you. Most of the people aren't able to study university level subjects on their own.

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That might be the case for other disciplines, but it certainly isn't for philosophy. There are no special techniques, you just read what other people have said on the subject. What else is there?

Discussions and having a peer group seems like it would be helpful for learning philosophy.

Sure, but my question was about the purpose of studying philosophy in university. "It's easier than doing it by yourself" is not a purpose. There's still nothing you can do with what you've learned, other than become a professor.

I just want to point out that you haven’t made a good argument for this to be true at all. One person does not make a pyramid scheme. Someone into cooking and teaching could go to culinary school and tell you their dream is to be a culinary instructor. Doesn’t make it a pyramid scheme.

Philosophy has one of the highest average incomes of degrees, because of the number of graduates that go into law and business.

The implicit argument is that I don't see what else one could possibly do with a degree in philosophy.

> Philosophy has one of the highest average incomes of degrees, because of the number of graduates that go into law and business.

And why do they need those degrees in order to do that? What are they employed to do?

One thing you can do with a degree in philosophy is get into law school. After graduating from law school you can be employed as a lawyer. They’re not philosophy lawyers, just normal lawyers.

This isn’t some fringe thing. Play around with some Google searches like “what can you do with a philosophy degree?”, “best pre-law degrees”, “philosophy and law school” and you will see what else one could possibly do with a degree in philosophy.

I didn't think I needed to specify "that you can't do without a philosophy degree". You can get into law school without a philosophy degree, too.

That’s a pretty important qualifier. Most degrees don’t take something from impossible to possible. That’s pretty much only certifications. Is there anything you can do with a CS degree that you can’t otherwise, besides be a CS professor? Even really high level jobs will have people with other degrees.

That was the idea in the past.

University now teaches you precisely what to think, and makes clear the consequences of ‘wrongthink’.

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