How to love philosophy

This post's title is intended to be tongue-in-cheek. Following some comments at this Daily Nous post, I don't think one has to "love philosophy" in order to enjoy it, make a successful career out of it, and so on. I also can't give a how-to manual for loving philosophy. Still, I'd like to say a little bit about the topic for a couple of reasons.

First, as a number of comments on the above Daily Nous post indicate, there appear to be a fair number of people out there who have "fallen out of love" with it, or at least academic philosophy--people who find "most philosophy published in journals [to be] hopeless and depressing" (comment #5), "the deep sense of inadequacy I get every time I stick my neck out in front of relatively senior philosophers" (comment #6), "the pressure to publish half-baked articles that make one or two small nit-picky points" (comment #7), and so on. 

Second, as I explained several years ago, I once fell out of love with philosophy but was eventually able to find my love for it again. 

Because I can honestly identify with those who are disillusioned in the above ways--I was once really disillusioned with the "academic game"--I would like to briefly share a bit more about my experience and offer an encouraging word to those who find themselves disillusioned. For although I cannot offer any silver bullet to cure disillusionment, I want to suggest that there may be significant things one can do to surmount it.

Here, in brief, is my story. Before college, I never had any passions. There were things I liked: baseball, psychology, and music. Still, there was nothing I "lived for"--nothing of great meaning for me (besides, of course, my family). Then I found myself taking an intro to philosophy course with Dan Dennett, and everything changed. I fell for philosophy, and fell hard. I found it the most interesting thing in the world, seemed to be pretty good at it, and basically knew from the start that it was what I wanted to do for a living. Then came grad school. At first, grad school was even better. Holy jeezus, I was hanging around really interesting people doing philosophy all day, staying up late at night talking shop in our apartments or the local pub, reading and thinking about super-interesting books and papers, etc. It was awesome.

Alas, as I got further along in grad school, the "professional" aspects increasingly began to crowd out my passion. There was the jockeying for attention, pressure to publish in top journals, harsh referee comments, pressure to write papers on one or two nitpicky points, etc. And it was no fun at all. I started grad school loving philosophy--feeling confident in my abilities, doing work I found exciting, passionate about talking shop with others, etc.--but then increasingly found myself despising it: not because my grad program was bad (far from it!), but simply because academic philosophy seemed like a game played according to rules that were anathema to my interests and self-conception. In short, I simply didn't like the game.

Now, maybe I was an idealist (what young person isn't?). And maybe every line of work has its downsides (probably!). Still, I was frustrated--and I regret to say, I didn't handle it well for a while. I lost my passion. I spent more time on hobbies than doing research (I wasn't alone!). Eventually, though, I found my way out: I fell in love with philosophy again. I fell in love with it again because, much to my surprise, I found I was not powerless in the face of the game. I found, as a number of commenters note at the aforementioned Daily Nous post, that there are real choices one can make: choices to not worry about "the game" so much, and pursue philosophy in the way one likes or used to love. I found one doesn't have to write small, nit-picky papers to publish. I found one doesn't have to worry about publishing in places like Phil Review so much, and that one can simply try to write the best philosophy one can, on issues and arguments one finds inspiring, and find outlets to publish it. I also found that one can come to love teaching, finding great value in it. And so on. 

In short, while I don't have a silver bullet for loving (or even liking) philosophy, I would simply like to encourage those who are disillusioned--those who are precisely where I was a number of years ago--to consider the possibility that there may be a viable alternative. One doesn't have to give into disillusionment. One has a choice--indeed, many choices. One can just try to have fun at philosophy again, enjoy talking with getting to know other philosophers for its own sake (rather than for "networking), write papers on ideas that inspire you, and so on. For, who knows: it just might work out. It might just transform your outlook (it did mine)--and, in any case, it just might be better (in my experience, at least) than disillusionment!

Comments

[Trevor Hedberg]

There might be an alternative solution to this problem. Perhaps those who either no longer love philosophy or never really loved philosophy at all could instead view their graduate and professional experiences in terms of pride instead of love or passion. From this perspective, the relevant question to ask when reflecting on one's career wouldn't be, "Do I enjoy what I'm doing?" Instead, it would be, "Am I proud of what I'm doing?" If you think that what you do is valuable or significant, then it is possible to be proud of what you're doing even if you don't love it or outright dislike it. This might not result in an idealistic, rosy disposition, but it might provide enough motivation to soldier onward despite not having an unbridled passion for the subject.

I doubt that this outlook would work for everyone: you probably have to at least find philosophy tolerable to persevere through graduate school, the job search, etc.; you can't hate the discipline and expect your pride to be enough to sustain you through its gauntlet. But simultaneously, I don't think loving philosophy (particularly in he romanticized way that some folks do) is necessary for a philosopher to carve out a fulfilling and successful academic career.

[Marcus Arvan]

Hi Trevor: Thanks for your comment! That's an interesting alternative, and it may well work for some people.

One possible concern is this: what if you begin to seriously doubt whether what you're doing is valuable or significant? My sense is that a lot of philosophers go through serious bouts of this (I know I did!), as sometimes philosophy can seem like a mere game of meaningless problem-solving, etc. Perhaps the thing to say here is that these types of concerns should drive one to do the kind of philosophy one *can* be proud of (and, if that's the case, I'm apt to agree).

[Axel Gelfert]

The whole debate about whether one "loves" philosophy reminds me of this quote by former (1969-1974) West German president Gustav Heinemann who, when asked whether he loves his country, replied (quite sensibly, it seems to me): "I don't love nations; I love my wife, and that's all that needs to be said." (Couldn't resist [re-]posting it here since my comment didn't make it through at DailyNous...)

[Marcus Arvan]

Hi Axel: I get the gist of the quote, and sympathize with its spirit. I certainly don't love philosophy the way I love my wife (and I think I would be a monster if I did!). If I had to choose between the two, there would be no choice at all: I would drop philosophy in a heartbeat if I had to. Still, for all that, I truly believe it is possible--and wonderful--to truly love other things, such as knowledge, art, music, or philosophy. As a musician, I have known people for whom music was "the love of their life"--and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It can be a beautiful thing.

[Axel Gelfert]

Hi Marcus, actually I'm mostly on the same page with you -- and I very much agree with what you said in the main post. Keeping alive a genuine passion for philosophical questions, rather than letting 'professional' aspects determine one's every (philosophical) move, is really important. Sometimes it's necessary to compromise on these things, and sometimes happily the personal and professional interests in doing philosophy coincide, but this can't always be assumed. Also, there are many different ways of 'doing' philosophy -- some people enjoy the dialogical back-and-forth 'thinking on your feet' style (and also the performance aspect of it: think Q&A sessions...), others prefer immersing themselves in texts and arguments, and I think it's important to realize that there isn't just *one* way to do philosophy (just like there isn't just *one* 'correct' way to love someone/something -- so the 'love' analogy is perhaps more apt than I initially made it out to be!)

[Postdoc]

It's pretty hard to love philosophy, and it's even harder to love the profession. I got into it because it seemed so interesting. But like a crush that you find was shallow and based on sexual lust more than any deep similarities, philosophy is quickly losing its appeal to me. This article sums up how I feel about the profession.

http://www.oneplusonemagazine.com/you-are-not-a-commodity-on-how-academics-and-other-labourers-should-stand-up-to-capitalist-abuses/