Why People Ignore Philosophy

I often lament philosophy’s low prestige amongst courses and society in general, at least compared to more practical pursuits. To an undergraduate, choosing a major in thinking and arguing seems impractical in comparison to one that could get you a job… or some sort of work, even if it means being relegated to doing something that you’d marginally enjoy.

But I digress.

I write this note because I feel disturbed that Philosophy in general, feels very under appreciated. This may just be my subjective opinion of course. But think about when you see a discussion on the ethics of animals rights on the news for example. They consult a few vets, an animal rights activist and maybe a vegan. No philosopher.

I think is due to a general lack of awareness and interest in philosophy. I think there are two reasons for why this is so.

1) Education

In our 10 (12?) years of compulsory education, most Singaporeans have hardly come across any sort of serious philosophy. We go through most of education system with an irrational focus on math and science and other sorts of useful subjects. Yet, we neglect the ideas that have been central to human society for decades and what some of the great thinkers of their time have said about them.

The closest we might have gotten to philosophy in pre-university education might be ‘Theory of Knowledge’ (for those in IB) or some sort of mish-mash elective option. I contend that tackling epistemology and metaphysics (woo philosophy!) first and foremost may seen intuitively logical, but really, it just kills the interest of most students who find it daunting and ‘mind-fucking’. Instead, I think we ought to introduce philosophy through value-theory. That is, though ethics, which I find to be the most applicable to the many dilemmas that students already experience.

At least then, people might know more about what philosophy entails rather than conveniently (and incorrectly) grouping it together with psychology, an entirely different field of study. Sometimes, I am so bemused by this quirk that I just play along when they ask me if I wanna be a psychologist.

2) The obfuscation of language in philosophy

“Obfuscation means what ah? So chim one.”

To most of the general public, philosophy is seen as some deep and difficult to grasp subject. Admittedly, this falls greatly on the philosophy profession itself. Academic philosophers seem to find the most complex ways of expressing a simple idea because it seemingly makes them sound smarter. But really, all they are doing is making their writing incredibly difficult to read and understand. And this complaint isn’t exclusive to the general public. Indeed, even most undergraduates with decent commands of english struggle to understand most introductory philosophical text and concepts. As such, most philosophical writing is boring to people, and really, we can’t blame people for not wanting to listen more from people who produce such fare.

I admit that I am sometimes guilty of this. To combat this, I’ve tried writing my papers in a way that even someone without much subject knowledge might be able to briefly understand what I am writing. I’ve also tried reducing the number of semi-colons and em-dashes in my sentences. It has been difficult.

For now, I still have my final term papers in Chinese and Moral Philosophy to complete. I hope this has been a somewhat insightful note in some ways or another.

This post was originally published as a note on Facebook (29 October 2017)