[Vision2020] Philosophy (was: campaign contributions)

[Kenneth Marcy]

On Tuesday 17 July 2007 20:09, Donovan Arnold responded to Joe Campbell:
<snip>
> Third, and final,
> since you are philosophy teacher, you're biased in thinking that everyone
> can be a philosophy teacher rather than understanding standing some
> people want to be welders, carpenters, constructionists, nurses,
> drafters, operators, truckers, and machinists,--occupations that actually
> produce public wealth, not drain from it.

I do not write here for Professor Campbell, rather for myself. Not everyone 
can be a professional philosophy teacher, but many individuals, skilled 
manual laborers among them, regularly inculcate in others portions of their 
personal philosophies by their deeds as well as their diction. These 
lessons may have as substantial, if not as wide-spread, effects on others 
as taking a university philosophy class.

The suggestion that philosophy drains public wealth is not well guided. 
Philosophical studies, whether or not in a classroom, have better prepared 
many persons for lifetimes of excellence in many fields of endeavor, from 
the arts to the sciences, and from sports fields to financial markets. From 
the simple notion that philosophy students often earn better test scores to 
the more subtle observations that philosophically aware folks tend to think 
more critically, analyze more correctly, and write fewer incorrect texts, 
it is straightforward to conclude that philosophical studies increase the 
positive qualities of lives, and that is as surely a sign of contemporary 
wealth as it was a desirable life goal two millennia ago.

To the extent that more correct thinking results in fewer public policy 
mistakes, it surely leads to less erroneous public expenditure of treasure 
and lives, which is a conservation, not a drain, of public wealth.


Kenneth Marcy