The Schumpeter blog of the The Economist says business leaders would benefit from studying philosophers. For example, “philosophy-based courses would help executives overcome their obsession with status symbols. It is difficult to measure your worth in terms of how many toys you accumulate when you have immersed yourself in Plato.”
P0: Philosophy in general
A homepage for philosophy
What’s the difference between Wikipedia and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP)? SEP is “peer-reviewed, respected, accurate, and free.” It’s a terrific resource for “stressed undergraduates cramming before exams, professors looking for a topical refresher, or ‘regular’ people who are just interested in philosophy.”
The Socrates we don’t know
Adam Kirsch uses Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes to “to triangulate the greatest man of antiquity — Socrates himself” … and also to reflect on how much we can know at all.
Philosophy … as relevant as the iPhone
Using three philosophers as examples, Nicholas Kristof explains we cannot dismiss the humanities. “These three philosophers influence the way I think about politics, immigration, inequality; they even affect what I eat. It’s also worth pointing out that these three philosophers are recent ones. To adapt to a changing world, we need new software for our cellphones; we also need new ideas. The same goes for literature, for architecture, languages and theology.”
Exclusive Interview with Rebecca Goldstein
Some interesting points by the author of “Plato at the Googleplex.”
Psychologists investigate the Socratic method?
Confusion may be better for learning than clarity. Why do philosophers have to disagree with everything that anyone says? Whatever their motivation, one result is that the Socratic method of generating confusion is better for learning. As this article explains …
“Common wisdom holds that confusion should be avoided during learning and rapidly resolved if and when it arises,” wrote a team of researchers in a paper published earlier this year. While this might be true when it comes to superficial tasks such as memorizing facts and figures, “Confusion is likely to promote learning at deeper levels of comprehension under appropriate conditions.”
In other words: If teachers want students to learn the really important stuff, like comprehending difficult texts and modeling complex systems, they should put their students in confusing situations.
What is wisdom?
… and what does it have to do with philosophy, which is supposed to be “the love of wisdom”? The Sage and the Shrink (Julian Baggini and Antonia Macaro) say: “Being wise is about knowing what’s important; having sufficient insight into how we and others tick; having a handle on negative moods and emotions instead of being controlled by them; having an attitude of curiosity and a love of learning; understanding we’re all in the same boat and therefore being compassionate towards ourselves and others.”
Use Socrates to be a better boss.
5 Things Socrates Can Teach You About Being a Better Mentor. “The key to being a great mentor is asking great questions. Ancient philosophy can help, according to VC and Techstars co-founder Brad Feld.”
What philosophers do … outside the academic world
As Rebecca Rosen says in The Atlantic, “The romanticized version of what it’s like to be a philosopher must be one of the most appealing careers possible: read great thinkers, think deep thoughts, and while away the days in a beautiful office, surrounded by books, an Emeralite lamp, a hot mug of coffee, and perhaps a cat curled up by your feet.” But what about philosophers in the real world?
Helen De Cruz of New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science interviewed seven philosophy Ph.D.s who have left academia for the private sector: Part 1: How and why do they end up outside academia?, Part 2: What’s it like to have a nonacademic job?, and Part 3: Transferrable skills and concrete advice.
As Zachary Ernst, a software engineer at Narrative Science, puts it, “As a professional philosopher, if you haven’t gotten over-specialized and narrow, then you’ve got really good analytic and communication skills. So you’ve got the ability to learn quickly and efficiently. You’re also in the habit of being very critical of all sorts of ideas and approaches to a variety of problems. And if you’ve taught a lot, then you’re probably pretty comfortable with public speaking. Those skills are very rare in almost any workforce, and they’re extremely valuable.”
Empty ideas?
Philosophy is a bunch of empty ideas. Or so Peter Unger, a philosopher who has written quite a few impressive works of philosophy, now claims.
Socratically Speaking 