[Serious] Generally speaking, is philosophy a worthwhile subject of study?

[emjay]

I'd go with both. On the one hand I can't imagine humanity without Philosophy and on a personal level, it has a kind of unique, ever-hopeful potential - the (perhaps illusory) notion that any problem can solved with enough thought. But on the other hand it's definitely possible to overthink things and get bogged down in minutiae, ending up clouding issues seemingly beyond repair.

Good answer. I thought about putting 'both' myself for the same reasons. You bounced out one of my own thought processes when I went for a work earlier today while this thread was being summoned up from the depths of my subconsciousness.

I ended up opting for 'Yes', however, because I think that even when one overthinks things and gets bogged down in minutiae, seeming to end up clouding issues seemingly beyond repair, one still has the potential to ultimately, in the long run, grow more than wither, as a flower of philosophy, even in the very worst cases of overanalysis because such overanalysis need not be permanent and may eventually have a very big payoff.. If one believes in one's mind sufficiently.

Philosophy, plus a little bit of faith (so long as the faith is faith in evidence and not aside from evidence) can get you anywhere, IME.

Ultimately I think it's just the human condition really... as much as I/anyone may overthink things, doesn't stop us from doing it... it's just human nature I think to be always questioning, but some of us are better at it than others. I'm personally not great at it... I bore down to the wrong levels of detail or have difficulty understanding context etc, but some people are much better suited to it by their temperament or overall style of thinking.

Thanks for the change of rep BTW... tbh the other one read a bit like a eulogy and I didn't know what to make of it (again down to that difficulty with context I think). I'll change mine for you accordingly