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

[vulcanlogician]

It’s worthwhile to study philosophy if you wish to talk intelligently about philosophy. Beyond that, the options are pretty limited. You can teach philosophy, write books about philosophy, or host a quiz show. That’s about it.

Boru

I remember listening to a philosophy lecture where the lecturer noted that philosophers are not generally concerned about sex, wealth, pragmatism, as most people generally are. And I agree. Philosophers are more concerned with principles and truth and stuff like that.

But not in an elitist way as the priests are. In kind of a nerdy way. Like, they are intellectually interested in principles and truth because those things seem more interesting and/or crucial... not because "only sinners and schmucks concern themselves with sex and wealth." But perhaps because it really appears that these things are possibly more crucial.

If you look at things in a certain way, philosophy is utterly useless. Even hardcore philosophy fans will tell you, life may be better without philosophy. Philosophers are certainly dispensable according to many metrics.

But... c'mon. Isn't asking what is REALLY true arguably worthwhile. Any answer to this question that hints at "yes" immediately paints philosophy as being valuable... at least to some degree.

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I tend to put those two things at the core of philosophy, as things that define philosophy.... differentiates it from "normal" kinds of investigation. Especially critical thinking. Philosophers often want to object to and/or justify things that are taken for granted. That's critical thinking on steroids.

Could you elaborate on what you meant by " Logic and critical thinking, both useful, aren't ordinarily included under that rubric.".... ?

Just that people generally don't think of those things as branches of philosophy like epistemology or ethics.  They're more a "used in" than "part of".  In much the same way that math isn't normally grouped under science.  Logic as a field of study is properly a part of philosophy, but that's different from study and acquisition of skill in lower-order classical logics.

That makes sense, and I agree with that. But I'd add: "Philosophy without logic is like science without math."