How much philosophy would you expect a philosophy major to know?

very little, actually.

>>9863029
50-60 philosophies thereabout

>>9863043
What would you expect

>>9863029
It depends on the effort he put during the career. Im a philosophy major and I havent read all books of every philosopher (not even some of the core ones) but Im on it. It's very difficult to compensate the time between what reads are obligatory and what interest you the most.

I'm a philosophy major and if I meet a fourth year or higher, I expect the following:

1. be very familiar with all of Plato and Aristotle along with at least a passive knowledge of the Hellenistic schools

2. know the basic idea of early Christian and scholastic philosophy (the more the better, but my school doesn't focus on this at all)

3. They should also have read all the major works of the big name Modern philosophers (Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Voltaire, and Hegel)

4. Have a at least a passing knowledge of Marx and Husserl and why they're foundational to later thinkers

5. Finally, to be familiar with the basic ideas of existentialism and have read a significant amount of at least one major existentialist philosopher

6. Be familiar with literature and fiction in general, and have well reasoned positions on any given subject

7. Almost forget - know how to write a fucking essay

>>9863133
This guy's clearly never met a philosophy undergrad.

I'd expect you to have read a bunch of totally fucking bogus mind-numbing analytic crap that you forgot 5 minutes after you left the seminar you discussed it in. Zero history philosophy (what's play dough?). Extreme conservatism within your sphere of 'expertise' (feminist animal bioethics), but titanic courage outside your field (the universe is just atoms and void simple pleb. Genes control consciousness), etc.

I apologize for my cynicism, but anglophone philosophy is truly in its darkest age right here, right now. STAY AWAY. I say this with total sincerity.

>>9863257
This. At least if they're from a directional or state school.

>>9863257
what about philosophy at better philosophy schools like Stanford, which I heard has a good phil department, and UChicago or Harvard?

>>9863257
>anglophone philosophy is truly in its darkest age
what's your solution, then? what should philosophy students be reading?

of the seven requirements that anon listed, my wife had done five before getting her bachelor's — she doesn't know husserl and she can't write a coherent essay to save her fucking life. the moderns she read were people like g.e.m. anscombe: analytic thomists. of course, to study thomism, you've gotta start with plato/aristotle.

and yet, she's going straight from a BS to a PhD even while lacking the ability to clearly express her thoughts. as for the conservatism, i'd say that each professor had their niche, but among all of them, you got a healthy dose of every major thinker worth a damn filtered through aquinas.

I'm a history postgrad who secretly studies philosophy instead of history, and in my experience philosophy postgrads are fucking retards who know very little

Usually they know the one or two authors they specialize in, and by "know" and "specialize" I mean they lazily half-read and sorta-know the last 10-30 years of scholarship on those two authors, because their adviser tells them what to read and gradually nudges them toward academic plausibility

Philosophy undergrads are both better and worse, in many ways. I've met philosophy undergrads who know ten times more than their TAs because they actually care about it and actually should be at university. But the vast majority are Redditors going into law school or getting ready to sorta-study the SHIT out of their favorite two authors in grad school

The talentlessness of university students and graduate students can be blamed on the fact that they gauge their level of knowledge by comparison with their peers, so it's a sort of race to the bottom, and by the standards of their graduate advisers, which are low and inflationary because no professor wants to fail a guy who spent 7 years of his life being a well-meaning disappointment, especially when he has 20 students who are all just as bad. You just kind of detach from all the duds after a while

>>9863325
I'm at one of those, and it's not better than the rest. Mostly rich kids who don't care about anything.

>>9863133
Oh look, a load of shit that any serious student would have passed after a year of study.

>>9863257
kek pretty accurate

>>9863350
>what's your solution, then? what should philosophy students be reading?

Not him, but, empty out the fucking academy of all these rich brats who are using it as a finishing school. And impose rigorous standards again, standards that don't give a fuck about inflation or

The academy, as it is, will collapse in our generation. It's been a dead husk moving under its own inertia since the 90s, but it's fucked now. There will be a complete re-tooling of some kind, maybe a rapid re-tooling of academic standards in many international contexts that makes it confusing and ad hoc to determine what your degree/pedigree is "worth." Hopefully the process preserves the truly passionate people, or there are at least sanctuaries for those people, while separating all the dilettantish brats writing Critical Feminist Explorations of The Word "The" in the Work of Elizabeth Anscombe.

It will literally collapse. It's done. The only thing propping up this shit-heap is the collective effervescence of the masses thinking that it's still a thing. Once some policy guy decides otherwise, and political circumstances make the masses fundamentally accepting of radical social change, the entire academy could be swept away overnight. Just throw all these fucking 37 year old ABD's and redundant PhDs into the trash.

>>9863325
Big schools are terrible schools for philosophy. Bourgeoisie are the exact types to be obsessed with the sort of philosophy you've described.

Phil undergrad here. Im only in second year and Im fairly familar with the works of Plato and early Christian authors like Augustine, Boethius etc thereafter. Apart from people like Machiavelli, Hobbes and reactionaires like Maistre and Carlyle, im fairly ignorant of modern philosophy. Im also a complete newb with Aristotle.

Look up the highest ranked philosophy programs, and find their curriculum and syllabi online.

>>9863029
Well judging from this thread I guess the information age will at least lend well to autodidacts. Better time than ever to be a self-taught man.

>>9863029

The appropriate quantity, quality and so on, which together with their individual life experiences would cause them to politely transmit and execuse my food order to my personal satisfaction, in any sort of a restaurant establishment where I might ordinarily encounter and interact with them.

>>9863492
>highest ranked
jej
'highest ranked' amounts to 'how well they fit what is trending'.
>>9863505
OMG EPIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111
Literally kys

>>9863507

You believe that I am being cute. I am not.

For me, the societal value of a philosophy major is coterminous with that person's ability to handle my food product order in something along the lines in which I have described. The rest is noise. I invite you to refute my philosophical position, based perhaps in considerations of value, or the language game being played, or by invoking God, and so on. You have a wide berth in which to be creative. But what you must really consider is the matter of /value/ as perceived (whether subjectively or conceivably, 'objectively'), by 'others'.

I challenge you I and I put it to you that you are unprepared to entertain a serious discussion along the lines that I've suggested above. Now if you balk again, remember that major features of philosophy are spicy back-and-forths, and dialogue, and extant texts. Simply refer to Plato for examples of these.

>>9863507
>jej
what the fuck does that even mean, get a fucking grip

>>9863524
>societal value
Fuck off back to /r/eddit
Plato belongs in a hole. Absolute trash.
>>9863531
It's 'kek' but intentionally misspelt. Note how 'j' is right next to 'k' on the standard QWERTY keyboard.

>>9863549
>It's 'kek' but intentionally misspelt. Note how 'j' is right next to 'k' on the standard QWERTY keyboard.

autism

>>9863524

worst post i've ever seen on this site

>>9863557
No, it's genius. See, it's 'kek' but with a slant. Like the eyes of a nip. Anime.

Wow this thread has really depressed me.

>>9863133
Philosophy undergrad at a "pretty decent University" checking in. This post sounds like complete bullshit unless you go to a small, very traditional liberal arts school, or a Catholic university or something. Most of your time spent doing a philosophy undergrad will either focus on contemporary analytic philosophy and will either focus on shit like philosophy of mind and metaphysics, or legal/political philosophy along the lines of Kenneth Arrow, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and Amartya Sen.

>>9864401
See>>9863257

>>9864401
>>9863257
I do go to a small school with a very small philosophy department. I just figured my experience would be applicable to most other philosophy undergrads.
At my school we have a single class on analytic philosophy, and it's focused completely on Wittgenstein. Everything else is Ancient or Modern philosophy, with a bit of 19th and 20th century stuff thrown in.

>>9863476
Do you understand how much fucking reading that is? Maybe some asshole could speed read through all of it in a year, but to read it, absorb it, and synthesis it with everything else you know in a coherent way would likely take an entire undergraduate career.

There's NOTHING like catholic universities for those in want of non postmodernist/analytical philosophical knowledge. Three years of baccalaureatus + two of licentia in a seminarist oriented philosophy program.

>>9863045
This, my university only requires 53 philosophies, but some do a bit more and some do a bit less

>>9864512
My uni actually requires us to know all 100 philosophies, but it's a 5 year course

I go to a shit state school with a bad philosophy department. I used to go to a respectable and rigorous school but had to leave for various reasons. Now I'm stuck in a shit hole and am seriously considering dropping out just so I can teach myself, which I've been practically doing this whole time anyway. Is dropping out a terrible idea? Should I just get the degree? Or should I try to transfer again to a better school?

>>9863029
1st year: general introductory course to philosophy. Read passages from the most important philosophers in a few areas (maybe 10 topics, branches or eras) that the university is big on

2nd year: 3-5 introductory courses to topics, branches or eras. Develop some of the interests made in first year, see what they're really interested in

3rd year: 3-5 advances courses on 1-2 topics, branches or eras, maybe of these 1 or 2 on single philosophers

4th year: 3-5 courses on specific topics and philosophers of interest. Some of these might also be on a random bullshit course that you just sort of felt like taking cause it was easy and/or interesting

The rest of the time is taken up with your minors or your second major
The uni also probably forces you into taking some specific courses. Mine makes you take at least one of ancient, medieval or 17th and 18th century and also forces you to take a logic course and an ethics course

>>9863029
>tfw only read the Stoics and that meme book The First Philosophers

W-where do I go from this?

>>9864556
What do you want to do with your philosophy?
This advice is if you want to go to grad school/academia

Finish your degree, make an effort of getting a good GPA and participating in shit.
If it's truly a shit school it should be easy and you can study the things you enjoy in your own time

After that go to a good school for what you enjoy studying for grad
Keep in mind good doesn't necessarily mean prestigious

Write the shit you want to write and study the shit you want to study and there you go

If you just want to do philosophy to be some learned wise man, just drop out and start making cash while self-teaching, or change degree to something to make money

>>9863460
This post totally nailed grad school.

>>9863029
4

>>9863133
>and have well reasoned positions on any given subject
the definition of an education philistine

Flipping burgers

>>9864871
How did you come to that conclusion at all?

>>9863133
>have well reasoned positions on any given subject
how far does this extend?

The requirements when I went were:
3 hours intro to philosophy
(What is philosophy? Kinda bullshitty but I loved it)
3 hours politics
3 hours ethics
3 hours logic
3 hours epistemology
3 hours metaphysics
3 hours aesthetics
(The above courses are all heavily analytically focused)
3 hours history of ancient philosophy
3 hours history of modern philosophy
(One or both histories must be upper division)
30 hours whatever classes as long as they're philosophy and 18 are upper division

>>9864567
the Socratics??

in undergrad i had a philosophy professor who grew up quaker and then lived in china and married a chinese lady and then came back and taught the pre-socratics and hundred schools of thought it was fuckin NICE. other than that it's an intolerable discipline desu

>>9864401
dont they focus on mind and analytic philosophy because the general consensus, while keeping in mind modern science, is that continental phil is bullshit? Its on par with history at this point. Sure, if you want to know the gradual progression to where we are now, read the continental canon, but if you just want to do philosophy, study what is considered philosophy in the 21st century.

>>9866479
HAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHHA

>>9866479
the best analytic philosopher of the second half the 21st century, Wilfrid Sellars, was a lecturer in the history of philosophy for most of his early life. The insights he provided for analytic philosophy were derived primarily from readings of Kant, Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger. Not Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine, Carnap, Ayer, etc

File: 1.jpg (45KB, 745x105px) Image search: [Google]

45KB, 745x105px

expect them to get berated

File: Dubsmocritus.jpg (220KB, 1291x1600px)

220KB, 1291x1600px

>>9863549
>Plato belongs in a hole. Absolute trash.

Don't you mean, belongs in a CAVE

lol wrekd

>>9864512
>>9864516
What are you referring to when you say "100 philosophies." Google only turns up some garbage article with an image from a Netflix show and a wiki article about Chinese history.

>>9866593
it's a joke lightly mocking the OP's implication that you can quantify philosophy knowledge

"How much philosophy do you know?"
"i know about 25 or 26 philosophies"

>>9864436
>systematizing
kys

Learning philosophy of the past is mostly futile. It's more history than coming closer to the functionality of rationality. It is better to form your own studies and come to truth on your own.
t. successful metaphysicist.

>>9866479
>progression
>consensus
>science
You're 'philosophy' is a literal colonial rehash of shitty Enlightenment philosophy.
Science is trash, making philosophy go on its knees to blow this joke is only the consensus because universities are filled with gentrifying brown-nosers.

>>9866671
>rationality
>truth
kys

>>9866671
>metaphysicist
> physicist

Metas are physicians

>>9866671

3/10. I don't know why anon took this seriously after you capped it off with a line like
>t. successful metaphysicist.

Have a BA, but most of my reading done outside of school. I expect very little, as most others with experience do.

Some Plato, a sampling of Moderns, a little Marx, a few Existentialists, and a decent handful of contemporaries.

>>9866755
Literally how can somebody get through undergrad with so little. Americans are so fucking pathetic.

>>9866691
I prefer the moniker metaphysicist.
>>9866737
Oh, I am serious. I have proven the existence of God through an analysis of the abstract nature of reality.

>>9866800

>Oh, I am serious.

A true ruseman even in defeat. I tippy tip to you, squire.

OP here. If you were to design the ideal philosophy curriculum, what would it, roughly, look like? Forget about other subjects, keep it strictly philosophy related.

>>9863029
How do you define knowledge?

>>9866791
A BA degree is worth as much as a high school diploma was a few decades ago, so every idiot has to go to college, and since they pay so much, expects to "earn" a degree after four years of showing up with a pulse.

>>9867231
Only craphole factory schools require one to only 'show up with a pulse'.

>>9863029
So I'm at a university that offers NO classes in analytic philosophy. Any analytic book recs that I can study on my own?

>>9867246
I'm middle aged, an expert & professional in education policy, and study the history of education voraciously.

The expectations put on undergrads, even in elite schools, are laughable compared to a half century ago. Grade inflation is a very real phenomenon, and it has trickled down from the top schools, not the bottom up.

>>9867257
Atlas of Reality

>>9867273
Mate I doubt you're any older than 20, stop pretending. You can be honest here unless you like genre fiction.
Of course elite schools are the problem, they are solely concerned with research, and grade inflation means government funding to some degree, but also less drop-outs, and more freshmen.

>>9867257
Feldman's Epistemology

Wenz's Political Philosophies in Moral Conflict

Rachels' The Right Thing to Do

Kim's Philosophy of Mind

>>9867287

You have no idea what you're talking about. There is no pressure from the government to inflate grades, it is purely profit motivated.

>>9867300
I didn't say there was pressure from the government, I said they know they can get more government funding if they inflate grades.

>>9863549
>>9863558

Losers of the argument. Now, I would like the spicy italian sandwich.

>>9867332
Arguments don't exist.