Is Philosophy Pretentious?

[REALITY 78,174]

33 minutes ago, justhislife said:

Oh I definitely understand it shouldn't be completely straight-forward. I do like being left asking myself questions and wondering things, but this class in particular and the material my professor has chosen might just not be it. He doesn't seem too invested in teaching us as we're over halfway through the course and we have only learned about the Theories of Truth and What Philosophy Is (Mostly bits of terminology). I wonder if I had a better professor if I might have a better understanding.

Maybe that's it then. Professors can really change the way you look at a class or subject matter. Hopefully you can learn to enjoy it. If you're still interested in it, maybe do some research outside of class. Maybe watch some YouTube videos or read some articles that you think are interesting.

[holy scheisse 22,454]

The practical side is you are figuring out your values and beliefs while being exposed to those of your classmates. This is how people get educated and learn to develop empathy, and consideration for perspectives different from their own... We need to invest in education imo so more people can have the opportunity to go to school and exercise their philosophical muscles 

[thatboyisarobot 152]

If you're taking philosophy in a majority English-speaking country, like the United States, the United Kingdom, or Australia, you most likely aren't getting a full view of what philosophy is. In these countries, the so-called "analytic" tradition of philosophy is dominant, which is focused on an abstract logical system and the clarification of statements (part of the reason for this is the Cold War, when a lot of philosophy departments unceremoniously purged other philosophers, like Marxists and exisistentialists, from their ranks).

I'm no fan of the analytic stuff, but the other sides of philosophy (often called "continental), is where all the fun is, at least for me. This tradition of philosophy is more critical and embedded in concrete historical struggle, rather than floating above the world in "objective" abstraction. This kind of philosophy include Hegelianism, Marxism, Phenomenology, Existentialism, Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, Post-Modernism, Post-Marxism, Queer Theory, and more. The thing is, you won't learn much of anything about these traditions in a philosophy department if you are in a country where analytic philosophy is dominant. However, you will find it taught in English or Rhetoric departments under the name "literary theory," in some politics departments under the name "political theory," and in a lot of interdisciplinary programs like Gender Studies and American Studies under the name "critical theory."

I started out with the works of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler in a political theory class in undergrad, and never looked back to the analytic stuff. For me, reading about the everyday operations of power through classification and how gender is an effect of performance and not the other way around seemed to me to be much more helpful for thinking through the complexity and the world and developing a radical politics than the abstract logic of analytic philosophy. Not saying that analytic is bad or anything, but if you're like me and don't like the mathematical logic stuff and need something more directly tied to history and liberation politics, I think continental is the way to go. People still say it's pretentious (but what isn't pretentious these days? Seems to me to be quite tacky to not be pretentious to some degree), but, for me and many others, it's definitely more "relevant" for thinking about politics and liberation differently. 

[weed 75,468]

people who think it’s pretentious are pretentious 

[Rob 171]

i don't think philosophy itself is inherently pretentious. you will definitely encounter people studying it to be very pretentious though. i think it's a great way to see things from different perspectives (sometimes)

[vitoburrrito 653]

Philosophy itself isn’t pretentious but based on my experience, people who claim to know a lot about philosophy can come off as pretentious, know-it-alls, or condescending. especially if these people are studying it on their own time and not professionally or academically.