Introductory note: the kind of philosophy I am talking about throughout this piece is the Western analytic tradition, which begun in Ancient Greece with Plato, Artisotle and co. and is still the main focus of philosophy curricula in Western universities. Other kinds of philosophy may have different problems (and different merits), but I have no experience in them and so will not cover them in this piece.
Early study
I chose to study philosophy at A-level on what was basically a whim – I knew little about the subject beyond vaguely remembered names like Plato and Kant and I had grown up in a cultural environment where philosophy was… well, not quite treated with disdain, but seen as a little bit pointless. My other three subjects, psychology, maths and English language, were in my mind way more useful and worthy of study. Philosophy was just a mildly intriguing subject that sounded more interesting than geography or chemistry, which I – after 5 years of study – was well and truly sick of. Little did I know that I’d still be studying it 9 years later.
Right from the start, philosophy had a completely unprecedented effect on my life that no other subject has come close to. I began asking myself questions I had never asked myself before… questions I never even realised had existed. I distinctly remember those initial moments of seriously considering the arguments for the existence of god for the first time, and how it seemed that my world had suddenly become brighter, fuller and full of purpose. There were these huge questions out there that I had never even thought about! Worst of all, there were billions of people who’d never thought about these questions either! My life’s purpose became quite clear: 1) find the answers to these amazing questions and 2) teach these questions to everyone who would listen.
Philosophy of religion made me question how I felt about religion for the first time in my life. I’d been brought up Christian. I had a bible, went to Sunday School (well… I went once), attended a CofE primary school, regularly prayed and sang hymns, went to a Christian youth group… but throughout all of this I’d never once seriously thought about any of it. It was just there, you know? I was more interested in playing my guitar and my N64. Philosophy made me look deep into myself and think about the reasons for all of this. I quickly realised that I was an atheist. The idea of god seemed totally nonsensical to me. All the arguments for god’s existence were weak, and the evidence against god’s existence was very strong. A militant Dawkins-esque atheism was born inside me. I just could not understand how anyone could possibly think these arguments were any good, or how anyone couldn’t see that the problem of evil was devastating to the Christian conception of god. I went on the rampage. I even made a Christian girl cry and run out of the classroom, an act I am pretty ashamed of these days.
As you can probably guess my early study of ethics lead to something similar. How can people not see that abortion is always acceptable? What is wrong with people who believe in the death penalty? How can you eat the meat of an innocent murdered creature? (Yes, I became a vegetarian after reading Singer’s “All Animals are Equal”). I was so certain that these were the right answers. I was also certain that a lifetime of philosophical study was important to justify them against their critics. Despite the fact I was very good at psychology and that my psychology teacher (and my parents) recommended I study it at university, I chose to study philosophy instead. Looking back on it now I can see that I might have made the wrong choice. Here’s why.
