Friday, 30 December 2022

There are no philosophy factories

  

It seems to me that most education, not just philosophy but even including science, has little to no relevance for most jobs. Education does have an arguably important role in enriching the individual, but it's not so much concerned with teaching the practical skills necessary for the world of work. Of course, something like philosophy helps a person think rationally and systematically, so that might be of indirect help for some jobs. And we need to have some provisional answers to certain practical philosophical questions about how we should live. For example, how should society be arranged?

But for most of us philosophy, and indeed most subjects, will not help in the world of work. It seems to me that we could radically cut down the time that children spend at school and the number of people that go to University, and for this to have no significant impact on economic growth. Would it have a significant effect on the enrichment of people? That's a more nuanced issue, but I suspect it's the quality of the time spent in education that is far more important than the numbers of hours a week that people spend in education. 

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