• masterspace@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    Much like how martial arts is no longer as useful for self defence in a world with handguns, but instead makes for very good exercise and social connections, and is just fun.

    Except that a key difference is that no one gives out PhDs for martial arts. Yes you can get a black belt, signalling that you are as skilled as the top tier martial artists (I assume, I don’t do martial arts), but you cannot write a peer reviewed paper and get a PhD on karate because that would require learning something new about it and publishing it.

    Philosophy in how the common person relates to it may just be as a mental kata that helps to improve their cognition and emotional regulation, but philosophy as a profession and academic discipline is still very much concerned with trying to answer questions and find ways of constraining the infinite to relevant possible answers.

      • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        The point I’m making is that philosophers are trying to answer questions and if they weren’t they wouldn’t be getting PhDs, since a PhD is not given for just knowing a lot about Philosophy, but for discovering something new in the field.