Philosophy

Aristotle was onto something: A liberal arts education in college enhances one's life, and earnings potential.

There's a strong case for having a Nobel Prize for philosophy, recognising the discipline's particular benefit to mankind. After all, in our age of propaganda there is surely cause to reward an emphasis on reason and clarity.

When one of the presidential hopefuls said recently that the U.S. needs more welders and fewer philosophers, philosophers and welders alike took notice. Here, Tania Lombrozo talked with Stanford philosopher, Ken Taylor, who once worked as a welder.

Can you be a good person if you do bad things? Who should have power? These are questions of direct relevance to young people from troubled backgrounds.

Dr. David Silbersweig, of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, says today's multidisciplinary world needs liberal arts -- and philosophy in particular -- more than ever.

Philosophy majors are projected to be the top-paid Class of 2016 humanities graduates at the bachelor's degree level, says the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Nothing could be more important to the future well-being of both our kids and society as a whole than that they learn how to be philosophers. If we fail..., our kids may end up becoming expert at a making a living, but they will be incompetent at creating a civil society. "It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."

The idea that philosophy was and still is isolated from other disciplines ignores much of its history. It has influenced Einstein's physics, Turing's computation and human flourishing, all from its place in the university. In just the last 200 years, it has played foundational roles in the development of logic, decision theory, linguistics, psychology, political science and economics. Far from fostering isolation, specialization in philosophy makes communication and cooperation among disciplines possible. This has always been so.

More than 3,000 kids in 48 schools across England participated in weekly discussions about concepts such as truth, justice, friendship, and knowledge, with time carved out for silent reflection, question making, question airing, and building on one another's thoughts and ideas. The result which surprised many was that those in the test group significantly boosted their math and literacy skills, with disadvantaged students showing the most significant gains, according to a large and well-designed study. And the test group continued to outperform the control group long after the philosophy class had finished.

Pioneering philosophers have used philosophy to operationalize moral goods by creating tools that tackle social problems in the real world.

A recent study demonstrates significant benefits of teaching young students philosophy.

Ann Gualtieri started as an art major before shifting gears to study philosophy. Then, after collecting bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in philosophy, she shifted to the business world, working in global leadership positions for major corporations. "I loved the rigor of it. I liked how it strengthened my mind. It made me smarter."

The branch of philosophy known as metaphysics overlaps with modern science and the two can push the boundaries of knowledge together. This special issue of New Scientist asks what science can tell us about the deepest questions humans have ever asked (metaphysics) and how philosophy can inform science and help us understand what it means.

The United Nations has left you a message: "Philosophy is the art of living together." In honor of World Philosophy Day, UNESCO encourages the people of the world to "dare to open spaces for free, open and tolerant thinking."

Policy needs philosophers as much as it needs science. Philosophers can help policy makers to ask the right questions.