Students seek truth in philosophy

By Cary Brunswick
The Daily Star (Oneonta, N.Y.)

April 21, 2008 11:20 am

— A professor I knew once said that, without philosophy, history is ``just one damn thing after another.’’
In one way or another, he’s right, and that has helped produce the unexpected surge in the number of college students who believe they need to read about Socrates now and worry about money and careers later.
A New York Times story last week documented the apparently widespread trend of more college students majoring in philosophy. The story cited several examples of universities where the number of philosophy majors had swollen by as much as 50 percent or more in the past five years.
The story said the sudden turnaround ended about 25 years of flat or declining enrollment in philosophy departments, which presumably was linked to rising tuition costs forcing many students to be more practical about their majors and future employment prospects.
At the State University College at Oneonta, N.Y., Philosophy Department Chairman Doug Shrader said the number of majors, 40, has doubled since 2000, tripled since 1990 and increased eightfold since 1980.
Contrary to most colleges, that shows a long-term, gradual growth well before the big jump in the new century.
As a former philosophy major, I was surprised to hear about the shift, and was transported back to the excitement I felt the day I changed my major from journalism to philosophy - so I could fill my course schedule with the search for truth. That path began with my freshman Introduction to Philosophy class in 1968, which was, indeed, quite an introduction to philosophy.
On the first day, as soon as the classroom was full with about 35 students, the instructor turned on the record player at the front of the room. What he wanted us to hear on ``Sgt. Pepper’s’’ was ``I used to get mad at my school. The teachers who taught me weren’t cool. Holding me down, turning me round. Filling me up with your rules. I’ve got to admit it’s getting better. It’s a little better all the time.’’
When the song ended, he said this semester was going to be better. Anyone who didn’t want to be there, could leave, he said, because grades of “A” had already been filed with the registrar’s office for all students. He spoke about how the love of wisdom or the desire for knowledge should have nothing to do with grades, so he decided to do something about it.
Attendance trickled lower as the semester wore on. By the end, there were only about 10 regulars.
Did that make his experiment a failure? Apparently the administration thought so. He was fired at the end of the year.
As much as I enjoyed my first `A’ as a college student and surveying the history of philosophy, I didn’t rush out and change my major. It would be two more years of increasing skepticism, an unconquerable quest for ideas and a thirst for truth that finally sent me to the edge.
What I discovered during that time was that philosophy was not a major or a curriculum. It was a way of thinking and a way of living - and difficult to abandon even if you wanted to.
``Stop thinking and finish your education,’’ was my mother’s famous warning after learning I had changed my major.
McLuhan and Mencken were interesting, writing for college newspapers was OK, but at that time they didn’t compare with Nietzsche, Zen, Kant, Camus, Sartre, Marx or any other thinker from the tradition.
And to hear a professor describe pacing the floor half the night, raving, over some philosophical question, perhaps just as you had done, illustrated first hand the drama that ideas could create.
The other side of that stereotypical coin was represented by Thales, the early Greek thinker who supposedly fell into a hole while walking because he was so absorbed with the heavens above.
In graduate school, we had a weekend seminar on the concept of being, and were so excited about having the German philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer there that we forgot to arrange in advance for lunch. Embarrassing, yes, but not that surprising for a bunch of philosophers.
I guess it’s likely student philosophers still get that ``Oh, what are you going to do with that?’’ reaction from people who learn about their specialty. It was easier for me to answer then, perhaps, at $250 a semester, than today, but it remains mysterious why we have the big increase in majors over the past five or six years.
Some may speculate that 9/11 might have something to do with it. That certainly could be a factor. A new century, and the feeling that it might demand new questions and different answers, could lead more people to seek out and explore the philosophical tradition of critical thinking.
Or it could be that age-old quest for truth is spurred by the feeling that not only history but current events just seem like ``one damn thing after another.’’
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Cary Brunswick is managing editor of The Daily Star in Oneonta, N.Y. He can be reached at cary@thedailystar.com.