My undergraduate degree is in Philosophy. I have since recovered, but one of the things a grownup learns from that experience is that you can take a train of thought all the way into downtown Crazyville. For example, one can start with an inquiry into the ethics of killing, continue it to look at the ethics of killing animals for meat, and then find yourself… here. And if you look up from your philosophy books and out your window and cannot make sense of what you see there, it’s time to get your flattened butt out of your library chair and go out into the real world. David Hume said so, and he was a far more interesting philosopher than Amanda and William MacAskill glued together. (Which I hope someone is doing as we speak.) H/T PZ Myers.
There are some academic disciplines that, when put in the wrong hands really are like handing an idiot child a machine gun, philosophy and literary theory/ criticism are two.
LikeLike