A philosophy degree is useful

FrameworkI fully accept all of Pro’s definition, I am just pointing out how open ended the definition is considering Pro used the word he was defining within the definition he provided.I would also like to point out that is Pro’s job to uphold the resolution “A philosophy degree is useful” and my job to refute it. I do not need to show that a philosophy degree is useless, only that it is not useful. A bent nail might be able to serve some purpose on a construction site, but a carpenter would not say a bent nail is useful.Whether a thing is useful depends on the context of the thing and the viable alternatives. A hammer without a handle may be able to bludgeon nails in a cumbersome fashion and so might be useful if you need to hang a picture and have no other tools. Such a hammer would not be useful on a construction site with many functional hammers and a large number of nails in need of bludgeoning.Philosophy Major and SalaryPro’s statistics are almost entirely incorrect. His source for philosophy-related stats is “payscale.com,” a site which relies on user-submitted surveys to generate its data. A more accurate study conducted by Georgetown University based on U.S. census bureau gives a more accurate picture of the employment prospects of philosophy students. [1] The study shows:-High unemployment (9.8%) compared to the average unemployment rate for all college majors (7.9%)-Extremely low initial salary of $29,000 and sub-pay experienced salary of $48,000I'm going to group Pro’s employment rate argument here- his source for the 98.9% is just a claim form a state university’s philosophy page without any explanation of where that number came from or what it means. It’s a useless number tossed out with no context.Pro’s comparisons to other majors are whack. For example, Pro claims philosophy puts you in better standing than a nursing degree, despite incredibly low unemployment in nursing (4.6%) and a starting salary (48k) comparable with the long-term philosophy pay.The data shows that as a means of gaining employment and earning money, philosophy greatly underperforms other college majors. In this capacity, philosophy is a hammer without a handle- it might be of some use but it certainly is not useful.Finally, the odds of finding a job that actually puts your philosophy degree to use are slim-to-none. Employment for a philosophy major is likely to be found in business, finance, or marketing, all jobs where your fantasy football picks will be more relevant to career success than you senior thesis on hermeneutics will. Even in a best-case scenario, philosophy is a degree which could be forgotten about completely post-graduation without hindering career success, showing that the degree is not useful.Useful degrees, such as a degree in finance, confer knowledge which is utilized long after graduation. The degree comes in handy throughout an individual’s life, often prompting the individual to reflect “This degree sure is useful!”Utility of a degree isnt just a measure of whether it can get you a job or not. Architecture currently has an abysmal unemployment rate, but it is still a useful degree. This is because an architecture degree gives graduates in depth technical knowledge and improves design abilities. The same cannot be said of philosophy majors.Philosophy Major and Life SkillsFirst, Pro’s tries to make the leap between high GRE skills and valuable skills for employment, but this is a red herring. The story about whether philosophy creates marketable skills is fully told by the degree’s poor employment and earnings statistics.Second, high GRE scores don’t show that you have the communication and analytical skills to succeed in life, they just show that you had the skills needed to score high on a test. This is why grad schools rely on a number of factors to evaluate applicants.Third, even if philosophy gives you decent communication skills, it doesn’t follow that the degree is useful. The degree itself isn’t what is useful, it’s the offshoot abilities that are useful. If I learn to juggle with rocks and in the process get totally jacked so that I can do hard menial labor, we wouldn’t say that makes juggling useful.A doctor would never explain the usefulness of her medical school training by pointing out how great his memorization skills became through the course of earning her degree, she would lay out all the great services she is able to render thanks to the knowledge she obtained while earning the degree. Pro cannot justify a philosophy degree as useful without defending the “philosophy” aspect of the degree.Philosophy Major and the Quest for KnowledgeEven if Pro wins that knowledge of philosophy is useful, to win this debate he most prove that a degree in philosophy is useful. He needs to show how spenidng thousands of dollars and years of study in the field is better than personal study alongside a useful degree like engineering.Pro gives no explanation of how the philosophical quest for knowledge is useful, he just says a philosophy degree helps with this quest.The philosophical quest for knowledge isn’t useful. The overwhelming majority of human activity requires no philosophical introspection. The example Pro gives proves this- when it is raining outside, no one stands around contemplating the whether or not “wetness” is a universal or not. People just grab the umbrella and walk out the door. Even in the few instances where philosophy becomes relevant, a philosophy degree is not useful. People contemplate hard ethical decisions without being philosophy majors and very few politicians are philosophy majors.In contrast to useful majors, Philosophical issues do not inspire people to turn to individuals with accredited degrees. When my computer breaks, I call up my friend with a computer engineering degree because I know that his degree will be quite useful in solving my problem. In contrast, people do not seek out individuals with philosophy degrees when facing hard philosophical questions. This is a clear indication that most rational people do not find philosophy degrees to be useful.Having a philosophy degree doesn’t put you ahead on the quest for knowledge. Most people with an interest in such a quest are capable of studying philosophy on their own. Resources for the study of philosophy are plentiful- books about philosophy, books explaining other books about philosophy, free online lectures, podcasts, documentaries, etc.Pro responds that a major in philosophy is the “easiest and best way” to learn philosophy, but this is patently false. A philosophy major entails 4 years of education at a college or university. This means to earn a philosophy degree, the individual must sacrifice 4 years of their life and accumulate a small fortune in debt for the privilege. Once earning the degree, the philosophy grad then gets to work for low pay while struggling to pay off the small fortune of debt. A major in philosophy is certainly not an easy way of learning philosophy.A better way would be to get a useful degree, study philosophy during leisure time, graduate and get a decent job, then continue philosophical studies while working a career that actually makes use of the degree you paid thousands of dollars for.ConclusionA philosophy degree is not useful.[1] http://www9.georgetown.edu...[2] http://www.theguardian.com...