The Greek philosopher Plato defined knowledge as justified true belief. From his time to the present day, plenty of educated people have believed that the study of philosophy helps one learn to think better. But is that belief true? A recent study set out to justify that belief (i.e., to show that it is reasonable to accept it as true). And if it is true, what do we do about it?
Philosophy attracts smart students
The problem is that people who choose to major in philosophy in college tend to be really smart to begin with. Likewise, students who try out for the basketball team tend to be really tall. However, basketball players play basketball because they are tall. Their basketball playing does not make them grow taller. So how can we tell whether taking philosophy courses helps smart people improve their thinking skills?
How to measure the effects of philosophy training
It’s not practical or ethical to randomly assign students to major in a particular subject in college. So, the researchers had to find some indirect way to study the effects of philosophy training. Fortunately, the Higher Education Research Institute and Cooperative Institutional Research Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, has collected a useful dataset. Starting in 1990, participating students filled out surveys at the beginning of their freshman year and the end of their senior year. The freshmen were asked to report their SAT scores. The graduating seniors were asked to report their majors and their scores on the GRE and LSAT tests, if they had in fact taken them. Starting in 2010, the surveys also some self-report measures. The “Habits of Mind” questionnaire assessed such traits as curiosity, intellectual rigor, intellectual humility, and open-mindedness. The “Pluralistic Orientation” questionnaire measured open-mindedness.
Michael Prinzing of Wake Forest University and Michael Vasquez of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had to use some complicated statistical methods to analyze the data, but the results are just what you might have expected. Students with high verbal SAT scores (but not necessarily high math SAT scores) were more likely to choose to major in philosophy. Likewise, students who rated themselves as being more curious, intellectually rigorous, and open-minded were also more likely to choose a philosophy major. This supports the conclusion that broad-minded people with good verbal reasoning skills are attracted to the study of philosophy. But does the study of philosophy make them better thinkers?
Yes, philosophy training improves thinking skills!
Of course, people who scored high on the verbal SAT are likely to score well on the GRE Verbal and the LSAT. Likewise, people who scored high on the math SAT are likely to score well on the GRE Quantitative. Yet even after you adjust for the effect of baseline scores, philosophy majors ranked highest among all majors in scores on the LSAT and GRE Verbal. In contrast, they were in the middle of the pack (30th out of 57 majors) with regard to the GRE Quantitative. The philosophy majors also ranked highest in Habits of Mind and near the top in Pluralistic Orientation. These findings provide justification for the ancient belief that by studying thinking itself, we can learn to think better.
Why should you study philosophy?
The research suggests that majoring in philosophy would be a good choice for pre-law students, since it could boost their score on the LSAT. Yet there are other reasons for studying philosophy. If you doubt this, read The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius. Boethius wrote this book in AD 523, while awaiting execution for a false charge of treason. This book, which explained how happiness was still possible despite the fickleness of fate, became one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages.
Philosophy comforting Boethius, while Fortune turns the wheel. Illumination by the Coëtivy Master, French, 15th century. From a copy of Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy
Who should study philosophy?
Philosophy is too important to be reserved for a handful of smart kids at elite colleges. For a democracy to be functional, a critical mass of the population needs to have reasonably good thinking skills. Also, it would be nice for people in many different occupations, especially medicine, to have better thinking skills. This raises the question of what kinds of lessons in philosophy courses are useful for improving thinking skills. Can we incorporate some of those lessons into general education? The ancient Greeks thought that this was possible.
Philosophy and democracy in Athens
Greek philosophy was, to some degree, the result of an accident of geography. In the ancient world, most people lived in either of two kinds of societies: small-scale or large-scale. In small-scale bands or tribal societies, ordinary people had a voice in decision-making, but the decision-making process was often personal and informal. In contrast, the people who lived in great empires were ruled by crowned heads who were worshiped as demigods. These pharaohs and emperors could rule as autocrats because they had a standing army to enforce their edicts. In contrast, the Greek city-states were intermediate in size.
The Greek city-states, such as Athens, were small enough that ordinary people could have a voice in governance. Yet they were large enough in scale to require formal rules and institutions for governance. This is why the Greeks invented the written constitution. No man in Athens was wealthy enough to command the private army that would make him dictator. If a man wanted to wield power in Athens, he had to enlist the willing support of the majority of men of military age. He could do so through the power of public speaking. Yet the Athenians did not want to be led astray by demagogues. Thus, they thought that the sons of Athenian citizens should have a well-rounded education (encyclopaedia), which included training in philosophy. This explains why the Athenians wrote texts that are used to this day to teach philosophy.
In 431 BC, Pericles gave a famous speech, honoring the Athenian men who had died in the Peloponnesian war and speaking of the virtue and honor of the Athenians and their democratic form of government.
Pericles Funeral Oration, by Philipp von Foltz (1852)
The Roman Empire and the Renaissance
The Romans embraced Greek learning. The Roman philosopher Seneca referred to these studies as the liberal arts, because they were appropriate for a freeborn man (homine libero digna sunt), as opposed to a slave. By the late Roman period, the liberal arts curriculum was based on seven fundamental subjects. The Trivium was the language arts component. It consisted of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The Quadrivium was the quantitative component. It consisted of mathematics, geometry, music, and astronomy. These seven subjects provided the basis in rational thinking for higher studies, including philosophy. After the fall of Rome, the decline in interest in Greek learning led to the Dark Ages. However, interest in Greek learning was revived during the High Middle Ages.
In this illustration from the Hortus Deliciarum (Garden of Delights) by Herrad of Landsberg, Abbess of Hohenburg (ca. 1180), philosophy is depicted as a queen supported by Socrates and Plato, surrounded by the seven liberal arts (grammar, logic, rhetoric, mathematics, geometry, music, and astronomy). Outside this sacred circle are men who are being influenced by impure spirits.
During the Renaissance, which was a rebirth of interest in classical studies, the wealthy families of some northern Italian city-states created a curriculum that they called the studia humanitatis (the humanities). These subjects included history, philosophy, languages, literature, and art. The purpose of the humanities curriculum was to teach the sons and daughters of the ruling class to hold civilized, productive, and even enjoyable conversations about important topics. Clearly, modern societies are in dire need of those lessons.
During the Renaissance, the wealthy families of northern Italian city-states developed the studia humanitatis (studies of humanity) to promote civilized ways, as opposed to feuding, to resolve their differences.
Frederick Leighton, The Reconciliation of the Montagues and Capulets over the Dead Bodies of Romeo and Juliet (1855).
The liberal arts, then and now
The embrace of Greek learning during the Renaissance, along with the development of the printing press, led to the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment led in turn to great scientific and social advances, including the abolition of slavery and the gradual expansion of voting rights. Yet at the same time, many people started questioning the value of the classical studies (studies of Greek and Roman literature) that had led to these advances. Why should students waste time learning “dead” languages, when they could learn modern languages that would be useful in business? Why “waste” time studying literature and philosophy, when one could focus instead on vocational training, such as accountancy? This all sounds quite reasonable, but be careful about stepping onto a slippery slope. Eventually, one finds oneself surrounded by people who are unreasonable because they never learned how to reason.
Teaching philosophy in K-12
If you take philosophy courses in college, you quickly realize that philosophy is built on skills that you were supposed to learn in kindergarten through 12th grade. These include reading and the classical Trivium and Quadrivium. These elementary school, grammar school, and high school subjects provide the fundamental skills that were valued by the people who invented philosophy, as well as democracy. If you want to have a democracy, you need for a critical mass of the population to have mastered those basic skills. And if you want to hone your thinking skills, take some college-level courses in philosophy.