Choosing a Philosophy Major or Minor
Things to Think About as You Choose a Major and Minor
1. While your education should certainly prepare you for your career, the value of your education should extend far beyond professional preparation. Traditionally understood, education is a preparation for life as a whole. If you approach your time at Belmont properly, you will emerge not only with better professional credentials, but you will also as a better citizen, a better family member, a better neighbor, and generally a better human being.
2. As the philosopher Cardinal John Henry Newman observed, there is a knowledge that is worth having for its own sake. Many of the things we wish to know, we wish to know for the sake of something else: I want to know where the store is so that I can buy what I need. Some things that we wish to know, however, we wish to know simply so that we may know them. I want to know the origin of human beings, even though it will bring me no profit. I want to know how whether justice sometimes demands the death penalty, even though the answer can bring me no pleasure. Your time at Belmont should provide you with knowledge that is worth having for its own sake.
3. Aristotle observed that all people, by nature, desire to know. Human beings delight in seeing interesting things and having interesting thoughts. Your time at Belmont should nurture and expand your natural curiosity.
4. As the philosopher John Dewey observed, genuine freedom exists when one is engaged in deliberately constructed and purposeful activity. Unthinking obedience to one's own blind desires is equivalent to slavery. For example, freedom of speech is guaranteed by the constitution but such a guarantee relates to your freedom only if you have something worth saying. Your time at Belmont should help you to deliberately construct purposeful activities for your life that, for example, give you something worth saying.
5. Plato observed that the key to living the best possible human life is knowing how to best live.
*Compiled by Prof. Noel Boyle; feel free to contact me at noel.boyle@belmont.edu
Philosophy and Other Majors
Various Philosophy courses may be particularly appropriate for your interests, your major, or a major you would like to link with Philosophy as a minor or a second major.
Tell me about the appropriate courses in philosophy.