The Value – and Limits – of Philosophy

Few people have championed the application of philosophy in modern professional settings more than I have over the past decade.

It has been delightful, as well, to see the overwhelmingly positive response this cause garners amongst readers. Philosophy enthusiasts are a deeply passionate and loyal bunch, committed to both the defense and promotion of the eternal subject.

I receive messages all the time from doctoral students, undergraduates, hobbyists, and even “lapsed” philosophers who entered the field but left it behind, asking how philosophy can – or should – play a greater role in their career. As with any subject, it is worth evaluating its values along with its limitations.

First, the pros --  

The study of philosophy equips students with a multitude of skills, and applying philosophy in professional settings often boils down to a matter of translation. But here are three key skills worth noting. Philosophy equips practitioners with:

1) The ability to construct and/or analyze arguments.

This is something budding philosophers hear all the time, especially from law school recruiters. But the statement rings true within both the continental and analytical lanes – two popular silos in academic circles. Philosophy is a deeply logical subject (both figuratively and literally), and students often come away with an innate sense of delineating between premise, assumption, and conclusion.

2) The ability to “think outside the box.”

Philosophy enables practitioners to observe problems from multiple perspectives and approach obstacles in innovative or creative ways. As famously defined by Dumarsais in the Encyclopédie, “the philosopher forms his or her principles on the basis of an infinite number of discrete observations.” These vantage points often manifest in abundance and allow philosophers to present divergent solutions when compared against traditional schools of thought. In short, if any manager claims to want “outside the box thinking,” they should seat at least one philosopher around their conference table.

3) The ability to cut through the bulls**t.

Warren Buffett routinely warns would-be investors to be wary of Wall Street sales tactics. In his estimation, “there's been far, far, far more money made by people in Wall Street through salesmanship abilities than through investment abilities.” In philosophical parlance, the word often used is “sophistry.” Any student of philosophy will be especially adept at recognizing deceit and will (hopefully) abstain from any duplicitous machinations themselves.

With these timeless skills, it is no wonder that Plato wrote, “until philosophers are kings… cities will never have rest from their evils.” Granted the great philosopher may have been biased, but once I was sitting across the dinner table from a McKinsey & Company principal who confessed, “of all the people with whom I have ever worked, philosophy majors are unquestionably the smartest.”

What limitations, then, could the subject of philosophy have? The answer is not so much the subject itself, but instead the mindset of its practitioners. Enthusiasts tend to get stuck on the perceived superiority of philosophy as a field of study and tend to overanalyze scenarios to the point of paralysis.

Ask any philosophy undergraduate why a doctorate in chemistry or economics carries the title “PhD” and they will proudly proclaim that quantitative fields award Doctor of Philosophy degrees (PhDs) because philosophy is the queen of the sciences. But that is merely academic nomenclature. If a veteran philosopher needs to take cholesterol medication in their retirement, they ought to thank the chemist for keeping them alive and the economist for helping them afford it.

Aside from recognizing the contributions of other fields, philosophers can get stuck on elements of a problem that are unsolvable, ruminating indefinitely so that no action is taken. To borrow from the example above, Warren Buffett encourages investors to sidestep expensive stockbrokers and simply invest their money directly in an S&P 500 Index Fund.  

But not every company within the S&P 500 is a purely ethical organization. In fact, most probably aren’t. They are corporations interested in generating profit, sometimes navigating without their moral compass. A philosopher-investor might sit examining the ethical conundrum of spreading their money across an index fund that consists of corporations unaligned with personal values for so long that they miss out on the opportunity to benefit from Buffett’s sage advice.

In my experience, philosophy equips practitioners with a marvelous skillset, but one that is best used to buttress or augment the skillsets afforded through other practical fields. Think of it as a system of intellectual checks and balances. But, if you’re a philosopher, don’t think about it for too long.

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Co-authored by David Brendel and Ryan Stelzer, Think Talk Create: Building Workplaces Fit for Humans was published by the Hachette Book Group under the PublicAffairs imprint in September 2021. Available wherever books are sold!