Jesus Christ and all his friends... this certainly took a different direction than I anticipated. Rather than responding to the three respondents individually, I'm just going to try and knock this out in one blanket post.

Here's where I'm sensing the confusion is: Party X (me) is saying, "Hey! Academic philosophy isn't what you think it is." To that effect, I gave some advice to the OP to just have some fun in her class and not worry about all the crap others had said about needing to be "enlightened" or get "bit by the philosophy bug" or what have you.

Party Y is responding with basically a sort of Classical Greek late Renaissance, quasi-mystical, take on the values of philosophy. Perhaps reading what I'm saying as "Philosophy isn't valuable" or "Real philosophy is academic".

Now obviously I think philosophy is valuable or I wouldn't have committed my academic career to it as a field, right? So let's be done with that. As to "real" philosophy being academic - no. I have not said that, haven't implied it, nothing.

The disparity I'm getting at, is that Mary Ellen asked a question about a class. That class was an academic, pre-rec, philosophy course for her on her way to a nursing degree. You following so far? That means the objective of the enterprise is not be "enlightened", it's not have some mystical connection with philosophy, it's not treat the course as if it is the most valuable thing she'll ever do. Rather the objective is quite simply to knock out the damn class on her way to her intended degree. That's where I jumped in and offered some advice (which she thanked me for) and we all went about our business. There are very good odds that Mary Ellen, like 80-90% of the student populace, doesn't give a shit about philosophy as an academic field. And that's fine! She's not obligated to like it or care about it - she wants to be a nurse. Kudos. I didn't want to be a nurse when I was undergrad, I wanted to be a researcher of some type.

So now unless you are Mary Ellen, who seemed quite pleased with the response she was given, I don't know why her choice of classes or whether she is into them or not is a big deal to you. She can do whatever the fuck she wants as she is presumably an adult student capable of making whatever decision she wants to for her future academic career. Right? So the goal of my response to her extends no further than providing some general advice on how to handle pre-rec phil. courses.

Now for those of you who are not Mary Ellen - I respond the same way. Do whatever you want! It's great that you like philosophy! It's amazing that you want to talk about it all the time! I'm excited for you! Have a blast on the forums, read all the books you can get your mitts on, and treat philosophy with the reverence you think it deserves. BUT keep in mind two things:
Nurmero Uno - what you're doing isn't the same thing as academic philosophy - there are different goals. Some people are just taking the classes for pre-recs, some people just want an easy degree, etc. Equally as important, academic philosophy in the West could not care less about being enlightened. The university does not pay us to be enlightened or "get it".

Numero Dos: Don't impose your dogmatic views on philosophy on to other people who genuinely don't care. It makes you look like a nut-job and it's REALLY irritating in classes. When a nursing student is just trying to pass an intro phil. class s/he doesn't want to be bombarded with your views on philosophy, it's value, why you love it, and why you think that they should love it too. They just want to pass their fucking class. Haha. You following? You're not going to convert these people to your particular brand of bullshit by telling them they aren't pursuing enlightenment properly or they haven't been "bit" yet. If someone asks a question about a philosophy course in college, you just need to answer the question... you don't need to beat them over the head with your philosophical zealotry.

Cool? Does that make sense? Hopefully that clarifies where we're all at with this particular thread - which to remind you: was about a nursing student asking what to expect from a pre-rec philosophy course, what to make of some mixed reviews about the class, and if it's going to be valuable because she has to take it for a full semester.

Straight up: I don't really care what someone does in their spare time. If they want to read Kant, great. If they want to watch porn or videos of people falling off skateboards - that's fine too. My job is in the classroom and my office. Do you want a structural engineer running around berating you for how you drive on a bridge or a random mathematician critiquing you for your slow or faulty ability to count the change you get from the grocery store? Probably not, right? Well, it's much the same for me. Philosophy isn't fucking Christianity - it's not my job to spread the 'good word', save people, and bring non-believers closer to philosophical-Jesus. I grade papers, read books, and write articles - it's fun, but it's a damn vocation... not a religious calling.

To that effect, phil. classes are common pre-recs in the vast majority of state schools (and many private institutions). If I recall correctly my undergrad university required either logic or Intro to Phil. for just about all non-science majors (even then I think logic may have been a standard class to take as it met humanities requirements). That's fine. I didn't decide that - it's the administration who sits down and hammers this stuff out at meetings. And the bulk of those decisions they make regarding pre-recs are usually part of a larger consideration regarding types of federal/state funding, endowments, and career statistics. Philosophy isn't for everyone - that's cool. I get it. Chem wasn't for me either, but I still had to take the class.

So first off - yes? They're just students man, many of which are straight out of high school. I don't expect the majority of them to care about my field or not need book money for their other classes. Additionally I'm not sure why you think colleges inflate grades - I've heard about one meeting on that and it was in a sociology department a few years ago (a prof was consistently failing over half his class). At any rate - yes, doing my job for the college does allow me to buy food because that's how all jobs work.

Second, cheers on having high standards about whatever being a "philosopher" is. Whatever you think "philosopher" means is clearly not what academics are.

Third, it's school... So students take around 12-16 credits on average at my institution. That equates to 3-4 classes. A phil. class is usually just one of those and intro classes are almost entirely comprised of non-majors. If a student is more interested than that - they'll probably major in philosophy. If they're more interested than merely majoring, they'll come to office hours and meet with profs. Guess how many students show up to our department for fun on an average day (i.e. no tests, midterms, or finals in the near future)? On average about six. Four or five of which are the same students who are in their everyday because they are passionate about the field. It's not about "enlightenment" at that level (if you're after enlightenment join a Buddhist monastery or something) - it's about locking down solid letters of recommendation, getting better acquainted with texts via experts, and likely out of a love for the academic vibe because you see yourself headed that way with your career.

Here's what I'm getting at with a lot of this: I think you and a few others on this forum have a disastrous tendency to conflate this sort of glamorous image of "the philosopher" with modern academic philosophy. The latter simply does not fit with the former (and probably hasn't for several centuries). Creating "lovers of wisdom" is not the job of academia, universities don't get accredited for that. It's idealistic! It's maybe fun and creative to think about all the exciting and amazing things philosophy can do, but that's not why people go to college. As educators hired by our respective universities our job CANNOT solely be creating really "wise" students who "get it" and are "enlightened". We're paid to research subject matter, write papers on it, teach courses on specific subjects, and grade. Out of our 50-60 hour work week, most of the time is spent on the last two with meetings, emails, and bureaucratic stuff filling every other spare second.

I think I gave you a little a bit of insight on academic goings-on a few months ago in a different post, but just noticed this thread. First off - in response to your first question in all this - let me state that if you're looking to be a "great" philosopher or looking for validation of any sort from philosophy then academia isn't for you. In part because (as several folks pointed out) your oeuvre is geared toward keeping your job - not about greatness. I'll get to the validation thing in a sec.

Here's an example of the lack of fame or greatness thing though: I had a paper published last year sometime in the early Spring. The paper took about five to six months to research, draft, edit, get feedback, and finally send into a publisher at which point it sat in review for five more months and was finally published. Guess how many people have cited my article in the past year? Zero. And that's normal! The average paper in philosophy might get professionally cited (by someone other than yourself)1-10 times during the authors life - maybe. That supposes that it's in a reputable journal and has some relevant content to current debates in philosophy.

As for books? Forget it. The days of guys like Wittgenstein are long past. Academia doesn't work in broad strokes and your specialization at the PhD level is likely to result in books that you will use specifically for your own classes or will be read exclusively by your colleagues. It's not to say that you won't have a compelling book read by a few people outside your field, but academia has become so hyper-specialized these days that you essentially have to choose your audience. Do you write pieces accessible to the layman and that are likely to be dismissed by your peers and irrelevant for your CV or do you produce heavily technical pieces which will likely only be read by other academics and will gain absolutely no notoriety outside of the University?

Now I gotta be straight with you about the whole "validate me" comment - it pisses me off. You know how many damn undergrads email me or find little opportunities to hunt me down on campus and ask me what their chances are of going to grad school or if they should go? "Buck up" is my usual response. Because you will receive NO validation at the graduate level. None, zero, ziltch. You will receive editorial and technical support from your advisor and that's about as close as you're going to get to a pat on the back or a "good job". No one gives a shit about you and your brilliance as a grad student except your parents and your friends. You will be wrong way more then you will ever be right and your work will be torn apart more times then you can count. So if you need validation to get you in the mood for grad school (be it in philosophy or the humanities as a whole) you're done - you're the type of person that will drop out before finishing, guaranteed.

Now as to your most recent post: I don't know much about MBA programs, but be cautious with your finances. There is a tendency by many American students to assume that more or higher degrees immediately equates to financial success. Statistically speaking, the reverse if often true as people have a tendency to take on a tremendous amount of debt while pursuing those advanced degrees and end up making just enough after school to live on a shoe-string budget and pay back loans. If you can get into grad school with some type of scholarship - that'd be ideal. If you can't... eh... honestly might not be worth going unless you can find some way to cut costs or have a wealthy family.

I'm not saying you shouldn't go back and get your BA/BS but after that just do some long term financial planning. If you're game planning on completing you undergraduate degree with the intention of going on to grad school then focus up and have a stellar GPA because they makes funding decisions way easier for graduate admissions committees.

Hey, if you're still looking I know a great PhD student currently wrapping up his dissertation at a top-tier school. Really bright Phil. Sci. student, and I think he already has a couple of publications under his belt. Again, if you're still interested, shoot me a message and I'll give you his contact info.

I don't feel sullied or less genuine - I feel like I'd like to continue to buy groceries. Academics aren't professional "lovers of wisdom" - you'll get no disagreement from me on that - we're professional academics. We spent ten years doing job training, not learning to be all deep and wise or because we thought it we were accessing the real "truth" of the universe.

Look, the line of absolute "purity" for me is pretty murky, but I'd probably lean more toward saying that forums like this, group discussions, etc. are more pure from a classical stand point. Which is great! But realize it's not what academia is, and poor Mary Ellen over there just had question about a single class in her overall career. I honestly couldn't care less if she wakes up after taking her class and feels philosophically "enlightened". I'd rather she just pass her class and maybe walk away thinking the educational experience was fun.

No no, I'm sorry if I'm coming off as mean spirited or cynical. Seriously, I think forums like this are great! But for different reasons than academia! Most of the stuff you talk about in the forums isn't academic; mind you, that doesn't mean it's not valuable! Just that it's outside of what academic philosophy is after.

But yeah, the academic side of things definitely has nothing to do with mysticism, being "bitten", or what have you. It's work man!

Yeah, yeah. Save it for the forum gents! Don't say that stuff in a class setting because people like me don't want to read garbage papers like that in said classes. What what you're talking about isn't academic philosophy - that's fine, just know your audience.

People like myself get paid to research, grade, and teach. We don't get paid to "be wise" or do all sorts of mystical nonsense. It's a vocation. So I'm not bemoaning what you do here on a forum like this - it's great! But do realize that for students, like Mary Ellen, who take classes (that people like me have to teach) - it makes it really difficult to get into the class if this is their take away. She was looking for info on classes - give her info on classes. Don't force your bizarre philosophical convictions down students throats. It's not cool, it's obnoxious for profs, and it's bad for academia. Save it for forum discussions, fun conversations with friends, etc. where it's no longer "bizarre".

S/he is in a nursing program bro. No one beyond the newbie undergrads in philosophy gives a shit about the mystical connection with wisdom you think is required for REAL philosophy or whatever the hell you're supposedly doing.

I'd tone it down a notch as you're the exact type of person that turns folks like Mary Ellen off in those sorts of classes.

Haha, yeah just roll with it and try to have some fun. A lot of those pre-rec phil. classes are mostly focused on reading classic works and little writing assignments about what those works are getting at. I wouldn't stress too much about it.

I can tell you that because philosophy is such a social field, most philosophy profs are really good about responding to students' questions and making themselves available if you need help. So if you run into issues snag your professor after class or something.

Yeah ignore whatever that Thorongil dude said. It's a fair question and you don't need to "bitten", want to "pursue wisdom", or have some weird magical drive to be interested in taking a philosophy class (FYI: you will encounter a lot of that type of bullshit in your first philosophy class though).

From a practical standpoint a lot of people who go to law school study philosophy. In part because a great deal of the English philosophical curriculum emphasizes constructing and breaking down arguments and counter arguments. But the skills gained from classes are pretty cross-disciplinary and help out with a lot of different projects (e.g. writing, literary criticism, debate, etc.).

In fact one of the major benefits of taking philosophy classes or going through a more philosophy oriented education is the amount of versatility it still leaves you with. Rather than a specialist degree like accounting for instance, you'll be able to take lessons from philosophy classes toward just about any other endeavor you undertake.

One of my favorite benefits of taking philosophy classes when I first started in my undergrad was reading classical works. So if you're a bibliophile like I was, you might get a kick out of the readings you'll encounter in those sorts of classes.

Try 3-6 months plus RR (revise and resubmit), then still getting rejected by the EiC (Editor in Chief) and having to resubmit to a new journal. By the time it's published most people aren't excited - they're kind of pissed it took so long and are ready to be done with their paper since - odds are - they're on to other projects (in addition to other school year activities).

And as a few others have pointed out: email. Terrapin Station above is completely correct - they're not rock stars or celebrities. Their work isn't controversial or world-shattering - not these days at least, that's not what academia is really about in a contemporary setting. I've met a few biggies - the supposedly "famous" Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and the "legendary" Dan Dennett for example. The former is just a normal guy (hell my buddy picked him up from the airport as I recall, because he didn't know how to get to the conference location), and Dan seemed like he could keel over any minute from some age-related malady. Even Searle is a laid back guy - 90% sure he'll respond to any email you send him in less than a week. In fact if you offer to pay for his plane ticket and meet whatever his honorarium is (probably like $1,000) he might even come to your dinner party.

There are only two worst case scenarios when emailing these jokers. First, you come off like a freaking lunatic who wants to tell them your latest crack-pot theory and they mark you as spam (I can attest that this does happen). Second, and more likely, you email them and they're busy so they don't respond to you in a timely manner or they have an office assistant respond to your email for them (usually just saying they'll get back to you when they can).

Jesus Christ boys, you realize that all three of you (I'm including that Benkei guy) are right, yeah? Hell, I re-read this little back and forth twice to figure out what you were even arguing about and so far as I can tell one person said something accurate (per Hardin basically) then someone else said something else accurate on par with Lloyd. And rather than combining the two points (which is what Hardin did) both of you argued over a damn Wikipedia article and whatever the hell "Investopedia" is rather than just reading his paper which you can totally find online for free.

To clarify: The Benkei dude was probably the most "right" just because he hit all the points that Hardin and Lloyd (and Malthus) did. Plus he reasonably pointed out that Hardin's paper is kind of nuts (which is absolutely is, it would never get published these days).

Emptyheady was right, Lloyd, in his Lectures, does seem to think the problem/tragedy is specifically endemic to common property systems historically and, drawing heavily on Malthus, concludes that private property posed a solid solution or at least stood the best chance of pushing people toward developing a solution (This basically starts on page 20, drops off around page 38ish, and wraps up in the last ten pages).

M-Theory was finally right - Hardin showed up in 1968 and said "Fuck privatization, those weird guys got it wrong with their "technical solutions", they relied to heavily on the potential advancement of free market oriented technology, and didn't have a reasonable way to address adding negative things to the commons (literally "pollution"). Hardin then gets openly wacky ("radical" as he says) on the reader and goes, "Hey, lets go back into Malthus and Lloyd and just say that the commons of population is enemy" (i.e. free reproduction). The solution? Legislation or responsible moral education that stops people from breeding all willy-nilly.

So see? Everyone wins.. yippee. The god damn absurdity of argument was so distracting I basically lost track of what the rest of this thread was even about. It look me full circle back to page 1 to figure out everyone else was talking about climate change.

So just a recommendation to the original poster: go ahead and talk to your coffee group if they are receptive. Part of the "doing" of philosophy is chatting with people - it's not part of academia. Once you cross the level of specialization required to call yourself an academic - it gets really obnoxious to talk to non-academic people about whatever the hell they think "philosophy" means. And usually people with paltry amounts of training want to talk about the same crap once you tell them what you do (e.g. "I think therefore I am, right?" or "I totally agree with that one German guy who said 'God is dead'.") Seriously - it gives you a headache and most lay people don't understand that as an academic you're just a really specialized person - not a machine who has read or bothered to care about every dumb philosophy quote someone pulled for their Facebook page.

Quick anecdote for you: I was on a plane to a conference in Prague this September and sat next to a very nice gentleman visiting family. We got to chatting, he was a manager at a bank or something. He asked what I do - I told him I was post-doc researcher in philosophy. And like clockwork he opens his mouth and goes, "Let me tell you my philosophy!" After a fifteen minute exposition that basically ended up being a long diatribe against Donald Trump, he brought up Descartes... Because everyone who took a damn philosophy class in college brings up Descartes. But as it just so happens I am not a Descartes scholar, hell I haven't read Descartes since I was an undergrad. So I gingerly pointed out to the guy that I didn't know what the hell he was talking about and that I focus on what students usually call "Continental" philosophy. The conversation immediately died. I spent the remainder of my time in the air reading.

What's my point? Well once you get into the biz of academic philosophy you don't want to waste time talking about things you don't know/have the time to read or to people who know even less. In no small part because it's your job - it's not a hobby. I would have much rather talked to the guy about how many licks it takes to get to the center of Tootsie Pop or why Ben Stiller should never be taken seriously as an actor. I don't want to talk to people about my job all the time, because I literally do it every day. I already have to read asinine papers and listen to students blather on about things that they pretend to read - I don't want to have to do it on a plane with a complete stranger and not get paid for it.

So enjoy it. Go talk to people. Engage with the world in person or on sites like this. Because at the end of the day that's where the raw fun of philosophy is. In a very real sense, what you're doing with your coffee group is substantially more pure philosophically then what academics do. Sure - you might not be as specialized, but you're enjoying it! And maybe by chatting with a few people about your interests, you'll encourage a few other people to get into philosophy as well.

Haha, that's pretty funny. But in all seriousness paper writing is still extraordinary difficult and submitting to high impact journals is kind of a make-or-break aspect of one's academic career. I'm not disparaging the practice, I'm saying that whole "sound smart" argument is less for show and more because that's what the field necessitates and you want to have a job after you spent all your time in grad school.

Think of it this way: odds are that after you finish your PhD, you're either doing postdoc research or teaching and you'll be spending roughly 6-10 hours a day reading and writing. It's not slack off reading and writing mind you; you're pouring over articles sometimes at the behest of others and sometimes for you own work. If you're pretty well versed in your selected field of writing you're crafting a paper over the course of month (roughly 10-20k words typically with an average of 30-60 references). This paper is going to be read by another professor or colleague who is going to butcher it and hand it back to you telling you that everything you that 75% of it is wrong. From there you're doing more edits, sorting out your own prose (which have be academic lest you are immediately rejected for organizational issues) and sending it out for publication.

Now if your paper was poorly written, uses the wrong vernacular for the field, or is out of context for the journal - that paper is desk rejected... This is the death of probably 70% of papers. The third that make it end up in the hands of two or three reviewers (who probably know you because the field is so small that you're publishing in), and they're going to decide whether what you're doing is relevant to the field or not.

At this point it's probably pretty clear why the "sounding smart" aspect of paper is there. First off, you're not writing to average people - you're writing a paper for specialists. Second, your paper needs to "fit" - it has to meet previously set standards of the journal and the field. If it doesn't, you're toast. The final aspect that I mentioned above is you're not writing accessible stuff because you want to say as much as you can in those 10k-20k words. These are expert reviewers reading your work, so no need to spend a whole paper defining a bunch of terms - you just have to make sure they're used correctly.

Now from there your paper is either going to get R&R-ed, rejected, or scored well and sent to the editor (who will then reject it, or accept it). If it is sent back to your for edits you're working on the damn thing for another month and sending it back. Now mind you - this process can take anywhere from 3 months to two years. So you are, in effect, forced to come back to this paper a lot if this is the life of it.

But you jump through those hoops and write that way because you want a job. They've shut down whole philosophy departments in the UK for not publishing in good enough journals. And then what? Then you're out on your ass with a few lousy publications, a bunch of unemployed co-workers, and highly competitive field. So would I rather write like I am now, forum-style? Absolutely! Do I want a steady job and be able to pay for food - yeah. Hence I'll write the damn paper using fancy words.

Here's a bit more of a practical answer: it has nothing to do with "sounding" smart but rather because we are told/taught that we have to publish and publication does - in fact - matter for career prospects. It's not fun to write like Kant - seriously man, it sucks. You think academic philosophers get off on writing things like "being-in-itself" all the time? Hell no. But the problem is you need to publish in well respected (high impact) journals and that means using the vernacular of the field. Your average academic is going to tell you that they'd prefer to write like a normal person, but unfortunately you aren't going to get your writing into a top-tier journal with language that isn't commonly used within the field or, at least, doesn't address field-specific problems that usually hinge on certain types of vernacular.

The other problem is that, quite honestly, there are complex things to say and we rapidly run out of words to say them. Try explaining the "aufheben" in simple English. It just doesn't work well and you're going to end up with multiple sentences whereas you could just write one word and be done with it. So from that perspective it's a space and time saver. No author of a logic text book wants to explain the word "predicate" - it's obnoxious to do so. Hence you spend four to six pages explaining the term in your intro and then you just throw it around as short-hand when ever you need to later.

As far as college being needed to "teach" philosophy. Depends. I mean sure, you can read all the books you want but at a certain point in time you're going to be behind the material because most new things are being published in journals and academics are constantly communicating with one another outside of books... so if you're not part of the discussion it's awfully hard to stay current. If you're looking to teach academically or teach more specific topics (e.g. contemporary business ethics) best of luck doing so without spending a lot of time college.

But right there is your division between academic and non-academic philosophers - for the former it's a job, you're paid to publish and be on the "cutting edge" of where the research is currently at in your field. For the non-academic, who cares about any that? The issue comes about when once tries to cross over into the other domain. Non-academics trying to be academics pisses off academics. Why? Well because we've spent a lot of time working on very specific things, we're well aware of a lot of the literature, and we're working on things the average non-academic will never think about or notice because that's how we get paid. For the academic trying to cross over into non-academia... eh well, they tend to come off pompous, get labelled know-it-alls, and usually bring a harsh level of criticism that is far to hostile for non-academic discussion.

All that happens in-part because of a different epistemological upbringing. The non-academic sees philosophy as something fun, self-referential, and often times appealing to those looking to "find themselves". Your average academic sees philosophy as fun in the sense that if they do it well they'll get recognition and a potential promotion.

Well hold your horses really quick because I want to address your previous comment. You wrote "Well, my conception of philosophy in practice has changed considerably..." and I think maybe I wasn't entirely clear in my first response.

My advisor once gave me some advice that I'll pass on to you here: there is a big difference between "doing philosophy" and academia - the first is type of critical inquiry into various aspects of life and the latter is a job. Socrates wasn't an academic, in fact by modern standards many great philosophical thinkers of the past weren't academics in a formal or procedural sense. If you want to practice philosophy or "do" philosophy, you don't need to go to grad school. Instead read books, hang out on websites like this, talk with your family and friends about topics that interest you. Academia is a job where you are paid by an institution to produce research, bring prestige to your university, or just keep up enrollment.

There is a pervasive myth from outsiders looking in that academia is somehow conceptually pure in how it approaches a field, but what I was trying to point out is that it's essentially 10 years of job training. At the end of which you walk away as an expert in something and are expected to work and produce for your place of business (usually a university). It's like going into marketing and being one of only a few people in the world who knows everything about your product. It's a great vocation, but it is just that - a vocation. That's different than loving philosophy or wanting to practice it. You don't need a degree or an academic position in order to be passionate about a subject - often times its better to have neither.

Oh don't take it as discouragement! Just be ready for it. I mean you'll know whether academia is for you pretty damn fast upon getting to grad school (hence why most people drop out). Personally I've loved going through the process. But if you're thinking the the ivory tower is all that glamorous or all that tower-like... it's not. Like every other job it has pros and cons - it's suited for some personality types and not others. Ultimately it's not a bad way to make a living if you're lucky and it's fun working with intelligent people.

Hate to be in my shoes? Nah. It's great. I love what I do. It's just what academia is man.
Europe is about the same just more nepotism. Jobs for Americans are rare unless you're plugged in.

Made an account just to respond. Here's the deal.... As other people noted philosophy jobs are indeed few and far between. Statistically speaking most people won't finish grad school (most people who go into a phil. PhD program drop out within a few years) and - in most cases - unless you're going to a top-tier program you're probably looking at adjunct work which is going to pay like 35k a year in the US. Even going to a top school won't land you a job because it's academia and people want to see research potential and for you to have the right connections.

The depressing reality is that having a "passion" for philosophy should be what the field requires but it's really not. Roughly 80-90% of the phil. PhD's out there are not there because they were the best, brightest, or loved philosophy the most. They made it through their respective programs and landed jobs simply because they were the most organized and most willing to put up with crap. As a slight warning on that note: many philosophy profs feel burnt out after going through that process and it is not uncommon for them to quit or simply go through the motions for a paycheck later on in their careers.

So that's the relative downside of philosophy, but academia in general is a different ballgame. First, it is in fact an industry. You need to publish. Period. As an undergraduate from a small school the only way I could get recognition from a top-tier program was to publish two papers, present at academic conferences, and become the editor for a journal. In grad school I published four more papers, joined a serious research group, networked a lot, and tried to co-author wherever I could. These days I am quite happy to have a postdoc research position, but it required endless hours of writing, endless hours of criticism, endless hours of sitting through obnoxious meetings being given advice that didn't apply or would have hampered my work, multiple rejections from journals, multiple RR (Revise and Resubmit) decisions for work I didn't want to do any more. It was a chore.

If teaching is your thing, you better be really good. Like next level good. Because most jobs in the US are a mix of teaching, admin work, and research. Pure teaching positions exist, but they are hard to come by in the US. A former colleague of mine landed one recently, but he taught at Yale, was an excellent teacher all around, and had held down several prestigious positions around the US in order to be considered. Those positions usually don't pay that well by the way.

Another thing to remember about academia is that it is indeed cutthroat as someone stated above. It mellows out once you actually land a position, but I absolutely stepped on people during graduate school. Those who want to be good scholars are absolutely willing to throw their colleagues under the bus, steal work, take credit for ideas, bad-mouth each other to lower each others' standing, and systemically find ways to humiliate or degrade their fellow academics. I certainly did and I have absolutely no regrets. But if you want to ACTUALLY get somewhere in the field then be willing to hurt, hinder, lie, cheat, steal, and suck up to get where you want to go. It's not "bad" it's just the nature of the academic game.

Keep in mind that even with a mildly cutthroat attitude - it might not matter. For example: at a former institution of mine I was having a drink with our department chair and he just asked me directly what I thought of one of our assistant profs who was trying to get tenure. I didn't want him to be tenure track, so I straight up said I didn't like him and didn't think he'd be a valuable long term addition to the department. The department head agreed with me - we made fun of him for a bit and moved on. It's been years since then and guess what? That poor guy still isn't tenure track because he just wasn't liked enough by the right people.

Now this isn't to say the field is bad! It's just not for everybody. Personally I love it, but I've always liked the environment. I liked criticism and being able to criticize, I liked (most of) the work load, and I liked being around smart people like myself. But it's not a "noble" pursuit. So if you have pie-eyed dreams of being scholar where you get to sit in a library all day and happily read books and take notes - think again. If you don't publish you probably won't have a job these days or odds are not a great job. Unless you're tenured you'll work 60 hours a week, you'll deal some of the dumbest students in the world (and sometimes their overly involved parents), and you'll deal with an endless supply of bureaucratic red tape.

Phil. is a cool field, but it's just one field among many in an industry called academia. I guess the last bit of advice is simply that liking the field or being passionate about philosophy isn't good enough. You have to have a network, and you need to be more dedicated and more organized than your peers. The alternative is to be brilliant. Literally Wittgenstein levels of brilliance. Which odds are you're not or you'd be somewhere already. That's where dedication and organization come in - they can close the gap a little bit.