On the decline of the humanities

I don't think this is an era of anti-intellectualism. At universities, it's possibly the opposite. There are so many amazing things one can study in depth. Still, if someone has an option to delve into an interesting field that will give them specific employable skills or a field where the employment goals are less clear, the former will win more people. That doesn't mean the humanities are losing value. It's just that other forms have knowledge have more value.

Possibly due to the echo chamber of humanities professors assuming everyone will study their subjects for the sheer love of knowledge, they never focus on the questions of what people will do with the degrees. I had one friend who was a philosophy major and, while she loved the topics, she never had a clear answer what she would do with her degrees.

If these departments want to survive they really need to sit down and figure out why people would want to devote 4 years and thousands of dollars to primary study these fields. This is a solvable issue, but the knowledge for the sake of knowledge arguement works for taking a few classes, but not for an entire course of study.

I think it's not the subject as much as how it's taught that crucial. Philosophy might led itself to developing a critical style, but science, math or biology could be approached the same way. It's not ignorance that makes us vulnerable as much being lazy or narrowly focused.

I have to agree completely, but I don't think this is merely a problem at the university level. Kids in middle school are getting less and less social studies (and science) in order to have more instructional time in the areas they are tested in: Math and Language arts. They have little experience in critical thinking, and throughout high school are offered watered down courses in the humanities while training to pass various required tests.

Kids aren't required in depth history and social studies, most don't learn a foreign language, and almost none of them have the background or critical thinking skills to study things like philosophy or ethics when they reach college.

I agree that loss of critical thinking skills makes American students sheep.

Schools seem to exist to create mindless tax-payers who think The moment of truth or Big Brother is intellectual. An intelligent, critical thinking populus on the other hand is not easy to fleece as has been said.

The decline in the humanities is just proof that universities are becoming degree-factories for job seekers rather than places of true learning. Where we used to attend university to both learn and contribute, now we're just being programmed with a set of instructions to apply in the workforce.

It seems to me that the pure humanities (english, history, philosophy) are being watered down and integrated into non-specific degrees such as communications with the result being a generation of PR and marketing flacks.

What's needed is a re-integration of humanities subjects across the board, primary in the sciences where it's sorely lacking. It's time to move the focus from a consume-and-regurgitate style of learning into one where students are forced to develop critical thinking skills and (dare I say it) the ability to ask 'why' before 'how'.

If we can just introduce these critical parts of any good education (rather than relegating it under the umbrella of humanities) within each course, we might not only reclaim the pure humanities but draw more students to them who might otherwise have a view of humanities vasty different from the reality ('err reading books and stuff').

All great science is evidence-based philosophy so it should be taught that way.

The Greeks, better than anyone, knew the value of men who simply thought and reflected. These are the men that ushered in the modern age, who gave us systems of thought, ways of understanding and categorizing knowledge, and their heirs in the Enlightenment built those into a methodologies that ultimately proved capable of peering into realms that they could not even imagine.

The end of the humanities seems to me to be a denial of the foundations of the very best contribution that Western civilization has given to the world. But of course, no one will notice if they don't learn any history.

I agree that the humanities are declining, but for different reasons. For one, I don't think emphasizing science-oriented fields over the humanities is such a bad thing, and the sciences are certainly not anti-intellectual at all. I don't know how things are in Australia, but in America it is the humanities that are thoroughly anti-intellectual! I was exposed to all kinds of nonsense in my literary theory courses, for instance; stuff that denies absolute truth, that sees everything as a social construction (except for the claim that "everything is a social construction," which is exempt, I guess).

Besides, science isn't so far off from philosophy. Science is just philosophy that is highly specialized and well-oiled, with its epistemology and methodology all sorted out already.

So the result is a society that simply doesn't think. A society that won't learn about its past. A society that governments find remarkably easy to manipulate, especially when it comes to loss of rights and engaging in wars that to a historical and philosophical perspective look like they benefit only the wealthy and powerful. Is it cynical of me to think that?

An ignorant society is fodder. The fundamentalists know this well. It seems so do those in power today.

It may be cynical, that doesn't prevent it from being True.

The ability to analysis and understand what is happening and being done; as well as extrapolating its consequences is what politicians and other leaders fear in the genral populace.

For a democracy to function it's members must be educated and able to logically deduce consequences. Our masters do not wish to rule a democratic society, they desire slaves. Though what they seem to miss or don't care about is that the ignorance will spread to their progeny unless they create a seperate system of learning.

If people in the UK knew their history they'ld know that invading Iraq was fraught with danger and that conquering Afghanistan was a forgone failure.

They don't know or don't care about history and neither do our leaders so we send people to die.

All dictaorships either ban or control philosophy (Saudi Arabia bans it, Stalin tried to control it i.e. right thought).

Don't rock the boat, don't argue with your betters; don't utter unsound thoughts or you'll be punished (i.e. being a labour party activist, longer than Bliar has lived, doesn't prevent you being ousted from a labour party conference and charge with disruption for opposing Bliar).

Ubiquitous surveillance, if you've done nothing wrong you've nothing to fear from state control as an arguement can only work in an ignorant society.

I hate to admit it, but I truely fear for the future.

There is much that I despise in the humanities as presently promulgated in institutes of higher learning, sadlly what I despise our leaders seem to endorse.

I suspect that the last hold out of rational, pragmatic, logical, anti-authoritarian and historical/philosophical thinking in universities will be in the Engineering departments.

Luckilly, engineers are required/essential to modern society and are generally piss artists with little respect for authority, though I have seen this tradition eroded in some of the youger engineers.

It is a sad and poorer world we leave for our descendants if free thought and the teaching of philosophy is abandoned or only allowed for the right thinking alphas.

This authoritarian/right thought/control freekery seems to exist most strongly in left wing politicos. May not be true in 'mer'ca but is true in UK/EU.

Stuart's comment 5: The decline in the humanities is just proof that universities are becoming degree-factories for job seekers rather than places of true learning. Where we used to attend university to both learn and contribute, now we're just being programmed with a set of instructions to apply in the workforce.

I've heard this rant enough times and I still think it's flatly wrong. Universities used to be a place where rich white people got to hang out, network, and learn for a few years before going into virtually guaranteed employment no matter what they studied. This is not a world I want to go back to.
While still elitist, colleges are open to many more people and, with larger debt and no guaranteed jobs, it is perfectly reasonable for students to want to get employable skills. Just because someone studies science, engineering, or even communications doesn't mean they are being programmed with a set up instructions. In a good education, you learn how to think no matter what the field.
The fact that some humanities departments are still living in this fantasy land where people go to college purely for the sake of education is one reason those departments are dying. They don't need to change their topics, but they do need to better market the practical value of the skills one learns that are unique to those fields if they want to survive.

The fact that some humanities departments are still living in this fantasy land where people go to college purely for the sake of education is one reason those departments are dying. They don't need to change their topics, but they do need to better market the practical value of the skills one learns that are unique to those fields if they want to survive.
Posted by: bsci

So no education for educations sake in your reality?

Learning/knowledge is valueless unless you can profit, in the marketplace, from it.

Everything must have immediate utility (i.e. must earn you money and support the ruling powers that be).

A sad world you envision, I hope it does not become totally fulfilled in my life time.

Chris,
I definitely believe in learning for the sake of learning. I've taken many classes and read dozens, if not hundreds of books, purely for the sake of learning.
I also think that it's nice that some people are interested in devoting 4 years of their life, possibly significant money, and 4 years less of earning salary to learning for the sake of learning. Most of these people are wealthy enough to afford this.

Still, if someone is trying to justify the existence of hundreds of philosophy departments across the world, they can't all be stocked with wealthy people interested in devoting 4 years of their life to learning for the sake of learning. If the only argument to keep these and independent and heavily staffed department is learning for the sake of learning, then many will cease to exist.

There are solutions. There is clear value to these topics and these departments need to make that value more explicit. They also might need to be more open to merging with other fields for least for specific courses of study. Our blog-host here has a strong interest in philosophy of biology. How many teachers in philosophy departments speak to science departments about setting up joint curricula where classic and modern philosophy is taught in the perspective of other fields?

bsci,
I was one of those people who took courses because I was interested in the subjects, post-degree utility never entered into it.
I wasn't one of the wealthy ones; I'm one of those old enough to have been alive in the UK before the utility school of thought took over and the state actually encouraged people to go onto tertiary education (heavens they paid us to do so, not a lot but we got a grant).
Luckilly for me Pure Maths an Environmental Engineering have earned me a living (well the engineering has) but that wasn't my reason for doing the courses.

Yes, perhaps the humanities need to sell themselves better, but I don't see the hand of the market in this as much as I see the desire to dumb down the electorate.

As I mentioned earlier, I despise a lot of what has come out of the humanities (philosophy departments included in that) but the value of free thought is something that should be without question surely.

The problem I see is that it suits the present politicos to dumb down the electorate and indulge in anti-egghead and even anti-practicalknowledge rhetoric (in the UK it is OK to admit that you can't do calculus and still be considered an intellectual, heaven won't help if you can't name the latest in fashion avant-garde pseud).

Totally OT.

Mr Wilkins,
Have you recovered from your accident?
Hopefully the person who pranged you is paying for all repairs and to compensate for your injuries.

"So the result is a society that simply doesn't think."

Far too glittering a generality. The vast majority of society's members think. What you seem to want to talk about is *what* they think about and how they think about the *what* they think about. I think that could be a valuable discussion.

Still, if someone is trying to justify the existence of hundreds of philosophy departments across the world, they can't all be stocked with wealthy people interested in devoting 4 years of their life to learning for the sake of learning. If the only argument to keep these and independent and heavily staffed department is learning for the sake of learning, then many will cease to exist.

Here that JOhn! You wealthy guy you!

I think the poster may be somewhat detached from reality here.

Yes, I am simply rolling in money, and of course I only worked for 25 years to pay for my philosophy studies because I had to have something to occupy my time when I wasn't sitting in the armchair, theorising. And all the philosophy students I know only work in restaurants, and various odd jobs for the same reason. It's all about the money...

Chris, no, I paid for the damage myself as I was too shocked to get their license number. My neck is pretty ratshit too, three weeks later.

Whitebeard: you have a point. A society obsessed with Paris Hilton, Posh Spice and sport is so much more valuable a society than one full of critical thinkers.

Now, where did I put those anti-cynicism tablets?

John, I think we're dealing with pragmatism. (And I don't mean the philosophical subject of pragmatism, which I couldn't define anyway apart from an open internet test.) But I think economic pressures puts the pressure on colleges to focus more on developing the future careers of students instead of mere intellectual development. I'm at the point where I would recommend a degree in humanities for my children only if they wanted to be a humanities teacher or professor. Perhaps I've lost some of my idealism.

Perhaps I'm not great at saying my positions clearly here, but there are realistic market forces here and humanities have been very slow to accept this. For a campus to want to fill a full range of humanities faculty, thye need a large body of students willing to spend their time with these topics. To get their students, they need to better explain why they should major in a field or more courses to take that fit into studies of other fields.

I don't buy this "intentional dumbing of the population" argument. Generally, a quality college education in any field make people more critical voters whether or not they took a course in Classic Greek philosophy. Chris, with is math and envi sci degrees seems to consider himself an informed voter.

By wealth, I mean not having any worry about food, shelter, modest entertainment budgets and future ability to permanently remain in this state. That definition includes approximately the top 10% of the population's income range in the US. I don't know John's life story, but I suspect he mostly fits into this definition. The fact that he is willing to devote his time to philosophy is great, but, as he probably knows (and laments in the post), there aren't many like him and there are even fewer jobs. If anything it sounds like you are the exception that proves the rule. You know the people working around you better than I do, so correct me if I'm wrong.

If its any consolation, professors in anthropology and molecular evolution have similar issues. Several professors told me that most evolutionary research needs to be tied into medical research if you want to generate a steady flow of research grants.

I was an active biology professor at a regional university for 32 years. Our student body came from the same population over that period. It was very clear to me that the quality of the student body deteriorated over that period, and more rapidly as time went on.

For example, I taught a survey of the animal kingdom on a regular basis during my entire tenure. That course changed less than most biology courses over the same period. I was rooting through my files and found a five-year old test. I decided to give the same test to my class at the time. I carefully used the same terminology and emphasis as in the test. Both classes had @ 60 students. The average grade in the second class was 10 points lower than that for the first class.

In my experience, the number of really good students declined over time. The hard-working average student became more scarce, and the percentage of bad-attitude students went up. I haven't taught for 10 years, but do visit my university and chat with colleagues. (Some are extending parts of my research and doing wonderful things I barely understand.) I been told that going into a classroom today is like facing an angry mob. Even toward the end of my time the sense of entitlement, "I exist, gimme my A.", was not uncommon.

I do actually think you're too cynical, John. I agree with your three dot-points, but not with the plot to make society more malleable by politicians. I know enough politicians - including people who've been involved in education policy - to be pretty sure that they don't think in the Machiavellian way you describe. Other Machiavellian ways, sure, but not that particular one.

From their point of view, there are no votes in "we will give your kid a rigorous, critical attitude to the world and the intellectual skills to go with it"; but there are lots of votes in "we will give your kid the skills and credentials to get a good job". There's also no private money for universities with the first, but plenty with the second.

Strangely enough, things don't actually seem as bad to me as they did in the early 1980s, when I had my first stint of teaching in academia (in a different discipline, so it's difficult to make comparisons ... but still, the situation in the humanities generally now seems much more hopeful than it did then). At least at Monash, philosophy seems to be thriving, though there was probably a halcyon time when it was thriving quite a bit more.

I have lots of thoughts about this, but they're too inchoate. I do agree with the point that the humanities (though not analytic philosophy) have had a lot to answer for over the past few decades. All the post-this, post-that gobbledegook hasn't helped sell the humanities as a powerhouse for understanding of the world. A lot of it has seemed more like obfuscation and, well, performance. Fortunately, some of that seems to have receded.

Should all knowledge have an immediate "practical" value? Knowledge for the sake of knowledge can lead to an understanding of practicality far different from those around you. One of my favorite cartoons of all time (Rarg):

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7692801912381387535

Things are worse at Melbourne than you realize. The CAPPE staff are not available for teaching undergraduate courses, so the actual number of available people this year is 4.5. They have to run the courses taught last year by 11. The entire faculty is shedding staff under financial pressure.

That's extraordinary, Neil. What does Melbourne think it's doing, I wonder? I realise that there are all sorts of extraneous factors, making comparisons difficult, but Monash currently has about twice as many full-time teaching staff as that ... plus a lot of part-timers and casuals. Admittedly, this also includes the Centre for Human Bioethics, but as far as I'm concerned philosophical bioethics is part of philosophy. In addition, there's the folks elsewhere in the building who "do" Continental philosophy.

It sounds as if your respective institutions are determined that ANU, Sydney, and Monash should have the only world-class philosophy programs in Australia ... assuming that ANU and Sydney are holding up (we haven't heard from them on this thread and I don't keep up in any other way). This is not to denigrate all the other institutions, but I'd guess that philosophy always has to struggle outside of the five programs that I've referred to in this comment. Melb. and UQ are supposed to be flagships for philosophy in Australia.

Sydney has added a lot of people under various ARC and soft money arrangements, including Mark Colyvan and Paul Griffiths who both used to be at UQ. As far as I know they are set for five years (now four) and have to find recurring funds thereafter, because the federal funds aren't there no matter how much teaching is done.

Funding for humanities students by the federal governments has been well below that of science. In part this is because we famously don't even need erasers while scientists need million dollar labs, but the level is set at a point where no amount of teaching would make the humanities viable. If funds can't be found elsewhere, then the whole nation is removing the humanities from public universities. One possibly unintended result is that humanities such as ethics, history and so on will tend to be done either by the Catholic university system or by industry. This leaves a gap in secular discourse.

ANU is the only place that I am aware of funds being made to cover the demand. Once it is the sole place of philosophy majors in Australia, then philosophy becomes extremely sensitive to political whims. Same too for history, which has even greater interference by vested interests.

Well, we already seem to have reached the point where philosophy of religion has been largely taken over by the religious. There are exceptions to that, of course, but we could do with more philosophical scrutiny of religion from the outside. I'd hate to see philosophy of religion in Australia go down the path it seems to be taking in the US ... but it looks as if it's happening.

Somehow, we need to find significant money to fund secular thinking in fields like philosophy of religion, philsophical jurisprudence (in case there's another kind), philosophical bioethics, and indeed all of the fields of philosophy but especially those with real-world implications.

I have no idea where the money would come from, though. I guess we need to attract more Charles Simonyis and James Martins. Unfortunately, I'm totally the wrong person to know how to do this.

Although I'm sceptical about aspects of the "framing" thing, I do think that (as Lakoff says) there's a lesson to be learned from American right-wing politics. If large amounts of money are found to support a wide range of basically allied (yet diverse) thinkers, it produces an enormous impact after a decade or two. Intellectuals do matter. If only similar backing could be found for the cause of reason.

I'm not surprised John is so pessimistic and cynical.

I don't have the exact figures to hand, but I understand that in Australia, overall government expenditure on tertiary education declined by about five percent over the past 10 years while the OECD on average increased its expenditure by over 30 percent (conservative figures, from memory). The humanities are hit hardest for several reasons, including their low attraction for fee-paying students and corporate sponsors.

James Goetz: "If its any consolation, professors in anthropology and molecular evolution have similar issues. Several professors told me that most evolutionary research needs to be tied into medical research if you want to generate a steady flow of research grants."

There are similar issues in condensed matter theory, AFAICT. And particle physics and astronomy in the UK has just taken a massive hit. It isn't just the humanities that can get in trouble (though they tend to get hit worse) -- any form of inquiry that doesn't have a sexy sounding payoff (especially for business) is at risk.

Russell Blackford : "There are exceptions to that, of course, but we could do with more philosophical scrutiny of religion from the outside."

As a wicked religious type, I quite agree; a variety of viewpoints is healthy for any discipline that's founded on argument -- it improves the quality of the views on all sides. I'm not sure if part of the problem with phil. rel. might be down to a natural lack of interest from a lot (but by no means all, as our host demonstrates) of more secular types than funding as such, but it's probably an approach worth looking at in fixing the problem.

Leiter has some info. on Priest.

http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2008/04/priest-from-mel.html