If this is what they're teaching kids, no wonder our field has PR problems. It bring to mind an observation I made in the introduction to The Future for Philosophy (OUP, 2004):
Philosophy, perhaps more than any other discipline, has been plagued by debates about what the discipline is or ought to be. Partly, this is due to the fact that “philosophy” has a currency in everyday parlance and ordinary self-reflection that “linguistics” or “sociology” or “anthropology” do not. One doesn’t need an advanced degree to have a “philosophy of life,” and this has bred an expectation, even among those with advanced degrees, that the discipline of philosophy ought to be continuous with ordinary attempts to forge a philosophy of life.
Most of philosophy, both contemporary and--importantly--historical, does not, alas, live up to this expectation. Earlier and contemporary philosophers worry, to be sure, about truth, knowledge, the just society, and morally right action, as well as the nature of science, beauty, death, law, goodness, rationality, and consciousness. From reflections on these worries one might even extract a “philosophy of life,” though it would hardly be obvious, on an initial reading of Aristotle, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Hegel, or Husserl that this is what they were after.
(Thanks to Jason Brennan for the pointer.)
CORRECTION: Several readers point out that I misheard the lyrics, which were as follows: "It needn't be Greek to be, or even deep to be, important or true." So not quite as bad as my title wrongly suggested!
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