TY - JOUR
T1 - What's your philosophy?
AU - Fleming, Chris
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - There is a range of perfectly reasonable questions to which otherwise perfectly reasonable people make it their business to take offence. Self-identified ‘intellectuals’ seem especially prone to such sensitivity. Once, on a long-haul coach ride, an elderly person sitting next to me – on learning that I was a philosopher – asked ‘So, what’s your philosophy?’ Just as bad would have been if he’d asked me who my ‘favourite philosopher’ was, or whether I’d read Coelho’s The Alchemist. And we all know that the easiest way to make a PhD student in the humanities roll their eyes is for uninitiated to ask them ‘so, what’s your thesis about?’ I once knew a doctoral candidate who was almost brought to tears by an Uber driver who, upon learning she was a political philosopher, asked her who she thought would win the election.
AB - There is a range of perfectly reasonable questions to which otherwise perfectly reasonable people make it their business to take offence. Self-identified ‘intellectuals’ seem especially prone to such sensitivity. Once, on a long-haul coach ride, an elderly person sitting next to me – on learning that I was a philosopher – asked ‘So, what’s your philosophy?’ Just as bad would have been if he’d asked me who my ‘favourite philosopher’ was, or whether I’d read Coelho’s The Alchemist. And we all know that the easiest way to make a PhD student in the humanities roll their eyes is for uninitiated to ask them ‘so, what’s your thesis about?’ I once knew a doctoral candidate who was almost brought to tears by an Uber driver who, upon learning she was a political philosopher, asked her who she thought would win the election.
UR - https://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:69716
UR - https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/essay/whats-your-philosophy/
M3 - Article
SN - 2201-8735
VL - July 18, 2022
JO - Sydney Review of Books
JF - Sydney Review of Books
ER -