So, I’ve got a degree in Philosophy. Everyone to whom I’ve told that has asked me Why. “What did you think you were going to do with that?” they ask, incredulous. “Did you think you would do anything useful with a philosophy degree? Is what you’re doing now at all philosophical?”

Usually, I tell people the truth. I majored in Philosophy because by the time I’d reached my sophomore year at UC Davis, I’d already gone through about a dozen different majors and couldn’t make up my mind. I’d started out with a degree in Biological Sciences, fully intending to be a doctor specializing in prosthetics, but a disastrous quarter of Chemistry and Calculus quickly put to rest any illusions I might have had about making that work. Then in the spring quarter of my sophomore year I took a course called “The Philosophy of the Biological Sciences” with Dr. James Griesemer, noted philosopher and population geneticist, and I was hooked. I’d always had, as a kid, a passing interest in philosophy, and I enjoyed reading books by folks like Bertrand Russell, even if I didn’t quite get them. So this course really set my brain on fire, and I happily filled out the paperwork to change my major officially, and spent the next few years taking philosophy and any other course that struck my fancy. As a philosophy student, I could do that; only 52 units in Philosophy were required for the degree, but I could take up to 225 units before they made me graduate.

Mostly I stuck with the philosophy of science, the philosophy of religion, symbolic predicate logic, and courses which related to those specialties. What I’m doing now, though, isn’t particularly philosophical, although as a programmer the tools I learned studying logic are quite useful. Then again, as a writer I’m always influenced by the things I learned as a philosophy student. You may not think it when reading my short stories, but everything I write addresses a timeless, deep philosophical conundrum that has perplexed mankind through the centuries.

Or, maybe, you know, not.

Anyway, today my good friend Jennifer (not my wife, another Jennifer) pointed me at this article in Newsweek: “I Think, Therefore I Am Misunderstood“. It’s an article written by a philosophy student who tries to answer the same questions I faced, and who does it quite succinctly. I wish I could have been that eloquent when I was a student. I particularly like his definition of what a philosopher does:

What I do, in a nutshell, is this: I find a question or puzzle that interests me. I try to figure out a solution, usually reading what others have had to say about it along the way. If I come up with anything good, I write it down and see if anyone is interested in publishing it.

That works really well for me.

And, in a way, it really does apply to what I do as a writer; to what many people do as writers, really.  We come up with questions and puzzles that intrigue us, that we think ought to be examined and pondered, and then come up with stories, characters, tales, and so on, that will help us explore those questions and just maybe come up with some answers (or help our readers find some of their own).

It’s not true of every writer, of course.  I won’t name any names, but I can come up with at least one prolific fantasy writer who works a little bit of philosophy into each of his novels (he calls it “stealth philosophy”) and at least one prolific fantasy writer who probably couldn’t care a whit about that sort of thing.  I don’t know if one approach is better than the other, but I do know that I prefer the former’s books to those of the latter.

What about my writer friends who peruse my blog?  What do you all think?