Fawn asked:

I am a very new student to philosophy and I find that the subject is so very broad in all the factors we
must consider. A fellow student pointed out that he thought there was no point to philosophy at all. He
declared that it was a waste of the time we know we do have. My instructor, said that there was an
article called "The Uselessness of Philosophy" but could not remember the author or where he had
found the article. He told me that it would be a good source to look into as I am developing my
semester paper on why philosophy is not a waste of time. He said that it would help me prepare my
paper for all the counter arguments. I have searched avidly to no avail. I was hoping that someone
within your group might point me to a source similar or the actual article.

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"The unexpected uselesness of philosophy" was originally a chapter in a book of Nobel prize winning
physician Steven Weinberg. I don't have it, but it became a real classic in some circles. Weinberg is
usually quite negative about philosophy.

Steven Sailer commented on it at: http://www.isteve.com/Philosophy.htm

Henk Tuten

I think a good source for you would be the final chapter of Bertrand Russell's little book, The
Problems of Philosophywhich is titled, "The Value of Philosophy".

Let me just add that whether philosophy is useless or not is, itself, a philosophical question. So how
useless could a study be when to decide whether it is useless you are obliged to engage in that study
itself?

Ken Stern

Try this site:

http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/~whyphil/

I'm not going to go into why Ido philosophy... except that I am simply interested, and have been since
I was very young, in questions usually considered "philosophical".

Steven Ravett Brown