An Apology for the Philosophy Major | Travis Dickinson

On this episode of Anchored, Soren is joined by Travis Dickinson, professor of philosophy at Dallas Baptist University and author of several books including most recently Wandering Toward God: Finding Faith amid Doubts and Big Questions. They discuss philosophy as not only a useful subject but an unavoidable one in respect to philosophical commitments and the consequences of ideas. They explore the best ways to cultivate curiosity and sharpen a student’s critical thinking skills. Dickinson also presents his apology for the philosophy major.

Transcript

Soren Schwab (CLT) (00:02.188)
Welcome back to the Anchored Podcast, the official podcast of the Classic Learning Test. My name is Soren Chua, VP of Partnerships here at CLT, and today we're joined by Travis Dickinson. Dr. Dickinson is Professor of Philosophy at Dallas Baptist University, where he teaches all things philosophical and also directs the philosophy program. Travis holds a PhD and an MA in Philosophy from the University of Iowa, an MA in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, and an MA in Christian Apologetics,

from Biola University and a BA from Alaska Bible College. He's the author of, Wondering Toward God, Finding Faith Amidst Doubts and Big Questions, Logic and the Way of Jesus, Thinking Critically and Christianly, and Everyday Apologetics. Trav has also co -authored the book, Stand Firm, Apologetics and the Brilliance of the Gospel. His writing has appeared in such outlets as Christianity Today, The Stream,

and the Christian Research Journal. Travis regularly speaks at conferences and writes a monthly newsletter called the Thinking Thoughts newsletter. You can find them online at travisdickinson .com and it is such a pleasure to have him on the show today. Welcome Travis.

Travis Dickinson (01:16.014)
Thanks so much, and that was quite a list, and thanks for reading all that.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (01:19.308)
I know, right? I practiced it a few times not to stumble over the MA and the BA, but I think we made it. What a wonderful academic career. And we get to talk about that, of course, here. As we always do, we start the Angered Podcast by talking about our guests' own educational journey. So talk to us a little bit about your K -12 experience, what kind of schools you attended, and then how you ended up in Alaska.

Travis Dickinson (01:23.694)
You're right. You got it.

Travis Dickinson (01:41.806)
Yeah, okay, so I started out in a Christian school, private Christian school, and not necessarily of the classical sort, but it was pretty standard sort of K through 12 experience that many people have, and that was a wonderful experience. My family moved in that time, and we were no longer close enough to go to that school and switched into the public setting, and so.

I had a fairly unremarkable K through 12 experience. I did overall well and I feel like I was prepared for college in some ways and some ways not. But yeah, I think for me, it was certainly probably not until grad school that I really kind of grasped the way in which a education is a superpower. You know, the closest thing we have to it at least.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (02:11.122)
Thank you.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (02:25.388)
Hmm.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (02:35.052)
Right.

Travis Dickinson (02:37.326)
And so I think it was really grad school. But yeah, for Alaska, I grew up in New Jersey. And so, you know, Alaska just made sense in some ways. I mean, not really, but I wanted to go on the adventure. That was sort of my my goal. So it's Alaska Bible College. And I always joke that I really at the time was not there for the college part of it. I was not did not have much for academic aspirations at that point. The Bible, I wasn't really even there for that. It was really just the Alaska piece of that.

and loved the time there actually. It was a really wonderful, wonderful time. So I had a great experience.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (03:13.068)
Yeah, I bet the several months of negative degrees, temperatures, even though if you're not so into it, I'm like, okay, what are we going to do? Go to the library and study? Because I went to school in Michigan and sometimes that was kind of the thing you wanted to do, sit by a fire and read some great books. Right.

Travis Dickinson (03:16.894)
Right in the dark. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's actually a pretty great place to study because of the there's not much, not much going on in the middle of the winter when it's dark and yeah, 20, 30, 40 degrees below zero.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (03:39.628)
Right, right. Well, it's reading your bio. It's pretty obvious that philosophy has had a huge impact on your life. You're very passionate about promoting its benefits. Where and how did your love for philosophy start? And how and when, I guess, did you know that, you know what, I might want to make a career out of this field.

Travis Dickinson (04:01.646)
Yeah, yeah, for me, like I said, I really didn't even have an awareness of philosophy until grad school. And for me, it definitely came out, it comes out for me somewhat to do with my sort of religious journey, my spiritual journey that has definitely marked my life in some ways. And so in asking the very, very big questions of life,

as I'm, you know, even in seasons of doubt and, you know, just sort of struggling in some ways of trying to figure out what I believe about God. I think that's really where I stumbled on that this is actually a whole discipline. Like you can take classes in learning how to ask the big questions. And so my very first experience was a pretty much upper level grad school course in metaphysics.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (04:38.412)
Mm -hmm.

Travis Dickinson (04:58.134)
I've never taken intro to philosophy. And so to say that I was barely treading water is a bit of an understatement. But it really was every, even though I didn't necessarily even understand it, I knew it was important. I knew it was sort of speaking into really big issues that I was deeply curious about, deeply interested in all of a sudden. And...

by leaning into those things, it was navigating those big questions and coming down on some, you know, really it's a sort of kind of worldview formation or spiritual formation in a way for me.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (05:41.996)
Yeah, yeah, well, it's no surprise to you and to many of our listeners that, you know, the humanities as a whole, and in particular, some of the useless, I'm doing the finger quotes, right, the useless arts have kind of been on the chopping block, right? And part of that is, well, you can speak to that, but it seems like, right,

Travis Dickinson (05:56.034)
I was gonna say that didn't you couldn't hear that?

Yes.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (06:07.948)
What's the point of philosophy? Good luck with the job. In fact, yesterday I was meeting with my CPA and he's wonderful, right? But he made the joke. We talked about student loans and student loans forgiveness. And of course he mentioned, yeah, I mean, I don't want you to, with your taxes, pay for the liberal arts philosophy major. And I know it, right? He didn't mean it that way, but it's pretty common now, right? Can you kind of present us, I know we only have a few minutes here, but like,

Travis Dickinson (06:09.966)
Right. Right.

Travis Dickinson (06:26.67)
Yeah.

Travis Dickinson (06:31.724)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (06:37.708)
with a defense of philosophy, right? Like if we're only looking in terms of utility and practical applications, even through that lens, why would you still make the case that philosophy is actually useful in our everyday lives, whether we recognize it or not?

Travis Dickinson (06:40.878)
Yeah.

Travis Dickinson (06:55.15)
Yeah, no, that's awesome. So, you know, it's always awkward when someone says, I just don't think philosophy has any value. Because the response is always, well, that is an interesting philosophy that you have, right? So like, I really do think that philosophy is somewhat annoyingly for some unavoidable. We all have philosophical commitments.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (07:10.316)
Yeah.

Travis Dickinson (07:25.026)
And so all that we do in philosophy, I think, I mean, at the end of the day, is try to reflect on those because it's right that there's, it's right, there's not a lot of, you know, freelance work in philosophy these days. Ever since, ever since the days of Socrates, I think that has not been as lucrative. And that would not that it was lucrative for him either. But anyway, you,

Soren Schwab (CLT) (07:46.226)
Thank you.

Travis Dickinson (07:51.982)
But to say that philosophy has no value, again, it just betrays a total ignorance of what we're even talking about. I think that on one hand, I wanna say that philosophy has tremendous practical value. But even if it doesn't, I think what we are doing when we do philosophy is we are training our minds to think well. And that is...

Like I said, that is the closest thing we have to a superpower, some people have said. The power of critical thinking, the power to be able to take an idea, sort of grasp it first of all, and understand reasons for and against is just huge. And there's some of this in, I always tell my possible or prospective philosophy majors that,

there's actually a lot of kind of employers that are looking for students in humanities. And I'm sure you know this, but why? Because, right, let's say they're looking at a tech job, it's almost impossible for a university to stay up on the breakneck speed of technology. And so almost always a tech major is coming out already sort of behind the times a little bit.

And they just might have wrong information. And so the tech company has to then sort of unlearn them for what they learned in college and then teach them, you know what they do. And so what they're not actually looking for tech majors these days, they're looking for humanities majors and philosophy majors are right in there that we've seen a pretty big spike in people, you know, that sort of job, having success and finding a job.

Why? Well, because what do we do when we have to sit there and grind out and do that hard work of thinking philosophically about our ideas? We are exercising the muscle that is our mind and developing those skills. So while, you know, who's right, Plato or Aristotle as it relates to, you know,

Travis Dickinson (10:13.87)
the problem of the one and the many, maybe that's not gonna figure into our daily lives, but guaranteed all of us will have to make really big decisions at some point. And man, what a huge practical value to have those critical thinking skills sharpened so that we can make those well. And again, I think that, you know, something like a philosophy major allows students to...

be very reflective about what they believe because I do think too that, and this is a big, and we can talk more about this if you like, I think that those ideas have big consequences. And I talk about this all the time with my students that, right, we all have ideas, we all have philosophical assumptions. The difference is whether or not we're gonna hold those critically or we're just gonna hold those sort of incidentally or accidentally.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (11:04.396)
Yeah, yeah, well, as an employer, I mean, we have several philosophy majors on staff and you're absolutely right. They make some of the best employees, you know, they think well, they reason well, they pursue truth, right? They want to get to the answer and feel like operations, right? Like they want to get to the heart of what's the pain point for the customer, right? How can we, right? And so, absolutely, they're used to that.

Travis Dickinson (11:09.58)
Okay.

Travis Dickinson (11:17.614)
Yeah. Yeah.

Travis Dickinson (11:29.102)
And I think somewhat too that when you get used to philosophical reasoning, you kind of, I mean, it annoys people again. Like some people just don't have a taste for it, but you get used to thinking outside of the box too. And so kind of trying to take a step back and look at some issue in a different light, again, such a huge value to have that in a job setting or whatever else. So.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (11:43.788)
Thank you.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (11:56.556)
Yeah, well, as an organization, with the leadership team the other week we met, and why are some of our employees so successful at what they do? And there's always metrics and all these things. But after long back and forth conversations, we almost nailed it down to people that work at CLT seem to be just very curious. They have a desire to know, to learn.

Travis Dickinson (12:23.02)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (12:26.934)
figure out what they have to do to solve a problem, right? Or connect better with our customer, with our partners. And I think that curiosity and desire to learn is, as you argue in your essay, philosophy and brushing up against eternal truth is a natural part of being human, right? And so is that something, I mean, sometimes we talk about...

Travis Dickinson (12:45.038)
Yes.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (12:49.792)
you know, kids are born with this natural curiosity and then schools kind of kill that curiosity, right? And oftentimes, you know, students lose it. Kind of make that connection with the article that you've written and why maybe philosophy fulfills that natural desire of human beings.

Travis Dickinson (12:53.774)
Right. Right.

Travis Dickinson (13:09.294)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's not just schools. I mean, schools do that too, but it's also just our entertainment soaked world where it's just so easy. I mean, we've made it so easy for a kid to just have entertainment and amusement and so on. I mean, it's literally in their pockets half the time, or maybe not half the time, maybe all the time. And so they're...

Soren Schwab (CLT) (13:18.922)
Hmm.

Travis Dickinson (13:39.15)
their curiosity muscle in a sense is, is doesn't get used and it sort of atrophies in some ways. And then I think, right. Um, I mean, we have four kids and so our kids are teenagers, uh, and one of them is a preteen. And so we're right in the thick of it there. And, um, right. I, I just, I loved when our kids were little and they would just ask the most amazing questions and you could never know when the

great questions are coming, because it'd just be driving to school or some off chance, and they would just ask this amazing question. Because they're just looking at the world with curious eyes. And so that when students get to my class, right, and they have, even though they are at a liberal arts university here at Dallas Baptist University,

Soren Schwab (CLT) (14:21.46)
Mm -hmm.

Travis Dickinson (14:38.422)
First of all, they may not even know what that is. And second of all, they are still kind of with that idea of, look, I'm just in class to get my degree, get a little information, perhaps it'll be useful for me in a job and then land me a good job. And I think there's just so much more to a college experience than that. And my goodness, to awaken within us,

Soren Schwab (CLT) (14:47.178)
Hmm.

Travis Dickinson (15:06.002)
So in this article, I look at the life of Augustine a little bit, right? The, I'm gonna say third century bishop, and he lives this kind of celebrity lifestyle almost, just pleasure seeking, this hedonistic lifestyle, and just finds himself empty. And it really, for him, was when he stumbled on philosophy that just...

Soren Schwab (CLT) (15:10.22)
Mm -hmm.

Travis Dickinson (15:34.038)
awakened these affections with him for what he called eternal truths. And those were within, you know, by reading some Cicero and reading some philosophy. And I really think that this could be part, should be part of that experience where you get a taste for like, okay, this is a big idea and this is something that has huge consequences, whatever it may be. And nobody's thinking about it. Nobody's questioning it, it seems. And...

Whatever it may be right and so yeah that sort of vert It's you know, we ought to call that an intellectual virtue the virtue of curiosity and just like all Virtues, of course, there's an excess that we can have with it. There's certainly a deficiency But there's an excess to where we can overdo it. But the virtue is always that middle way that golden mean where we

Soren Schwab (CLT) (16:12.588)
Mm -hmm.

Travis Dickinson (16:29.708)
have the right dosage in a sense of curiosity. And why is that so amazing is because it leads us to truth. And again, it sort of expands our mind, expands our world to discover truth. Again, whatever pursuit one may be interested in, if it's something to do with science or history or God or whatever, it's...

does need to seem to be an issue of curiosity to lead one down that path of discovery.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (17:03.18)
Yeah, it's very, very thoughtful. Thank you for that. I'm wondering, too, and maybe that's not necessarily a generational issue, but it's the skill of asking good questions. And I do think it is a skill, right? And it can be practiced, right? Like being curious and then asking good questions, asking the right questions, but also setting an environment for these students where they, you know,

Travis Dickinson (17:21.422)
Yeah, absolutely.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (17:31.852)
feel like they can ask these questions. And I do think dealing with a former teacher, students are afraid to ask questions. But then you look at some of your more successful students or employees, and they're like, no, no, no, they ask a lot of questions because they're thirsty to know. So maybe in your class setting, you talked about critical thinking. What role does asking the right question play?

Travis Dickinson (17:33.738)
Yes.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (17:57.79)
questions reflecting on those big ideas and those questions play in, I guess, how do you instill that in students and encourage that?

Travis Dickinson (18:04.11)
Yeah, I think we have to encourage students. Well, I might get at it in another way. It's easy to discourage that, right? It's easy to say, okay, not gonna go there, knock it off, you know, or whatever. And I think students can kind of pretty easily get discouraged. And so how do we encourage it? I think it's allowing...

you have to allow students to ask the kind of annoying question. They might even know it's annoying and they might know they're just sort of not even on topic or whatever, but I have always tried to do that as just to say, look, no question is out of bounds. If it's way off topic, I might say, hey, let's talk after class or something, but for the most part, you know.

And I've tried to do that with my own kids too, that we've tried to cultivate in our household that they can ask any questions that they want to. They can ask the big questions about God, they can ask the big questions about Christianity for us, or they can just ask about the political issues of the day and whatever, because it's a very different world that they're growing up in, even though they're in,

you know, Texas here where it's not as, you know, it's not the same as it would be in say some very urban area in the Northeast or Northwest, but still they have all the same issues that they are encountering and dealing with and they've got questions. They do, they just don't always have the encouragement to ask them. And so we've just tried to, I think you have to cultivate the culture first of all. And then,

Soren Schwab (CLT) (19:40.748)
Mm -hmm.

Travis Dickinson (19:59.062)
I think part of that is allowing the question, but then also trying in a way to lead students to find the answer, not necessarily just let me give you the answer and boom, we're done, let's move on. But I also don't like to, I don't want students to sort of end confused. So I always try to give,

my side, like here's what I think, and then come back with, okay, what do you think? So that I'm also, in other words, some philosophers, I think seem to, it seems to be their goal to get their students as confused and mixed up and not sure what end is which. And I've just always tried to say, no, I want my students to come out.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (20:42.284)
Hmm.

Travis Dickinson (20:52.942)
with some guidance, like that's what I'm here for in some ways as a teacher. And same with my own kids, like I don't want them to just, here's your options, you choose. I wanna say, here's your options, here's where I fall, and here's my reasons for that. Now, what do you think? And sort of have that sort of Socratic back and forth. I just think that those are incredible life skills that will serve our kids, our students, and us.

as we practice them. Again, it really is becoming intellectually virtuous. It's finding the virtue of being curious, asking good and pointed questions, and learning how to do that. And we just need space. I think we need space to be able to ask, again, off the wall questions.

That again, it's like, well, I wasn't headed there, but okay, let's take a few minutes to talk about that. And again, I think it just is a matter of cultivating intellectual virtue that now on the classical school setting, that's a huge emphasis, but that's, it's shocking how little of an emphasis that can be in some quarters. So.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (22:14.22)
Yeah, I love what you said about creating the space. I think I read some article the other week about the most common answer now when you're asked, how are you, how's it going, is busy. Busy, busy, busy, busy. And I do think about that quite a bit.

Travis Dickinson (22:29.036)
All right. Interesting.

Travis Dickinson (22:35.982)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (22:36.044)
You know, we seem constantly busy, even our students, right? Even when they're in Starbucks, they're so busy that they have to check their whatever it is, text their, their TikTok there, right? So we don't have a lot of time and space to think, right? And so I reminisced with my friends the other day about college and how wonderful it was to be in college. I mean, we worked hard, but we were...

Travis Dickinson (22:43.118)
Yep. Yep.

Travis Dickinson (23:02.432)
Yes.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (23:04.844)
not as busy, at least maybe the busyness was defined differently because reading a text and then deeply thinking about it, I guess, is being busy. But so I guess that you mentioned classical schools. Well, a lot of classical schools, they kind of adhere to that philosophy of like that restful learning, the scolay, right? There is room for this. You're obviously professor at a Christian liberal art school. You're probably getting some students that come kind of from the classical tradition K -12.

Travis Dickinson (23:12.046)
Right. Yeah.

Travis Dickinson (23:24.)
Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (23:34.284)
And then you got some students that are not. Do you see a difference? Not in their intelligence per se, but whether it's how they approach philosophy or maybe how they've been able to cultivate some of these thinking skills that you mentioned before.

Travis Dickinson (23:51.124)
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think I like what you said, like it really isn't an intelligence thing oftentimes. But a student coming in from a classical setting often is a few steps ahead for sure, if not, you know, miles ahead. Sometimes where they've read their their the books that I assign. It's a reread for them because they had it already. And I just think.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (24:08.044)
Mm -hmm.

Travis Dickinson (24:20.878)
you know, with, with the great classic texts of, you know, Western history, you're not wasting your time to read it two, three, four or five, six times. Um, and you're actually able to go to a far greater depth as a result. And so that, that is pretty amazing. Um, but I do think that, you know, we get a lot of students that are coming in, you know, like I was from a more public setting and, um, public school setting and.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (24:28.204)
Yeah. Yeah.

Travis Dickinson (24:50.286)
It's amazing that I do think that all students have it within them to cultivate curiosity. And that's where philosophy is great. Like what you said about the busyness, you can't do philosophy in a busy way. You know, kind of can't rush it. It's never just easy and it's never a slam dunk.

I mean, there are some very basic, seemingly obvious truths, self -evident truths and so on. But for the most part, like everything's controversial and everything's up for grabs and everything can be questioned. And so it makes it in a way like, it's hard to even just do a lecture because there's so many controversial things that you're saying that, or at least sound controversial, especially in my Christian setting.

I always tell my students, okay, don't tweet this out, but they hear me out first. And so philosophy sort of, even to do it makes you slow down. Because it's so reflective. It really is that kind of thing that you're doing from the armchair rather than maybe being in a lab or some other sort of discipline where it's more hands -on in a way.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (25:45.228)
Hahaha

Soren Schwab (CLT) (25:56.458)
Mm -hmm.

Travis Dickinson (26:10.19)
So yeah, I definitely do see a difference. And I think that sort of restful learning, that's amazing. Yeah, I think that's really good. And it just fits perfectly well, I think, with philosophy.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (26:23.084)
Well, it's interesting because I've also heard kind of the counter argument. It was actually a professor at St. John's or a tutor at St. John's. And he was saying, oh, yeah, I those classical students, they're wonderful. Don't get me wrong. But sometimes because they've read some of these works, they don't come in with like necessarily an open mind or they reread some of these texts, like through the lens of

maybe their high school teacher, right, who taught it depending on how the text was taught, right? And so there's certainly, I agree with you that there's also, you know, for students that have maybe not been exposed. I mean, what an opportunity if I can go back and read the Iliad for the very first, I'm never going to be able to go back and read the Iliad for the first time, right? And in a way that's sad, you know, it's reading it the 15th time is still great, but opportunity to read Wittgenstein for the first time and.

Travis Dickinson (26:51.886)
Yes, sure.

Travis Dickinson (27:01.998)
Yes.

Travis Dickinson (27:06.702)
Right.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (27:17.324)
completely be confused, right? There's beauty in that too.

Travis Dickinson (27:18.926)
Right. It always feels like the first time with Wittgenstein. Yeah.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (27:24.876)
Oh my goodness, yes, yes, indeed, indeed. Well, so why don't we, you know, we always end the podcast. We asked you, you know, kind of the most impactful text or book that you've read. Let's turn it into a two -part question because, you know, some of our listeners might be new to philosophy or at least maybe don't feel like philosophy is as accessible. Like, where should we even start? If you could recommend one or two texts,

or books obviously of philosophy that maybe a student in high school or a student in college should read. What would those be?

Travis Dickinson (28:04.014)
Yeah. Yeah, so I think that, so on a kind of Christian note, if I could, the book that was, really did sort of set me on a trajectory to dive into these things was a book by J .P. Morland called Love Your God With All Your Mind. And I've got a bunch of friends and peers and colleagues who would say the same thing. It was that book that really inspired this kind of idea that, you know,

Soren Schwab (CLT) (28:11.806)
Okay.

Travis Dickinson (28:33.838)
Christian faith and the life of the mind go hand in hand and so on. So that would be one for sure. I think Bertrand Russell's problems of philosophy is not a bad place to start. It's obviously of a previous generation and so it's sort of connecting with some of that. I think his opening essay called, or maybe it's the,

final chapter, actually I don't remember, called The Value of Philosophy is really, really good. And he gives a kind of overview of the various areas of philosophy. So I think I would say those two, I mean, you can't go wrong with Plato's Republic, it seems to me, or just any Plato really. But as a historical point, I just think I have taught Plato's Republic so many times, and every time I'm pulling out.

new and interesting ideas that I just must have blown past, you know, in the previous read. And so I have found Plato's Republic to be inexhaustible in that way.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (29:41.452)
Fantastic. Well, what a great apology and defense of philosophy. I wasn't the philosophy major. I was an English major. But I always told people, when you're an English major, you're also kind of history, philosophy, art minor. And so definitely big support of the humanities. The work that you're doing, the work that your employers do in Dallas Baptist, really just a beautiful place. I encourage everyone that.

Travis Dickinson (29:45.518)
Hahaha.

Travis Dickinson (29:54.414)
Yeah, absolutely.

Soren Schwab (CLT) (30:06.892)
might have a junior or senior or even a sophomore to visit. It's one of the most beautiful campuses I've ever been to. And apparently they have some good professors too, as you heard. So thank you, Travis. Again, we're here with Travis Dickinson, who's professor of philosophy at Dallas Baptist University. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Travis Dickinson (30:14.254)
It really is awesome.

Yeah, that's what I hear.

Travis Dickinson (30:27.31)
You bet, my pleasure, thank you.