PHILOSOPHY AS A PROFESSION
"Negro teachers will become rarer and in many cases
will disappear. Negro children will be instructed in the
public schools and taught under unpleasant if not discouraging
circumstances. Even more largely than today they will fall
out of school, cease to enter high school, and fewer and
fewer will go to college. Theoretically Negro universities
will disappear. Negro history will be taught less or not
at all and as in so many cases in the past Negroes will
remember their white or Indian ancestors and quite forget
their Negro forebearers." (Du Bois, 1973, 151)
Du Bois clearly indicates reasons why African Americans
have a moral responsibility to become teachers and researchers.
Perhaps the greatest need at the moment is in college teaching.
Black under-representation in university teaching is scandalous,
and one of the most important aims of faculty at historically
Black colleges and universities should be to encourage
their students to take up careers in higher education.
The strongest reason to consider philosophy itself as
a profession lies in the fact that Ph.D.'s in every area
of academic work are called "Doctorates of Philosophy." The
spirit of philosophy is freedom, and the manifestation
of freedom is creation. On the best model for graduate
education, doctorates are conferred only for innovative
contributions to knowledge that are unique.
What distinguishes work toward a professional degree like
a J.D. or an M.D. from graduate work toward a Ph.D. is
the requirement of innovation. Law degrees and medical
degrees are badges of competence, and one would hope that
a part of that competence would be the ability to add to
human knowledge. But it needn't be.
Consider the difference between being a lawyer or a doctor
and a Ph.D. in a university. As a lawyer, one's time is
always at the service of one's clients. As a doctor, one's
time is dedicated to patients. Part of this time must be
dedicated to finding out the latest innovative practices
in the professions, but inventing these practices is not
part of the bottom line job description of doctors and
lawyers.
As a Ph.D. in a good research university on the other
hand, one's time is always directed to an object of one's
own choice. In the cases of many of the best researchers,
the tension between teaching and research vanishes because
teaching acts as a stimulus for research.
"Ah but the money!" one might still say. The
best researchers at the top of their professions receive
close to or more than a hundred thousand a year with additional
benefits. The hundred thousand dollar salary of a researcher
doesn't compare to the "mega-thousand" dollar
salaries of heart surgeons and celebrity trial lawyers,
but the compensation is a life of one's own choosing rather
than a life dictated by a client.
A commitment to any Ph.D. program must be based on clear
self-knowledge. The time commitment may be less than that
required for an M.D. (seven years including internship
and residency--much more time for specializations like
psychiatry or neurosurgery) and more than the three years
required for law school. The number of years for some Ph.D.'s
may run to an average of ten years, although this usually
happens when a need to work prevents full-time research
on a dissertation, or when a student makes a poor choice
of research topics or supervisors.
One should not consider starting a Ph.D. program in philosophy
unless a total commitment to philosophy discourages other
career options. Many students test their commitment to
philosophy as a career by entering M.A. programs first.
A large number of students in M.A. programs in philosophy
intend to enter law school after finishing. Many law schools
have noted the synergy of law and philosophy, and are now
offering joint programs that culminate with a J.D. and
a Ph.D. or M.A. in philosophy. Some of these programs offer
financial inducements for their students (e.g., from twelve
to sixteen thousand dollars a year for the six years the
program is estimated to take, with all tuition and fees
paid as well).
All graduate programs in philosophy (as well as any other
academic subject) offer fellowships or assistantships to
the most promising applicants. Fellowships require no services
for the compensation, while assistantships require work
ranging from research and tutorial assistance to full responsibility
for teaching introductory classes. The dollar amounts for
fellowships and assistantships vary greatly according to
the financial resources of the institutions. The current
range is from eight to sixteen thousand dollars a year.
But the bottom line shouldn't be money, should it? Do
Bois asks us to be idealistic: "To increase abiding
satisfaction for the mass of our people, and for all people,
someone must sacrifice something of his own happiness.
This is a duty only to those who recognize it as a duty.
The larger the number ready to sacrifice, the smaller the
total sacrifice necessary" (Du Bois 1973, 80)
Departmental History
The philosophy department first awarded the M.A. in 1932
and some 50 scholars have received their master's degrees.
A significant proportion have gone on to other universities
to receive their Ph.D.'s and are now teaching in U.S. universities.
African Americans in Philosophy
The current job prospects for African Americans with Ph.D.'s
in philosophy are excellent. Fewer than a hundred Africans
and African Americans now teach at the undergraduate or
graduate level in the United States. Universities and colleges
are eager to recruit new Ph.D.'s and the best African American
researchers in philosophy have abundant opportunities to
secure jobs with most of the highest ranking universities
in the country.
Recent students who have come to the department for their
M.A. degrees indicate that a strong attraction of the department
is the interest of many of its members in African and African
American philosophy. The department also retains a strong
interest in the traditional fields of philosophy, as well
as the history of philosophy. Research interests of both
faculty and graduate students are clear from a sample of
recent M.A. thesis titles in Appendix III.
Recent M.A. graduates in the department are now engaged
in the following kinds of activities: college teaching,
business, law, and public administration.
DU BOIS' L'ENVOI
Here we stand. We are American Negroes. It is beside the
point to ask whether we form a real race. Biologically
we are mingled of all conceivable elements, but race is
psychology, not biology; and psychologically we are a unified
race with one history, one red memory, and one revolt.
It is not ours to argue whether we will be segregated or
whether we ought to be a caste. We are segregated; we are
a caste. This is our given and at present unalterable fact.
Our problem is: How far and in what way can we consciously
and scientifically guide our future so as to insure our
physical survival, our spiritual freedom and our social
growth? Either we do this or we die. There is no alternative.
If America proposes the murder of this group, its moral
descent into imbecility and crime and its utter loss of
manhood, self-assertion, and courage, the sooner we realize
this the better. (Du Bois 1973, 156)
REFERENCES
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1973). The Education of Black People
(H. Aptheker, Ed.). New York: Monthly Review Press.
___________ (1986). Writings (N. Huggins, Ed.) New York:
The Library of America.
Locke, A.L. (1989). The Philosophy of Alain Locke (L.
Harris, Ed.) Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
|
