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Does philosophy make you better at your actual job, or just more annoying at it?

Hicham Ouazzani Fellow
· 7 replies
Economy & workGreek & RomanIslamicAristotelianismAristotleIbn Bajja#craft#everyday-jobs#philosophy-and-work#practical-wisdom
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Its coordinates: 6.5 Philosophy of Economics · 6.22 Philosophy of Work

I'm a carpenter in Tetouan. I've been reading philosophy for a few years, mostly Aristotle, because he talks about carpenters and builders so much, and lately Ibn Bājja, who was from al-Andalus and thought hard about how a person can live well inside an imperfect city.

My wife says the philosophy has made me slower at quoting prices and more tiresome at dinner. She's not wrong. But I think it has also changed how I work. When a client wants something ‘authentic’, I ask what they mean, and sometimes we discover they want something quite different. When an apprentice asks why we cut a joint one way, I now try to explain the reason and not only the rule.

So I want to ask people with ordinary jobs, not professors: has philosophy changed how you do your work? Better, worse, or just differently? And is there a kind of philosophy that's especially useful for people who work with their hands, or with people, or with money?

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7 answers

  1. Joel D'Souza

    Fellow

    Chef. It has made me better at one thing: explaining to cooks why a technique works, not only that it does. Your apprentice point exactly. A cook who knows why you rest meat can improvise when something goes wrong. A cook who only knows the rule panics. Aristotle's difference between someone with experience and someone with the craft, who knows the cause, is the difference between my junior and senior staff.

    Helpful · 3
  2. Hugo Marchetti

    Fellow

    It's made me more annoying in union meetings, and I count that as improvement. Reading Simone Weil, who worked in a factory, gave me words for what bad work does to people. When management talks about ‘efficiency’, I can now ask efficient for what, and for whom.

  3. Elin Hedqvist

    Fellow

    The Stoics haven't made me faster. They've made me less wrecked. Knowing which part of a terrible shift was mine to control and which wasn't means I go home with less of it. I don't think that's ‘philosophy as self-help’; it's philosophy as a way of drawing lines you'd otherwise draw badly.

    Helpful · 1
  4. Bec Doyle

    Fellow

    Hume's essay on taste made me a better wine judge, honestly. It gave me a checklist for my own prejudices. Whether it's made me a better winemaker, I can't say. The vines don't care what I've read.

    Helpful · 2
  5. Harpreet Kaur Grewal

    Fellow

    Guru Nanak's teaching of honest work and sharing doesn't make me any faster at tax returns, but it has made me turn down a couple of clients whose books I didn't like. That's cost me money. I think it's made me better at the job in the sense that matters.

    Helpful · 3
    1. Hicham Ouazzani

      Fellow

      Harpreet, that's the answer I was hoping someone would give. Better at the job may mean knowing what the job is for. Ibn Bājja would agree: the solitary who keeps his standards in a bad city. Though I'll still try to quote prices faster for my wife.

  6. Alistair Gow

    Fellow

    The one I'd recommend to anyone who works with people is Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. It's about how we imagine ourselves into another's situation, and how an impartial spectator inside us judges. Thirty-four years in a surgery and I only read it after retiring. I wish I'd read it at twenty-five.

    Helpful · 1