How to stop people doing pointless degrees

I think liebiniz was a Christian? He didn't have to address problems like the problem of evil just to fit in.

Getting back to the original topic: (and no, I've not read the whole thread)
Can someone please explain how Psychology is a useless degree? Without Psychology, we wouldn't have Psychologists. My sister has a 1st in a Masters of Psychology. She is currently employed by the NHS and works in various wards across Devon. She pretty much got her degree and walked into her job... Can many graduates honestly say they managed to do that?

@Juichiro

My point with regard to 'fear of the church' not doing all the work and the Kripke example was that Kripke plainly should have no consequences to fear from revealing his atheism. He doesn't, and professes his religiosity. And he is certainly the most distinguished living philosopher, come on. Here's the Leiter Report poll for the last 200 years: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2009/03/so-who-is-the-most-important-philosopher-of-the-past-200-years.html

Getting back to the original topic: (and no, I've not read the whole thread)
Can someone please explain how Psychology is a useless degree? Without Psychology, we wouldn't have Psychologists. My sister has a 1st in a Masters of Psychology. She is currently employed by the NHS and works in various wards across Devon. She pretty much got her degree and walked into her job... Can many graduates honestly say they managed to do that?

How is that relevant? Kripke was not alive in the 14th-19th century. My point was that the Church had some threatening power back in the days and you did not want to mess with them or with its supporters.

Certainly? According to a list in a random blog? Are you serious?

1.That's right. My point was that Kripke is not subject to threat and still professes his religion. It was intended to undermine the notion that all extremely intelligent people who professed belief were likely doing so out of fear of repercussion. My feeling, stated repeatedly, is that this won't do and a case by case reference to the available evidence is preferable policy.




2. That's not a random blog, it's the Leiter Report. And the list is the result of polling professional philosophers for their sense of who is "important". 3.If you can conceive of a better way of measuring who is distinguished in philosophy, or what could constitute better proof in this context, then let's hear it. 4.I'm as well curious as to who you feel this should be if not Kripke and 5.whether you would agree at least that Kripke is someone "hugely important“ in modern philosophy, which should anyway be enough to sustain my using him as example in the way I did.

The first thing is to give a definition of "distinguished" that is not subjective, then you need to establish the size of the list and how far in time are you willing to go and whether you will use check all philosophers or all philosophers from a particular branch. I would first get these things done before I go on measuring things.

It's like discussing something with Joad. I'm using 1."distinguished" in the ordinary English sense, perhaps 'marked by special distinction'.

2.For non-subjective* measures of distinction:

Society of Fellows, Harvard University
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Corresponding Fellow, British Academy
Fellow, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea
Fellow, Norwegian Academy of Sciences
Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy, Swedish Academy of Sciences, 2001.

3.Additionally Kripke is surely the only living philosopher to have a research centre dedicated to the study of specifically his work: http://kripkecenter.commons.gc.cuny.edu/


*In anticipation of nonsense: you might want to dispute whether he is deserving of these (what are surely, by anyone's understanding, 'distinctions') but it is a matter of objective fact that he has them.

The main reason I am willing to deviate from the main topic (let alone the thread!) is because I am interested on clear definitions and I like sharing the joy of using objective/non-ambiguous words with others.

Also, why is it that your measures of distinction only include western universities/research centres/etc?