Great question! You are in a great position if you have the skills to do either pure or applied science. I am not sure about classifying black-hole research as "a very expensive hobby," but I think the answer to your question(s) depend on the urgency of the problems facing your community, family or nation. If you are in a political community that is facing urgent needs involving energy use, and there are few if any people as skilled as you in designing a badly needed solar cell, then I think you would have a prima facie obligation to pursue the relevant applied science. But assuming there are other well qualified scientists that can or are addressing urgent problems in technology, medicine, security and the like, then it seems that there is no such obligation. Besides some of what you might think of as "pure scientific research" may lead to some fruitful, important results in applied science.

Neither.

Assuming by "philosophy paper" you mean student essay, then what you need to be doing is evaluating arguments, as carefully and as honestly and as rigorously as you can. You must aim for maximum explicitness, maximum clarity, maximum organization of your thoughts. But you are writing ordered English prose, not lab notes or a mathematical proof.

"Personal style" will look after itself, and shouldn't be your conscious concern. (It is always a pleasant surprise to me, e.g. when I have to mark a stack of undergraduate dissertations, how -- despite the fact that students have gone through the same teaching treadmill and drilled by weekly one-to-one essay tutorials -- distinct voices will always come through.)

These are two very different questions-- First, I would not regard the Facebook checking prof as cool. Going on to your computer while someone is giving a seminar or talk is just disrespectful. I doubt our Facebook checking prof would take kindly to someone doing the same to her as she delivered a talk that she had been working on for months.

As for your other monumental question, I would suggest that while there are some acts that are clearly always wrong, there are many that might be wrong in one context and not so in another. Lying is generally wrong but if you are doing it to save an innocent life or lives? The term "boundary" is of course a metaphor that would need to be unpacked to answer your question but on the face of it (another metaphor) I don't think there is an absolute boundary between right and wrong such that we can say of every act- this one is on the righteous side- this evil. Thanks

Unfortunately or fortunately, there is no pat answer to your question from a philosophical point of view. There are, however, a few general points that might be of use:

Socrates admonished the people of Athens for spending their lives in the ambitious pursuit of wealth and power rather than seeking to cultivate the soul. There is a rich 'care of the soul' tradition from Socrates on up through the medievals in which we are called to use time wisely and reflectively. For an overview of this tradition, check out Richard Sorabji's Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation (Oxford). Socrates is well known for highlighting the importance of reflection ("The unexamined life is not worth living") and so he would probably respond to your question by asking you to engage in careful examination of all options and the reasons behind each.

Values: Philosophers like Pascal and William James thought that our beliefs and practices should be shaped by the values that are in play. They would recommend that you consider matters of a career choice in light of values. For example, if you were deciding between law and medicine and you are living in a country where there are an abundance of doctors but almost no lawyers and there is a perceived need for your country to have more lawyers, that may count as an important factor for you to choose a career in law.

Integrity: Philophers like Kant would recommend you not to take up any career that is incompatible with treating other people with respect.

Beauty: Philosophers in the Platonic tradition, from Plato himself and Diotima on through the Renaissance and the Cambridge Platonists would probably recommend that you choose a career that would be both itself beautiful and contribute to the love of the beautiful (as well as the good and the true).

Reverence: Philosophical theologians also in the Platonic tradition but also reformed theologians like Luther and Calvin, along with Hindu philosophers, would recommend choosing a career that you can recognize as in some way sacred (worthy of reverence).

Luck: Philosophers like Boethius in the fifth century would also remind you that so much of worldly careers involve luck or fortune and this can make you quite vulnerable in life. Boethius would therefore probably recommend that you pursue an honorable career, but also keep in mind that there might be higher values (he wrote an important work on eternity) that call for attention and will be important in times of misfortune or that time when all our careers on earth will come to an end.

I don't think there is a general philosophical point of view on "media politics" though historically and today philosophers have tended to oppose the kind of one-way rants that one hears in which no objections are considered or, if they are entertained, they are shouted down (this is based on my occasional listening to right wing radio in the USA, e.g. Jason Lewis, Rush...). Even Plato who, in the Republic, defended a modest form of censorship and has some very negative views on democracy, celebrates in all his dialogues (including the Republic) a dialogue in which objections are patiently entertained and positions re-thought. Ideally, one may describe democracy as a form of government in which change is brought about non-violently through argument. In this sense, all of Plato's dialogues support a democratic culture. Popular media in the USA does seem to me to involve some political theory (there appear to be full discussions of individual rights, accountability, the environment, entitlements, war and peace ethics, the ethics of law enforcement), though it does lack the in depth discourse and patience that one finds in the practice of philosophy historically and today.

Thank you for this question! A minor point at the outset: I think a great deal of the best teaching of philosophy involves the practice of philosophy. There are perhaps some philosophy teachers who simply teach what Plato etc thought, and expect students to master certain texts with critical skills. But I think most do not stop there, but seek to engage students in thinking through the great themes of philosophy about values, moral obligations, virtues, political theory, the nature of the world, the limits of knowledge, the nature and value of human and nonhuman animal life, the possible existence of God, and so on. But getting to your broader question, more professional philosophers are applying themselves to issues such as global justice, practical ethical and political positions, medical ethics, economic fairness, and the like. Granted, these are sometimes in textbooks designed for university / college courses, but sometimes it is through education that political change arises. After all, it was from Wilson's study of Kant at Princeton that he first envisaged a league of nations which eventually laid the groundwork for the United Nations.

A slightly different point might be noted: a great many politicians today and historically may be thought of (in the broadest sense) as philosophers or at least as representative of certain philosophies. In the USA this is probably most clear in the founders when debating the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. One might even conclude that the young American Republic was a virtual philosophy graduate school during the debate over federalism! Today, the tone of debate among politicians seems perhaps too entrenched and unreflective to be thought of as philosophical, but there are certainly hints of philosophical convictions (or convictions that are based on philosophies) in the speeches of all the main players on the American political stage today. In the spirit of your question, I would hope that there might be more philosophy today, more of a desire to be self-critical and more listening before responding to questions. In short, I wish we could replecate that grad school atmosphere of the late 18th century in the American Republic.

I wouldn't regard such a Facebook-checking colleague as "cute and cool". Besides the fact that wanting to check a Facebook page already disqualifies one from being cool, it is disrespectful. I don't allow my students to use computers, cell phones, etc. during class, and if I were organizing a conference I'd strongly discourage those in the audience from doing so as well.

"If philosophy is really about exercising one's reason and becoming inquisitive and critical, can philosophers ever be in harmony with an active social lifestyle without making everyone their enemy?" Well, exercising one's reason and being inquisitive and critical is hardly the unique province of philosophers: just for a start, most fellow academics in other disciplines are critically exercising their reason too. But set that aside. Why on earth should being prone to exercise reason and be critical spoil your social life? Lots of college professors, for example, are convivial souls with perfectly normal lives outside the classroom!

There is a time and place for everything, and overdoing the critical reasoning on a heavy night out with your mates or when trying to get off with some attractive girl/boy (according to your inclinations), is no doubt quite inappropriate. But in some other parts of your social life -- the political discussions, trying to makes sense of the films and books that matter to you, and more general talk about the culture around you -- a bit of calm critical rationality in suitable measure can go down well, can't it? Done in the right spirit, it won't get in the way of relating well to other people.

And I'm baffled about why you think that taking philosophy seriously should incline you against 'superficial' social relations, let alone gossip and extreme make-up. Plenty of the greatest philosophers have delighted in gossip and the trivia of social life as a happy counterbalance to their more abstract pre-occupations (and some of my best students have had -- at the time -- spectacular taste in hair-style and make-up ...).

Thanks for your good question! In answer to, "Do real philosophers go through this?", the answer is yes, definitely. Any intellectually challenging problem tends to make a person less able to get along practically. This has been observed as far back as in Ancient Greece with Aristophanes making fun of the philosophers in _The Clouds_. This is true of philosophy but I suspect it is equally true of other demanding fields like mathematics.

Just as cell phone users tend to be unsafe drivers, philosophers who are deeply engaged with a problem do well to refrain from things like operating heavy machinery, perform surgery, operate microwaves, make marriage proposals, and so on. Most of use who have been through graduate school in philosophy have stories to tell about our professors who violated this rule. One of mine left his car engine running for four hours while he was in his office. Luckily for him the thing just ran out of gas rather than overheating. Anyway, I suggest you make your meals (do your driving, surgery, marriage proposals, and so on) *before* you sit down to do serious philosophy!

Mitch Green

Hurray for singular "they". Apparently good writers have long used it--

This is not a new problem, or a new solution. 'A person can't help their birth', wrote Thackeray in Vanity Fair (1848), and even Shakespeare produced the line 'Every one to rest themselves betake' (in Lucrece), which pedants would reject as logically ungrammatical.

Quote (and more on the subject) is here.