<p>I hope to major in philosophy, but I am not very clever when it comes to math. But I do hear often that these two subjects overlab widely. Can a person without much knowledge in math still excel in philosophy course?</p>
<p>It’s more logic-based than math based.</p>
<p>I think it depends on the field of philosophy you’re considering. Many logicians and epistemologists and philosophers of science, language, math, and mind were trained in mathematics. I’m not sure though; this is just a crude observation.</p>
<p>My son’s a philosophy major. He has taken no math in college and the highest level of math he took in HS was Honors Precalculus. He took an Intro to Logic course in college and did well. There’s a higher level logic course in the philosophy dept. that’s a little more math-based but the course description says that math isn’t a prerequisite, although I’m sure it would help.</p>
<p>Absolutely not.</p>
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<p>As in, I do or don’t need math? Thanks.</p>
<p>I think this may be a misconception due to the use of proofs in both.</p>
<p>You do not need to be good at math to major in Philosophy. To be good at Philosophy, however, you must be logical and able to form a coherent, organized argument.</p>
<p>No. However, there is a strong and fascinating correlation between being talented in math and philosophy. I have spoken with a Ph.D. in Philosophy who said that most of her best students were math or physics majors. I would even go as far as saying that its the same kind of correlation as that between being good at math and liking Mozart, Vivaldi type of music ;).</p>
<p>^ This is correct. There is a relationship (I wouldn’t say correlation as I don’t have statistical data on hand to support that. </p>
<p>I was answering the question, however. In philosophy, the question is just as important as the answer :)</p>
<p>Should a philosophy major try to integrate as many math courses into his curriculum as possible then?</p>
<p>To Gil: If you think you will enjoy them sincerely, sure! If you just want to do it to possibly get better in philosophy, I think its a faulty decision. Having no knowledge of Hilbert spaces probably will not impede your understanding of the “gay science” :D. Consider taking linguistics courses, they can be of help too. Greek, latin, stuff of that nature.</p>
<p>P.S. Dont forget that philosophy is as much a science as it is an art 
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<p>Why would Greek and Latin help?</p>
<p>If you will be studying philosophy at the graduate level, knowing certain classic languages will help in that you can study the original texts. But it is certainly not a prerequisite. </p>
<p>I agree, don’t take math unless your school requires and/or you will actually enjoy it.</p>
<p>But why Greek and Latin in particular? What about other languages? I’m curious because I’ve heard time and again that many philosophers followed the classics route, but I always thought this was mainly because back then the classics was a compulsory subject and philosophy was taught in Latin.</p>
<p>The classic philosophers wrote in Greek and Latin, but of course, philosophers exist in all times. Its really dependent on what YOU want to study, but again, another language is certainly not necessary.</p>
<p>i’m a math major and i feel that every upper-div math course i take is just a philosophy course in disguise.</p>
<p>It really depends on what you want to do with your philosophy major. If you just want to pave your way to law school, I don’t think math is necessary at all. But if you want to go to graduate school in philosophy in UNITED STATES, a mind akin to mathematics and symbolic logic is not something you can choose, it is mandatory.
But again, you can choose to go to the continental philosophy and classical philosophy route, all of which will lead you to study at least 1-2 romance languages such as French and German.</p>