<p>i'm very interested in these two topics. would they complement each other well as a double major?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
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<p>I think they would go well together. I took a philosophy-intensive seminar this year and a lot of the more postmodern thinkers (ex. Foucault) have a lot to say on discourse. </p>
<p>Even look at Nietzsche as a philologist - in my course we read "On the Genealogy of Morality", which has large sections on language and its development over time.</p>
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<p>I don't know how well they would necessarily complement each other (though you could probably find certain branches of linguistics that might be philosophy-ish, I can't really think of any), but I definitely think it would not be too difficult to major in both, so if that's what you're interested in, I say go for it!</p>
<p>Linguistics and philosophy actually complement each other really well! Look into philology--the study of where words come from and their original meanings. A decent number of important philosophers were philologists by trade and used the origins of words and phrases as evidence in their arguments. I second what cowgirlatheart said; go read "On the Genealogy of Morality" by Nietzsche.</p>
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<p>Ok, I'll believe you. I believe my main fault it just not knowing basically anything about philosophy. I'm pretty well-versed in linguistics, but I guess my conceptions of philosophy are far from the whole picture. I'm glad to hear there's more to it than what I've experienced in my disastrous ToK class.</p>
<p>pinipotto, can you tell me anything about your experiences within the linguistics major?</p>
<p>samonite, if you are a philosophy major, i'd love anything you could share about philosophy as well.</p>
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<p>I know that a lot of schools offer these in a joint major, so they complement one another very well.</p>
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<p>i dont know if they would be super beneficial to eachother, but it wouldnt be a problem.</p>
<p>I'm not really a philosophy major, but I've taken a fair number of philosophy and ethics classes. </p>
<p>This might seem obvious, but philosophy is all about logic and reasoning. The philosophy courses I took my freshman year also single-handedly taught me how to construct written arguments. My only real complaint about philosophy is that it can get sort of ivory tower-ish and cut off from the real world, especially in abstract sub-fields like epistomology and metaphysics. That's just me though--if metaphysics is your thing then so much the better. </p>
<p>I think studying philosophy is a great way to spend four years, just be prepared for a serious challenge, and also for the hordes of pseudo-intellectual windbags that the major attracts.</p>
<p>YES! They compliment each other very well.</p>
<p>This is coming from a philosophy perspective, but quite a few of the current hotshots in philosophy double majored in philosophy and linguistics as undergrads. There is a whole section of philosophy called philosophy of language that has a lot to do with the intersection of the two fields.</p>
<p>I know some schools (I think MIT may be one) offer a joint program in linguistics and philosophy.</p>
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<p>pinnipotto... My TOK class taught me nothing about philosophy, but a good deal about the history of music notation, language (our TOK teacher was also an English teacher), how to (attempt to) come up with a base system for Harry Potter money, and the layout of the Dvorak keyboard. </p>
<p>Actual philosophy classes are much more interesting, although you have to find out what branches you like most. For instance, I hate the symbollic logic courses (flashback to Bruno Latour and his stupid diagrams, which aren't really logical at all), but I love political/economic theory and moral philosophy.</p>
<p>Definitely manageable, but how much the two subjects complement and overlap one another depends a lot on what sub-fields you're interested in.</p>
<p>If you want to do semantics, discourse, pragmatics, etc., philosophy has a lot to say about that stuff. Syntax, phonetics, phonology, socioling, psycholing, historical ling... not so much. Strong analytical skills will certainly be developed in both majors, but most linguistics has as much to do with philosophy as any other science has to do with philosophy--they cross paths once in a while, and one can be used to illuminate the other sometimes, but for the most part never the twain shall meet.</p>
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