Know-it-all 101 🎓 ➡️ ~ The Philosophical Approach

 When most people hear the word philosophy, they think of ancient thinkers in robes debating the meaning of life. But philosophy is more than that. At its core, it’s about understanding the deeper meaning behind things—the “why” that drives the “how.” It’s one thing to know how to do something. It’s another thing entirely to understand why it matters, what it represents, and the impact it has on both you and the world around you. That’s the true value of philosophy—it turns skills into purpose.

This is why I’ve always felt that before anyone chooses a career, they should first be taught the philosophy behind it. Too often, people are asked to pick a path based only on how much money it makes, how stable it is, or how practical it sounds. But rarely do we pause to ask: what’s the deeper meaning of this path? What mindset lies beneath it? What philosophy does it follow? Without that understanding, career decisions can feel shallow or forced. You can know how to do the job, but without philosophy, you may not know why you’re doing it. And here’s the thing: understanding the philosophy behind a career gives you its true essence and meaning. It’s almost like it’s the soul of the major, the course, or the career itself.

I first realized this when I watched Now You See Me. In the movie, one of the characters talks about magic and illusions in a way that goes beyond mere tricks. He says something like: “The closer you look, the less you see. My job is to use your attention against you.” That right there is the philosophy of magic. It’s not just about sleight of hand or pulling rabbits from hats. It’s about understanding how people think, how attention works, and how to bend perception to tell a story. That deeper layer of meaning—that philosophy—is what makes magic, well, magic. It gave me a new lens through which I could see not only magic but many other fields too.

If there’s any discipline that really embraces philosophy, it’s the arts. Take music for instance. Music isn’t just sound arranged into rhythm and melody. The philosophy of music is that it expresses the inexpressible. It takes emotions, memories, and truths that can’t be said in words and translates them into vibrations we can feel. That’s why the same song can make one person cry, inspire another to fight, and make yet another dance with joy. The same goes for painting. A painting isn’t just color on canvas. The philosophy of painting is about capturing essence—an idea, a story, or a feeling—and freezing it into a visual form that communicates far beyond language. Painters don’t just mix colors; they mix meaning.

What’s fascinating is that this isn’t unique to the arts. Every career has a philosophy behind it, even if it isn’t always as clearly articulated. Take engineering, for example—something I personally connect with. On the surface, engineering is about solving problems, designing systems, and building things that work. But the philosophy behind engineering runs much deeper. At its core, engineering is creation guided by logic. It’s about turning abstract ideas into tangible realities, about shaping the world in ways that balance function and beauty, efficiency and safety. The philosophy of engineering is this: humans aren’t just passive observers of the world, we’re active participants in shaping it. Engineers don’t just fix problems—they redefine them, creating solutions that never existed before. That’s more than a job. That’s a way of seeing life itself.

When you understand this, choosing engineering isn’t just about saying, “I want to design machines” or “I’m good at math.” It’s about saying, “I believe in solving problems through creation and innovation.” And the same kind of philosophy can be found in other paths too. Medicine is about valuing life and dedicating yourself to healing, even when it demands sacrifice. Law is about upholding justice and order, interpreting rules to balance fairness with structure. Teaching is about passing down wisdom, shaping the minds of the future, and continuing the chain of knowledge. These philosophies exist whether people acknowledge them or not, and knowing them gives a kind of clarity that just “learning the skills” never could.

This is why I find it interesting that at the end of every career program there is always a PhD, which quite literally means “Doctor of Philosophy.” It makes me wonder why we end our careers with a degree of philosophy when perhaps it should be the other way around—we should start with one. If philosophy truly gives the soul and meaning to a career, wouldn’t it make more sense to ground people in it first? Of course, I’ve never actually done a PhD myself, so I won’t pretend to know whether it really is philosophy in that sense or not. But the point still stands: philosophy isn’t something you tack on at the end. It’s something that should guide you from the very beginning.

And that’s why I believe philosophy isn’t just for scholars and dreamers. It’s for anyone trying to live a life of meaning. It’s the difference between simply working a job and truly walking a path.