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Career Paths in Research

Research and teaching, ethics committees, opinion polling; criminology 

Two-thirds of all philosophers engaged in research are found in the field of research and teaching (R&T), that is, at universities, colleges, institutes and academies. They are concerned with recording, making accessible, organizing and commenting on the vast body of condensed thought that humanity has produced to date. The number of new publications (!) on the renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant released in a single year alone could – to use an old-fashioned, analogue expression – fill entire bookshelves. At Bachelor’s level, job titles include ‘auxiliary staff’, ‘staff member’ or ‘assistant’; from Master’s level onwards, the term ‘research officer’ is more commonly used.  ‘Expert’ or ‘researcher’, on the other hand, is usually linked to the status of holding a PhD. 

  • Philosophers are likely to develop a particular inner resilience during their studies and subsequent careers, as it is only in the fifth step that they get round to conceiving and producing new (!) knowledge, although they naturally do this internally all the time in parallel.
  • In other fields ‘beyond the university’, philosophers come into their own in the realm of ‘meta-research’ – that is, research about research: What should we, and do we, want to research? Why, how, for what reason and, above all: how? What does this do to us, what does it do to others, what does it do to the ‘world’?
  • In other areas, the focus is on thoroughly practice-oriented work exploring whether there is such a thing as right and wrong, good or bad thinking – a question perhaps triggered, in modern parlance, by the concept of ‘fake news’.

At Bachelor’s level, job titles include ‘assistant’, ‘staff member’ or ‘aide’; from Master’s level onwards, the term ‘officer’ is more commonly used. ‘Expert’ or ‘researcher’, on the other hand, is usually associated with holding a PhD.

At a glance