If someone wanted to improve their thinking, why should they study philosophy and not just learn logic and critical thinking?

I suppose if you have no interest in learning about philosophy, then you have no reason to learn about philosophy. It's not like someone has a gun to your head. Maybe philosophy might be interesting as a demonstration of how these conceptual tools are applied in philosophy, but if that's also not interesting, then, yeah, you don't have much reason to. Philosophy isn't just learning about logic and critical thinking but the application of it. As Wittgenstein once said, a philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring, and this is even one more removed from that.

Also there's important philosophy that has been written in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, so you can still read philosophy that isn't written in old styles.

/r/askphilosophy Thread