How Can I Do More (With) Philosophy?

Here are three options: become a professional philosopher (or at least go to graduate school), become something that is a bit like a philosopher (a lawyer), be an amateur philosopher (a reader).

First, graduate study in philosophy.  This is something to consider if you have a minor in philosophy from VMI and got all (or at least mostly) As in the philosophy courses you took here.  Even then, without a major in philosophy, few if any PhD programs will consider you seriously.  The thing to do is to apply to MA programs and then try to move up to a PhD program from there.  You can read more about it all here: http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/maprog.htm

Secondly, law.  Being a lawyer is probably not very much like being a philosopher, but law school certainly can be like studying philosophy (at least some of the time).  A friend of mine who went to law school at Michigan said that his criminal law class was just like taking an ethics course (like PH 304).  Many of the best law schools hire philosophers to teach ethics, politics, legal theory, and so on.  You might also find that you are allowed to take elective courses outside the law school, and of course these could be philosophy courses.  Actually practicing the law is another thing, but the money's good. 

Finally, reading.  Whole books by real philosophers like Plato, Kant, and Wittgenstein can be very hard to read on your own.  You might not be sure you are understanding them right.  You might even get bored.  One approach is to read lots of other stuff first, so that eventually you can read the classics with understanding and develop your own ideas about what they really mean.  Novels like Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder ("a novel about the history of philosophy") and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig (less blatantly philosophical but a better novel) can help.  So can introductory books like The Dream of Reason by Anthony Gottlieb and Anthony Kenny's A Brief History of Western Philosophy.  In the end, though, there is no substitute for the real thing.  I recommend the following:

Plato The Republic, Aristotle The Nicomachean Ethics, René Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy, David Hume Enquiries, Immanuel Kant The Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals and The Critique of Pure Reason*, John Stuart Mill Utilitarianism and On Liberty, Friedrich Nietzsche The Twilight of the Idols and The Gay Science, Martin Heidegger Being and Time* and Poetry, Language, Thought, and Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations.  (Asterisks denote books that are especially difficult.)

Easier and also well worth reading are Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy, and Jonathan Glover's Humanity.

Also, beware of spin, bullshit, fallacies, and conspiracy theories.