Philosophy Courses suck. Just thought that I should throw that out there. I'm pretty people who end up majoring in philosophy end up being philosophy professors themselves and thus it's just a circular, self-perpetuating system that perpetuates a subject that just won't die like some creepy ass cockroach.
Sure, some find it interesting, but I, for better or worse, am not one of those people. Will I ever apply the meaning of Diotyma's Ladder of Love from Plato's Symposium or what Chisholm, Hume, Locke, Shoemaker or whoever else had way too much time on their hands think about personal identity in real life? No. Sure, I could whip out a random fact at some party but that would instantly label me as the official party douche so even if I really, really wanted to, which I never will if I haven't been clear enough so far, I would stop myself from ruining the perfectly happy and probably drunken elated state of my friends with worthless ponderings.
For those who plan on becoming philosophy majors or are philosophy majors, hey, more power to you, but for me, I'd rather be taking something relevant to what actually matters to me rather than be required to take classes that either a. bore me to death, b. frustrate me, or c. make me wonder why someone would provide an answer to a question that never needed to be asked in the first place.
GAH!
JP
P.S. - Thanks for the questions, I'll be answering them in a post soon, I promise.
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1 week ago
Sorry to hear that.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, if the course doesn't present at least some indication of which ideas of the various philosophers are valid and which are not, it is not as useful as it could be.
But the reason people spoke and wrote abot these things is that they wondered about them. If you don't wonder about these things now, maybe you will later, or maybe you'll see that it has some bearing on a question that is important, or on how you can understand a certain person.
Anyway, when you speak of wanting courses that are relevant to you, I hope you don't mean "relevant" in the sense of "job training," because IMO going to a university only to prepare for a job is a waste of time. The four years of undergraduate education are a time when you can come to understand the world, truth, and beauty, and thus be ready to live as a citizen in your community and to make good use of your leisure time. It should be a time of widening your horizons, not narrowing them.
BTW, what's the title of this particular philosophy course?
I think the most important philosophical concept is relativity; everything is relative to something else including good and evil, sadness and happiness etc. How about ethics in business and the financial meltdown of '08? The relativity line gets shifted until bad business practices becomes the norm. I dunno; maybe try and get into it more rather than avoid it. - Wayne :)
ReplyDeleteIt's a class about personal identity. The course description made it sound like the most interesting class in the world, but two weeks in me and two of my friends all realized that was a total lie.
ReplyDeleteThe best way to sum up how I feel about the class would be to say that it's a two, maybe three week section of a psychology class that is being stretched out over an entire semester to disastrous results.
That does sound like a pretty small topic to fill a semester.
ReplyDeleteThink about personal identity and relativity; personal identity relative to what? Relative to the time, genetics, and environment into which we are born. Most people's personal identities are probably more fantasy than truth. bfn - Wayne :)
ReplyDelete