What are you taking this semester?

[GePap]

Originally posted by Asher
Agathon got KOed a while ago when he tried using the meaning of university as the reason philosophy is necessary. One of the weakest arguments I've heard from him in a while, and easily knocked down.

Debates between ypou an Agathon lead nowhere becuase you too are simply too similar in disposition when it comes to debating..like evil twins.

GePap is doing much better, he's almost making it sound useful. Unfortunately, he's succumbing to the vast, unprovable generalizations that people have made before in that "philosophy improves lives!".

I've seen no theorys from philosophers recently that have been useful, nor any ideas or concepts coming from them.

The fallacy here is that there is any need for "new" ideas to make teaching philosophy important. When was the last time english teachers came out with a brand new concept? Or a brand new idea? Any new literary forms of expression come up lately? New letters perhaps? Has Shekespeare changed somehow in the last 400 years? NO, but the fact is that teaching english remains vital, and while the benefits of philosophy are not as clear as those of english, they remain as important and valid. The very same reason why it was important to teach philosophy 400 years ago remains today, because none of the subsets of the subject has replaced the core issues of philosophy and the study both of knowledge itself, man's relation to it, and man's condition.

I see them all the time on TV telling me what is and isn't ethical, like they're some supergod capable of judging what is or isn't...I see them in the classroom arguing about Plato and Socratese, and I see the philosophy students smoking a bong in the washroom and barely passing and understanding the Philosophy of Logic courses we were in. For the compsci students it was a joke, but the philosophy kids (only a few of them)...man, the dumbest questions. Grr!

And your personal experiences have what? to do with any of this?

I'm still unconvinced the world would be worse off if we elminated the philosophy department and used the money to boost medical research funding.

Oh yeah, vast sums are spent on philoaophy, vast...huge, sort of big, well, not that big, big, OK, well, medium...no, not medium..adequate, well, barely adequate..

[Elok]

On a related note, how do Art or Music classes make a material contribution? Or the humanities? Are they worthless according to you too?

[Asher]

Originally posted by GePap
The fallacy here is that there is any need for "new" ideas to make teaching philosophy important.

So why do we need people that cost so much to teach such basic things? The vast majority of people who study philosophy probably never make it past the second-year courses. And as someone who has recently taken those intro courses, I can assure you you need not be a genius to teach them.

And your personal experiences have what? to do with any of this?

And your objections to my personal experiences have what? to do with any of this?
I'm helping you guys see where I'm coming from. Jeez.

On a related note, how do Art or Music classes make a material contribution? Or the humanities? Are they worthless according to you too?

Culture! A lot of my CDs come from artists who've studied music at the university level. Humanities? You mean, Philosophy?

Personally I think religious studies is a joke, but that's for another thread...

[Elok]

The humanities? General art analysis, drama, film, the other flaky stuff that can be fun...if the humanities were all just philosophy, they wouldn't have a separate HUM subsection anywhere.
Note also that History by its very nature will never contribute directly to our quality of life, especially not art history. Nor will poetry, or other English. If we all were to take to speaking in grunts, it wouldn't cause problems for mathematicians provided we all used the same system of grunts. How about mandatory foreign language classes? Can't you computer nerds just program us a better babelfish?
BTW, did you ever mention which philosophy courses you've taken, and which people they focused on? It would certainly help if we knew what ideas in particular you were dismissing as utter crap...

[Ecthy]

Either Magister Artium (MA) Politics/History at Potsdam University or MA Recent History and additional Politics/Philosophy at Humboldt Universtiy in Berlin. Decision by September 10, mainly affected by accomodation expenses!

[Asher]

Originally posted by Elok
The humanities? General art analysis, drama, film, the other flaky stuff that can be fun...if the humanities were all just philosophy, they wouldn't have a separate HUM subsection anywhere.
Note also that History by its very nature will never contribute directly to our quality of life, especially not art history.

Of course not, but I recognize History for what it is. History is far less useful than most faculties, but still useful. You can't forget the past, it teaches us invaluable things about the future...

Can't you computer nerds just program us a better babelfish?

The linguists are the ones that need to figure out how to translate, we simply implement it on a computer.

BTW, did you ever mention which philosophy courses you've taken, and which people they focused on? It would certainly help if we knew what ideas in particular you were dismissing as utter crap...

Only course I've taken thus far is Philosophy of Logic (Sentential and first-order logic from both deductive and semantic points of view, metatheory of logical systems, completeness, compactness, Lowenheim-Skolem, and undecidability theorems for first-order logic, as well as non-standard models, second-order logic, and Godel's first incompleteness theorem). That course is required for my degree, but I don't see why. It's grossly simplified Theoretical Computing with a touch of Discrete Math, with less content and more time, obviously geared for the philosophy kids.

I also have to take one other Philosophy course next term, so I'm taking one called Problems with Philosophy (skepticism, perception, personal identity, free will and determinism, God.)

[Elok]

Okay, no Enlightenment, Existentialist, ancient Greek or Roman thinkers, no theologians of any sort, nothing from China or Japan, none of the really ancient stuff, so basically all you've really studied is the form of philosophy that most directly relates to your field of interest, which naturally is going to be disappointing compared to the thing itself. Are you sure you have authority to speak on the subject? And why are the events of the past important, but not the ideas that caused most of them?

[Ecthy]

Asher beats his boyfriend? why?

[Asher]

I said it has no place in a university, it doesn't mean I've not learned about from other means. One of my best friends, a CS student of course, is a total brainiac. He's fascinated by philosophy, reads about it all the time on his own, and in the many downtimes we have between class he'll just go on and on about it. A lot of it is really interesting, but the fact remains it's rather useless -- and it doesn't deserve tax money.

He's learning all this crap by himself, why do other people need to waste taxpayer's money to do it?

Are you sure you have authority to speak on the subject?

Where do I go and ask for permission?

I have just as much authority as someone who teaches the damn thing. If we had it your way, the only people who could say something is useless is if they've taken every course it's offered. Why would somebody do that?

And why are the events of the past important, but not the ideas that caused most of them?

If it's a history course, why is it not in the history department?

[Cyclotron]

Freshman year:

PHYS-155 Physics
GENS-145 Antiquity and Modernity (freshman core)
POL-124 Politics and Environment
HIST-127 Islamic Civilization I

And I'm in the audition only choir, for another token credit.

[Elok]

Gah. It's a figure of speech. I mean, are you sure you know enough about the subject to really speak about it in a meaningful way. While we're at it, it's possible to learn all about *any* subject on your own, and I don't think he(or you) knows as much as the professor. I just find it hard to believe. And it is not history because history is primarily the study of past events. I never said philosophy was history. It's similar insofar as it is information culled from countless generations of human experience. That's about it. I don't want to sound like a jerk, but could you please answer the question as I asked it?

[Asher]

Who said he knew as much as a professor?

And why are the events of the past important, but not the ideas that caused most of them?

And it is not history because history is primarily the study of past events.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is "caused" in past tense? Did you not just relate them to events of the past? So let's see: past ideas related to past events, and this is not history---how?

I don't want to sound like a jerk, but could you please answer the question as I asked it?

Um, which question? The one about "authority"?

I have as much of an authority as anyone else to brand something useless. If only professors of that discipline could do it, rest assured they'd fight for job security over common sense.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Asher

So why do we need people that cost so much to teach such basic things? The vast majority of people who study philosophy probably never make it past the second-year courses. And as someone who has recently taken those intro courses, I can assure you you need not be a genius to teach them.

Basic? Since when is reading Plato, or Aristotle, or Kant, or Hegel, or Sartre, or Adorno, Mill, Hobbes, locke, Rousseau, Marx, Smith, Hume, Schoppenhaur, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Herder, Wittgenstein, Arendt or any other philosophers "basic"? It takes pretty complex and advanced ideas to deal adequately with half of those writers, so it is in no way basic.

As for what the vast majority of people do: given that, as i said earlier, philosophy is the foundational subject of the university many subject require it of you at a low level and rightfully so. Given the complexity and deeply theoretical nature of higher philosophy, most people don;t need it anymore than people need the higher levels of mathematics.

[Agathon]

Don't bother GePap - he can't see the trees for the wood.

If somebody doesn't understand that universities are instituted in a large part to pursue knowledge for its own sake, even though this is common knowledge and the right to do so is vigorously defended by universities as a constitutive value, then that person is IMHO a total ****** and not worth taking seriously.

That about describes Asher on this issue.

[Asher]

Originally posted by GePap
Basic? Since when is reading Plato, or Aristotle, or Kant, or Hegel, or Sartre, or Adorno, Mill, Hobbes, locke, Rousseau, Marx, Smith, Hume, Schoppenhaur, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Herder, Wittgenstein, Arendt or any other philosophers "basic"? It takes pretty complex and advanced ideas to deal adequately with half of those writers, so it is in no way basic.

Smith, Mill, Hobbes, Locke, and Marx were dealt with adequately in grade 10.

And what benefit does anyone get for "dealing with" those writers? Do people become smarter and suddenly have new ideas after spending taxpayer's money learning about what someone wrote about 3,000 years ago?

Given the complexity and deeply theoretical nature of higher philosophy, most people don;t need it anymore than people need the higher levels of mathematics.

Indeed, but the higher levels of mathematics are useful almost immediately in other disciplines which are actually useful.

If somebody doesn't understand that universities are instituted in a large part to pursue knowledge for its own sake, even though this is common knowledge and the right to do so is vigorously defended by universities as a constitutive value, then that person is IMHO a total ****** and not worth taking seriously.

So someone who insists public money should not be wasted in dead-end persuits about the color of socks in alternate dimensions is a ****** and not worth taking seriously?

If you're going to use public money, the public should get use out of that. The research done, and the subjects taught, should give back to that society -- otherwise, why the hell are we paying for it?

I'm not surprised anymore, but as a philosophy teacher you should do better than this. You've completely restricted the argument to "well that's not how it is, end of story, you are a ******". Did it ever cross your mind that the reason I'm *****ing about it is because I don't think that's how it should be? You counter that by saying, "That's how it is, you're such a ******!"

I'm not the ****** here, Agathon. You're the one, remember, that tried to use the definition of University unsuccessfully and then tried the "well I'm smarter than you, so it's right" approach.

GePap is kicking your ass here with coherent arguments, he's got me pushed a lot closer to conceding usefulness than your pathetic arguments have ever done.