take a philosophy class

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/professors-guide/2009/06/10/6-tips-for-taking-college-courses-free-of-charge.html
You can’t get credit for taking them, but free is good. My boyfriend and I are taking PHIL 176 – Death at Yale. There are some other free philosophy classes at different colleges, but I think Yale is the only one that has video lectures. So excited!

Changed my life. I’m not even done with the semester, but I enjoy a class where the whole point is doubt, not fact.

When I was 16 I took an upper level epistemology class from a local college. I got the highest grade in the class. Was I a teenage genius. Maybe, but really I agreed with the professor on my final. I don’t remember much either.

I took this class this semester for the heck of it. I didn’t learn a single thing other than history. If you walk out of there questioning your life you learned more than I did.

With a large major and double minor I have no time to do this, nor inclination since if I do have the time, I’ll take something more interesting in History or Psychology, etc. But if for some reason it becomes possible to do this, I will resurrect this goal.

Don’t get me wrong; philosophy is extremely interesting. And it’s good to know about it, but moreso than expanding my horizons it just frustrated me by assuming that all things are black and white. Proceed with caution.

I took a class called 20th Century Philosopher. It was HELL!!! I had to read two essays each week. They were no longer than 20 pages each but those people, Russell, Wittgenstein, Heidegger among others were crazy and wrote in a very cryptic way.

However the whole experience was really, REALLY nice. Specially with my Spaniard professor whose first language is Catalan thaught the class in English and would rarely speak Spanish (only to help some language impaired students). I remember the first day I heard him speaking Spanish was hilarious!!! I wish I could have heard his Catalan. :(

Which annoys me. But I want to learn (or refine) how to argue effectively. I heard that Aristotle was so popular as a teacher because he taught people to question their opponents in such a way that they ended up agreeing to something opposite of what they actually believed. And that would be a sweet skill to have.

I’ve already gotten a recommendation on a professor for this. He’s the kind of guy who will mercilessly cut you down if you say something stupid (i.e. something thoughtless and unsupportable). After September 11, 2001, he told his students to write down their feelings about it and put those papers in a box. Then he pointed to it and said, “I don’t care what’s in that box.”

I could learn much from such a person.

ive always fancied philosophy!

It was actually a Writing 100 course called “Environmental Philosophy”. All of my friends thought I’d be a great philosopher, actually, but I didn’t like having to argue around so many possibilities… too much theory for me, I guess.