Want to know how to stop a conversation in its tracks? Tell the person you're talking with that you're a philosophy major. If the conversation continues at all, the next question will inevitably be, "What are you going to do with a philosophy degree?" If you tell them that you plan on teaching philosophy, they will reply with an, "Oh." Awkward silence follows.
This has been the basic pattern of many of my conversations over the past couple months. It's not that I don't understand why. Philosophers have a well-earned reputation for being kind of odd. I mean, when you start questioning the meaning of meaning and study people who said that motion and time are an illusion, a few raised eyebrows are to be expected. Maybe that can be a project of mine, to bring philosophy down from the high pedestal it's usually placed on and make it less intimidating. I don't know how many people have told me they're "just not smart enough" to understand philosophy. To be perfectly honest, that's nonsense. Everyone has an idea of what it means to live a good life, what beauty is, what the basic structure and purpose of the universe is, (all questions of philosophy) or else they wouldn't be able to live their daily lives. Granted, people may not have good answers to those questions, but to say that philosophy is too high up for them is just not accurate.
Now more than ever I'm confronted with the problem of what to do after getting my bachelor's degree. I guess I could work for another year to save up money for graduate school, or just dive right in and try to find a school that offers some kind of assistant teacher scholarship and maybe a stipend to cover most of my living expenses. I'll probably be researching all of this once summer break starts. It's kind of scary/exciting to think that about this time next year I'll probably be getting ready to move to another state (Mississippi doesn't have any PhD philosophy programs. Shocker).
My current classes are going well. Logic and Classical Philosophy are my favorites. Logic because it's easy and useful, and Classical because the readings are really good (lots of Plato and Aristotle). One of the coolest things I've learned in Classical is that relativism (the idea that man determines his own morality) was disproved by Socrates well over 2000 years ago. So then, anyone care to tell me why this is the predominant theory of morality being taught in public schools today? Sounds like a paper to me. Anyway, thanks for checking in on me. I'll talk to you later.
SDG
This has been the basic pattern of many of my conversations over the past couple months. It's not that I don't understand why. Philosophers have a well-earned reputation for being kind of odd. I mean, when you start questioning the meaning of meaning and study people who said that motion and time are an illusion, a few raised eyebrows are to be expected. Maybe that can be a project of mine, to bring philosophy down from the high pedestal it's usually placed on and make it less intimidating. I don't know how many people have told me they're "just not smart enough" to understand philosophy. To be perfectly honest, that's nonsense. Everyone has an idea of what it means to live a good life, what beauty is, what the basic structure and purpose of the universe is, (all questions of philosophy) or else they wouldn't be able to live their daily lives. Granted, people may not have good answers to those questions, but to say that philosophy is too high up for them is just not accurate.
Now more than ever I'm confronted with the problem of what to do after getting my bachelor's degree. I guess I could work for another year to save up money for graduate school, or just dive right in and try to find a school that offers some kind of assistant teacher scholarship and maybe a stipend to cover most of my living expenses. I'll probably be researching all of this once summer break starts. It's kind of scary/exciting to think that about this time next year I'll probably be getting ready to move to another state (Mississippi doesn't have any PhD philosophy programs. Shocker).
My current classes are going well. Logic and Classical Philosophy are my favorites. Logic because it's easy and useful, and Classical because the readings are really good (lots of Plato and Aristotle). One of the coolest things I've learned in Classical is that relativism (the idea that man determines his own morality) was disproved by Socrates well over 2000 years ago. So then, anyone care to tell me why this is the predominant theory of morality being taught in public schools today? Sounds like a paper to me. Anyway, thanks for checking in on me. I'll talk to you later.
SDG
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