I am taking a philosophy class in college
I found philosophy classes to be difficult beyond intro. I took one called Philosophic Classics of Early Modern Europe and, I mean, the concepts were fun. But trying to drag those general concepts from the original texts I found to be impossible. So I went online and got summations of the texts. Of course I was the only nonmajor in that class which was a pain, all those snooty philosophy students quoting here and there like they really knew what they were talking about. ![]()
"I seem to remember Aristotle saying..." blah blah blah
I found that class so annoying and I won't be taking any more philosophy classes. I'm more of a natural thinker, but to pick apart old texts of dead men, to be honest I found it quite boring and tedious.
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I have come to the conclusion that philosophy is interesting only when dealing with generalities, and becomes uncomfortably tedious when delving into specifics, mostly because there are never any specifics in philosophy. There is a sophism that people like to toss about in philosophy classes, (probably because it makes them feel ever so smart), "No one can know 'X.'" If this means "no one can know 'X' with certainty," then it is obvious but uninteresting. And if it means "no one has any idea at all about 'X,'" then it is clearly false.
In the first case, so you've established that no one can know something completely--now what? Now you spend the entire semester "discussing" whether this is true or not.
In the last case, you've established an impossibility--now what? Now you spend the entire semester "discussing" the validity of this "impossibility."
Meanwhile, students get frustrated because this class seems to be trying to "reinvent the wheel" of human knowledge rather than applying the concepts old dead dudes like So-Crates and Co. have already defined for us. It is bothersome and aggravating, but if you can handle this kind of stuff then more power to you.
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