The Epitome of my Philosophy Class

[brian0918]

is THAT what he was saying?

Maybe not, but at most he's saying nothing about what exactly is the point of philosophy, in his view.

Does anybody have a reponse to his "problem" with Ayn Rand?

Apparently his problem is that she thought she "or anyone [else], can, or ought, reach substantive philosophical conclusions." He sounds like a hard-line relativist to me.

Edited July 29, 2008 by brian0918

[KevinDW78]

So in otherwords, philosophy and "conclusions" are not mutually inclusive. What a dolt lol. Sounds like what philosophers have been trying to do for centuries - ensure their own job security!

[eriatarka]

I just posted this response. Thanks goes to Thomas M. Miovas, Jr. for his very easy to understand summaries of Kant's nonsense from an earlier thread of mine.

Did you actually read his reply? I dont really see how anything in your last email addresses what he said (which seems perfectly reasonable to me except for the bit about never reaching conclusions). You should stop thinking that your professors are trying to 'convert' you to <whatever philosophical system> - they arent. I doubt he cares whether you accept Kant's arguments, that isnt the point at all.

Edited July 29, 2008 by eriatarka

[KevinDW78]

.....Huh? What planet are you living on?

[eriatarka]

what?

[Qwertz]

It would be like telling your calculus teacher that because you don't see the evidential [sic] basis for accepting integral calculus, your [sic] not going to do the assignment.

Positively abysmal grammar aside, I think this would be a perfectly rational thing to do. I mean, only a minging prat of a calculus teacher would ask students to perform integral calculus without first explaining its background. Rather like only a minging prat of an aerodynamics teacher would ask a student to build an aeroplane from plans without first understanding the aerodynamics that went into drafting them, or how only a minging prat of a surgery teacher would ask a student to perform an appendectomy without first explaining what the appendix looks like. It seems to me that your minging prat of a philosophy professor would rather talk about philosophy than actually teach it. But just in case we didn't get it from the rest of his rantings, he nicely sums it up for us:

Philosophy is about thinking anew about difficult concepts, and to think you, or anyone, can, or ought [sic], reach substantive philosophical conclusions is to misconceive what the subject is all about.

How's this for a response?

Oh, I'm so sorry Professor Prat. I was under the deluded impression that philosophy was a useful science for living on earth, not just the intellectual equivalent of masturbation. I'm so glad you have enlightened me. Your advanced degree in wankery has sure shown me the error of my ways. From now on, I'll make sure never again to try to find actual answers to questions and instead focus on the pristine pleasure of perfectly pointless pud-pulling.

Of course, that wouldn't be at all productive or constructive, but of course productivity and constructiveness are irrelevant if we're just going to have one off the wrist.

~Q

[Publius]

I would definitely NOT walk away from this conversation with the professor. You paid money to learn, and it would be useful to understand what he's trying to explain. This might be the last time for a very long time that you will have the opportunity to engage with someone you disagree with on philosophy, who is at least well read on the subject, who is willing to discuss it at length, and who is not an unknown persona on the internet; so I say take advantage of it.

I agree with eriatarka that you are kind of talking past him and not engaging a lot of his points. I would move the conversation back to a more respectful tone. Thank the instructor for his time in helping you "understand" and ask more questions. He has some pretty thoughtful answers even if you don't agree with everything. You seem to be focused on "winning" a debate with your professor. Just have him help you be clear about what he's saying.

In my experience, the best way to get a good grade is to take the opposite position of the professor and argue it. This shows the professor you're not just parroting back his lectures but are actively engaging the subject matter. So I wouldn't worry about getting a poor grade because you had the "wrong" philosophical conclusions.

[KevinDW78]

You paid money to learn

No. I paid money to fulfill a gen ed requirement of the university. I do not need to "learn" that 2+2=5

useful to understand what he's trying to explain

How is it useful to understand (as the instructor puts it) that philosophy is nothing more than just an "intellectual equivalent of masturbation"? (thanks Qwertz) The instructor is flat out saying that philosophy ISN'T useful, because all we should be doing is "thinking" and never "concluding"

I agree with eriatarka

Then I don't know what planet you are living on either.

you are kind of talking past him and not engaging a lot of his points

I do not enter discussions with neighbors who think they can forbid me to think.

I would move the conversation back to a more respectful tone

I have already done that. I don't know what you consider a "respectful tone" Perhaps you can provide a quote from my last response that meets your standard of "disrespect"

Thank the instructor for his time in helping you "understand" and ask more questions

I don't need the instructor's assistance in "understanding" that 2+2=5

He has some pretty thoughtful answers even if you don't agree with everything.

What would those be? When he publically mocked me in front of the class with his childish "Duh" comment?

You seem to be focused on "winning" a debate with your professor.

No, sir. I am focused on REALITY.

In my experience, the best way to get a good grade is to take the opposite position of the professor and argue it. This shows the professor you're not just parroting back his lectures but are actively engaging the subject matter. So I wouldn't worry about getting a poor grade because you had the "wrong" philosophical conclusions.

This is all moot since I already am getting an A

[DavidOdden]

No. I paid money to fulfill a gen ed requirement of the university. I do not need to "learn" that 2+2=5

Sirrah, you must have missed the memo. One of the fundamental requirements of the general education courses is that you must learn that 2+2=5. If you do not learn that, you will have breached your part of the contract.

Actually, I would suggest analyzing the statement "I paid money to ...", since I personally find it helpful to understand the relationship between your purposes and your actions. You pay money because it is required in order for you to officially enroll in the class. You officially enroll in the class (in this instance) so that you can satisfy one of a set of conditions established by the institution in exchange for something, which is related to something else. Now we have the elements of a contract. You provide money and perform certain actions; they provide course credit (subject to your performance on both obligations) and allow you to participate in certain ways (subject to your performance on the financial point, setting aside preperatory conditions about being a student in the first place).

The contract is decidedly not in your favor. Arguably, the only thing that is of value is the credit, which is only of value as part of a set of conditions that you must meet in order to receive a particular certificate. It is roughly the equivalent of the conditions that may attach to certain health-maintenance contracts, to the effect that your medical needs are covered as long as you pay the premium (okay, that's not so bad) and submit to an annual proctological exam. You have just had your first proctological exam. The first one is always the worst.

[KevinDW78]

You have just had your first proctological exam

LOL. While I agree with your point, I don't believe I have acted contrary to the conditions laid out in the begining of the semster - even if the intructor wants to argure that I am not (Would I be getting an A otherwise?) That's what I find disturbing about him is that it's like he is tyring to publically show the other students that I am "not-thinking" and therefore acting in a way other than what I should be. Yet at the same time, continues week after week to give me full scores on my assignment essays. So Clearly I am "thinking" well enough according to his standards to be receiving full grades. It's that last sentence of his that bugs me:

You are clearly an intelligent student, and you'll of course do well in my course. The problem is not that you're not smart, nor is the problem that you don't make relevant points, you do. The problem is that you've consistently refused to think about the things I've tried to get you to think about.

Passive/Aggressive anyone?

Edited July 30, 2008 by KevinDW78

[DavidOdden]

While I agree with your point, I don't believe I have acted contrary to the conditions laid out in the begining of the semster - even if the intructor wants to argure that I am not (Would I be getting an A otherwise?)

Well, despite your disclaimer about not wanting to learn that 2+2=5, you seem to have satisfied the conditions of the contract. You didn't seek the probing examination, but you know it was required to get what you wanted, so you submitted. Unfortunately, your examiner seems to to be highly skilled -- just some guy that they dragged in to proctor the exam. Some guy and not some gal, I assume.

Actually, this is a commonly used technique amongst the passive-aggressive low-lifes in academe. I find it very common among certain people that they will say that so-and-so "needs to think about this more". It's particularly smarmy since it carries a clear implication of thoughtnessness and lack of mental discipline, without saying exactly what the lack of mental discipline is. The proper response to such crap is "You need to think about what such statements mean before you make them, and what message you're trying to send by making such statement". Fight fire with fire, and smarm with smarm.

[KevinDW78]

The proper response to such crap is "You need to think about what such statements mean before you make them, and what message you're trying to send by making such statement". Fight fire with fire, and smarm with smarm.

Oh god, I don't think I have an adequate enough prostate for that

Edited July 30, 2008 by KevinDW78

[TuringAI]

My math classes were all taught by very competent people who I trust, and I have no reason to question the Pythagorean theory, nor do I have any reason to dispute the claim that the diameter of a circle is pi*r^2.

Isn't that the formula for the area of a circle? The diameter of a circle is 2r, and the circumference of a circle is pi * diameter.

[DavidOdden]

Isn't that the formula for the area of a circle?

Yeah, yeah. So change ^ to * or "diameter" to "area".

[Publius]

No. I paid money to fulfill a gen ed requirement of the university. I do not need to "learn" that 2+2=5

No one said you need to do anything. But you'll have gotten more out of the course if you at least clearly understand opposing views, rather than creating a caricature of opposing views in order to more easily dismiss them.

BTW his talk of "duties" to me refers to each student's duty to himself to use reason.

How is it useful to understand (as the instructor puts it) that philosophy is nothing more than just an "intellectual equivalent of masturbation"? (thanks Qwertz) The instructor is flat out saying that philosophy ISN'T useful, because all we should be doing is "thinking" and never "concluding"

I find it hard to believe that someone who has had put in that kind for time to philosophical study would deem it to be insignificant. Judging by the first quote in this thread I think he seems quite passionate about it. I also find it hard to believe that he thinks people should never be "concluding". Maybe he just means entry level students should get a little more reading under their belt before they formulate their grand worldview.

I do not enter discussions with neighbors who think they can forbid me to think.

I think you are way too intellectually combative for your own good. He was persuasive in his comments regarding your using your own definition of words, instead of the common usage, in order to talk about ideas. He was persuasive (and correct IMO) that you need to be able to understand the phenomena of why people act out of a sense of duty. You make the false comparison of the concept "duties" to "Santa Claus, a physical perceivable entity, then make the claim that the concept does not exist. But clearly people DO act out of duty, and why this is this so has to be explained somehow.

You made a false assumption about his views on Kant, because when he said he was "the greatest", you jumped to the conclusion that he meant he was the the most correct. I would at least own up to this error.

What would those be? When he publically mocked me in front of the class with his childish "Duh" comment?

I'm guessing he may be just responding to your rhetoric. I have no contextual knowledge of your relationship to this point, but I read this in his post: I recognized early in the course that you are under the impression that you've thought enough about these issues and that you have reached conclusions regarding many philosophical question. I don't know what you said or how you said it to give him this impression early on, but I'm sure the tension has been building.

[KevinDW78]

But you'll have gotten more out of the course if you at least clearly understand opposing views, rather than creating a caricature of opposing views in order to more easily dismiss them.

BTW his talk of "duties" to me refers to each student's duty to himself to use reason.

Huh? I don't think you understand this thread. No - he is talking about Kant's Categorical Imperative. That has nothing to do with "each student's duty to himself to use reason". Do you even know anything about Kant? As many other people in this forum will point out, "understanding" implies something to be "understandable". I don't think there are many people on this forum who would assert that anything Kant blathered on about is "understandable".

Furthermore, i think you keep focusing on Post #11 in this thread which was a DRAFT of what I was thinking at the time - it was never posted to the instructor. It was only written here on this forum. I am sorry if that confused you.

Also, you said:

He was persuasive in his comments regarding your using your own definition of words, instead of the common usage, in order to talk about ideas.

Which words? "exist"? Are you going to debate with me what "exist" means to? If so then I'm not sure what you are doing on this forum.

I really don't think you know what you are even trying to argue here. I get the impression that you are arguing just for the sake of arguing. I suggest you read the responses from other members in this thread.

Edited July 30, 2008 by KevinDW78

[DavidOdden]

But clearly people DO act out of duty, and why this is this so has to be explained somehow.

I new there had to be a valid point in there somewhere. Okay, the concept of "duty" is pretty old, but it is, psychologically, a pseudo-axiom, that is, you can't dig deeper that the conclusion that X is a duty. The bare fact is that people act "out of duty" because that is their is/ought lubricant. Why do they do this? Because it is a convenient substitute for actually using your faculty of reason. If you bring reason and fact together in the neighborhood of "duty", you will discover that "duty" as actually promulgated in the real world is arbitrary, and thus denies man's only method of gaining knowledge (including moral knowledge). This is an obvious intolerable contradiction, for which reason "duty" must be taken to be a foundational concept, one that you cannot question.

Historically speaking, the reason for the acceptance of "duty" as a basis for acting is that it is the more efficient way of coercing other people. Naked aggression is one way to get a man to surrender his crops; "duty" is the other. The concept depends quite profoundly on religious and quasi-religious concepts. After all, if Yaweh commands you to sacrifice a calf under penalty of being smotten by his Holy Flyswatter, it's pretty easy to make the translation from the particulat imperative to an actual action. Once you detach duty from concrete fear of retribution, you have to construct equally-effective mystical concepts to take its place, for example fear of disrupting cosmic harmony or the social good. Duty is thus a Jedi mind-trick that replaces bare fear of aggression or divine punishment for something which you can't put your finger on, because it has no clear nature, and you can't actually point to one and say "Clearly, that is one!".

Now I think we understand why people act out of duty. The next question is, how do we get them to stop.

[KevinDW78]

The next question is, how do we get them to stop.

lol I think they'll die out eventually.

Publius , I appologize if I come across as being overly-combatative in this thread, but it's simply because (as Qwertz pointed out) I know there is utter prattiness going on from my instructor, and this forum is the last place I would have expected to have to argue in support of Objectivsm when faced with Kantian nonsense.

Edited July 30, 2008 by KevinDW78

[Publius]

Huh? I don't think you understand this thread. No - he is talking about Kant's Categorical Imperative. That has nothing to do with "each student's duty to himself to use reason". Do you even know anything about Kant? As many other people in this forum will point out, "understanding" implies something to be "understandable". I don't think there are many people on this forum who would assert that anything Kant blathered on about is "understandable".

Okay, I must have missed it, but I didn't see where he advocated adhering to duty anywhere but in the first post. And I stand by my interpretation given the limited context and not knowing anything else he said, so I don't know why he is being labeled a Kantian. But if you think he's a Kantian, then he's a Kantian. I'm not really interested in talking about that further.

Which words? "exist"? Are you going to debate with me what "exist" means to? If so then I'm not sure what you are doing on this forum.

I was referring to "belief" and "hypothesis". Again, not much use in further talk about that.

I really don't think you know what you are even trying to argue here. I get the impression that you are arguing just for the sake of arguing. I suggest you read the responses from other members in this thread.

I'm not trying to argue with you on anything, especially Objectivism, Kantianism, etc. I'm only saying is that you haven't demonstrated you understand the point your professor was trying to make, or made an argument, and this is leading to your professor's frustration with you.

Now if you look at Odden's last post above, you'll see an actual argument along the lines of what your professor is probably looking for regarding duty (by the way that pained me greatly to give Odden credit for making a logical argument )

I was just interested in the thread because I had a similar experience in college with a multicultural professor. My papers were returned riddled with counterarguments to my thesis and points, but I always got an A. Office hours was another source for good back and forth (maybe in an online course your don't get that kind of back and forth with the professor). But I understood the subject matter in a much more complex way. I discovered I still disagreed with multiculturalism, but that I could argue much more convincingly against it once I mastered the subject matter.

[KevinDW78]

I was referring to "belief" and "hypothesis". Again, not much use in further talk about that.

Then you need to provide quote because I never used the word "hypothesis" and the instructor never made objection to my use of the word "belief". The only word he questioned was "exist". Your arguments might make more sens if you would actually provde relevant quotes to what you are intending to refer.

I'm only saying is that you haven't demonstrated you understand the point your professor was trying to make, or made an argument, and this is leading to your professor's frustration with you.

You're right in that if I am presented with someone who says 2+2=5 and I say "no it doesn't" that I shouldn't be asked to prove any more argument and instead ask for evidence from the philosopher asserting that 2+2 DOES equal 5. And that is exactly what I stated in the very begining. As David Odden pointed out in the begining of this thread, it was a nonsensical rhetorical question with no answer. I am not going to attempt an argument at proving the unanswerable - and that's what I made clear.

Edited July 30, 2008 by KevinDW78

[aequalsa]

"Kant may very well be the greatest philosopher to have ever lived!"

This reminds me of a intro philosophy course I took. The instructor stated in lecture that Kant "was the greatest philosopher of all time."

I argued but he changed the subject pretty quickly.

Later on the final he gives the question, "Who was the greatest philosopher of all time?" Silly right? What made it particularly bad, though, was that it was a multiple choice question. I knew that I had an A so I chose Bacon over Kant, De cartes, and Hobbes. I hated that class. His Phd was from the U. of Chicago too. Ignorant fuck.

[Starling]

Not Chicago! I went there, but I saw much more Marx-worship than Kant worship. Then again, that was in a social science class, not philosophy.

[brian0918]

I think Rand would characterize your professor as one of the "soft, safe assassins of college classrooms, who, incompetent to answer the queries of a quest for reason, take pleasure in crippling the young minds entrusted to their care."

[KurtColville]

Does anybody have a reponse to his "problem" with Ayn Rand?

Philosophy is not "about thinking anew about difficult concepts". It is the study of the fundamental nature of existence, of man, and of man's relationship to existence. If reaching "substantive philosophical conclusions" is impossible, then philosophy serves no purpose. Why examine the nature of the world around you if you can never actually know anything about it, nevermind the contradiction of asserting that philosophy entails never reaching substantive philosophical conclusions.

[KevinDW78]

Apparently, everyone here is wrong lol

This was my instructor's last and final post on this (The discussion board has been closed down so no further response is possible:

If you'd like to come in and discuss all the various ways in which you misunderstand Kant, I'd love to meet with you. I very seriously doubt you've ever read anything by Kant. Rather, it sounds as though you've read some really poor explanations of Kant's position.

There are so many errors in your understanding of Kant (not to mention the sketchy arguments you offer in response to your understanding of Kant), and you're approaching the topic with such a heavy bias, that I don't really see any way of actually getting you to think about these things. Indeed, you straightforwardly assert that to think about Kant is to not think, which seems an admission on your part that you've not been thinking.

Let me just respond to the first part of your misunderstanding. Kant never argued for the existence of duties, so he could never conclude that duties exist. (You might want to reread that so as to try to understand it.) He thinks there are duties, but that isn't something for which he argued. Instead, his project, and his arguments in support of his project, is an explanation of duties. That is, he argues that if we have duties, they are based in our shared ability to reason. (Notice, also, that on a correct understanding of Kant, his categorical imperative doesn't necessitate a relation between duties and consideration of other individuals. In fact, Kant thinks exactly what you take him not to think---that individuals are ends in themselves. This is, of course, further evidence that you (or, rather, the people you've read regarding Kant) have completely misunderstood him.) That argument, and all the connections he uses to spell it out, is very different from the argument you suppose Kant to have on offer. Kant is interested in explaining a common and widespread sense of morality, part of which is a sense of duty, and he doesn't ever take time out to argue that there is such a thing as morality or duties. (This goes back to what I tried to explain to you last night: the project of explanation is the project of offering explanations. And you can't offer an explanation by simply dismissing the phenomena in question.) Now, you make think that not arguing for the existence of morality or duties is a mistake, but it isn't a mistake in his argument. Moreover, if you want to suggest that there is nothing by which the term 'morality' receives meaning, you're the one that needs an argument. And, again, saying that you don't recognize duties or morality is not an argument.

Finally, as to your assertions toward the end of your post, that Kant argued that "we don't actually perceive reality". Well, again, this shows your naivety regarding Kant and the history of philosophy. If you want to remedy that, I suggest you begin by reading Rene Descartes, then John Locke, then Berkeley, then Hume, then proceed to Kant.

Again, it's unfortunate that you have approached this class and this topic in particular with such heavy bias. It truly has prevented you, an otherwise intelligent human being, from thinking.

Edited July 31, 2008 by KevinDW78