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I agree that the humanities and arts are of profound importance. I've found that the problem with these subjects is often simply how they are taught. Philosophy

I agree that the humanities and arts are of profound importance. I've found that the problem with these subjects is often simply how they are taught. Philosophy is a great example. I was one credit shy of a philosophy minor in undergrad. The entire purpose of philosophy is to provide actionable guidelines for how to live life, yet none of my classes actually provided students with this information. Instead, a lecturer would drone on about academicians' opinions on various doctrines, their historical context, and critique each doctrine from a logical perspective without any group discussion or talk of application. Students were then asked to regurgitate the professor's opinions in an essay. It was boring, and eventually I quit. Imagine if all chemistry classes were just the classroom side of organic chemistry, with people sitting in rooms memorizing syntheses and electron pushing without ever even talking about stepping into a lab. Would anyone be surprised if those students then said they thought chemistry was boring?

maus42 11y ago
>The entire purpose of philosophy is to provide actionable guidelines for how to live life ...I thought it was about trying to find truth, and knowledge, and wisdom for the sake of love of them. What is reality? How it exists? What it means? And anyway, how we can we understand any of it? What it means to understand it? The whole idea of natural science of the important child of Western philosophy. History of philosophy is a beautiful example how most of the purported "actionable guidelines" turn out quite hokey in a closer inspection.
- eli_gottlieb 11y ago
  >...I thought it was about trying to find truth, and knowledge, and wisdom for the sake of love of them. What is reality? How it exists? What it means? And anyway, how we can we understand any of it? What it means to understand it? Why do people think they can even formulate these sorts of question with rigor and precision if they lack life experience and knowledge of how nature works? Why should we expect that the world is comprehensible from an armchair in a liberal-arts college?
  - dgacmu 11y ago
    You seem to be asking whether it is possible to derive truth a priori by logic, or whether truth is dependent upon the physical context in which it's found. Perhaps the answer is a combination of both. Perhaps I just paraphrased Kant - and perhaps you just asked an interesting question that was raised hundreds of years ago by people in armchairs. ;)
    - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
      > Perhaps I just paraphrased Kant - and perhaps you just asked an interesting question that was raised hundreds of years ago by people in armchairs. ;) You were of course paraphrasing Kant, and the very fact that the question remains, from the point of view of professional academic philosophy, unsettled hundreds of years later speaks very loudly about the inadequacy of armchair speculation as a guide to truth.

maus42 11y ago

>The entire purpose of philosophy is to provide actionable guidelines for how to live life ...I thought it was about trying to find truth, and knowledge, and wisdom for the sake of love of them. What is reality? How it exists? What it means? And anyway, how we can we understand any of it? What it means to understand it? The whole idea of natural science of the important child of Western philosophy. History of philosophy is a beautiful example how most of the purported "actionable guidelines" turn out quite hokey in a closer inspection.

eli_gottlieb 11y ago
>...I thought it was about trying to find truth, and knowledge, and wisdom for the sake of love of them. What is reality? How it exists? What it means? And anyway, how we can we understand any of it? What it means to understand it? Why do people think they can even formulate these sorts of question with rigor and precision if they lack life experience and knowledge of how nature works? Why should we expect that the world is comprehensible from an armchair in a liberal-arts college?
- dgacmu 11y ago
  You seem to be asking whether it is possible to derive truth a priori by logic, or whether truth is dependent upon the physical context in which it's found. Perhaps the answer is a combination of both. Perhaps I just paraphrased Kant - and perhaps you just asked an interesting question that was raised hundreds of years ago by people in armchairs. ;)
  - eli_gottlieb 11y ago
    > Perhaps I just paraphrased Kant - and perhaps you just asked an interesting question that was raised hundreds of years ago by people in armchairs. ;) You were of course paraphrasing Kant, and the very fact that the question remains, from the point of view of professional academic philosophy, unsettled hundreds of years later speaks very loudly about the inadequacy of armchair speculation as a guide to truth.