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I am a college dropout, but I completed all the philosophy parts of my degree requirement. There is a divide in philosophy departments in the US. The divide i
by LPTS 19y ago
I am a college dropout, but I completed all the philosophy parts of my degree requirement.
There is a divide in philosophy departments in the US. The divide is between continental philosophy and analytic philosophy. Programs strong in analytic philosophy are great. They will provide a strong grounding in formal logic. Continental programs, while they might have there own set of virtues, are full of bullshit.
This is only good news if analytic leaning philosophy departments are seeing the big half of the bump.
- cia_plant 19y agoIs there actually a 'divide'? I was under the strong impression that analytic philosophy completely dominates American universities. Continental philosophy is mostly discussed in English Lit., Cultural Studies, etc. For instance, Harvard has a 100% analytic faculty, MIT has a 100% analytic faculty, Princeton, Stanford, ... Analytic philosophy seems boring and pedantic to me. For example, in one class we discussed Lewis' theory that "properties" are any subset of the set of all possible entities. So the property of being red is the mathematical set of all real and possible red things. This basically strikes me as "how many maths can dance on the head of a pin?"
- dataangel 19y agoDid they claim that that _is_, objectively, the property of being red, or did they claim that it is an isomorphic way of thinking about it? Isomorphisms can provide an alien way of thinking that forces the mind to ignore the contexts something usually occurs in and discard assumptions, so they can be extraordinarily useful.
- LPTS 19y agoWell, yeah, at the good schools there is analytic philosophy. But at local community college or state universities (where most people get degrees), it's a mix. And dancing maths on the head of a pin, that could never be a useful skill to develop?
- cia_plant 19y agoAh, I never realized that. Thanks for the clarification. I do think that analytic philosophy is a useful point of view. It just frustrated me that at my school, it was the only point of view offered.
- rw 19y agoThere are a few U.S. universities doing good work in continental philosophy. And there are actual real, rational people who want to study there!