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I believe that at least an introductory philosophy course should be required for all college students. (maybe high school, I don't know). Philosophy has a bad r
by vlunkr 9y ago
I believe that at least an introductory philosophy course should be required for all college students. (maybe high school, I don't know). Philosophy has a bad reputation because 1) it's seen as the most pretentious of fields and 2) getting a degree in it is not a quick path to making any money. But in my experience, most people who haven't taken a course don't really know what philosophy is about.
I took a few courses and I consider them among the most valuable parts of my college experience. You look at some of the oldest questions(and various answers) around, and use those to learn how to really form and analyze arguments objectively. I may be preaching to the choir here, but if you haven't studied any philosophy, try it out!
- dcow 9y agoBack in the seventies, physics was called natural philosophy. In college, it amazed me how many people study sciences without even asking or caring why. They don't know the limits of the knowledge they seek or of the tools (repeatable observations) in their belt because they never learned how to ask uncomfortable questions or learn formal logic. Most certainly some of this is by design as colleges evolved into little businesses obsessed with crafting financially successful students before well rounded ones. On the other hand, some is probably just a reflection of the rationalist zeitgeist—philosophy became supernatural. To me, it's sadly dogmatic. You stop asking existential questions when your peers stop challenging your belief system.
- allemagne 9y agoAnecdotally, the world of science really opened up for me in a way that counteracted the kind of blindness you're describing when I took a class on statistics in high school. It finally clicked for me both how much scientific knowledge can be trusted and, paradoxically, how much we still need to be careful about trusting it. This is due to a teacher who actively pushed this kind of thinking instead of teaching us to blindly recite the mathematics behind calculating p-values, which certainly could have been an option. It might help to require a few lessons directly on epistemology for high school or college curricula, but in the end you can't teach kids who don't want to learn effectively with teachers who don't want to teach effectively.
- nerfhammer 9y agoIf by seventies you mean 1870s