I spend some of my time teaching at a private university. During a discussion with one student he said, "All I really know about Plato is that he thought the fo

I spend some of my time teaching at a private university. During a discussion with one student he said, "All I really know about Plato is that he thought the forms were transcendent whereas Aristotle thought the forms were immanent." "Oh," said I, "that's interesting. What does it mean for a form to be transcendent or immanent?" "I don't know, I just know that's what they thought." We then had a discussion about whether or not he really knew that, and whether or not he was OK with paying over $25k a year to learn how to be a parrot. The sad thing: he was OK with it, and probably rightly so. He realized that mostly what people want are parrots and you can get paid quite a decent amount of money for being a good parrot. Not a bad gig if you're fine being a cog. There are certain comforts it provides.