Hate Philosophy

[lucy]

I've just finished a semester of Philosophy101---ending up with a C (really bad)
Philosophy should have been an interesting subject, however, our teacher spent most of the sem discussing Heidegger's works--which sounded so complicated...it really sucked..the worse thing is, I'll be taking up Philosophy 102, 103, and 104..waaaah..

Any tips on how to do better in the subject Philosophy? thanks!

[Jakalwarrior]

Get a teacher that doesn't suck. My school had a really good philosophy teacher and consequently the class was really hard to get in to. Eventually I got in. The class covered everything from plato onward. It was pretty much a nice unbiased tour of philisophy as a 101 class should be...

[Malotis]

Philosophy can be complicated. There are quite a bit of philosophers in which the academic world view as "important enough to teach." Descartes, Emerson, Plato, Augustine, Aristotle, Hobbes, Heidegger... there's many of them, but every single one of them offer a unique, intellectual perspective of not only our history, but as collective guides for innovative ideas and frameworks of thought.

I think the best way to understand philosophy is by understanding basic concepts introduced by philosophy very well, and then, use this knowledge to better understand more complicated matters introduced by philosophy. Or in other words, to better understand philosophy, you have to better understand philosophy. :suspicious:

If you’re having a difficult time understanding Heidegger (or philosophy in general), then it is very possible that better understanding another philosopher like Descartes, Aristotle, or Emerson may help.

Also, as the previous poster suggested, I’m certain the teacher plays an enormous role as well.

[eli]

Get drunk, sleep with a philosophy teacher in the hopes that philosophy will magically seep into your brain during the act, get drunk again to forget horrible experience. Rinse and repeat.

On a more serious note, I totally get where you are coming from. I had one very bad philo teacher and one very good one and saw a hell of a difference between the two. A good teacher will be able to make you understand the vague concepts and relate them to real life.
Maybe try to find philo intro books that relate to something you're interested in? For example, I got Movies and the Meaning of Life: Philosophers taken on Hollywood for fun and it explains major philosophy principles by relating them to major movies like American Beauty, Fight Club, Kill Bill and so on.

[Deadgod]

ugh...philosophy as a class? Philosophy is best when it's by yourself with a book. The next best thing is a small discussion group, followed by lectures. But a class? It degrades itself to standardized tests and SJ-ness, which doesn't have any place at all in philosophy.
It can be a bit difficult to swallow especially if you're teacher's an INTP. They will go off on tangents and cram you with information that is basically useless but done with good intention. Ahhh, those NTs :rolleyes:...wait! I am an NT! :stunned: :suspicious:

[Seppuku Savant]

Professors can make or break a class. Especially one like philosophy. As someone suggested above, find one that works for your learning style. Ask around. Word of mouth from other students is always a great place to start.

[acyckowski]

I was 0 for 3 on philosophy professors, they all sucked...just sucked as instructors/facilitators and/or were more interested in converting us to one ridiculous POV or the other. I learned more philosophy from 11th-grade World Lit than 3 semesters under over-educated ninnies.

Logic is worth studying, if you're not already involved in Calculus+ level mathematics, but I agree with Deadgod that you're better off studying Philosophy by yourself. To make use of the rest of it, you've got to learn how to structure your thinking to go from facts and assumptions to a logical conclusion.

[zibber]

Yep.. I took some philosophy classes last semester, and the best method is just to read, read, read the texts until you've figured out what the hell the guy is talking about. Secondary literature is a great help, but don't touch it until you've attacked the texts personally. The third step is talking to other knowledgeable people about the texts, which is where an academic environment can be very beneficial.

[konec]

I took a (cultural) philosophy course as well... about a year ago. I really had a wonderful professor (but I've come across some really poor ones also). Since it was our first encounter with philosophy, our first meeting he told us what, probably, was the best way to read/understand/get to know the text. It really helped me to understand the text we were dealing with.

He advised us to first read the text pretty fast, so you get a general idea of what the author is talking about. After this you take your pen/marker and read everything very, very careful, trying to understand everything you read, marking things that seem to contradict eachother, etc. Once you've done this, try to write a summary of 1 A4 paper, max. The next meeting we would all discuss the text and preparing for the course this way, besides the fact that he was awesome at explaining things, helped a lot.

Especially this last thing, writing these small summaries proved to be really helpful when I had to write a paper.

[eastman]

philosophy is very similar to pure mathematics. It's very logical and extremely difficult to master. Try to understand the abstract structure behind the books your reading.

[Neuro]

I agree with Deadgod. Private study and discussing online or yeah in small real life groups would be much easier and meaningful, especially if your class is huge and filled with fools. It's a shame you have to go through this at all. The only constructive suggestion I can make is look at it as an opportunity to expand your threshold of pain.

[cal]

I got to where I would check the lists of how many students were left writing finals, to help determine whose classes I should try and get into. It would show some upper year profs starting with a full class - maybe 15 students - and ending up with sometimes only 3-4 left writing the final. There was one philosophy prof who had that consistently in all her classes. Those were the profs I made a note to steer clear of. Maybe they marked too hard, or maybe they were poor teachers, or maybe both.

Word of mouth from other students helped as well.

[Monte314]

I teach a western philosophy course.

I've found that positioning the philosophers on a timeline and grouping them into "schools of thought" is very helpful, since this places them into a framework both temporally and intellectually.

Also, determining what a philosopher's "criterion of truth" is can be very helpful in understanding their thought.

[demaugustus]

I wanted to major in philosophy for a time, but I found the classes to be more like history classes than like philosophy. I felt I wasn't "living" philosophy, but instead being told how I should "view" philosophy. F*ck that, seriously, f*ck it! I'm tired of school and all of this f*cken regurgitation. The one thing that really ticked me off about philosophy classes was that some of the other students would say that they disagreed with Kant, Descartes, etc... WTF?! First, we're undergraduates people, we don't really understand these guys. Second, how can you agree or disagree with them? They are simply specific ways of viewing the world, which are neither right, nor wrong...or are they?...

[Uytuun]

ugh...philosophy as a class? Philosophy is best when it's by yourself with a book. The next best thing is a small discussion group, followed by lectures. But a class? It degrades itself to standardized tests and SJ-ness, which doesn't have any place at all in philosophy.

True.

Just listening to a prof explaining complex philosophical ideas to 100+ people can be confusing and downright boring. I'd advise you to just try and get the gist of what the prof says in the classes...don't compulsively write stuff down, think along and when you're lost, you're lost and that's ok because what's really important is that you sit down with the material and attempt to understand it at your own pace. Tell yourself you won't leave until you completely understand it. It may take you 30 minutes to do a single page, but skipping it will cost you more time in the end. Philosophy gets much easier after a while when you get the hang of it and have mastered the conceptual realm more fully, then it becomes a bit of a playground and really interesting because you can "converse" with it rather than listen to the monologue.

[IF3157]

I've just finished a semester of Philosophy101---ending up with a C (really bad)
Philosophy should have been an interesting subject, however, our teacher spent most of the sem discussing Heidegger's works--which sounded so complicated...it really sucked..the worse thing is, I'll be taking up Philosophy 102, 103, and 104..waaaah..

Any tips on how to do better in the subject Philosophy? thanks!

I fucking hate when X-trolls give too much weight to their pet trollery instead of doing what they are supposed to do. Take your Phil 101 professor. No intro philo course should be mostly spent discussing Heidegger. Give him/her bad reviews and complain to the department head.

[Gloed]

I fucking hate when X-trolls give too much weight to their pet trollery instead of doing what they are supposed to do. Take your Phil 101 professor. No intro philo course should be mostly spent discussing Heidegger. Give him/her bad reviews and complain to the department head.

i was under the assumption that heidegger was considered one of the most inaccessible philosophers due to the fact that he uses language in a complicated way to express his ideas. nothing nothings, that sort of stuff...

[jadefalcon]

I agree with many people- a new professor is in order.

I will dabble in philosophy but it isn't my sport. Sure it is nice to ponder what is beautiful, but I am an engineer- not a philosopher, scientist or artist. I like to ask, like so many INTJs do, "what's gonna work?" and bring it forth from design into reality. Thus, philosophy isn't my favorite subject- instead I am going to take kiyaking at 5:00am in the morning, and volleyball, and badmitton.

[IF3157]

i was under the assumption that heidegger was considered one of the most inaccessible philosophers due to the fact that he uses language in a complicated way to express his ideas. nothing nothings, that sort of stuff...

Exactly. Heidegger was a shithead for whom being inaccessible to the hoi polloi was a point of pride. Besides, I don't see that his influence is such that it warrants a significant chunk of an intro philo course. Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Locke, Nietzsche, Marx, even the fooking pre-Socratics should get more time than Heidegger in an intro class if the class is to serve its purpose.

[Mozzes]

I will dabble in philosophy but it isn't my sport. Sure it is nice to ponder what is beautiful, but I am an engineer- not a philosopher, scientist or artist.

You may not be billed as such but I would go as far as to say that all thinking men (and women ;)) are philosophers. People who contemplate and question what they believe in, how they act and who they follow. Only sheep aren't fundamentally philosophers.

[IF3157]

*restrains urge to begin lecture on why shoot-the-breeze ruminations on beauty, truth and lah-di-dah =/= studying philosophy*

[BlueberryMint]

I've just finished a semester of Philosophy101---ending up with a C (really bad)
Philosophy should have been an interesting subject, however, our teacher spent most of the sem discussing Heidegger's works--which sounded so complicated...it really sucked..the worse thing is, I'll be taking up Philosophy 102, 103, and 104..waaaah..

Any tips on how to do better in the subject Philosophy? thanks!

Oh, I'm sorry :\ Heidegger is very tough and no philosophy teacher should spend more than one class period over Heidegger in any <3000-level class. As with most subjects, a bad teacher can ruin any potentially wonderful introduction into a subject.

I think some other people have given some good tips on doing better in philosophy, which is to read the material one your own (if you are finding that the professor is unable to explain the ideas, concepts, and reasoning to your satisfaction) until it is making sense to you. As others have said, it is not uncommon to spend a lot of time reading philosophy compared to the time it takes to read other subjects--I usually tell people that it is about 1-hour per 10-pages of philosophy; but, it really just varies on the person's experience and the subject matter.

Also, there are many free resources online that offer the same material that you would be receiving in your philosophy text-book, so you may try reading the other resources as they may explain it more clearly and more to your liking.

Here are a couple:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

[ADCMech]

for INTJ's it's very simple when it comes to philosophy:

Take Wittgenstein's view how philosophy has no basis from a logician's point of view. Even though he wrote "Philosophical Investigations", his earlier Tractatus tore the logical rug out from the tendency to navel-gaze har har..

Therefore, don't waste anytime considering philosophy.

[hullolife]

ugh...philosophy as a class? Philosophy is best when it's by yourself with a book. The next best thing is a small discussion group, followed by lectures. But a class?

I really agree...................

[Autoptic]

for INTJ's it's very simple when it comes to philosophy:

Take Wittgenstein's view how philosophy has no basis from a logician's point of view. Even though he wrote "Philosophical Investigations", his earlier Tractatus tore the logical rug out from the tendency to navel-gaze har har..

Therefore, don't waste anytime considering philosophy.

Logic, math, and the scientific method are philosophy.

I do agree that most of what I've encountered so far has been just literary or historical. There should have been some teaching of a basic lexicon and structure, but I never saw anything of the sort.

[Tishy]

I'd second (or third, or fourth) about picking your lecturers.

I need small classes and permission to debate and question the lecturer - and that's hard to come by in most schools. I also picked my school based on the virtue of not having to regurg other's thoughts, but challenge my own and others.

With the right lecturer and environment, I'd LOVE to do more philosophy.

[True Rune]

Don't they have a rate myprofessor.com? Then again INTx is a minority.