Of the fourteen Urbanites who have owned up to having philosophy degrees

[Aldebaran]

I studied philosophy (Western) not *as* a degree, but as it was incorparated in the programs of other EU univ degrees. Hence when it comes to Western, I'm not in-depth informed on it. More like introduction level. (When I studied Belgian Law the first year also included philosophical psychology & antropology.)

While I have a good background in Muslim philosophy, the Western counterpart isn't sufficient to debate anything meaningful. I come to read now and then though

salaam.

 

[purves grundy]

(Cloo, Dillinger4, eoin_k, Jambooboo, JHE, keypulse, Maurice Picarda, metalguru, nosos, ohmyliver, Paulie Tandoori, purves grundy, Random One, selamlar)

How many post on this sub-forum and how many, like me, would run a mile to escape from serious philosophical debate?

Yeah, I'm like you. Rarely post here and, if I'm honest, despite getting a 1st and £120 prize for my dissertation I have no passion for philosophy whatsoever. I just enjoyed writing the essays, doing the reading, I even found the exams enjoyable. Just liked the challenge of it.

I always remember the final results day at uni when they posted the results outside the department. I already knew I was gonna get a first but my mate who I saw as a genuine philosopher rather than a philosophy student, formidable in debate, writer of wonderfully original essays, was on the cusp of a 2:1 / 1st. He got a 2:1. He looked at me in disbelief, shook his head, and I never heard from him again.

 

[gorski]

I can relate to this. A m8 of mine, in the class/year, got an offer to be an assistant at the Phil. of Politics Dptm. He immediately came to me, decent fella as he was, and apologised, saying "I have no idea why they didn't offer it to you, since you know so much more than me on the subject, but I really need the money and so I accepted..."

Most of the time they seem to be "training" bureaucrats, rather than critically thinking philosophers. It's much more important to hear the echo of their words, to follow the rules of quoting, must print it out, not hand-write it, double spacing and all that - than a real effort concerning interesting ideas...

I was too challenging for English tastes... Too free thinking... So much for the "land of the free", mother of Democracy, eccentrics loving land and whatnot... Apparently, the mother of all individualism... But don't you dare differ...

I have never seen so much pressure and need to conform as in this country! And never so much conformism, to be perfectly honest...

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I have one, and I'll post here or not, depending on whether the topic interests me or not.

 

[david dissadent]

He looked at me in disbelief, shook his head, and I never heard from him again.

Very ironic.

 

[purves grundy]

I can relate to this. A m8 of mine, in the class/year, got an offer to be an assistant at the Phil. of Politics Dptm. He immediately came to me, decent fella as he was, and apologised, saying "I have no idea why they didn't offer it to you, since you know so much more than me on the subject, but I really need the money and so I accepted..."

Most of the time they seem to be "training" bureaucrats, rather than critically thinking philosophers. It's much more important to hear the echo of their words, to follow the rules of quoting, must print it out, not hand-write it, double spacing and all that - than a real effort concerning interesting ideas...

I was too challenging for English tastes... Too free thinking... So much for the "land of the free", mother of Democracy, eccentrics loving land and whatnot... Apparently, the mother of all individualism... But don't you dare differ...

I have never seen so much pressure and need to conform as in this country! And never so much conformism, to be perfectly honest...

Agreed. The whole thing is just a game. I finally got round to reading Wittgenstein a couple of years ago, and the whole time I couldn't stop wondering whether he'd get a post if he was alive today.

 

[purves grundy]

Very ironic.

Very probably...

 

[gorski]

Agreed. The whole thing is just a game. I finally got round to reading Wittgenstein a couple of years ago, and the whole time I couldn't stop wondering whether he'd get a post if he was alive today.

Quite! Sometimes it's a bit too depressing in that regard, yeah...

 

[keybored]

(Cloo, Dillinger4, eoin_k, Jambooboo, JHE, keypulse, Maurice Picarda, metalguru, nosos, ohmyliver, Paulie Tandoori, purves grundy, Random One, selamlar)

How many post on this sub-forum and how many, like me, would run a mile to escape from serious philosophical debate?

Oh I was lying The only degree I have is in OCDs and Multiple Choice Polls.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Oh I was lying The only degree I have is in OCDs and Multiple Choice Polls.

Wahey! You've made me so happy to know that i'm not the only one

 

[ohmyliver]

I have never seen so much pressure and need to conform as in this country! And never so much conformism, to be perfectly honest...

Depressingly I found this to be the case in art as well. A complete aggressive blindness to things that were outside the critical theory cannon.

 

[gorski]

Not sure I follow.

If anything, comparatively speaking, Critical Theory is almost unknown in the UK and the Anglo-Saxon world as a whole.

By comparison, there are very few people who are into any of that, as opposed to the Continent [see Germany and her philosophical machinery output, backed up by some decent dosh re. Philosophy/Social Sciences grants and all... for instance...].

Not only is there quite an anti-intellectual atmosphere overall, at least in the UK, worshiping the deity of "common sense" [= not being able to see Reason as a critical instance for love or money], but [generally speaking] positing "philosophising" as an anathema that is equated with sophistry.

Hegel and the lot are - by and large - deemed as "impenetrable" and purposefully "obfuscatory" and "exclusive". Long words are for "pooftahs" and those regarded as "poncy" and "arrogant". Psychological presentness ["attention span"] is about 5 seconds short and anything longer is for "pretentious bastards".

Working too hard on these issues is completely unacceptable, as the truth must be rather simple, easy and elegant...

But maybe I misunderstood your point?

 

[ohmyliver]

Erm are we talking about the same Critical Theory? Baudrillard, Leotard(sp?) Derrida et al. I doubt you could do a Fine Art b.a or higher in this country without having some knowledge of them/their theory.

I find them quite interesting, as an intellectual excerse. But not for the actual viserial creation of artwork.

 

[gorski]

Misunderstanding...

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/ - here is the context.

Critical Theory, as in Benjamin, Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Habermas etc. versus the French bunch of PoMo shisters...

 

[Jambooboo]

(Cloo, Dillinger4, eoin_k, Jambooboo, JHE, keypulse, Maurice Picarda, metalguru, nosos, ohmyliver, Paulie Tandoori, purves grundy, Random One, selamlar)

How many post on this sub-forum and how many, like me, would run a mile to escape from serious philosophical debate?

Was a Sociology/Philosophy degree - while the Sociology has mostly stuck with me I can barely even recall what classes I took in Philosophy. Hence I feel no more qualified/able to debate the subject than a layman.

 

[bluestreak]

Half my honours are in Philosophy - I only did ethics because all the rest is pretty pointless.

I post here when I can be arsed.

 

[ohmyliver]

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/postmodernism/ - here is the context.

Critical Theory, as in Benjamin, Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Habermas etc. versus the French bunch of PoMo shisters...

Ahh, you see from what I've experienced of 'Critical theory' is that the PoMo shysters are deemed the pinicle of it.

You might like my friends blog 'the gaping void'

 

[purves grundy]

Half my honours are in Philosophy - I only did ethics because all the rest is pretty pointless.

I post here when I can be arsed.

I found ethics the dullest part of my degree. Thought experiement after thought experiment about Dildo the Dog trapped in a burning Nazi concentration camp and would I pay a pregnant woman to save the dog or a a great Jewish scientist knowing that the woman will use the money to have an abortion but the baby would grow up to be a genius economist who'll end poverty...uhhhhh.... yawn.

Enjoyed meta-ethics, though.

 

[gorski]

Agreed. The whole thing is just a game. I finally got round to reading Wittgenstein a couple of years ago, and the whole time I couldn't stop wondering whether he'd get a post if he was alive today.

Here is something that broadly speaking belongs to a different thread but can possibly - at least in some way - help in understanding the social etc. context in which one needs to operate these days...

George Bernard Shaw

"A man of great common sense and good taste - meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage."

"All great truths begin as blasphemies."

"Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!"

Maybe even these two, also...

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."

"An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable."

 

[Maurice Picarda]

"An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable."

Mm. Yes. It's a shame culture, not a guilt culture. Still produces the desired effect, though.

On the original issue about Wittgenstein and funding: a mate and I both applied for MPhil funding to the philosphy department where we got our BAs. He submitted an excellently argued abstract for a piece on the metaphysics of intellectual property; I submitted an incoherent ramble about Hegel and Nietzsche's concepts of the state as a person. However, my friend was a shambling greentoothed biohazard who had not washed or changed since the first year, and so I got the tutition and subsistence cash instead. I failed to complete or even start my thesis and ran away to get a job in London; my mate moved into artificial intelligence research and now builds superscale hunter-killer robots. He remains unwashed. I forget the point of the story, now.

 

[Fruitloop]

It's a good story though.

 

[invisibleplanet]

A question to all 14 urban philosophers - Was the learning of grammar and logic a part of your philosophy degree?

 

[purves grundy]

A question to all 14 urban philosophers - Was the learning of grammar and logic a part of your philosophy degree?

Grammar? As in the universal form? No.

Logic: an introductory course in formal logic was compulsory in the first year, but it never really 'clicked' for me. After that, when I came across any propositional calculus or whatever I just muddled through as best I could. Never ever would I attempt to actually include any in essays.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Grammar? As in the universal form? No.

Logic: an introductory course in formal logic was compulsory in the first year, but it never really 'clicked' for me. After that, when I came across any propositional calculus or whatever I just muddled through as best I could. Never ever would I attempt to actually include any in essays.

My experience was pretty much the same.

Logic was taught to us by a small, beetling character who had been a protege of GEM Anscombe's. By way of relaxation, he sought out puzzles of the "Mr Brown is not the baker. Neither the butcher nor the fishmonger are pederasts. Mr Black enjoys frottage" sort and translated them into predicate calculus: easier to solve. So neither he nor formal logic clicked for me, either.

 

[Aldebaran]

I had a year-course logic (mostly deductive logic) when I did my law studies.
I found it giving insight in how a mind limited to pre-framed thinking operates.

salaam.