Who here has studied philosophy?

[Pi]

Had 3 years of philosophy :
Starting in last year secondary studies : Descartes, Hume, Hobbes, Kant, Nietzsche (later I read more Kant), Plato, Aristoteles. The common stuff.
During my one year of Social Worker (normally 3 years of university studies) mostly religious philosophy and the whole bunch of greek philosophers and the usual, common classics (was quite interesting, gave me a vision of philosophy as a whole and I could pick my favorites out)
At Royal Military Academy it was mostly Ius at bellum, Ius in bello and the use of power by the government and social philosophy : Grotius, Thomas d'Aquino, Plato and Aristoteles, Marx & Engels, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Malthus, Pareto, Ricardo, Weber...

Can't remember everything, loved it for shure. Read some of the books, it isn't that difficult if you read the originals (but Kant was really heavy...). I don't know if there's an english translation but look up Sophie's World by Jostein Gaardner (or so). Very pleasant reading.
If I could go back to university (when I'm 64) I'd like to do some philo but it's such an egoistic study...

Took as many philosophy courses as I could squeeze in during my science studies in both under-grad and grad school. Read Sartre and Camus in high school. In college studied Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, (hated Nietzsche but had to read a chapter or so to pass the class), Machiavelli, Marcus Aurelius, the Dhammapada by the Buddha, many Eastern philosophers that I'm sure no one has heard of, Ayn Rand (if you want to call her a philosopher), St. Augustine, Malthus, Edward O. Wilson (philosophy of science), Thomas Aquinas - the list goes on. I liked the Stoic's best, as well as many of the Hindu and Zen Buddhist thinkers.

[DanaC]

Sophie's World is available in an English translation. Its a charming book.

Most of my reading on philosophy has been informal really. Very unstructured. The formal stuff was more in the context of learning about the history of the people concerned and being given a quick crash intro to the relevant philosopher...so as to be able to understand the historical context

Lookin down this thread I realise how woefully uneducated in matters philosophical I am *chuckles*

[Slartibartfast]

Originally posted by Pi
I don't know if there's an english translation but look up Sophie's World by Jostein Gaardner (or so). Very pleasant reading.

Excellent book! It was a cross between Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy 101. I would recommend it to anyone that wants to skim thousands of years of philosophy and get the gist of it in an entertaining way.

[wolf]

Honors Philosophy and Medieval Philosophy. Had I stayed an English Major I might have done a lot more, but changed to Geography and Planning and had to finish everything in the two years of financial aid I had remaining, so didn't have time to enjoy more.

Medieval was cool. We had a coloring book of illuminated letters, and had to turn one in for our grade. The prof (still) has them covering the walls of his office. I approached the angels dancing on the head of a pin from a different angle than most ... rather than focusing primarily on the number of angels, I determined the length of time that it would occupy as well as determining what dances medieval angels would do, and where you would put the band. I was in the Musica Antiqua at the time. It was a natural illogical progression, you see.

The prof had never heard the Philosophers Song. So one day the entire Honors class serenaded him back to his office. He was a bit odd, so it was hard to tell if he was amused or horrified. I don't THINK that was the same day we bought a couple bags of Tootsie Pops and attempted to determine how many licks it took to get to the center ...

[Beestie]

I studied Hegel in college - a little thick but I thought he had some good ideas. Kant was too abstract. I tended towards those philosophers who could actually help understand the world.

I'm not sure if Jean Baudrillard counts but his extremely short book, Simulations, is easily the most useful philosophy work I've ever read.

[glatt]

I took some sort of "History of Intellectual Thought" philosophy class. It was actually a history class, but we had to read a lot of works by the famous philosophers. I don't remember it that well, because I didn't like it that much. All I remember was Kant.

That guy, Kant, was absolutely full of BS. He would construct these very complex arguments that would really end up just being a house of cards. Again, it was ages ago that I read his crap, but I remember that he would define these terms, and then try to weave some sort of argument out of these terms he defined. The problem I always saw was that these foundations that he based his arguments on were very arbitrary. The entire argument would end up being something that had no relevance to real life.

The students in that class fell into two camps. Those, like me, who thought it was all just a bunch of BS, but tried to get a handle on its alleged importance so they could pass the class. And those who were buying into the whole idea that Kant actually had something to say. These others were so eager to be taking an "intellectual" class, they left their critical minds at home.

If it reads like crap, sounds like crap, and is deliberately convoluted, chances are it's just crap.

[smoothmoniker]

Academic fields rarely spend 200 years arguing over, critiquing, and generally wetting themselves over an author whose work is crap. To understand the significance of Kant, you have to understand the 200 years that came before him, and the “Prime Edifice” of philosophy. His work is a polemic; read what he was critiquing.

-sm

[Undertoad]

But:

Why are we studying these ideas? Because these are the ideas that lasted. Why did they last? Because these were the ideas that were studied.

Maybe I wish that my intro course had been taught as a history of philosophy course, not a philosophy course. Instead of, let's study these ideas without bias, it might have been, let's study these ideas with the bias of what we know today and how these ideas came into wide reknown.

[DanaC]

Maybe I wish that my intro course had been taught as a history of philosophy course, not a philosophy course. Instead of, let's study these ideas without bias, it might have been, let's study these ideas with the bias of what we know today and how these ideas came into wide reknown.

That strikes me as eminently sensible

[jaguar]

the word you're looking for UT is renown, reknown is not a word.
Ok enough english nazi from me.

I did a history of science course once, one of the most interesting things I've ever studied.

[Undertoad]

Thanks guy, that's one of those that somehow got into the long-term synapses. I think I've done that one several times. I hate when that happens.

[Lady Sidhe]

I've also studied a little bit of Marx--it was required--and I didn't see his ideas as workable because of human nature being as it is. Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War, right? I liked that. Lots of common sense. However, I LOVED Machiavelli. Realism at its finest.


UT: speaking of looking at philosophy insofar as what we know today, we did that in one of my Ideas in Conflict classes...that's where we got the phrase, "poor Jean-Jacques"--as in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and his idea of "the Noble Savage" (back in his day, philosophy and archaeology were much the same thing. They didn't have our knowledge of history, or our scientific methods, and they hypothesized that early man was by nature good, noble, helpful to others, and sociable/friendly to others.)

....poor Jean-Jacques....



Sidhe

[beavis]

Originally posted by smoothmoniker


you had a grasp on Kant!!!! Dude, you're a f*&ing genius. Nobody really reads Kant, they just read people's critique of Kant. The ones who actually do read it end up addle-headed and shiftless, working as surrogate breast-feeders for the rest of their known lives.

which is hard to do with only one nipple. And no experience.

And, you know, a penis.

Am I drunk?

-sm

my last semester at good old apoo i took 4 units of indy study, let's call it 1800 pages of reading (it was supposed to be 500 pages per unit but padge was merciful...) most of which was kant or books about kant. the key for me having enough "grasp" on that nebulous density of a philosopher to pass the class was to focus on a few specific ideas (my course was roughly centered around epistemology) and attempt to discuss in a somewhat coherent matter. i literally wrote 5 page papers on one sentence, if not a fragment.

and for the record, i read his critique of pure reason in it's entirety. let's just say my retention level on that book was decidedly sub-par compared to other books i've read.

[DanaC]

I've also studied a little bit of Marx--it was required--and I didn't see his ideas as workable because of human nature being as it is.

Karl Popper, a fierce opponent of Marxism, has claimed ‘all modern writers are indebted to Marx, even if they do not know it’.

He wrote about so many things. He wasnt just the father of Socialism, his writings have influenced all kinds if fields of study ( education, sociology, economics) His ideas werent just the "workers revolution" ....thats really the only aspect of Marx I see as being potentially incompatible with "human nature"