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Lifelong Learning

Philosophy & Logic

 

I went back to school in January, and among the goals of this project is probably a "second" major in philosophy.  It is a secondary consideration to my astronomy major, but because courses can't really start until Autumn, I can get a serious head start on this one at the beginning, with plenty of time left to fill in the last couple courses.  I started out with Plato and Symbolic Logic, and in the Spring took History of 18th Century Philosophy and Moral Philosophy.  I'm signed up for 17th century in the Fall, and then I can hopefully walk away from metaphysics (yuck!).

I have a couple areas of interest in Philosophy: history of/philosophy of science, and logic/skepticism.  The history I'm most interested in is classical and medieval, so you can find that component there.  There is probably also information scattered in the astronomy and science sections of my website.

My interest in philosophy is not primarily a general interest in the way people think, per se, but specifically a those things that I've found interesting and useful.  I am in search of those philosophical nuggets that will be beneficial to my own thinking.  It's not a career, but a way of life, I suppose.

As I go through my courses, I will add papers and such as well and add more content.

Plato: κατα της τελευτης: A Dialogue on Plato's Conception of the Afterlife & Sources (General comments from prof were "good dialogue, not enough philosophy", which by that I take to mean in-depth analysis of the texts. Point taken.)

Hume: How Probability Begets Belief (I got a B+ on this paper. Didn't read the comments beyond that.  The prof made a lot of errors in class about science.  Having a hard time getting used to 4-page papers again after 500-page novels.)

Mill: Utilitarianism and the Afterlife: the paradox of a pleasant hereafter (I wrote off-topic on this because the topic was just bugging me.)

Mill: Mill's "Competent Judges": self-selection and higher pleasures  (Got an A on this one, but I had to put off a lot of concerns on the topic because of the abbreviated length requirement.)

Kant: Is Morality Rational? (this was a very unpopular topic in the class, so I didn't get a lot of good feedback during the draft stages, and after turning it in and sleeping on it, wanted it back to make more changes... and that 4-page requirement is killing me.)

Links:

Ancient Greek Skepticism [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

Ancient Greek Philosophy

Medieval Logic and Philosophy

 

 

 

Atheism

Skepticism

Logic

Philosophy of Science

κατα της τελευτης: A Dialogue on Plato's Conception of the Afterlife

Utilitarianism and the Afterlife: the paradox of a pleasant hereafter

Mill's "Competent Judges": self-selection and higher pleasures

Is Morality Rational?

How Probability Begets Belief

 

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Last updated 2009 December 12