Sunday, March 1, 2009

Philosophy..

So apparently I'm doing better in my philosophy class than I had thought.

It's taken me since Thursday afternoon to stop being so thoroughly blissed by the take home test we had to do, which no one but me got back on Thursday. (Apparently my instructor really listened when I said it was driving me nuts not knowing and since he knows I have OCD he didn't brush it off as exaggeration - which is a good thing actually since it was eating at the back of my brain horribly with all sorts of doubts and whatnot.) He made a point of finishing mine and giving it to me before I left class Thursday morning... and I got to read his responses right before my evil mathness test.


What grade did I get, you ask? *grins* I got such a strong hundred percent / "A" on it that he twice wrote on it that if I don't want to do any other tests, the term paper, even show up to class.. I still have a guaranteed A for the course! *preens!*

For example take a look at question nineteen and my response to it...

In what way might you value intelligent ignorance as superior to much knowledge? How can Philosophy foster that value?

Like Socrates, questioning and listening to the answers, questioning even more when the answers are contradictory and simply don't "make sense", one will eventually learn... that they know nothing. Being aware that you know nothing, accepting that you are ignorant because that is essentially all anyone can be is, surprisingly, rather intelligent, the mind opens to more and more, while having "knowledge" tends to close the mind, filling it with worthless bits of fluff and giving rise to arrogance and ego. Philosophy, by questioning anything and everything, helps to remove that fluff, bit by bit, until we're capable of having that epiphany that we know nothing.

Or question ten (which Nyxie might enjoy as it regards morality, which she feels strongly that I still have too much of *grins*)...

In your own words, what is Harry Browne's conclusion about morality? Do you agree? Why or why not?

I must assume that Mr. Browne was a very well read gentleman, quite possibly moreso than most of his acquaintances would ever have realized, as his view that ethics are a pretense and morality essentially a snare designed to place other peoples happiness ahead of our own, closely mirrors concepts that Donatien de Sade discussed at length in Justine (1787), including the rather driving idea that selfishness (i.e., seeking our own happiness and gratifications) is and should be everyone's policy and feeling guilt of any kind over being selfish is quite silly considering that everyone is being selfish. To say that I agree with both gentlemen sounds a bit odd considering that one of my driving goals, the very reason for my return to school in fact, is to be better able to help people. However, if we look closely at my desire it is clear that is is, actually, a selfish goal. I find pleasure in helping others, quite a bit of it actually, it fulfills certain needs I have as a woman that would, otherwise, go unmet - the fact that others benefit from it is almost circumstantial, really, since the motivation is my own happiness. In fact, in thinking about it more closely, it fulfills more of my desires than I had originally realized since I intend to practice "talk therapy" and to urge those who feel they need or would benefit from medications to seek out other counselors. I have no intention of prescribing medications at all thus one might contend that in a very subtle manner I am engaging in nonconsensual emotional sadism.

Surprisingly, when I printed out my paper I didn't notice that somehow it had saved before what was supposed to be the final line of that answer ("Based upon that I'm sure Mr. Browne would say, with a smile, that my morality is as it should be, more selfish than I had even realized.") so it was in fact slightly truncated. That doesn't seem to have bothered my instructor however, who wrote beside that question that "we should talk more when we get a chance." *grins*

Even in college I'm a freak it seems, but apparently depending upon what department is considering that, it's not necessarily a 'bad' thing. *beams*

5 comments:

Fire said...

Tempy if I were you I would take your prof up on the offer to not write any more tests or come to class. Anything that reduces a course load (aside from being thrown out) is a good thing

What you think freaks are only freaky in specific places?

Oh and that Calvin quote in your profile? I'm fairly sorta sure it's not the Calvin and Hobbes Calvin but don't quote me on it :)

Tempestuous said...

*chuckles* Well, he might have been quoting from something else, but as far as I know it was original. *shrugs* Either way that's where I know it from. *beams*

As for lightening my class load, nah, I'll still go to philosophy and I'll still do the tests and the term paper - hell I'm half done with the paper. It's easy to do an assignment like that for me, it's the other stuff (like my psych paper) that's semi-difficult.

Fire said...

Really? *looks impressed* I didn't think he was that smart of a kid.

It's because I also majored in psych in college that I suggested lightening your course load. I still have nightmares about the size of the chapters in the text books. Oh well to each their masochism *grins*

sapphire said...

I would just do the assignments that interested me, and use my class time to work on other classes' homework. ;)

Tempestuous said...

*giggles* I actually did that on Thursday before I knew that apparently I rock that much... because I compulsively need to study more for the evil mathness. *mutters*

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