It's hard to believe that the first quarter of this year is already over.
When I programmed for classes back in February last year, this wasn't on my list of requested courses. It wasn't even a back-up. I originally programmed for speech & debate, but due to scheduling conflicts I was placed into this class. Luckily for me, it was a class that I was interested in and willing to take. And even luckier, today, it has easily become one of the best classes I ever took at this school.
The parts of the class I find most enriching are, naturally, not the parts designed for raw intellectual enrichment- not the lectures or the questions, not the quizzes or essays. Instead, it's the interactions with others, the debates and the discussions with my peers in the class. The reason is because, I think, philosophy is not just an individual contemplation of the world. It's a collaborative effort, and it gets better with more thinkers. More ideas, more challenges to your opinions, more unheard of and out-of-the-box thoughts. This is what makes the class enriching.
When I came into the class on the first day, I saw a big group of students who pretty much meant nothing to me. I knew some people in the class, but other than them everyone else was just filling up space in this building. I didn't consider those who weren't familiar to me as having much relevance, socially or intellectually. This is the only class I've really took that breaks that thought. After discussions and debates, I've gotten to see past random strangers and started to see fellow philosophers.
In no other class do I get to see complete strangers open up about their personal philosophy and their ideas and opinions. And thus, in no other class do strangers become everything but strangers to me. That's why philosophy is one of my favorite classes ever.
I really just love this post, I completely agree with basically all of it. Philosophy consists of all the interactions with others, because that's what matters in life- not how you did on a specific assignment, but what happened at that time. And I can definitely say, that this looks like it'll be one of my most memorable classes. And I love the point you made about how everyone in class isn't just a random person anymore and how we're no longer strangers to each other.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, but I would also like to take this idea a bit further and point out how philosophy is actually something so simple as human interaction, which we experience every day, but most of us just don't consider it in the same light because it's not in a classroom (especially a philosophy classroom) setting. It's funny how something so simple can hide behind the mask of something that seems extremely complicated.
ReplyDeleteThe discussions and debates in this class is what makes it great. After three years of English that were mostly based on writing about and analyzing literature, I really appreciate a class that is discussion-based. I knew a couple people in my class, but now I wish I knew more of them sooner because everyone seems like a really fascinating person. Philosophy really is one of my favorite classes, and it is definitely my favorite English class.
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