/lit/ - Literature

>>14665678
Don't make Phil your major to begin with.

>>14665678
Don't write your thesis on anything controversial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVpZgLmGRrg

Don't argue that demons aren't real in response to Descartes' brand of skepticism.

>>14665698
t. demon

>>14665685
/thread

>>14665678
What kind of mistakes are you talking about?

>>14665685
Why

>>14665704
You know the kind of stuff that will make you look LAME and keep you from getting lots of PUSSY.

>>14665708
You may have failed already.

>>14665678
Never ever act as if you know. Always keep deconstructing, questioning

>>14665713
This guy FUCKs

>>14665678
don't be "that one guy" in class

>>14665685
came here to post exactly this my dude academic philosophy will either make you mad or stupid. if it makes you mad you never should have majored and if it makes you stupid you were stupid to begin with.

Just base all your critiques and papers on objectivism but never mention Ayn Rand or objectivism. Just bring up individuality, agency and rationality or something. you can't lose this way

retard who went for a philosophy-related PhD here

- single most important piece of advice: philosophy in capital-P "Philosophy departments" is overwhelmingly analytic and post-positivist analytic. if that's your thing, fine i guess, but you won't even know whether it's your thing or not if it's the only thing you ever experience because you won't have a frame of reference outside of it, and Philosophy departments will try very hard to make sure that this happens. you may have to prowl German/Romance language departments, History of Science departments, Comparative Literature and other weird departments to be able to read other things, so do whatever you need to do. worst case scenario, you will just have to get most of your education yourself.

- if you plan on a PhD in capital-P Philosophy, you need to be able to speak Philosophy department language, which means analytic and post-positivist analytic. also if you want a job after your PhD, Philosophy departments almost exclusively hire Philosophy department PhDs, and aggressively exclude others.

- start learning german and ideally french now, not later. if you study something else like shestov obviously learn russian, but the point is, learn languages asap because you will probably screw around and take 5 years to do what should be done in 1, so at least start now.

- read histories of philosophy ASAP. you should have at least a basic idea of the entire history of western philosophy up to 1945. yes you will have gaps and no you don't have to be perfect but you should have that basic idea. you need the bird's eye view.

- don't interpret syllabi and course listings as having anything to do with "philosophy" necessarily. do you want to read nietzsche? then no, reading 40 pages of him one time in that intro class isn't "reading nietzsche." reading nietzsche is reading nietzsche. do you know who sellars is? no? why? because there was never a course offered on sellars? you should have done your own explorations, then. did you spend 2 years learning a shitty, highly distorted version of hegel from a retarded anglo-hegelian follower of the pittsburgh school? too bad, now you'd better like being a shitty anglo-hegelian because you just wasted 2 years on it, you really should have read those histories of philosophy and kept your ears open better so that you could have avoided this.

- learn to quickly discern who the best scholars and general writers on any given topic are in any given field. do you want to get into phenomenology? gain the skill of learning, within a couple hours of poking around, that spiegelberg is a good source while some dickhead analytic who thinks the logical investigations is an analytic philosophy tract probably isn't. do you want to learn about german idealism? gain the skill of knowing, from a starting position of nothing and within a few hours, that beiser is trustworthy but pinkard is not. learn how to learn things efficiently and avoid biases, out on your own.

>>14665708
Then why are you asking on a board filled with virgins?

>>14665718
Who is this guy and what does he do

>>14665892
You are being that guy.

>>14665892
Hello, that guy. Kindly please shut the fuck up.

>>14665750
Do you have a job in the Philosophy Department? My interest lies in German Idealism but my school has heavy focus on Philosophy of Chemistry/Philosophy of the Mind stuff. My prof. is a Husserl Scholar but damn, are all anglo schools in their essence Carnapian?

>>14665925
>My prof. is a Husserl Scholar
does he play pharaoh (1999)

>>14665750
>>14665925
modern philosophy is anglo dominated. learning german will not help anything with you lol

>>14665750
Are there any advantages to taking Philosophy classes at all, as opposed to reading Plato/Kant/Heidegger on your own? It's not exactly like Chemistry/Physics, where you can do lab practice for the sake of empirical verification.

>>14665974
Not him but just like anything else, you can learn it on your own but it wont be as efficient. I hate to say it but, most Philosophy Professors have studied it for the longest and have it drilled in their head, so much so they see through the opaque glass and can help picking proper passages in your reading that improve your thinking. As opposed to reading a 100-180 dissertation on a subject he can give you a 20-30 page writing on it that points you just where you need to go or tell you where exactly in the text you should try to study. I really recommend, just as in every other major to- GO talk to your professor during their office hours, 90% they are more than willing to help and seeing you enthusiastic about learning will get them to help you/ like you more. Even if you don't have anything to ask just make a stupid question or something. I went to go talk to for a stupid question that should have taken no longer than 5 minutes but ended up staying for a good 30 minutes having a coffee with him. Even if your an autistic sperg its not hard, and much easier to go talk to someone when their alone than in a classroom with tons of people like Highschool.

>>14665925
no i don't, philosophy departments are full of the biggest pseuds imaginable. the last interaction i had with mine was when i saw a poster for an interesting sounding conference about philosophy of mind, then looked down and saw that the names of the two men hosting it were an absolutely worthless cambridge neo-pragmatist who thinks he's a cutting-edge supergenius for "discovering" dewey and to a lesser extent james in 2012, and a neo-positivist who thinks that the definition of "philosophy" is "a series of discussions carried over time by me, my adviser, my adviser's adviser, my adviser's adviser's adviser, and so on," where all these advisers are stupid analytics and ordinary language philosophers dividing into intergenerational camps over pseudosolutions to adolescent thought experiments.

carnap i can tolerate, because he's stark. carnap is carnap. what i hate about contemporary analytic philosophy departments is their endless rediscovery of ideas the rest of the world has already talked about freely since 1880 or 1910 or whatever. they ruin classics too, 90% of classics professors studying classical philosophy are analytics so the entire field is surprisingly untapped by contemporary standards because braindead fucking analytics keep reducing everything to century-outdated children's logic puzzles in frameworks that turn the issue a priori into an unsolvable question mal posee.

what pisses me off about them is that they outright refuse to learn, refuse to problematize their own assumptions by looking at other traditions, and then they move at a glacial pace to internally replicate "innovations" implemented a century ago or more in continental or pragmatist circles while claiming full credit for this in their little walled garden. you haven't experienced CUTTING EDGE analytic philosophy until you've experienced a recently trendy aristotle "expert," at the height of his 15 minutes of fame, reducing the metaphysics to a binary choice between two retarded options in a stupid ordinary language philosophy framework that was already derivative and dated in 1970 but he thinks he's a genius for thinking it up in 2016, and if someone with a classics background says "wait, this can't be the case, you're imposing a definition onto aristotle's term that he could not possibly have meant because that's simply not what the term meant in antiquity, this has actually been extensively studied in philology" he just replies ".........right" and goes back to applying the framework

>>14666009
Reminds me of Ryle getting praised for copying off Schopenhauer in The Concept of Mind with the exact same thesis and even sub-thesis. What the fuck is wrong with the analytics?

>>14665750
Hey bud got good history of philosophy books? I got one from robert Solomon I think.

>>14665750
>do you want to get into phenomenology? gain the skill of learning, within a couple hours of poking around, that spiegelberg is a good source while some dickhead analytic who thinks the logical investigations is an analytic philosophy tract probably isn't. do you want to learn about german idealism? gain the skill of knowing, from a starting position of nothing and within a few hours, that beiser is trustworthy but pinkard is not. learn how to learn things efficiently and avoid biases, out on your own.

Lmao you put it perfectly, I know very well what you are talking about

>>14665678
Hi I'm a senior in college doing philosophy in US AMA
>first 2 years at community college
>second 2 years at private
>Yes I'm rich

The linear progression of degree to job is a tired surface view interpretation of the world.

>>14666231
>AMA
Gib money please.

>>14666051
Nah, Ryle is actually great and if you wanted to pick out someone from the “continental” tradition who did something close to what Ryle was doing in “The Concept of Mind”, then you should have probably picked Heidegger, surprisingly enough

>>14665678
Going to college.

>>14666247
It's actually documented that Ryle was copying Schopenhauer:

> Magee, Bryan. Confessions of a Philosopher, Ch. 16: "As a student he read Schopenhauer, and much later, in his fiftieth year—having, he thought, forgotten Schopenhauer almost entirely—published The Concept of Mind, in which not only the central thesis, but the essentials of the subsidiary theses come straight out of Schopenhauer. Ryle genuinely believed he was putting forth his own ideas. Only when someone pointed it out after publication did he realize he had recycled Schopenhauer."

>>14666238
>How does it make money?
Depends on what you want to do. There's criminal justice where you can pursue virtue ethics the Good and Justice. the US incarceration rate is a wowzer. Social work may be your thing. Law school requires you read and write a lot. Philosophy does this skill. A lot. In fact that's all philosophy cares about. Reading and writing.

>religion?
My college's phil department happen to all be Catholics. Uh, yes if the call to ministry strikes you I'm sure you'll get rec letters for PhDs or whatever

>Psychology
Yes. Philosophy is the bedrock of psychology. Psychologists in the 20th century obsessed over Nietzsche. YOU CAN TOO!

>data analyst
If you know a language I know someone who literally works at apple translating shit into French and makes reasonable bank. Is trying to get into a PhD

>Med school? MED SCHOOL?

It's 8 years off your life k? But yes if you take the prereq's and CHECK your post grad programs carefully you can get to med school from philosophy major. It's a growing trend. It's growing a lot.

>MARKETING
The switch to content marketing means demonic marketers want to tell a life story with their product. Old advertising is just white noise now. Sell a person their lifestyle values. Brand brand brand brand brand. No one cares about the product. Brand that shit up. You ever go into Gamestop? See how Ninentendo RED xbone GREEN playstation BLUE. You think they didn't decide to do that together? Content marketing.

>Fucking math bro
uhh don't do math

>>14665718
WRONG

FUCKING BE THAT GUY

PUBLIC SPEAKING IS A DIFFICULT SKILL AND TALKING PHILOSOPHY IN PUBLIC IS EVEN HARDER BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO ***THINK*** WHILE YOU TALK

TALK TALK TALK TALK TALK YOUR ASS OFF SUCK OFF YOUR PROFESSORS AND GET GOOD PHD REC LETTERS FUCK THIS FAGGOT

>>14666283
No
Speak at the right time. Don’t fill every silence, that’s a freshman tier mistake
And definitely never ever think out loud, it’s painful for the rest of the room
It’s stupid to stick to a limit but in general if you’re regularly speaking over ~5 times per lecture it’s very unlikely you’re the kind of guy who’s still impressing anyone
Ask good questions at the right time and approach professors after class with further questions or technicalities, that’s the way to do it

>>14666335
I talk or ask a question probably around 2-5 times a class but class sizes are small because I'm in upper div phil classes

>>14666335
In my Philosophy of Sci. class which literally exploded my understanding of scientific realism I literally felt like i was going to explode by the end of the class because I just had to say something

>>14665695
woah

>>14666400
*this was every single class btw. It was impossible to contain myself. Getting lectured at about what we were talking about just made me so goddamn argumentative AAAAAAAAAA sometimes I would stab my forehead with my mechanical pencil to relieve the urge to speak in class

>>14665750
What is analytic philosophy and how does it differ from continental?

>>14666422
Analytic = logic form for the content, PuRE obSeRvAbLeS

Continental = feels muh feels muh heart and soul muh PHENOMEONLOGICAL PRIO+RITY OF BEING QUA qUA QUA QUA QUA BEING IN ITSELF

>>14666422
>>14624285

In this thread the Kripke explainers are analytics while the confused/questioning anons are continentals. Decide for yourself

Do analytics still think synthetic a priori judgements are possible? Or should I not waste my time with them?

>>14666609
Don't be a Kant scholar. DO NOT take philosophy post undergrad. If you know you're going to do phil postgrad, you will know

>>14665925
>Philosophy of Chemistry
Sure? That's really rare

>>14666009
What do you do for a living instead?

>>14665750
I am about to start a BA in Philosophy alongside an LLB at the end of this month, I'd love some pointers.
>Overwhelmingly analytic and post-positivist analytic
I noticed this when I did a 100 level ethics paper last year in high school as part of a uni/high school integration/intermediary thing. Not a lot of classical philosophers or even people I'd heard of at all other than John Stuart Mill, who was mentioned.
I'm about to start reading Plato, with the intention of more or less working my way through more or less chronologically until I get to Kant and then beyond. Is that worth my time? Obviously it's a lot to dedicate to in order to really thoroughly go through it all.
>Read histories of philosophy ASAP
I will do this. Do you have any particular recommendations?

Not intending to detail the thread but why are american universities the way they are? I'm applying for a job there and I have to write a "teaching philosophy" statement and one of "contribution to diversity". Wtf America? I'm not a racist what more do you want from me?

>>14667526
Let me get this straight. Your dilemma is whether to read the classics or delve right into contemporary papers written by literal nobodies? You are about to study philosophy and you question if it is "worth your time" to read Kant and Plato? You might want to reassess your entire life my friend.

>>14667550
Sorry if I haven't been clear.
First off, my main focus is my Law Degree. That comes first, philosophy second. I'm sure you can understand that. I need to dedicate a lot more time to law than I do to philosophy, so I'm just thinking about how I best rationalize my time.
Obviously, I'm going to read Plato and Kant, I just want to know how much I should be stressing about thoroughly working my way through philosophy chronologically, or should I be less worried about it, take it slowly and just breeze through my degree on the resources the professors give me and focus on actually learning it later when I have more time. I have no intention to delve into contemporary papers written by literal nobodies on my own.

>>14667569
I am fairly certain that you aren't expected to have read anything as a prerequisite for the philosophy class(es) you are about to attend. Having a vague picture of the chronological development of philosophy can only be a plus though. For that purpose you might want to consider reading an introductory history of philosophy.

>>14667612
Not him but can you recommend some good history of philosophy books?

>>14665750
Feels good to be at a pluralist school. Also anyone interested in the continental stuff should research and realize that those universities that teach it exclusively hire from each other, and sometimes have placement rates somehow better than the top schools. So rest easy.

>>14666422
For continental it takes into account the social and historical side of things and the history of philosophy is important. It's really broad as well still.

>>14665685
Fpbp

>>14665678
OP, listen to what I'm telling you. This will save you a lot of time and hassle across a wide variety of situations.

Approach arguments in good faith. Nobody cares what your opinion is, unless you can articulate why. Being snarky and dismissive won't win you cool guy points. Treat arguments as if they are serious, and accept their starting terms in good faith when you first encounter a text. For example, if you're reading Aquinas, saying "God isn't real lol" after one page doesn't get you off the hook, and it isn't a philosophically serious position. Yes, I've seen someone do this, and it was as horrible as you think. You can even say, "I don't agree with this, but I can't argue against it either." Thats how good papers are born. Get out of your own way, read the texts, and then find your footing in actual arguments and positions.

Also don't fall for the logic meme, you're neutering yourself to anything that isn't 20th century Anglo autism or maybe a small selection of the ancients.

What have Anglos done to philosophy? You should have called it something else like autism studies you filthy Anglos!

>>14665892
>Who is this guy and what does he do

>>14665750
There's nothing wrong with philosophy departments being predominantly analytic and "non-historical"

I wouldn't have given a shit about Sellars, Davidson or Quine if I was stuck in my insular German Idealist-Aesthete-Phenomenology-world and therefore missed out on a lot of interesting philosophy

>>14667704
Not the anon you're responding to, but I'll jump in. The two traditions have a lot to offer each other I think but usually its not the continentals who are unwilling to work across the aisle. I write and study in the continental tradition but I love Carnap and Wittgenstein, and respect figures like Lewis and even some modern metaphysicians like Price. I've read plenty of others. 99% of analytics will just be like "hes incomprehensible and unphilosophical" if I try to engage them in a conversation about Heidegger. My point is, I'm literate in their work (generally) but they won't even attempt mine.

>>14665685

>>14665685
This. Don't be dumb. Read the thread. Philosophy as you imagine has long been destroyed. It's something you read about at home, like literature. It's not something you study at college.

Imagine being a philosopher as a profession and being too brainlet to understand Heidegger

>>14665685
Based as fuck

>>14667721
>The two traditions have a lot to offer each other I think but usually its not the continentals who are unwilling to work across the aisle

Yes, that is true. The analytic smugness about "hurr I'm doing philosophy on problems not NAMES dumbo" does irritate me at times, as if you can start philosophising without other thinkers...

Heidegger is someone that really should be treated in higher courses of philosophy desu, especially so in analytic departments in connection with Carnap, meta-ontology and Wittgenstein.

>>14665750
highly biased but good reply. thank you.

>>14665932
kek

>>14665945
This. Germans have actually learned English just to be able to read analysis of philosophers that were originally IN GERMAN

>>14668985
Every German who has attended college knows English by default so no one has learned it specifically to read certain things

brainlet here: what the frick even is philosophy? like what do philsophy majors even read about or write about or do papers on or whatever, what would a philsophy professor at university even research or try to do? what's the goal? Im not asking to belittle anybody, everything ive seen call philosophy was interesting but i have a real hard time understanding it. maybe im retard

Fuck analytical philosophy, give me the musts for existencialism and I will thank you.

>Is there anything wrong thinking this?

>>14669590
>what the frick even is philosophy?
Philosophy nowadays is anything that will possibly give you a job and tenure in a philosophy department if you suck a lot of (often circumcised) dicks

_Philosophia_ or ancient philosophy was the art and the science of searching for the truth as best as you could and living a good life according to reason

>>14670085
>searching for the truth
about what?

>living a good life according to reason
where do I start to learn how to do this?

>>14665750
Do you play Pharaoh (1999)?

>math major philosophy minor
Yes

>>14670329
Just read Plato

>>14665706
Because if you're gonna go to college, use it to learn an intellectual skill, not get told how to think.

>>14666422
Continental = Fun Zone
Analytic = No Fun Allowed Zone

>>14670425
>not get told how to think
Clearly you've never done philosophy at the tertiary level. Philosophy is one of the few majors where from day one you are encouraged -- and assessed on your ability -- to try poke holes in previous thinkers and the whole project of "how to think."

>>14670478
Bros

>>14667467
He lies on the internet about being a phd student.

>professor is explaining mind-body dualism
>presents an argument in favor, basically saying mental states and brain states not being identical
>stresses that this is not the same as a religious conception, doesn't imply eternal life or whatever
>smug student raises his hand: "where does the soul go when you are sleeping?"
>professor: "i assume it goes to sleep"
Also in this class I saw some guy in the back who had drawn the Stirner picture in his notebook and was taking pictures of it.

>>14667543
It's fucked bro.

>>14666602
>>14666602
looks like the analytics btfo the continentals

>>14667543
That's your society on Judaism.

>>14665685

>>14670444
LOL
extremely accurate

>>14667543
I'm studying at a small school nearby and a large portion of my classmates are incapable of writing coherent paragraphs. This is at the bachelors level, mind you. I don't consider myself particularly smart, and I don't think I have a way with words; but I can say with certainty that there is zero quality control for colleges.

>>14665678
Coming to /lit/ for advice

>>14665695
What's the video he's talking about near the end there with someone saying they identify as all these different things

>>14670900
>I'm studying at a small school nearby and a large portion of my classmates are incapable of writing coherent paragraphs.
I've found most people are basically illiterate. The whole point of public literacy was just so people could fill out forms and other bureaucratic bullshit anyway. Why bother trying to get them past that point, when most people don't want to learn to read and write anyway.

>>14671156
It's weird because you can use internet forums, like 4chan, and think "Wow, these people are fucking retarded." But if you think about it, we're all - for the most part - able to communicate properly through reading and writing. That means that there's actually a bit of a boost to the average intelligence of forum users. I've always disregarded IQ threads because everyone just happens to be above average, despite this supposed intelligence never showing in people's posts, but I'm starting to wonder if we actually are smarter than the average person on the street.

But I'm digressing. I definitely wouldn't be surprised if Western countries just muddied up their definition of literacy to pad statistics. Judging by people's bad reading comprehension, the preference for social media and Harry Potter, the incomprehensible garbage I get in texts and emails, etc, you're absolutely right to consider most people to be illiterate. I also agree that we try to unnaturally force reading too much. Compulsory, universal education in general seems to be a very flawed system maintained solely to function as a free daycare center and for the occasional stint of political indoctrination.

>>14671489
>but I'm starting to wonder if we actually are smarter than the average person on the street.
I think even the people on pol and r9k and reddit are smarter than the average person on the street. You have no idea how bad things really are.

>tfw you are nick land part 2

>>14665678
The two most common diseases among first year philosophy students are logical positivism and Nietzsche, if you don't get sick from one you catch the other.

>>14665695
This is some of the best content I've seen on youtube in a long time. Thank you for posting.