/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.8496441]

is it only me that thinks that learning philosophy from professors removes the fun of learning because they just tell you their interpretations of the text? I think it's lame. Is it only pseuds that don't just read for the pleasure of it.

[Anonymous No.8497653]

>>8496441
They teach you to approach philosophy and literature like an academic. You can only examine cold dead works but not the context of the works. Universities are flawed like this, reading in leisure time with opportunities to think about ideas promotes critical thinking and a better understanding.

Not to get too off topic but this is why liberal arts majors have a hard time finding work. They have been trained for years to become a professor but their own professors refuse to make room for them (and why should they?) so they have nowhere to go.

[Anonymous No.8498778]

>>8496441
The pleasure from learning is intrinsic to the process, not dependant on whatever interpretation or colourisation you end up with. I suppose if you just train to regurgitate the professors interpretation rather than to derive it you aren't really learning, but I don't think that is a fault of academia.

[Anonymous No.8498798]

>>8496441
>they just tell you their interpretations of the text?
Lol, they tell you the canonized way of interpretating the text, with years and years of different academics attacking the text in different ways.
Whilst you've only read the text, they have done extensive research of the author's life and other works, some professors even attended their seminars.

[Anonymous No.8498804]

>>8497653
>reading in leisure time with opportunities to think about ideas promotes critical thinking and a better understanding.
You do realize that the 'critical thinking' part is the main point of a philosophy/literature degree, right?

[Anonymous No.8498818]

>>8498804
You can't teach critical thinking in an university setting. Their definition of critical thinking is confined to thinking like an academic.Real critical thinking like that done by the Greeks through Enlightenment thinkers was done by aristocrats who had the luxury to sit around and be occupied solely by their thoughts. Deadlines did not factor into their development of critical thinking skills.

College degrees are a joke because of this. They have no ability to test whether their graduates have actually learned anything.

[Anonymous No.8498823]

>>8498818
>who had the luxury to sit around and be occupied solely by their thoughts. Deadlines did not factor into their development of critical thinking skills.
You have a seriously skewed understanding of what a professor does.

[Anonymous No.8498838]

>>8498823
They spend 1/3 of their time on committees doing admin work or other "volunteer" exercises, 1/3 on teaching, and the other 1/3 on producing publishable material. In order to secure tenure they must maintain a certain quantity of published material every year as decided by the department. Their pay scale largely tied to the amount and quality of material they are able to publish because it allows them to secure more grants and prestige.

[Anonymous No.8498845]

It's your own fault for not forming your own interpretation independently prior to attending lecture and engaging in discourse to challenge other's viewpoints and have your own challenged in turn.

Stay pleb.

[Anonymous No.8498879]

>>8498845
This desu

[Anonymous No.8498928]

>>8498845
Yeah. When you take a philosophy class you're supposed to, you know, read the texts assigned, not just take your professor's word. Philosophy professors that I had loved to be challenged by students and higher level classes had arguments every session. It wasn't just a bunch of lectures. For something like science, I see no real reason to study it in school, because you can just download the textbook and watch lectures by the best professors online. I'm taking a Stanford computer science class for free online right now and the experience is much better than sitting through tedious and painfully basic lectures like I did as a CS minor in school. With philosophy, it's not like that. Nothing can compare to having someone who had studied the topic for decades to discuss with. I had a professor who studied Montesquiue for longer than I've been alive, gave us his own translation (for free in pdf and paper, I might add) and was always pointing out details and context that would have been near-impossible to find out in self-study.

[Stay In Your Containment Board No.8498947]

>>8496441
Why can't you philfags stay in your fucking containment board. His was made specifically for you.
>>>/his/

[Anonymous No.8499098]

they take you through the 'moves and rules of the game' in that they explain the common rebuttals and answers to certain ideas. How they present them may be entirely subject to the professor's personal philosophy which will tend to be in line with the department's general philosophy. All of this is very helpful to the undergrad as he or she will now be capable of repeating and following through with this interpretation. Problem is, if they're stupid it will become fairly clear that they're just parroting an idea that they haven't bothered to challenge on their own.