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noahfor · 02-21-2006, 09:03 PM

Thanks alot. It's a 1000 level Philosophy elective for undergraduates, which at Pitt means it's a higher level undergraduate course course. It's called topics in the Philosophy of Science, but the class seems for like an introductory course. The thing is we haven't been studying any texts at all. The stuff we have talked about is in Critique of Pure Reason, but we were not expected to read it or even look at it. He teaches all the material like he is summarizing it. At first, I was always anticipating really diving into the material. I'm thinking something like: "ok the introduction is over, now it's time for the body," but we never get there. He went over Relativity Theory, Non Euclidian Geometries, Cantor Set Theories, all in one hour. Luckily I have had classes on those things, so I get them. We have had only one class devoted to Kant and it was weeks ago. For logical positivism he just drew a diagram and went over it like ten times.

I have taken other 1000 level philosophy classes and have had no problems. I have no problem reading what I need to read, but this was unanticipated and I only have a week to do it. I knew we were getting a take home test today, but I figured he'd want some dorky little paragraphs because that's what I feel he gives us.

He fails to build up these theories and cpncepts out of what we already know, nor does he put them in context.

I'd like to write my first paper using this structure: Before Kant, Kant, How developments in science undermined Kant. I only know the last part though.

Here is what the lecture on Kant was like:

- copernican turn
-critical philosophy
-transendental philosophy

subject --- faculties )
receptivity --- passive )---concepts
spontaneity --- active )

Conditions of possibility

_Judgements_
1)intuition + concepts
2)a priori "before experience" analytic
a posteriori "after expereince" synthetic

synthetic a priori

And that's it. He'll always say that Kant did this or this person said this, but that he's not going to go into detail about it. He said something about categories, and then said we didn't need to know it or that it wasn't for this class, but clearly we do need it. It's just frustrating because I'd go as deep as he wanted to take it and work through whatever books I had to, but he made it seem like it wasn't that kind of course.

Also, I don't have well built concepts, so when I hear something said, like "analytic," I just get some vague notion, but to use that word to build other concepts one has to know its exact definition or exactly how it is being used, and I can't do that fast enough when there are so many of these concepts being thrown around.

02-21-2006, 09:03 PM	#6 (permalink)
noahfor Addict	Thanks alot. It's a 1000 level Philosophy elective for undergraduates, which at Pitt means it's a higher level undergraduate course course. It's called topics in the Philosophy of Science, but the class seems for like an introductory course. The thing is we haven't been studying any texts at all. The stuff we have talked about is in Critique of Pure Reason, but we were not expected to read it or even look at it. He teaches all the material like he is summarizing it. At first, I was always anticipating really diving into the material. I'm thinking something like: "ok the introduction is over, now it's time for the body," but we never get there. He went over Relativity Theory, Non Euclidian Geometries, Cantor Set Theories, all in one hour. Luckily I have had classes on those things, so I get them. We have had only one class devoted to Kant and it was weeks ago. For logical positivism he just drew a diagram and went over it like ten times. I have taken other 1000 level philosophy classes and have had no problems. I have no problem reading what I need to read, but this was unanticipated and I only have a week to do it. I knew we were getting a take home test today, but I figured he'd want some dorky little paragraphs because that's what I feel he gives us. He fails to build up these theories and cpncepts out of what we already know, nor does he put them in context. I'd like to write my first paper using this structure: Before Kant, Kant, How developments in science undermined Kant. I only know the last part though. Here is what the lecture on Kant was like: - copernican turn -critical philosophy -transendental philosophy subject --- faculties ) receptivity --- passive )---concepts spontaneity --- active ) Conditions of possibility _Judgements_ 1)intuition + concepts 2)a priori "before experience" analytic a posteriori "after expereince" synthetic synthetic a priori And that's it. He'll always say that Kant did this or this person said this, but that he's not going to go into detail about it. He said something about categories, and then said we didn't need to know it or that it wasn't for this class, but clearly we do need it. It's just frustrating because I'd go as deep as he wanted to take it and work through whatever books I had to, but he made it seem like it wasn't that kind of course. Also, I don't have well built concepts, so when I hear something said, like "analytic," I just get some vague notion, but to use that word to build other concepts one has to know its exact definition or exactly how it is being used, and I can't do that fast enough when there are so many of these concepts being thrown around.