For the first time in my life I can confidently say I am beginning to have a worldview. That is to say, arguments I make on many different fronts and subjects are beginning to mesh together to form a cohesive kind of web of thought. My views about ethics, metaphysics, culture, and aesthetics are, I think, at the early stages of harmonizing with each other in my mind.
Integral to this was the realization that university is not the highest place to be, intellectually. Nowhere is! Universities have cultures and subcultures and biases and strong financial influences just as every other organized institution does. I am so grateful to philosophy for teaching me methods of thinking, rather than teaching facts, or teaching me what to believe about the world. There were never any right answers when it came time to write an essay, only arguments more and less cohesive and compelling. This was to the incredible frustration of many first year phil. students, so used to the high-school style right-or-wrong education, but to my delight! It's at that point, in first year, that one realizes whether philosophy is a good path to take. The same wall is hit or surmounted by Literature students as well, I think. This is why I found my dabbles in other departments to be boring; they tended to teach me things I could just as easily have learned on my own with a library card, or teach me ideologies with a lack of criticism. Philosophy, or rather an education in it I believe, requires discussion and debate and interactivity, almost by definition.
Integral to this was the realization that university is not the highest place to be, intellectually. Nowhere is! Universities have cultures and subcultures and biases and strong financial influences just as every other organized institution does. I am so grateful to philosophy for teaching me methods of thinking, rather than teaching facts, or teaching me what to believe about the world. There were never any right answers when it came time to write an essay, only arguments more and less cohesive and compelling. This was to the incredible frustration of many first year phil. students, so used to the high-school style right-or-wrong education, but to my delight! It's at that point, in first year, that one realizes whether philosophy is a good path to take. The same wall is hit or surmounted by Literature students as well, I think. This is why I found my dabbles in other departments to be boring; they tended to teach me things I could just as easily have learned on my own with a library card, or teach me ideologies with a lack of criticism. Philosophy, or rather an education in it I believe, requires discussion and debate and interactivity, almost by definition.
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