USUPhilosophy

I am on two committees having to do with General Education at USU, and I would really like to hear some students’ opinions about our gen ed requirements. What, if anything, do you like about your gen ed experience? Do you have any philosophical notions about what gen ed should achieve? Any ideas about how to achieve it?

Rumor has it that Kleiner ran the Top of Utah marathon today. Is this true? If so, most impressive! Excellence in soul and body.

I was heartened to see that the Statesman is regularly publishing reflective essays by one of our Philosophy majors, Will Holloway. He has a thoughtful and thought-provoking essay on sex in today’s issue, and an earlier essay (which I had missed) on faith and curiosity. Way to go, Will! Fight the ever-advancing forces of thoughtlessness!

Here is part I of an intellectual autobiography Daniel C. Dennett is writing. I find it extremely interesting, if only for the glimpse of what it was like to be a talented and dedicated student of philosophy at Harvard and then Oxford in the 1960s.

The thesis was duly typed up in triplicate and handed in (by a professional typist, back in those days before word-processing). I anxiously awaited the day when Quine and young Charles Parsons, my examiners, would let me know what they made of it. Quine showed up with maybe half a dozen single-spaced pages of comments. I knew at that moment that I was going to be a philosopher.

And, yes, the slogan is “I drink, therefore I am.”