Skip to main content

Philosophy for Dummies


I’ve recently been introduced to www.coursera.org by a friend. If you are fond of broadening your horizons aka studying about new things, well then coursera is the thing for you. How does it work you ask? Well I’m really not in the mood of explaining the whole process (read I have NO idea how it happens) so you can watch the TED Talk by Daphne Kohler the Stanford-professor-cum-dynamo behind the project.


So my first course is called “Know Thyself”, it is a sort Philosophy for Dummies class by Prof Mitchell Green of the University of Virginia, and the course and the Prof are both agreeing with me well so far.

So since I am half way through the 10 week course I decided to give you a crash course in philosophy so far. Below is a list of the most important things I have learnt from each of these renowned Philosophers.

Socrates: The unexamined life is not worth living. So constant self-examination read day dreaming is not a colossal waste of time. It is in fact intrinsically philosophical. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the big man!

Note: for those of you who were actually hoping to learn something about Socrates, here's a little something
something.

Descartes: Philosophy trumps Mathematics. Period. You may spend your life coming up with nonsense stuff, namely the Cartesian coordinate system, but towards the end of your life what’s important is proving that a piece of wax exists.

I found this great video on Descartes, thanks to a fellow courserian!

Gilbert Ryle: Smart is as Smart does. So say you know 2 plus 2 is 4. The really important thing is what you do with that knowledge.

Video Below.

Sigmund Freud: If you can’t beat them, accuse them of foul play! In his introductory lectures on Psychoanalysis, Freud states that anyone who resists his methodology or technique, probably himself has something to hide. Brilliant! How did I not see this coming?? Forget finding Grammar mistakes the next time I’m losing an argument, I’m gonna go all out hysterical and blame people of hiding things! Also his theory about Sex and Violence governing all facets of life was a close second for the best thing I learnt from him.

And well I dont know about you but this picture on the cover of the book "Introductory lectures on Psychoanalysis psyches the bejesus out of me.


Timothy Wilson: (not really one of those extremely well known philosophers but still) The Spin Doctor inside. Wilson talks about a spin doctor present inside each one of us in the form of the unconscious or in his explanation the sub conscious, that is essential as it possible for us to justify our actions and move on.

Yes well I thought he might get lonely without a picture or video.


And well some of us just have more spin in us than others, so we will for example believe that eating a chocolate cake is perfectly okay while dieting because the basic aim of the diet was to count calories. Well the cake has 10000 calories, and since I have counted the calories all that is left is for me to eat it. (this example is purely context for your understanding and totally fictional and does not reflect on any person alive or dead, although one might argue that I am currently dieting).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Im-Perfect Love

I just saw A Walk to Remember tonight for the first time and my first thought was, What a stupid movie! The very fact the leading lady dies in the end is a put off for me. See I love fiction. I love movies and books and poetry and dramas of the fictitious variety. I believe that life is full of too much sorrow and hatred, violence and blood shed to begin with. So in my mind, fiction keeps hope alive. It makes a person want to persevere to be better. To be better daughters or sons, better husbands or wives, better workers or employers, but most importantly better people. When I read a book or see a movie, the eternal optimist in me comes out. I want the hero and the heroine to end up together. I want the world to be saved. I want the strength and dignity of the people in these books or movies preserved. In my mind it is bigger than the story. It is sacrosanct. And that is why I hate the movie. But beyond that, as I sitting thinking about how much I DONT like the movie, a th...
4 comments
Read more

The Life Of Deepti..

For those of you who don’t know. I took up a new job recently. I am now the communications manager for SCORE Foundation in Delhi. It’s a great place to work and I’m deliriously happy to be going to office at 10 in the morning as opposed to the ungodly hour of 8:30 that I did in my previous job. But that aside, as I was sitting in office yesterday, reminiscing how I got to be there exactly, I remembered the day I had gone for my interview at SCORE. What came to mind were rather funny (If you are sadistic kinds who derive pleasure out of torturing others) events that made up the day. So although I had wanted to write a profound and moving account of my time so far at SCORE, what I’m writing instead is my account of that day. I had seen the Life of Pi a couple of weeks before that day with the most mad bunch of people I've had the good fortune of meeting (yes guys C2: GDS rocked! I miss you already) and while I was watching the movie I thought to myself, my life is never g...
Post a Comment
Read more

Writer's Block

Those of you who follow my Blog (ya I know wishful thinking) may or may not have noticed that I am a rather infrequent Blogger. On an average even doing one post a month is a great feat. Although this started out as a pass time hobby. I really enjoy writing my Blogposts. Its my very own Chicken Soup for the Soul.  The problem however is that mostly I just can't come up with topics that excite me, and even though in the past I have come up with some interesting topics, I have been struggling with a major writer's block. I haven't written a word, on either my Blog or the 3 books  I am working on for the last month. So I am hoping my week long vacation to Shimla will be the ideal respite and I will hopefully start writing. The idea is to do at least one post each day about my vacation, if nothing else. The problem however is, since my life is only moderately exciting (read not at all) a post a day about my vacation will mean more fiction than reality, but then, really how...
Post a Comment
Read more