I've decided to keep a study journal for this course. The first few entries will be based upon my short responses to the sample questions for our mid-term. Firstly though, I will write a bit about my expectations for this course. This is based on what I said in the first lecture.
I am a third year undergraduate studying single honours philosophy. I think this is really the first time I am taking a course in applied philosophy. I am looking forward to getting a taste of the way philosophical theorising can interact with and inform practical and political engagement, and vice versa. I have often felt a hesitancy to actively engage with real world issues, wishing to first 'think things through' to a reasonable degree. My unwillingness to engage actively with student politics at Sussex has primarily arisen from uncertainty; the feeling that, really, I don't have a clue what the answers to the debated problems are, or even whether what is being presented as a problem is actually such. I certainly want to participate in active political engagement at some point, but I want to be able to conduct my activity in a reasonably well informed manner.
Of course, I often wonder just how well informed it needs to be - that is to say, when it will be time put down the textbooks and to start a more active engagement? Of course there will never be a time to completely stop studying theory, but rather perhaps a period in which to give less time to this and more to practical activity. I hope this course will help me reflect upon this question. I am particularly looking forward to the non-theoretical lecturers some of which will be given by environmental activists. I will be interested to see how their activities are informed by their philosophical views (if at all), and in a broad sense gain an understanding of just how important their theoretical training turns out to be. Also, I'm looking forward to reflecting further upon the possibility of non-instrumental value...
No comments:
Post a Comment