I also have a blog

Hi Everyone,

I also have a blog that I'll add to the blogroll.  A lot of times it deals more with my experience as a yoga teacher than a philosophy teacher.  But today, I wrote a post on my post class process.  It is a good example of  what I want in a blog  post  that deals with class reflection issues.

Progress in Philosophy

"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change  

and to preserve change amid order."

   

Alfred North Whitehead   

(1861 - 1947)

English mathematician and philosopher

Here's one story I love to  tell about  my early fascination with philosophy.  I was in a class with Larry Kimmel  and  one student  said  something like this,  " I just think that if  Plato and Socrates and those guys were sitting with us at the table today, they really wouldn't have much to say because society has progressed so much since  then."     Kimmel, like all great teachers can be,  was silent for a few moments.   He then said,  "I don't think you understand.  Philosophy hasn't made any progress in  2500 years."  

After class, I  was walking to band practice with Anne and David.    Anne and David were also two fellow philosophy majors. Both later became lawyers.   I reported the  story and   they both said, "Don't you think that is kind of  depressing... no  progress?"   I thought about it  and said,  "No. I find it comforting.  It makes me think that we are asking the right sorts of questions."  

Whitehead, is also the philosopher who said,  "the safest generalization we can make about the history of western Philosophy is that it is all a series of  footnotes to  Plato."   

One reason I love teaching  classical philosophy is that we get to look at philosophy before the existence of  the great text that  is Plato.

 

I've changed the structure of this  class to a seminar format  and  was struck by the order and change  dynamic  in  Whitehead's quote.  How to preserve some order  in change.  For  example,  one student came up to be after class   and  asked  what  he should take notes on  with no  tests. Interesting question,  what is the purpose of note taking... I had not even thought about how the  change in overall expectation and overall structure  would manifest on that level..   Anyway,  I'll talk about that dynamic in  class and in a later blog post.