Cliquer sur une vignette pour aller sur Google Books.
Chargement... Landscape of Wisdom: A Guided Tour of Western Philosophy (1999)par Christopher Biffle
Aucun Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
With this introductory guidebook in hand, students will embark on the most interactive and engaging tour of Western philosophy available. As they journey across the landscape of wisdom, they'll develop an understanding of the key themes in the history of philosophy, a working knowledge of twenty major philosophers' central beliefs, and the critical reading and writing skills necessary to decode even the thorniest of philosophical texts. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
Discussion en coursAucun
Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)190Philosophy and Psychology Modern western philosophy Modern PhilosophersClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
Est-ce vous ?Devenez un(e) auteur LibraryThing. |
This text is an insult to professional philosophers. It makes a mockery out of our discipline. It makes philosophy trite and banal. Philosophy should be hard – considering it asks some of the most important and difficult questions there are, and these questions have existed, unanswered, for thousands of years. Pigeon-holing masters of philosophy into quaint little clichés and using stick-figure illustrations to demonstrate deep metaphysical and epistemological problems is akin to a bad joke.
This text is embarrassing to teach. I started both my classes this semester by apologizing to my students, and explaining to them that just because the author of this book thinks they’re stupid, that doesn’t mean I do. I should never have to begin a semester that way. The textbook is structured as some kind of workbook – including the types of exercises that you might ask a child to do – for example, fill-in-the-blank exercises at the end of almost every paragraph:
"Putting Locke's ideas into my own words, he says _______________. But what he means is _______________." or "My senses tell me that the unique characteristic that a glass marble shares with all other marbles is _______. So _______ is a glass marble's form, its essence. The matter of a glass marble is __________. The form of a glass marble is _________. ________ could not be the unique characteristic that a glass marble shares with all other marbles, because many things, such as __________, could be made of __________."
(I'm not joking. Those are direct quotes from the text - Let's make extra certain that our college students understand the word "unique," right?)
In addition to all the fun workbook activities, we get the added bonus of illustrations. I haven’t read a picture book since I was 12. I can’t believe I am forced to ask my adult students to do so.
On top of all that, this text is actually inaccurate in a number of places. The author uses outdated translations, proclaims as truth blatant falsehoods in some places (Anselm is considered by most commentators to have defeated the critiques of his ontological proof of the existence of God? The major divisions in ethics are relativism and absolutism?), misrepresents the views of a number of philosophers, misinterprets others ("eudaimonia" means "happiness"?), and often puts forth his own very shallow and uninsightful interpretations as accepted doctrine. This is erroneous at best, and dishonest at worst.
Given a choice, I would never subject another student to this tripe. One of my students' final exams this term included a short note at the end, thanking me for making the course interesting despite the fact that he "found the book for this class utterly retarded." His words, not mine. ( )