I took introduction to philosophy and I found the topics discussed to be quite unexpected.
Everything, really. Mine dabbled a little in ethics, epistemology, metaphysics. A lot of mind-fuck philosophy, weird ‘intuition pump’ scenarios. I think the main theme was more about how to do philosophy, and the topics were sort of filler to illustrate that lesson.
I was really disappointed with the Intro class I took last year.
First of all, my professor was a Lutheran Minister who knew nothing about philosophy. He knew about religion and the only philosophy he knew was the stuff from the text book.
You kind of go into a philosophy class expecting to dive right into all kinds of philosophical debate. That didn’t happen though… Intro was more of a history class and you learned more of the old stuff that isn’t exactly what you imagined when you went into the class.
Oh yeah, you also have to hear the attention whores voice their opinion on every single topic, which is really irritating.
I had a bad experience last semester, but ,from what I hear, you just have to stick with it and will get better as the idiots filter out and you get to more modern and Western stuff. It basically quickly covers the main philosophers and doesn’t dive too deep into anything.
A lot of people choose first year Philosophy because they have to take something. For a reason I cannot fathom people tend to think it’ll be an easy class. I’m a college drop out so I don’t know what anything other than what first year Philosophy is like but a few of my friends have made me very jealous with their later courses. An entire classes dedicated to Phenomenology! I TOTALLY WANT TO TAKE THAT! Alas I am poor white trash.
I don’t know but I think Logic should be a pre-requisite for all other philosophy classes.
I agree.
Especially for advanced Post-Modern thought which I get to take in 5 months . I wonder how the prof will pidgein-hole all of logic into the category of ‘meta-narrative’.
Being that at my university the intro philosophy class is available as a gen ed, I think that a good intro to philosophy class will not focus so much on specific topics as it should focus on getting people to think.
By this I mean that instead of saying that everyone should learn about Socrates Euthyphro argument, I believe that a good instructer will learn how to push the buttons of the students. Many students do not know much about philosophy and I seem to think that an intro to philosophy course should attempt to draw students into the department.
However, I do think all philosophy intro classes should cover at least the very basics of logic.
The teacher is nearly EVERYTHING in a class. You can love a subject and hate the teacher and thus hate the class. You can hate the subject and lov the teacher and thus you’ll love the class.
My favorite classes at university were not ones that I thought i would enjoy. And some of the ones I thought I would love, i hated because of shitty professors!
at most schools, intro to phil is 101, logic is 102…
intro is just that, introductions to major topics… if you want to argue, wait until you get into 300 level classes…
-Imp
Much more likely he’ll (accurately) pidgeonhole it into a ‘language game’. Wittgenstein more or less perfected logic, then tore it to shreds. Endgame philosophy, from which it has yet to recover.

I took introduction to philosophy and I found the topics discussed to be quite unexpected.
Most courses cover roughly what they should cover - intro to logic, intro to ancient philosophy, bit of ethics, bit of epistemology. Sometimes some other stuff - language, mind, art, religion - if the institution is particularly concerned with them.

Wittgenstein more or less perfected logic, then tore it to shreds. Endgame philosophy, from which it has yet to recover.
=D> Let’s hope someone puts philosophy out of its misery before it recovers.