An Apologist for "The Apology"
I bet a guy like this sat behind you in that philosophy course you took:
I also liked the footnotes on page 2 and 3 (that didn't have enough understandable content to make it worth copying). Highlights:
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1. Much of this formal definition of rationality is owed to my instruction in "Philosophy and Economics" by Professor Frank Thompson
3. A fascinating and often overlooking cognitive phenomena expounded briefly at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis
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The paper ends with 3 more italicized quotes from Socrates, Solon, and John Stuart Mills
Yeah, this is an old grab but I hope you liked it just the same. Welcome back from Thanksgiving break all you students, TAs, GSIs, and profs.
I also liked the footnotes on page 2 and 3 (that didn't have enough understandable content to make it worth copying). Highlights:
---
1. Much of this formal definition of rationality is owed to my instruction in "Philosophy and Economics" by Professor Frank Thompson
3. A fascinating and often overlooking cognitive phenomena expounded briefly at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis
---
The paper ends with 3 more italicized quotes from Socrates, Solon, and John Stuart Mills
Yeah, this is an old grab but I hope you liked it just the same. Welcome back from Thanksgiving break all you students, TAs, GSIs, and profs.
posted by AHFB at 12:04 AM
13 Comments:
Lets tell stories.
In high school I dual enrolled at the community college and I had a guy--probably 21 or so--like this in my calc class who once raised his hand to start telling the instructor "maybe they would understand it better if..."
Another time, when the instructor asked him how he arrived at his answer, he asked if he could go up to the whiteboard and explain it to the class. This, he reasoned with her, would make it easier for the class to see what he meant.
I have a pair of students who sit in the corner with their laptops and exchange glances with each other and scoff at what their peers say. The first day of class, they started a veritable war over what seemed to me to be a totally innocuous text, and since then the entire class raises its hackles when they speak.
My rational response to their behavior is not aided by the fact that they both are apparently some weird conglomeration of uber-capitalist neo-conservitive atheist social-engineering (and I say this with the most loving derision possible) freaks. I wanted to throttle kids like this while I was an undergrad and still kind of do (it's not their particular ideas, it's the fact that they "know better" than everyone else... I'm an atheist myself, and their casual dismissal of others' faith bothers ME). Have some tact. Social skills. anything!
I lost it at "Preceding and predicating this reconciliation" - this kid is dying to be a lawyer I think.
- I mean "lost it" as in my ability to suppress my laughter in the grad libary
oh I like story time...
I am in a class with a kid who has to comment on every single thing that the gsi or anyone else says. He will rephrase what you jsut said and then tack on a "like you said..., and I agree."
The best is when he tries to bring in "outside knowlegde," which means he fumbles around for words until the gsi provides him with something fairly eloquent to say, which he then rephrases and calls it his own thought.
I love that kid. And, its pretty hilarious to see the gis react to him, you know she doesn't want to call on him but she's so nice she can't ignore him. Oh, the internal struggle of a history gsi...
whit, you (or at least your presence on this blog) scare me. Do your peers read this website? should I go even more undercover?
:::looks suspiciously around for other potential student-spies:::
All the love, you know but.... how am I supposed to vent about my classes on this marvellously-appointed and run site if my little proteges are peeking around the corner?!?
I have a kid in my class that I just cringe each time he raises his hand. He has this nasally voice and manages, without fail, to sound like an incompetent, pretentious fool. There's another student (same class) who likes to shove in phrases when he can't think of what it is he meant to say.
"Well, what I mean is...heretofore, what we believed is, you know, as a matter of fact...what the author is trying to say is...unless I'm mistaken..."
Until he finally trails off, and manages to suck up ten minutes of class time without saying ANYTHING.
aw, heidi, we little undergrads don't mean to freak you out... the only other undergrads i know who read this are my roomates. else, just my office and a few other random mistaff/gsi's. i think youre safe....
unless of course you become my gsi...
I didn't know you were supposed to write a paper proposal in the actual paper.
Hey Joel-
Perhaps I'm dating myself here and I don't know if you're hip to my groove, but did you ever watch Boy Meets World? This guy is like Minkus, only less endearing and even more socially awkward.
I have no problem with nasally voices on their own, but it only compounds the bullshit they occasionally sprout!
You're not dating yourself. Boy Meets World is fantastic.
aww the junior high minkus days of boy meets world... it just got weird once they made eric too "zany" and shawn's mystery half-brother who happens to be joey lawrence's real-life brother showed up!
ok, i'll admit, i have the reruns going as i get ready for work. (8am-9am ABC Fam! check it out)
Im Chris, I'm in this class, and you know what haha, I cannot find in ANY way how this essay addresses the prompt. Really, I would love for you to email me this persons name, just so i can know who wrote it. and further, there were MANY snide comments against socrates, but they weren't unwarrented as he had said, we had a visiting prof. from Texas come and rip on Socrates too.
-Chris Ostro
ochristo@umich.edu
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