tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070355695530434450.post2776702760350791201..comments2024-03-14T04:16:20.472-07:00Comments on In Socrates' Wake: Teaching philosophy as the provision of critical vocabulariesMichael Cholbihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02012523929044363216noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070355695530434450.post-59967125213178631342012-08-31T13:55:17.482-07:002012-08-31T13:55:17.482-07:00Seems to me that what is relevant has absolutely n...Seems to me that what is relevant has absolutely nothing to do with vocabularies but conceptual competence and being able to think with the ideas effectively, and only in so far as the former is loosely correlated with the latter is vocabulary of any importance. Maybe this is just a conflation because the study is on word frequencies, but if not maybe semantic knowledge might not be the most relevant point of teaching philosophy in this context.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070355695530434450.post-34720076074593003312012-08-30T12:02:28.269-07:002012-08-30T12:02:28.269-07:00Additional data point. I asked my students yesterd...Additional data point. I asked my students yesterday, after they had read the first chapter of Sandel's book, how many of them knew what a virtue was and only one student had any idea. A couple of them told me they had to go look up the word in the dictionary! Jennifer M Mortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00605594189543742740noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070355695530434450.post-38494456578461699522012-08-29T19:34:21.965-07:002012-08-29T19:34:21.965-07:00This is a very good starting point for thinking ab...This is a very good starting point for thinking about what we should be doing in our classes (perhaps especially classes that are part of the general education curriculum). With ethics in mind, one thing that strikes me about your point regarding the overabundance of plausible theories is that this itself might be overwhelming. For example, suppose we cover basic utilitarian, deontological, and virtue theories, at each step laying out the framework and then reading a strong critique of that framework. The next obstacle to get past is a reaction of the sort, "well, what's the point of studying these theories if they each turn out to be wrong?" So, I try to emphasize the idea that we can learn something even from frameworks that we ultimately are inclined to reject, that we need to pay attention to the insights that can sometimes show themselves even in theories we ultimately think are wrong. (And since others may accept those theories, appreciating the lines of thought that point toward that theory will be important for understanding and interacting and responding to one's peers.)Matthew Pianaltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070355695530434450.post-53183997267740422992012-08-28T07:05:59.173-07:002012-08-28T07:05:59.173-07:00Great post! In particular, I find that students do...Great post! In particular, I find that students don't even have the vocabulary or framework to understand virtue ethics because it relies so much on a rich ethical language. The question I have though is whether we can impart these thick concepts at the college level. Will students feel the valence of the terms or understand them as mere categories? Jennifer M Mortonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00605594189543742740noreply@blogger.com