You said "There are six books, each covering a different topic, with an essay to write at the end of each book. I loved Ethics and Political Philosophy. The others were Self, Knowledge (Epistemology), Religion and Mind, and I enjoyed them all." What are the book titles please?
Recently I've read Tegmark: Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality; Pinker The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, and am halfway thru Heinrich: The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous. All really good reads if you haven't read them.
talks about "The “new tools” ... careful concepts, finicky definitions, the scientific method, analysis & synthesis, and the quantification of everything. " and "The “old tools”, ... stories, metaphors, rhyme & rhythm, jokes, and simple counting" which is what a lot of "Zen and" was about - he called it classical and romantic. He also explored "Quality" which is what I would call Information.
Congratulations and thank you for sharing this. I did an Open degree, mostly social sciences but one A course on British cinema which I aced. And then I finished off with more technical modules, shorter ten week courses, in computing and web design.
I agree that the niceties of essay writing could be covered better. I was really supported in this, when undertaking postgraduate studies, by Royal Society fellows.
Very cool to read about your experiences studying philosophy at Open University. I know I've said this before, but you are such an inspiration. Thank you.
Congratulations! Well done! What an accomplishment!
A very interesting review of a long process with very helpful advice. I enjoyed reading it.
Thank you, Claire!
Congratulations!
You said "There are six books, each covering a different topic, with an essay to write at the end of each book. I loved Ethics and Political Philosophy. The others were Self, Knowledge (Epistemology), Religion and Mind, and I enjoyed them all." What are the book titles please?
Recently I've read Tegmark: Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality; Pinker The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, and am halfway thru Heinrich: The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous. All really good reads if you haven't read them.
I reread "Zen and" recently too.
The WEIRD papers are very definitely worth it. I haven’t yet reread Pirsig nor tried the sequel. IIRC it is called Lila
Hadn't realised there was a sequel. Thanks.
My reading list grows geometrically but my "have read" list grows only linearly.
AIH today's post on AstralCodexTen (https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/bayes-for-everyone?r=45il88&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email)
talks about "The “new tools” ... careful concepts, finicky definitions, the scientific method, analysis & synthesis, and the quantification of everything. " and "The “old tools”, ... stories, metaphors, rhyme & rhythm, jokes, and simple counting" which is what a lot of "Zen and" was about - he called it classical and romantic. He also explored "Quality" which is what I would call Information.
The titles in A222 are: The Self, Ethics, Philosophy of Religion, Knowledge, Mind & Political Philosophy.
In A333: Truth in Fiction, War, Reason in Action, The Value of Life & Knowledge and Reason.
I've read most of Pinker’s books, and I have an enormous pile of books by my bed to read. But for now, I am reading some Graham Greene.
Perhaps I misunderstood - are these specially written course books rather than ones you can buy on Amazon?
Yeah, these are all specially written textbooks. You can usually find people selling them online if you are interested.
Congratulations and thank you for sharing this. I did an Open degree, mostly social sciences but one A course on British cinema which I aced. And then I finished off with more technical modules, shorter ten week courses, in computing and web design.
I agree that the niceties of essay writing could be covered better. I was really supported in this, when undertaking postgraduate studies, by Royal Society fellows.
Overall, the courses are excellent, but they have some little rules that are just so annoying and unnecessary.
Very cool to read about your experiences studying philosophy at Open University. I know I've said this before, but you are such an inspiration. Thank you.
You are so kind, thank you!