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The Philosopher's Corner 2005
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i found the logic ok - although i could also have done with more time. I sopent so long explaining my answers to the first three that, i'd only just written down four when he sadi stop and just worked five out at the very last moment then wrote it down as he started to talk... But then i could have done with sooo much more time on the essay as well...
yeah...hmm... i wasn't particularly impressed by them either, but i'm still trying to work out my insurance and i do think that london would be an amazing place to study - i think the fact that the british museum and library are in about 5/10 minute walking distance clouded my judgement slightly - i don't get down to london often, but i think it's a great place. My friend's sister goes to UCL (albeit not for philosophy) and loves it, so, i dunno really. If i ever get a reply from edinburgh i really wouldn't mind that as insurance - i love edinburgh, it's the coolest city... Having said that i'm going to visit warwick next week, which everyone else seems to fall in love with - guess i'll just have to wait and see. Alternatively i could just make sure i don't miss the grade and go to cambridge 
i've never seen anywhere quite like cambridge... 
i've never seen anywhere quite like cambridge... 
.
Hey again everybody. Sorry for my prolonged absence, my addictive personality has had me hooked on online gaming at the expense of pretty much everything except food. Not good.
I had a skim read through, though in my (usual) dazed state I didn't really take in much of what was said, apart from that I wont be getting either of my interviews for my DoS. Oh and Faboba informed me that Sidney has at least one other philosopher for my year of entry. I guess they're not on TSR though
.
So........... Good luck to those still waiting for UCL offers, is there anybody who would like to be added to the list at the start of the thread? I'm sure i've probably missed somebody.
Peace 'n' cheese
I had a skim read through, though in my (usual) dazed state I didn't really take in much of what was said, apart from that I wont be getting either of my interviews for my DoS. Oh and Faboba informed me that Sidney has at least one other philosopher for my year of entry. I guess they're not on TSR though
.So........... Good luck to those still waiting for UCL offers, is there anybody who would like to be added to the list at the start of the thread? I'm sure i've probably missed somebody.
Peace 'n' cheese
not as yet... although 3 weeks has now come and gone, hopefully they'll get their act together soon...
Three weeks? Good grief... I'm losing count.
If they don't hurry up and send me their response I'm going to cancel my application. I want to get my pretty form so that I can finally decide on my insurance choice. :P
To be fair, they did recieve my UCAS form almost five months ago. How long can it take? :/
alex
If they don't hurry up and send me their response I'm going to cancel my application. I want to get my pretty form so that I can finally decide on my insurance choice. :P
To be fair, they did recieve my UCAS form almost five months ago. How long can it take? :/
alex
Is UCL your favourite? 'cos that sucks if it is. On the other hand, if you didn't do so great on them but have a great application you shouldn't be hit too badly. Just have to wait and see i 'spose
It worries me slightly that they're still marking them (if that is indeed true) when it was nearly a month ago that we did them, and they sadi it would be about 3 weeks... coupled with the disorganization they showed on the day i'm getting less and less impressed by the minute...
If edinburgh decide to get back to me at somep point i might just cancel UCL and get on with confirming others
It worries me slightly that they're still marking them (if that is indeed true) when it was nearly a month ago that we did them, and they sadi it would be about 3 weeks... coupled with the disorganization they showed on the day i'm getting less and less impressed by the minute...
If edinburgh decide to get back to me at somep point i might just cancel UCL and get on with confirming others
yeah, i know other peope with edinburgh offers (albeit not for philosophy), and i did email them, but i got a stock response saying how they had lots of applicants to look at etc... At least it's not a rejection. Having said that, i got a warwick offer nearly two months before my friend got his and he had an equally, if not better, application. Guess i'll just have to wait. I have applied for deferred entry though, and (maybe it's just coincidence) we (deferred ppl) seem to have had to wait longest for our offers gnerally, out of my year.
aww... i feel your pain But don't stress tooo much, there's only a few weeks left - which is both a brilliant thing and terribly scary 
Know how you feel though - i still have 3 different bits of music coursework and a recital to do, aswell as maths coursework (and maths generally - taking twice as many modules this term as i did in the whole of last year... ), and two essays to write. But i handed in a first draft of my vocal composition today so i was happy - well, until i didn't get home from school 'til ten after doing lights for a AS Drama thing... 
hohum... don't worry/stress, it really won't help - you could meditate upon the oneness of the world and become in harmony with an ethereal plane 
instead , that'd be interesting...--> you afterwards :marchmell:
Alternatively you could drink lots and lots of coffee
Or run away and live with the sheep!!!!
(definately my choice...)
But don't stress tooo much, there's only a few weeks left - which is both a brilliant thing and terribly scary Know how you feel though - i still have 3 different bits of music coursework and a recital to do, aswell as maths coursework (and maths generally - taking twice as many modules this term as i did in the whole of last year...
), and two essays to write. But i handed in a first draft of my vocal composition today so i was happy - well, until i didn't get home from school 'til ten after doing lights for a AS Drama thing... hohum... don't worry/stress, it really won't help - you could meditate upon the oneness of the world and become in harmony with an ethereal plane instead , that'd be interesting...--> you afterwards :marchmell: Alternatively you could drink lots and lots of coffee
Or run away and live with the sheep!!!!
(definately my choice...)Well, still no offer from UCL but they're now my last ones - finally got an offer from edinburgh today - but i don't care anymore, went to warwick today and i'm completely sold on it, it has such a cool buzz, and the staff seem very enthusiastic. It's nice 
Music - hmm... my recital's getting better. i deliberately picked pieces that weren't the hardest i could do, but were more that the lower limit, just to make my life easier and i practiced with my accompaniest the other day and all was good. So here's hoping... It's harmony excercises i have to do and a performance investigation i'm completely behind on now... hohum...
Oh, and if you like stabbing things... try a feather pillow in the wind outside - they have an incredible amount of feather in them... It was this guys 18th at school the other day so he got wrapped in cling film, covered in treacle and then feathered! hehehe... that was funny - but there are now feathers over the entire school. They've infiltrated everywhere - you name it, it has a feather. So, um, yeah, you could try that - it's fun!!!
Music - hmm... my recital's getting better. i deliberately picked pieces that weren't the hardest i could do, but were more that the lower limit, just to make my life easier and i practiced with my accompaniest the other day and all was good. So here's hoping... It's harmony excercises i have to do and a performance investigation i'm completely behind on now... hohum...
Oh, and if you like stabbing things... try a feather pillow in the wind outside - they have an incredible amount of feather in them... It was this guys 18th at school the other day so he got wrapped in cling film, covered in treacle and then feathered!
hehehe... that was funny - but there are now feathers over the entire school. They've infiltrated everywhere - you name it, it has a feather. So, um, yeah, you could try that - it's fun!!!
Adhsur
This website might be even more helpful - the essays of a student from his first year onwards:
http://web.archive.org/web/20031001210522/www.smileyben.com/words-essays/
Saying that I'm scared would be an understatement. But at the same time, I'm excited at the prospect of being able to write like this.
http://web.archive.org/web/20031001210522/www.smileyben.com/words-essays/
Saying that I'm scared would be an understatement. But at the same time, I'm excited at the prospect of being able to write like this.
It certainly does have its functions but be careful not to use it as an alternative to thinking, Ben is just WRONG about a lot of things; for examples see his essays on Metaphysics. Ben believes
1; The 'mental' can affect the physical.
2; Dualism (by which I read:classic dualism) is a cogent theory.
3; That time travel is possible because the past is somewhat fuzzy when it comes to truth values.
I'm not sure what causes (3) but read his two essays on the philosophy of time ( one is from IB called 'time travel' ) if we ignore the rather odd conclusion from the first year essay ("Ultimately the fact that a statement is true or false the moment we make it shouldn't make a difference to our lives, except to remind us that when something bad happens over which we have no control we just have to grin and bear it.") it does really seem like Ben is giving a half-assed justification for some form of presentism but hasn't really thought all the details through.
I'm seriously impressed you found his site though! I only found it through Cujess (was a website for Cambridge philosophers. now defaced by the same webbugas did Ben's site) initially and then remembered enough of the details to get it through archive.org.
Don't get me wrong - Ben's essays are great to give you an idea of the scope and extent of the work you'll be expected to produce but some of his stuff is... weird. Then again, so is much of the stuff on the reading list. Examples that spring to mind:
1) Harry Frankfurt mentions in passing that animals have no second order desires. His proof or argument for this? Nothing.
2) Searle believes that if we utter a string of sounds we are obliged to do something to the extent that we are somehow objectively WRONG if we do not.
3) Richard Swinburne believes if I string together a lot of improbabilities together I get something probable (namely get from crap arguments for belief in God to a good reason to believe in him).
4) Plato believes that all learning is recollection of the true 'forms' of concepts from a stage before we were born when we existed as perfect spirits and had a kind of direct knowledge of the forms. Seriously.
5) David Lewis believes that when we evaluate counterfactuals by talking about 'possible worlds' that we are in fact talking about ontological entities which do exist - every possible world is 'real'.
6) Jerry Fodor believes the brain has its own language. Literally.
7) Kripke wrote a book entitled 'Wittgenstein on Rules' in which he outlines a position which is neither Wittgenstein's nor his. He says it is convincing but he no longer believes it. No one is entirely sure who 'belongs' to this theory.
8) Wittgenstein's Tractatus has a strong religious element to it, according to Wittgenstein.
9) Bentham and Mill believe the argument 'everyone desires their own happiness therefore everyone desires the happiness of everyone' is sound.
10) McTaggart apparently believes Time doesn't exist, though I don't think anyone can completely follow his argument (apparently Arif has admitted in confidence he doesn't understand McTaggarts criticism of the A-Series).
11) Moore believes his hand is a valid refutation of scepticism and that because good is something objective we can never have epistemic access to until we somehow learn what it is by some flash of inspiration or divine revelation the best solution is just to obey the pervailing norms of our society.
12) Peter VanInwagen believes that somehow non-deterministic quantum events could be described as our free will in action (as in, I have free will because my soul makes electrons spin at certain rates) and the reason he believes this is apparently caused by his theism.
13) Van Frassen (IIRC) believes we cannot verify convincingly what we cannot see with the naked eye and so anything seen with a microscope or telescope is suspect. And there goes the whole of science.
Hmmm... drunken pseudo-rant over.
I've come across Swinburne's ideas (most definitely weird, but that's just what you get when theists mix philosophy with, um...theism). At least he's not as weird as Hick who argues that you can justify the meaningfulness of religious language using a hypothetical afterlife 
! Which kind of takes you round and round in a circle. And also that resurrection involves replication of your body and that it is philosophically possible. Hm.
Moore's intuitionism is bizarre to some extent but is kind of interesting. And as for Plato, I'm not a real fan of his either, but I can see how he's really helped developed philosophy in the Western tradition. At least the reading list is really varied and covers a wide period of time....philosophy at Cambridge strikes me as fascinating *because* of these weird arguments you can pick to pieces, but at the same time challenge you to think for yourself....
edit - slight problem with that site:
"This site is defaced!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NeverEverNoSanity WebWorm generation 21." (Eeeek!)
! Which kind of takes you round and round in a circle. And also that resurrection involves replication of your body and that it is philosophically possible. Hm.Moore's intuitionism is bizarre to some extent but is kind of interesting
. And as for Plato, I'm not a real fan of his either, but I can see how he's really helped developed philosophy in the Western tradition. At least the reading list is really varied and covers a wide period of time....philosophy at Cambridge strikes me as fascinating *because* of these weird arguments you can pick to pieces, but at the same time challenge you to think for yourself....edit - slight problem with that site:
"This site is defaced!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NeverEverNoSanity WebWorm generation 21." (Eeeek!)
Reema
I've come across Swinburne's ideas (most definitely weird, but that's just what you get when theists mix philosophy with, um...theism). At least he's not as weird as Hick who argues that you can justify the meaningfulness of religious language using a hypothetical afterlife ! Which kind of takes you round and round in a circle. And also that resurrection involves replication of your body and that it is philosophically possible. Hm.
Moore's intuitionism is bizarre to some extent but is kind of interesting. And as for Plato, I'm not a real fan of his either, but I can see how he's really helped developed philosophy in the Western tradition. At least the reading list is really varied and covers a wide period of time....philosophy at Cambridge strikes me as fascinating *because* of these weird arguments you can pick to pieces, but at the same time challenge you to think for yourself....
edit - slight problem with that site:
"This site is defaced!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NeverEverNoSanity WebWorm generation 21." (Eeeek!)
! Which kind of takes you round and round in a circle. And also that resurrection involves replication of your body and that it is philosophically possible. Hm.Moore's intuitionism is bizarre to some extent but is kind of interesting
. And as for Plato, I'm not a real fan of his either, but I can see how he's really helped developed philosophy in the Western tradition. At least the reading list is really varied and covers a wide period of time....philosophy at Cambridge strikes me as fascinating *because* of these weird arguments you can pick to pieces, but at the same time challenge you to think for yourself....edit - slight problem with that site:
"This site is defaced!!!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NeverEverNoSanity WebWorm generation 21." (Eeeek!)
Never come accross Hick. Very few philosophers make complete sense to me, I think the limit thus far is Hume, Mackie, Foot and Blackburn but then again I've not read much on quasi-realism so I may decide I think that's bats too... who knows.
One of the best parts of Principia Ethicia I'd say is the preface to the second edition where Moore basically says "It's been pointed out to me that what I wrote is nonsense, and I don't believe it any more. But some of it is still interesting so I'm going to release a second edition anyway."
Weird thing is Frege did the same with the Berg... uh... his book on the foundations of mathematics. Come to think of it, so did Russell with his Principia. It must have been a turn-of-the-century thing.
I certainly AM a fan of Plato to an extent but I suspect that extent it pretty much where Socratic thought ends and Platonic thought begins. Forms, they ain't Socrates. Immortality of the soul, that ain't Socrates. Philosopher kings that... might be kind of Socrates I suppose. Effluences, that certainly ain't Socrates. The dialogues really are excellent though - I mean you can say Hume is great writing but his dialogues do get awfully twee in places.
Replication of your body is technically physically possible, it's just I've an idea that if you really believe in David Lewis' stuff on possible worlds you're committed to a belief you are immortal as there is a possible world in which the matter in your body at the time of your death (down to your memories) is perfectly replicated ala Swamp Man and so it will always feel as if you haven't died. Then again, I really don't understand why Lewis believes what he believes... so.
Oooh, so it seems Faboba is also a Hume fan. I really enjoyed his dialogues, they got me through my interview
I had a brief lapse in my philosophical interests, but I got back into it a few days ago and all this stuff that I'm going to be able to analyse is really exciting. We're studying Buddhist philosophy of the nature of reality at the moment and it's really, really fascinating and really quite difficult to fault as it actually starts to coincide quite remarkably with modern scientific theories.
From the limited knowledge I have of the ancient greek philosophers, I prefer Aristotle's view on causality to those of Plato, but I haven't got round to Aristotlean ethics, does anybody know roughly what they entail? I've heard his work is terribly arduous reading. I believe a quote was that reading Aristotle is like 'chewing dried hay'. Hmmm...
Anybody familiar with his works?
I had a brief lapse in my philosophical interests, but I got back into it a few days ago and all this stuff that I'm going to be able to analyse is really exciting. We're studying Buddhist philosophy of the nature of reality at the moment and it's really, really fascinating and really quite difficult to fault as it actually starts to coincide quite remarkably with modern scientific theories.
From the limited knowledge I have of the ancient greek philosophers, I prefer Aristotle's view on causality to those of Plato, but I haven't got round to Aristotlean ethics, does anybody know roughly what they entail? I've heard his work is terribly arduous reading. I believe a quote was that reading Aristotle is like 'chewing dried hay'. Hmmm...
Anybody familiar with his works?
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