Fifty, I am curious to know, what significant (meaningful or influential or paradigm changing) contribution do you feel philosophy has made to western culture in the past 50 years? (serious question)
What is philosophy?
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A very good question.
Simply because there's no universal definition of philosophy; different sources give different definitions. Possibly anyone can give one that is slightly different; I credit the readers with the ability to decide for themselves. Unlike yourself I do not pretend to be able to give a normative definition of what philosophy should be, but merely provide some examples of what it is.
Time allowing I'll get there in the end; I have not answered to this in depth as this post - like certain others - seemed to purport a preset idea of what philosophy is and should be. Suffice it to say that this is not what philosophy entails - as might be obvious from the OP/post #1.
Indeed many "hard", i.e. beta sciences, have incorporated something like "What is (the philosophy) of...?" into their courses - as do "soft" or alpha sciences. It seems to me that without a defining beginning any scientific discipline is off to an ill start.
As with the previous post: the creation of "guns, drugs, and plastics"is not where philosophy comes in - rather with what the effect of such inventions might have. (And perhaps prior to such inventions - unfortunately that's not how inventions appear to work; the invention of the atom bomb has important and far-stretching consequences, which might have been considered a priori rather than a posteriori.)
Simply because there's no universal definition of philosophy; different sources give different definitions. Possibly anyone can give one that is slightly different; I credit the readers with the ability to decide for themselves. Unlike yourself I do not pretend to be able to give a normative definition of what philosophy should be, but merely provide some examples of what it is.
Time allowing I'll get there in the end; I have not answered to this in depth as this post - like certain others - seemed to purport a preset idea of what philosophy is and should be. Suffice it to say that this is not what philosophy entails - as might be obvious from the OP/post #1.
Indeed many "hard", i.e. beta sciences, have incorporated something like "What is (the philosophy) of...?" into their courses - as do "soft" or alpha sciences. It seems to me that without a defining beginning any scientific discipline is off to an ill start.
As with the previous post: the creation of "guns, drugs, and plastics"is not where philosophy comes in - rather with what the effect of such inventions might have. (And perhaps prior to such inventions - unfortunately that's not how inventions appear to work; the invention of the atom bomb has important and far-stretching consequences, which might have been considered a priori rather than a posteriori.)
If by modern philosophy you mean that which is practiced in academic philosophy departments then I think you are wrong and that the trajectory has been to be less entwined with natural science. As the natural sciences have developed more and more experimental tools, the once singular discipline of philosophy, as practiced by the ancients to speculate on the nature of the world, has broken off and been displaced by the natural sciences for defining truth regarding the physical world.
What is left of academic philosophy in modern times is what my question is. The lack of one single and easily stated accomplishment I think is revealing. For example, if you asked for the contribution of biologists in the last 50 yrs I could name many things but the most obvious would be the mechanism of gene function. The ancient Greek philosophers would be astounded by this explanation and the evidence surrounding it. I wonder how Socrates would rate the central dogma of biology to the output of academic philosophy depts. in terms of sophistry vs reason?
Even today many people are astounded by recent scientific progress - to the point that certain "revelations" are even blatantly ignored or denied by certain groups. As to what ancient Greek philosophers would say, I cannot really answer that; it would require some kind of time travel perhaps and seems more appropriate as a subject for a novel of some kind. Ancient conditions were simply quite different from today's.
For those really interested in the subject matter I've posted a link to some discussions of recent philosophy here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=8034133
For those really interested in the subject matter I've posted a link to some discussions of recent philosophy here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=8034133
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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It's something but we cannot describe it? Philosophy is god!
Really, this attitude one of the reasons why philosophy get s a bad reputation. If it is so vague then it's pointless to argue about, as we don't even know if we're arguing about the same thing. I wasn't calling for some normative definition, I was commenting on what I understood from the different definitions you provided.
For the purpose of any productive conversation about philosophy there must be a shared understanding about what the theme of the conversation is! We can say that this conversation (shat is philosophy?) is all about the difficulty in finding that understanding. It doesn't need to be unique, but we must negotiate one (or more) and know that we're talking abort the same thing.
You are assuming that academic philosophy must perforce produce something "new" as some other sciences do. But is that necessary? Is science the act of "discovering new things", or that of applying the understanding of the things discovered?
Yes, I know that many philosophers have stated that a science must have a "research programme"... and I think that they are wrong. Maintaining and reinterpreting what already exists can be enough - else history wouldn't be a science! It's not impressive, but it has its uses. Even if those academic philosophers were only replaying older concepts they'd still be doing something useful: keeping them in use.
You seem to apply different standards for philosophy and science in general; that's not very consistent. Also, people in desperate need of a definition of philosophy can refer to post #1 or confer other sources; I see no problem with - slightly - different definitions of philosophy; as you say, a common denominator can be found. And as several definitions already have been provided, it seems to me philosophy can be described.
The Axial Age
The Axial Age pertains to the period from 800 to 200 BC, during which "the spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently... And these are the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today". The German philosopher Karl Jaspers coined the term to describe similar revolutionary thinking in Greece, the Near East, India and China. Phrased in German as Achsenzeit (axis time), it is also referred to as axis age and appeared first in Jaspers’ Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (The Origin and Goal of History) to sum up the appearance of key thinkers who had a profound influence on future philosophy and religion. The Axial Age saw the rise of Buddhism, Platonism, Confucianism and Zoroastrianism; the writers of the Upanishads, Lao Tzu, Homer, Socrates, Heraclitus. Thucydides, Archimedes, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc. are seen as key figures, while Jaspers singled out Socrates, Confucius and Buddha as examples of "paradigmatic personality". Jaspers argued that the axial age gave birth to philosophy as a discipline.
“Jaspers described the axial age as "an interregnum between two ages of great empire, a pause for liberty, a deep breath bringing the most lucid consciousness".[6] Jaspers was particularly interested in the similarities in circumstance and thought of the Age's figures. These similarities included an engagement in the quest for human meaning[7] and the rise of a new elite class of religious leaders and thinkers in China, India and the Occident.[8] The three regions all gave birth to, and then institutionalised, a tradition of travelling scholars, who roamed from city to city to exchange ideas. These scholars were largely from extant religious traditions; in China, Confucianism and Taoism; in India, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism; in Persia, the religion of Zoroaster; in Canaan, Judaism; and in Greece, sophism and other classical philosophy.
Jaspers argues that these characteristics appeared under the same sociological circumstances: China, India and the Occident each comprised multiple small states engaged in internal and external struggles.
The word axial in the phrase axial age means pivotal. The name comes from Jaspers' use of the German word Achse, which means both "axis" and "pivot".
German sociologist Max Weber played an important role in Jaspers' thinking.[9][10][11] Shmuel Eisenstadt argues in the introduction to The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations that Max Weber's work in his The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism and Ancient Judaism provided a background for the importance of the period, and notes parallels with Eric Voegelin's Order and History.[8] Wider acknowledgement of Jaspers' work came after he presented it at a conference and published it in Dædalus in 1975, and Jaspers' suggestion that the period was uniquely transformative and generated important discussion amongst other scholars, such as Johann Arnason.[11]
Religious historian Karen Armstrong explored the period in her The Great Transformation,[12] and the theory has been the focus of academic conferences.[13] Usage of the term has expanded beyond Jaspers' original formulation. Armstrong argues that the Enlightenment was a "Second Axial Age", including thinkers such as Isaac Newton, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein,[14] and that religion today needs to return to the transformative Axial insights.[15] In contrast, it has been suggested that the modern era is a new axial age, wherein traditional relationships between religion, secularity, and traditional thought are changing."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age
Next up: Pythagoras.
The Axial Age pertains to the period from 800 to 200 BC, during which "the spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently... And these are the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today". The German philosopher Karl Jaspers coined the term to describe similar revolutionary thinking in Greece, the Near East, India and China. Phrased in German as Achsenzeit (axis time), it is also referred to as axis age and appeared first in Jaspers’ Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (The Origin and Goal of History) to sum up the appearance of key thinkers who had a profound influence on future philosophy and religion. The Axial Age saw the rise of Buddhism, Platonism, Confucianism and Zoroastrianism; the writers of the Upanishads, Lao Tzu, Homer, Socrates, Heraclitus. Thucydides, Archimedes, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc. are seen as key figures, while Jaspers singled out Socrates, Confucius and Buddha as examples of "paradigmatic personality". Jaspers argued that the axial age gave birth to philosophy as a discipline.
“Jaspers described the axial age as "an interregnum between two ages of great empire, a pause for liberty, a deep breath bringing the most lucid consciousness".[6] Jaspers was particularly interested in the similarities in circumstance and thought of the Age's figures. These similarities included an engagement in the quest for human meaning[7] and the rise of a new elite class of religious leaders and thinkers in China, India and the Occident.[8] The three regions all gave birth to, and then institutionalised, a tradition of travelling scholars, who roamed from city to city to exchange ideas. These scholars were largely from extant religious traditions; in China, Confucianism and Taoism; in India, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism; in Persia, the religion of Zoroaster; in Canaan, Judaism; and in Greece, sophism and other classical philosophy.
Jaspers argues that these characteristics appeared under the same sociological circumstances: China, India and the Occident each comprised multiple small states engaged in internal and external struggles.
The word axial in the phrase axial age means pivotal. The name comes from Jaspers' use of the German word Achse, which means both "axis" and "pivot".
German sociologist Max Weber played an important role in Jaspers' thinking.[9][10][11] Shmuel Eisenstadt argues in the introduction to The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations that Max Weber's work in his The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism and Ancient Judaism provided a background for the importance of the period, and notes parallels with Eric Voegelin's Order and History.[8] Wider acknowledgement of Jaspers' work came after he presented it at a conference and published it in Dædalus in 1975, and Jaspers' suggestion that the period was uniquely transformative and generated important discussion amongst other scholars, such as Johann Arnason.[11]
Religious historian Karen Armstrong explored the period in her The Great Transformation,[12] and the theory has been the focus of academic conferences.[13] Usage of the term has expanded beyond Jaspers' original formulation. Armstrong argues that the Enlightenment was a "Second Axial Age", including thinkers such as Isaac Newton, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein,[14] and that religion today needs to return to the transformative Axial insights.[15] In contrast, it has been suggested that the modern era is a new axial age, wherein traditional relationships between religion, secularity, and traditional thought are changing."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age
Next up: Pythagoras.
GoodGame
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Deriving the central dogma of biology by the Socratic method would be very difficult in the least. Would they even accept the existence of cells? Don't answer. They probably wouldn't.
GoodGame
Red, White, & Blue, baby!
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But didn't go very far with it. But I was specifically talking about the Socratic method which Mark brought up, and I doubt that would have reached an acceptance of 'cells'.
They didn't get very far with it, because it was treated as a philosophical concept only (no testing of hypothesis at that time - which might have been difficult to accomplish, BTW). Still, Greek philosophers came up with the strangest stuff, so I wouldn't put it out of their (potential) reach. Also, the 'socratic method' was unknown before Socrates and doesn't appear as very appropriate as a means to advance knowledge of the physical world as is.
GoodGame
Red, White, & Blue, baby!
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That was my point.
AFAIK, Greeks didn't really come close to scientific thought until Aristotle got the ball rolling with the Physics.
As I stated here:
That was some 2 centuries before Aristotle's Physics. (One should also remember that the Greeks were still very much embedded in religious mythology at the time.)
That was some 2 centuries before Aristotle's Physics. (One should also remember that the Greeks were still very much embedded in religious mythology at the time.)
The Polish philosopher and historian of ideas, Leszek Kolakowski has died in hospital in Oxford, England. He was 81.
One of the few 20th Century eastern European thinkers to gain international renown, he spent almost half of his life in exile from his native country.
He argued that the cruelties of Stalinism were not an aberration, but the logical conclusion of Marxism.
MPs in Warsaw observed a minute's silence to remember his contribution to a free and democratic Poland.
Leszek Kolakowski was born in Radom, Poland, 12 years before the outbreak of the World War II.
Under the Nazi occupation of Poland school classes were banned so he taught himself foreign languages and literature.
He even systematically read through an incomplete encyclopaedia he found.
He once said he knew everything under the letters, A, D and E, but nothing about the Bs and the Cs.
After the war he studied philosophy and became a professor. Seeing the destruction wrought by the Nazis in Poland he joined the Communist Party.
But he gradually became disillusioned and more daring in his criticism of the system. In 1966 he was expelled from the party and two years later he lost his job.
Seeking exile in the West, he eventually settled at Oxford's All Souls college where he wrote his best-known work, the three-volume Main Currents of Marxism, considered by some to be one of the most important books on political theory of the 20th Century.
In the 1980s, from his base in Britain, he supported Poland's pro-democracy Solidarity movement which overthrew communism in 1989.
For many of its leaders he was an icon.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8157014.stm
One of the few 20th Century eastern European thinkers to gain international renown, he spent almost half of his life in exile from his native country.
He argued that the cruelties of Stalinism were not an aberration, but the logical conclusion of Marxism.
MPs in Warsaw observed a minute's silence to remember his contribution to a free and democratic Poland.
Leszek Kolakowski was born in Radom, Poland, 12 years before the outbreak of the World War II.
Under the Nazi occupation of Poland school classes were banned so he taught himself foreign languages and literature.
He even systematically read through an incomplete encyclopaedia he found.
He once said he knew everything under the letters, A, D and E, but nothing about the Bs and the Cs.
After the war he studied philosophy and became a professor. Seeing the destruction wrought by the Nazis in Poland he joined the Communist Party.
But he gradually became disillusioned and more daring in his criticism of the system. In 1966 he was expelled from the party and two years later he lost his job.
Seeking exile in the West, he eventually settled at Oxford's All Souls college where he wrote his best-known work, the three-volume Main Currents of Marxism, considered by some to be one of the most important books on political theory of the 20th Century.
In the 1980s, from his base in Britain, he supported Poland's pro-democracy Solidarity movement which overthrew communism in 1989.
For many of its leaders he was an icon.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8157014.stm
Kołakowski was born and educated in Poland. As a young philosopher he embraced doctrinaire Marxism as a hopeful alternative to the horrors of Nazi Germany. But when the Communist Party sent him to Moscow in 1950 to attend a program for promising young intellectuals, he became aware of what he called the material and spiritual desolation that the Stalinist system had wrought. Kołakowski played a key intellectual role in the reformist Polish October movement of 1956, in which liberal sentiment led to a break between Polish communism and that of the Soviet Union. In 1959 he was appointed chairman of the history of philosophy section at the University of Warsaw.
Though he remained a Marxist through the 1960s, Kołakowskis relationship to official Communist ideology became increasingly strained, thanks to the growing emphasis in his thought on the sovereignty of the individual and the importance of political and intellectual freedom. In 1966, following an address he gave on the tenth anniversary of the Polish October uprising, he was ejected from the Polish United Workers Party. Two years later he was fired from his university post, accused of forming the views of the youth in a manner contrary to the official tendency of the country. The same year, following Polands state-sponsored campaign against Zionism, Kołakowski, his Jewish wife, and their daughter left for Canada and the United States before settling at All Souls College in Oxford, where he has been a fellow since 1970. Although Kołakowski was banned in his home country for more than two decades, his writings continued to have an important effect in Poland, as elsewhere. He provided significant support to the Solidarity movement during the 1980s.
While Kołakowskis most influential work is undoubtedly Main Currents of Marxism (1976), in which he traces the history and decline of Marxist thought from its origins in Christianity and German Romanticism through Marx, Engels, the Russian Revolution, and what he calls the breakdown in the middle of the twentieth century, he is much more than a scholar of the Left. He is first and foremost a philosopher and a historian of philosophy. He has written books on Spinoza, Husserl, Bergson, and Pascal, and dealt extensively with a range of topics in existentialism, epistemology, and the philosophy of religion. Like the rest of his corpus, the essays in Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing? reveal the workings of a great mind with a distinctively liberal, humanistic, and Catholic worldview.
Meanwhile, here is a passage from Kołakowskis 1982 Tanner Lecture that I discuss in that review, and that inspired this blogs title:
http://www.amconmag.com/schwenkler/2009/07/17/leszek-kolakowski-1927-2009/
The master of doubt
Kolakowski was a master of the small form; he wrote fairy tales, parodies, aphorisms and "mini-tractates on maxi-themes", invented the kingdom of Lailonia and presented in shorthand a press conference held by the devil in December, 1963 in Warsaw to protest against the denial of his existence. For himself Kolakowski reserved the rôle of the jester, who represents "[the] attitude of negative vigilance towards the absolute." The essence of his philosophy is "goodness without hindsight, courage without fanaticism, intelligence without doubt and hope without blindness". Kolakowski, the jester, tried to show in his life and work how to be a "conservative-liberal socialist". The main solution for the future Socialist International was given to him by a tram conductor in Warsaw: "Please step back forward!"
Excerpt from:
http://www.welt.de/die-welt/article4152118/Der-Meister-des-Zweifelns.html
Further reference:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/kolakow.htm (short bibilography)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leszek_Kołakowski (dito plus links to actual texts and complete bibliography)
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/95138k/2973630/Hinter-der-Maske-des-Narren.html (obituary in German)
Critical assessment of Kolakowski and Main currents of Marxism:
http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2006/09/tony-judt-leszek-kolakowski-and.html
Though he remained a Marxist through the 1960s, Kołakowskis relationship to official Communist ideology became increasingly strained, thanks to the growing emphasis in his thought on the sovereignty of the individual and the importance of political and intellectual freedom. In 1966, following an address he gave on the tenth anniversary of the Polish October uprising, he was ejected from the Polish United Workers Party. Two years later he was fired from his university post, accused of forming the views of the youth in a manner contrary to the official tendency of the country. The same year, following Polands state-sponsored campaign against Zionism, Kołakowski, his Jewish wife, and their daughter left for Canada and the United States before settling at All Souls College in Oxford, where he has been a fellow since 1970. Although Kołakowski was banned in his home country for more than two decades, his writings continued to have an important effect in Poland, as elsewhere. He provided significant support to the Solidarity movement during the 1980s.
While Kołakowskis most influential work is undoubtedly Main Currents of Marxism (1976), in which he traces the history and decline of Marxist thought from its origins in Christianity and German Romanticism through Marx, Engels, the Russian Revolution, and what he calls the breakdown in the middle of the twentieth century, he is much more than a scholar of the Left. He is first and foremost a philosopher and a historian of philosophy. He has written books on Spinoza, Husserl, Bergson, and Pascal, and dealt extensively with a range of topics in existentialism, epistemology, and the philosophy of religion. Like the rest of his corpus, the essays in Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing? reveal the workings of a great mind with a distinctively liberal, humanistic, and Catholic worldview.
Meanwhile, here is a passage from Kołakowskis 1982 Tanner Lecture that I discuss in that review, and that inspired this blogs title:
The cultural role of philosophy is not to deliver truth but to build the spirit of truth and this means: never to let the inquisitive energy of mind go to sleep, never to stop questioning what appears to be obvious and definitive, always to defy the seemingly intact resources of common sense, always to suspect that there might be another side in what we take for granted, and never to allow us to forget that there are questions that lie beyond the legitimate horizon of science and are nonetheless crucially important to the survival of humanity as we know it. All the most traditional worries of philosophers - how to tell good from evil, true from false, real from unreal, being from nothingness, just from unjust, necessary from contingent, myself from others, man from animal, mind from body, or how to find order in chaos, providence in absurdity, timelessness in time, laws in facts, God in the world, world in language - all of them boil down to the quest for meaning; and they presuppose that in dissecting such questions we may employ the instruments of Reason, even if the ultimate outcome is the dismissal of Reason or its defeat. Philosophers neither sow nor harvest, they only move the soil. They do not discover truth; but they are needed to keep the energy of mind alive, to confront various possibilities of answering our questions.
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=3696
http://www.amconmag.com/schwenkler/2009/07/17/leszek-kolakowski-1927-2009/
The master of doubt
Kolakowski was a master of the small form; he wrote fairy tales, parodies, aphorisms and "mini-tractates on maxi-themes", invented the kingdom of Lailonia and presented in shorthand a press conference held by the devil in December, 1963 in Warsaw to protest against the denial of his existence. For himself Kolakowski reserved the rôle of the jester, who represents "[the] attitude of negative vigilance towards the absolute." The essence of his philosophy is "goodness without hindsight, courage without fanaticism, intelligence without doubt and hope without blindness". Kolakowski, the jester, tried to show in his life and work how to be a "conservative-liberal socialist". The main solution for the future Socialist International was given to him by a tram conductor in Warsaw: "Please step back forward!"
Excerpt from:
http://www.welt.de/die-welt/article4152118/Der-Meister-des-Zweifelns.html
Further reference:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/kolakow.htm (short bibilography)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leszek_Kołakowski (dito plus links to actual texts and complete bibliography)
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/95138k/2973630/Hinter-der-Maske-des-Narren.html (obituary in German)
Critical assessment of Kolakowski and Main currents of Marxism:
http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2006/09/tony-judt-leszek-kolakowski-and.html
aelf
Ashen One
Logical? Sounds like he's more emotional than logical on this issue. Which school of Marxism is he talking about anyway?
aelf
Ashen One
Yeah, whatever. I'm not here to show my well-readness. I'm just questioning how he could come up with such a sweeping generalisation and hope that it's a sound conclusion. That's not 'logical'.
If in your wisdom you have some insights to share about what he's arguing, please do so.
Your superficial 'comment' was sufficient clue to your 'well-readness'. I'm referring you back to the links in post #136; they provide ample information if someone is really interested in Kolakowski's work and views. Regarding Kolakowski's personal views on Marxism: as you might have understood from the obituary, he was a professor of philosophy at the university of Warsaw until disillusioned by the practice of Marxism-Leninism; I believe it was this experience which prompted him to dedicate a serious study to the development of this worldview/philosophy, known ironically as Marxism-Senilism. His key thesis, as you noted, is that Stalinism is not contrary to original Marxism at all, but rather the logical conclusion of ideas already prevalent in early Marxist thought. This may be disputable; Marx himself - and subsequent social-democratism - was moving towards a more democratic direction. (It is perhaps little known that the father of Communism was himself a member of the German Social-Democratic Party.) Nonetheless, the theory of Marxism, while reportedly ending up with some kind of utopian democracy, assigns a central rôle to the, supposedly temporary, dictatorship of the proletariat. Unfortunately, Marx himself did not put much thought in how such a dictatorship might turn out, practically speaking. Lenin, on the other hand, saw the Communist Party, being, in his view, the spearhead of the revolution (he had little regard for the revolutionary qualities of Russia's proletariat in this respect, part of which was indeed industrial, but the overwhelming majority of which were rural workers). As it turned out, this "temporary" dictatorship easily turned into a permanent one; in light of Lenin's personal and theoretic views on the matter, this can indeed be seen as a logical conclusion - just as logical as the social-democratic direction. Both social-democracy and communism have their roots primarily - though not exclusively - in Marxism. Having myself also not read Kolakowski's three part work on the Main Currents of Marxism, I cannot vouch if this is indeed in short the analysis Kolakowski gives of the development of Marxism after Marx, but as you can see, his position is indeed defendable.
On a personal note, obviously I've never met him in person, but I remember reading a text of his in class, when we were lucky enough to get a philosophy course given by the last Jesuit teacher in our school. Even then interest in philosophy was fairly minimal, which provided us with the quiet opportunity to have some insight in great philosophers past and present.
On a personal note, obviously I've never met him in person, but I remember reading a text of his in class, when we were lucky enough to get a philosophy course given by the last Jesuit teacher in our school. Even then interest in philosophy was fairly minimal, which provided us with the quiet opportunity to have some insight in great philosophers past and present.
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