I've really enjoyed most of the presentations we've seen so far, I feel like we're getting know each other pretty well because of them. Individual personalities are coming through, because although the research aspect is important, the subject matter displays personality more then anything else. In a way I feel like these are very private things we're being asked to share, and they show how we have formed our identities.
I feel like some of them took a very broad topic, and narrowed it down a bit to far. I know that it is hard to cover the scope of the topic, and that sometimes it felt like it was necessary to make it more manageable, but in some cases I think it took away from what the assignment was meant to be.
Kirsten, I'm glad you feel like you're getting to know your classmates better through this assignment. I specifically chose the topics because they are quite basic and fundamental -- I feel like sometimes academic philosophy gets too caught up in petty little arguments that distract from the larger issues that are common to us all. As you noted, though, they can also be quite personal because they are so fundamental -- just one of the interesting paradoxes of philosophy :)
ReplyDelete(To tie this back to our class discussion on Monday, this might be one absolute statement I am willing to make in terms of my own personal philosophy: All truth resides in paradoxes.)