丁香园AV

by Tessa Whittle

I asked three students in the Philosophy Honours program about why they are taking philosophy, what is unique about their degree, and what advice they have for other students taking philosophy courses. I talked to Nava Karimi, fourth year Philosophy Honours Student and English Major, Taylor Ivan, fourth year Philosophy Honours Student, and Mishael Abu-Samhan, fourth year Philosophy Honours student and Political Science major.

Nava Karimi:

Hi Nava! Thanks for agreeing to talk to me. First, I want to ask you why you choose to do philosophy in the first place.

I was always kind of curious about philosophy, like you hear the word 鈥減hilosophy鈥� and don鈥檛 really know what it is. I took one philosophy class in high school, but I was curious about what it would look like at an undergrad level. I was an intended English major and signed up for four random courses in first year, and one was PHIL 120 (Moral and Legal Problems) with Bruno Guindon. I was like 鈥渢his rules鈥� and declared my philosophy major.

I鈥檓 so glad to hear that, I鈥檝e TA鈥檇 for 120 a few times, and it makes me so happy when the course really engages people to continue in philosophy. What did you like about it? The discussions or the readings?

What鈥檚 funny is it actually took me a long time to participate in discussions. I think the first two years of my degree I did not speak.

Me too!

Yeah, just like, totally silent. It wasn鈥檛 until I a 400-level seminar with Endre Begby where he really emphasized participation that I actually started talking in class.

But to answer the first question, I really liked the readings from the start. I like the way the papers are written. They lay out premises and a conclusion, and analysing the argument or trying to find problems feels like solving a puzzle. I took PHIL 110 (Logic and Reasoning) later on, and thought that was fun.

I love to hear that too. Not everyone likes logic, but I think it can be so fun too if you approach it the right way. It is a lot like a puzzle.

So now that you are further into the program, are you working on your honour鈥檚 paper? Can you tell me a bit about that process?

Yes, basically, you are supposed to take a paper you wrote for an upper-level philosophy class, and continue to polish it with a faculty member. I am working with Endre on a project which will probably be about social epistemology. I took PHIL 455 with him last fall, and the topic still interests me, but I don鈥檛 think I want to keep working that paper for the honours project. I think we agreed to say, 鈥渢his was a great paper, but let鈥檚 pack it up.鈥� So, whatever I do will deviate from the specific argument I made there. I鈥檓 taking another upper-level course with him in the fall so I might work on something from that class. I am aiming to take the honours tutorial in the spring, so I have some time to decide on something.

Best of luck putting together a topic! If you have an area you are interested in and have someone to work with, it sounds like you are on a good track.

Can I ask what do you like about doing philosophy in general? Are there any topics you get to explore or skills you get to use that you might not use in a different discipline?

Philosophy is so different from other disciplines in the way that you approach problems. So, you can take classes that touch on some of the same topics, but in philosophy classes, you are going to think and write about it in a more analytical way. I actually have to remind myself when I am writing papers for my English courses that I can鈥檛 write them like philosophy papers, because that just isn鈥檛 the style they use.

I also I think taking philosophy courses really helps you explicitly learn how to process ideas broadly. When I took a literary criticism course for English I felt really prepared because I was already equipped to do conceptual analysis.

And then lastly some of the special topics courses are so random and cool in philosophy. Like, Philosophy of Friendship? Where else are you going to get a course on friendship. Its fuzzy and warm.

Haha yeah, you can apply that analytical lens to just about anything. Some people struggle to get into the groove with philosophy, do you have any tips for people like that?

One thing is that philosophy as a discipline (especially the way that it is done in contemporary analytic departments like ours) requires a pretty good grasp of logic. The fact that they have us do logic at the 100-level is so important. Once those ideas click, the more complicated ideas in readings and discussions click a little better too.

And a more immediate piece of advice, which feels a little basic to say, is that going to office hours is valuable and not a lot of students take advantage of them. Sometimes just talking through the source of confusion is so beneficial. Especially if you are in these big philosophy lectures, sometimes you lose the thread and then just sit there and suffer in silence. It can feel like 鈥淲hat is happening. I literally have no idea.鈥� But getting to talk with the professor can get you past that hurdle.

That is so true. Everyone says it, but I was way to shy to go to office hours in undergrad (and honestly not organized enough to remember when they were). But now that I have a closer relationship with my professors, and now that I鈥檝e been the office-hours-holder, I really regret missing out on that extra help. Well thanks for talking with me Nava!

Taylor Ivan:

Hi Taylor, why did you decide to take philosophy courses in the first place?

I decided to go into philosophy because of the topic I wanted to study. I am interested in . At first, I thought that Alchemy was a religion, so I wanted to do religious studies. But when I researched it more, I found out that it is not a religion, just a framework that overlaps with religion. Then I thought I could study it in an anthropology department, but since there aren鈥檛 many living alchemists, that isn鈥檛 really the place for it. It can鈥檛 be anthropology because everyone who did it is dead, and it can鈥檛 be religious studies because it is not actually a religion. So, that leaves me in philosophy, and that鈥檚 what I did.

I鈥檝e found that philosophy can sometimes act as a catch-all for research interests that don鈥檛 quite fit other places. So, you are in the honours program, right? Will you be working on a project on alchemy?

Yeah, I took the Honours program so that I could get an idea of what grad school might be like, work on a good writing sample for PhD applications, work more closely with people to have better recommendation letters, and generally add a little to my resume. I鈥檓 working on the honours paper with Holly Anderson about alchemy.

That鈥檚 awesome! So how do you study alchemical ideas from a philosophical lens?

The details might change, but right now my project covers how alchemy was a legitimate science, and that our reasons for getting rid of it were illegitimate. I pinpoint one of the main reasons for the rejection of the alchemical framework as chemist鈥檚 taking over the term 鈥渆lement.鈥� In chemistry elements are tangible entities, but in alchemy they were metaphysical entities. And, interestingly, one of the problems that contemporary philosophers of science are dealing with is whether elements are tangible or metaphysical things. So even in contemporary science we are dealing with some problems that arose from just abandoning the alchemical element.

That鈥檚 really interesting, I guess you can鈥檛 escape metaphysics! So, I guess by doing philosophy you鈥檝e gotten to work on a topic that you couldn鈥檛 work on elsewhere, but is there anything else you think is unique about doing a philosophy degree?

I think the biggest thing is actually cutting through arguments and seeing what鈥檚 actually going on. In other disciplines arguments are treated a little differently, I think you have to rely more on your intuition to say 鈥渉m, this seems fishy.鈥� Bit in philosophy you can pinpoint exactly why an argument is fishy. It makes it seem more grounded.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense, it鈥檚 like the place for rigorous argument analysis. So you are pretty far along in your degree, do you have any tips for people struggling in their philosophy classes?

Well, first a practical point, I think its worth noting that at 丁香园AV people are a little shy to participate in philosophy classes.  If you want a more intensive discussion, you kind of have to be the leader of it or at least get the ball rolling.

But generally, I would say that the best way to do philosophy is to find an argument, and stick with it until you find out that you are wrong. I think people get kind of overprotective of their own ideas. I think the way to do philosophy is to pick an idea that you think is right, know that you are probably wrong, and then see how far you can get before you find out that you really are wrong. You don鈥檛 have to take it personally when you find out you were wrong.

I think that鈥檚 great, in this context especially people should feel free to try things out,  advocate for their ideas, and be willing to let go and find out if they are wrong. Thanks for talking with me Taylor!

No problem!

Mishael Abu-Samhan

Hi Mishael, why did you decide to take philosophy courses in the first place?

I came into my undergrad knowing I wanted to do political science, so I started first year as an intending political science major. And prior to that, since grade 9 or 10, I鈥檝e known that I wanted to go to law school. So those two interests dovetailed well. But I was looking through the courses in the other disciplines I found interesting, one of which was philosophy, and two courses caught my eye at the time. They were PHIL 110 (Logic and Reasoning) and PHIL 120 (Moral and Legal Problems). I figured both would be a good introduction to philosophy in general, and an introduction to some things I was already interested in, building arguments and finding out why things are right or wrong. Those two courses really grabbed my attention. Since then, I took multiple philosophy courses per semester, and have loved it.

I鈥檓 glad to hear you were hooked! I think a BA in philosophy actually goes really well with law. (For the reader: see our Concentration in Law and Philosophy)

So, you also went into the honours stream instead of taking just the major, right?

Yeah so, for me, once I was in higher-level courses, I started feeling like the papers I was writing were really living and dying within the course. I would write something about political epistemology, for example, and then after the term paper was due, I would never think about it again. That was kind of frustrating to me because I think philosophy is one of the disciplines where the issues are so timeless, it feels kind of self-defeating to only talk and think about them for four months.

After I finished PHIL 321 with Professor Alex King, I thought I should ask if she would be my thesis supervisor, and whether I could work with her on the term paper I wrote for that course. The course was largely about partiality and friendship, and I wrote about whether we should befriend AI. At that point I had a negative argument 鈥� we shouldn鈥檛 befriend AI because of x, y and z. But working with Professor King, I expanded on that topic by talking about why we should befriend people specifically. I enrolled in the honour鈥檚 seminar in the spring. It was a very good process; she gave me very useful and productive feedback on drafts over the course of the term, and I submitted a good copy around the end of the exam season, at the end of April.

That鈥檚 great! So, have you finished your honours requirements now?

I am finished the thesis, and have enough philosophy courses for the major. I have some more coursework to complete for the honours. I have one academic year left, and I am planning to do a year of co-op as well. The plan is to graduate spring of 鈥�26 and then enroll in law school by the fall of 鈥�26.

That sounds like a good plan! Since you鈥檝e taken lots of philosophy classes so far, can you tell me about anything you鈥檝e gotten out of those courses that you might not get elsewhere?

In my experience of the 丁香园AV philosophy courses I鈥檝e taken, the professors really nourish intellectual curiosity. If you bring something up that is tangential to the lecture, the professor will still try to understand your point and discuss it. In general, I think there are a lot more ways to make something your own in philosophy courses. A lot of other courses I have taken are more regimented. Whereas in upper-level courses in philosophy, you do have the ability to choose some very abstract topics that are very unique. I think in that in philosophy professors encourage people to be creative, to be good problem solvers in very unorthodox ways. I don鈥檛 think I鈥檝e experienced that in my other coursework.

I find that sort of creative problem solving so fun, but it can also make philosophy assignments pretty hard. Do you have any advice for people who might struggle in philosophy classes?

I think I frequently encountered some of the most difficult roadblocks I had in my academic career in philosophy courses. The problems are so timeless, no one is expecting you to actually find out, say, what knowledge is in a 1,200 word paper in a 200 level course. I think what has helped me is that I know I will figure out how to answer the question. I think people should know first of all that if you prepare and do the readings and go to class, eventually you will overcome those difficulties. But secondly, I am also very unafraid to go to my Professors鈥� and TAs鈥� office hours. I think sometimes students can be intimidated, but in my experience all of the philosophy professors have been very approachable. Most of the breakthroughs I have when I hit a roadblock have been in office hours. For me, it has been such a difference maker especially because all of the professors in the department are of such high caliber, they will usually find a cogent way to explain something that you might not understand.

I think that is great advice, thanks Mishael!