Monday, December 13, 2010

Sharing the Joy

I am in my last real week of finals at BYU, sort of. Anyway, I'm attempting to find the joy in these last few (except the one that was at 7am - I literally felt like I could kill someone if they even looked at me wrong. Early morning=irritability to the point of psychopathy) and I thought I'd share the joy with you. (I fully expect this to be the least read blog post ever). Here are some gems from the week:


Philosophy of Law:  Today at 7am I was presented with five questions, including the following - our answers to each were supposed to be at least a page long - in total I ended up writing ten pages. Who needs coffee when you have this stuff?
  • (a) Under the standard proposed by Estrich (p.875), what would a person be required to do to avoid being negligent regarding the consent of a sexual partner? (b) What problems does a negligence standard for rape entail? (c) In your opinion, what should be legally required to be guilty of rape? Defend your answer against possible objections.
  • (a) Is the U.S. government morally obligated to provide remedies for past discrimination against African-Americans? Explain. (b) State arguments for and against using affirmative action as a legal remedy for past discrimination. (c) How does Justice Brennan in Bakke (p.594) argue that preferential treatment (affirmative action) should be subjected to less than strict scrutiny. Do you agree? Why or why not? 
Logic: Mostly proofs and some symoblizations. It's like math without numbers.
  • I had to give proofs for give statements like the following:
    • (x)(CaxDxb)
    • (Ǝx)Cax                  C: (Ǝx)Cax→(Ǝx)(Ǝy)Dxy 
Philosophy of Language: Mixed bag, essays, short answer and memorizations.
  • Essay: Drawing upon Kripke's theory of naming and the notion of a rigid designator, give a semantical account of the word "philosophy." Implicit in this answer should be an explanation of why "the love of wisdom" is a problematic answer. 
  • Turn sentences like "The French king is not funny" into:
    • It is false that: "x rules France" is sometimes true, "if y rules France then y=x" is always true, "x is not funny" is sometimes true.
  • Memorize nine quotes like:
    • Everything is what it is and not another thing.
    • All these results were obtained not by any heroic method, buy by patient, detailed reasoning. I began to think it probably the Philosophy had erred in adopting heroic remedies for intellectual difficulties, and that solutions were to be found merely by greater care and accuracy. 
Philosophical Writing: Papers. Lots of papers.
  • Excerpt from my term paper on Skepticism and St. Augustine: The Academics deny that knowledge is possible. They deny the validity of cataleptic impressions and sensory experiences because they are too easily duplicated in verifiably untrue ways (such as dreams), and they are too vulnerable to the errors of human perception. The Academics do acknowledge that truth exists but deny the existence of knowledge because our human modes of perception and reason are too fallible to access truth. They argue that while people may think they know some fact which actually turns out to be true, they have no way of knowing that they know it. Therefore, true knowledge, that is knowledge of our knowledge, is not possible (Klein).
Philosophy Senior Seminar: Very broad/general readings and another Paper.
  • Excerpt from the paper on Ethical Egoism and Kantian Deontology: While it is true that committing to certain duties takes a degree of thought out of some choices, it does not take away one's autonomy in Kant's sense, or one's concern for self in an Egoist's sense. In fact, the adoption of these duties may  be necessary for us to truly conform to either system. If we always had to make hard choices in the moment of action, we would probably be much less effective both in choosing what is moral, and is choosing what in our own best interest.
Doctrine & Covenants: Multiple Choice and Matching - lots of terms like these: 
  • Keys for detecting messengers (D&C 129) 
  • Kinds of beings in heaven (D&C 129)
  • Appearances of the Father, Son (D&C 130)
  • Willard Richards
  • John Taylor 
  • Alvin Smith

1 comment:

Elizabeth said...

If it makes you feel better, reading your assignments, though I don't envy your work level these few days, I do envy your classes, they sound very interesting, and kinda miss my humanities/philosophy/discussion type classes from when I was in college. So enjoy it, even if it does seem overwhelming!