Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Wording is Everything

So it turns out that the real homework lesson began today. I had over 100 pages to read from Plato's Republic...I'm almost done though.

Anyways, today was kind of a long, drawn out day. I woke up a little later because I went to bed a little later, but I still managed to make it down to the dining hall for a quick breakfast. After that was class of course, where we received a lecture on the contradictions of the New Testament, and how great thinkers like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, who have nearly opposite views on humanity, can use different passages from the same text to prove their points. Being a Christian, this was all very interesting to me, especially when the two philosophers began to touch on human nature and whether or not we are born with sin or acquire it through vice.

Later in the day, we had our writing workshop where we got our papers on Freedom back. Mine was mostly marked up with "Why?" and "How?" but there were also a lot of arrows pointing to specific areas with only the word "Right" written there, which made me feel pretty good. However, I still wanted to talk to my TA before I revised the paper, just so I could be sure of what he was looking for, and so Taylor and I went to go see him around 4:30PM during his office hours.

He told me that my paper was pretty good, and that most of my arguments were solid, but that I did need to be careful with my wording. Apparently, when it comes to philosophy, wording is everything. He told me to give another example to help prove my point and also to provide my thoughts on the whole concept at the end. With these specific guidelines, finishing my revisions before Friday should be a piece of cake.

The rest of the night was really just reading and note-taking, so there's not much more to report on, unless of course, you would all like to hear about Plato's ideas on perfect society and philosopher kings... Assuming that is not the case, however, I believe I will get myself some sleep. Good night!

1 comment:

  1. Hey Joe! Love to see your posts! Your first paper seems to be coming along well. Hope you had a good day of writing today and got some sleep. Thinking of you here in the Bay! Tu Pops.

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