You enrolled in a philosophy class? Cool! You might have heard a few things about philosophy. But — on average — few people know much about academic philosophy. So here’s a quick introduction to your first philosophy class. It’ll cover the basics of what your philosophy teacher cares about and what they probably expect from you.

1.  Forget What You Believe

You believe all sorts of stuff. But what you believe isn’t as important as why you believe. When we’re voting, raising children, deciding how to spend our time/money, etc., the quality of our reasoning matters …a lot. We need to be able to

• find information.
• understand information.
• explain information.
• evaluate information.

And this is similar to what we will do in a philosophy class. So your grade in a philosophy class is a matter of how well you understand, explain, and evaluate information — where “information” is just the stuff you read and discuss for class.

But that’s not very specific. You probably want to know how to evaluate and explain the information we come across in a philosophy course. For instance, is it enough to say, “I disagree with So-and-so because I believe that _______”? The short answer: no.

In a philosophy class, it doesn’t really matter what we believe. Philosophy is more about Continue reading 3 Tips For Your First Philosophy Class