{"id":2591,"date":"2021-05-09T12:48:08","date_gmt":"2021-05-09T12:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/05\/09\/do-i-miss-teaching\/"},"modified":"2021-05-09T12:48:08","modified_gmt":"2021-05-09T12:48:08","slug":"do-i-miss-teaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/05\/09\/do-i-miss-teaching\/","title":{"rendered":"Do I Miss Teaching?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am enjoying classroom teaching quite a bit now that I no longer do it. With some things it is not the doing of it that we like so much as the having done it. <\/span><\/p>\n

One day in class I carefully explained the abbreviation \u2018iff\u2019 often employed by philosophers and mathematicians to avoid writing \u2018if and only if.\u2019 I explained the logical differences among \u2018if,\u2019 \u2018only if,\u2019 and \u2018if and only if.\u2019 I gave examples. I brought in necessary and sufficient conditions. The whole shot. But I wasn\u2019t all that surprised when I later read a student comment to the effect that Dr. V can\u2019t spell \u2018if.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

On another occasion I explained that 'When does life begin?' is not the right question to ask in the abortion debate. For one thing, are we talking about life on Earth? Human life on Earth? An individual human life? If the question pertains to an individual human life, then the answer is obvious: at conception.  So that can't be the question. The question concerns personhood: when does an individual human life become a person?  I then explained descriptive personhood, the criteria of same, normative personhood, the relation between the two and added a bit about rights and duties and their correlativity.<\/span><\/p>\n

After I was done with these distinctions, a kid raised his hand and asked, "But isn't the question when life begins?"<\/span><\/p>\n

I was struck once again by the pointlessness of most 'teaching,' but I didn't quit my job then and there.  More time had to pass before the 'meaningfulness' of being paid was no longer meaning enough.  <\/span><\/p>\n

It may be a generational characteristic. We Boomers want every moment to be meaningful. I suppose we are spoiled in that regard.<\/span><\/p>\n

I did have a few good students. A memorable Kant seminar was composed of ten students, eight of whom were outstanding. I would have taught that class for free.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am enjoying classroom teaching quite a bit now that I no longer do it. With some things it is not the doing of it that we like so much as the having done it.  One day in class I carefully explained the abbreviation \u2018iff\u2019 often employed by philosophers and mathematicians to avoid writing \u2018if … Continue reading “Do I Miss Teaching?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,92,150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-autobiographical","category-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}