Letter To Student Of PHIL 100 Appreciation Of Philosophy

Dear Student of PHIL 100 Appreciation of Philosophy, Before taking Philosophy, I didn’t really know what to expect. I knew that taking it would fulfill 3 “arts and humanities” credits, which I need to graduate, and that was about it. Now, I know that Philosophy is one of those things that makes you challenge your beliefs, to see if your stance on a subject is actually your stance, or if it is what you were taught to believe. For instance, when we learned about the mind, you had to chose if you were a monist or dualist. Following that, was the choice of cartesian dualism or naturalistic dualism (if you decided you were a dualist) or the eliminativist or mind-brain identity theorist for the monists (you will learn all these stances during the semester). I started the semester believing I was a dualist, thinking that the brain and the mind were separate entities and the mind is not a physical thing. After hearing all of the evidence backing other standpoints, I decided I more believed the mind-brain identity theory that states the mind and brain are identical. This is just one example of when I discovered my own beliefs instead of arguing for the beliefs that somebody else taught me were correct.

Instead of being told something by my friends, parents, boss, etc. and supporting the belief they told me (purely because of ignorance of other views on the topic), this class has taught me to consider the evidence and reasoning behind beliefs and see which one I identify with most closely. Shawn is great at giving opportunities to develop a stance on the in-class content, meanwhile, he is also great at questioning your stance (or maybe not you directly, but at least somebody in the class who has a common stance) making you question the stance yourself, either leading to discovering that your beliefs don’t belong to you, or the strengthening of your