Grades are in

My first semester grades came in the mail today.  I will be allowed to continue my studies (I passed all my classes).  I was pretty sure that in three out of four of my classes, I had nothing to worry about, but in the fourth one - Philosophy of the Social Sciences - I was in the proverbial "hurt locker" all semester long.  Let me tell you why.

First, philosophy seems to be the bane of my existence.  This class was just the second I have ever taken in the topic area (the first was some 10 years ago, when I was in my first semester engaged in full-time studies after leaving the Marine Corps), and I felt even more confused this time around - the class was taught in Chinese.

Then, there were but two opportunities to earn grades in the class - an in-class presentation and a term paper.  For the presentation, you would read a book or article and basically present a summary of the material in class, along with your own thoughts on the topics covered (if any).  The readings were almost all in English, but because of the topic (philosophy), they may as well have been in Chinese, or maybe Dutch - I believe philosophers purposely try to write things in the most convoluted way possible.  When it was my turn to present, I did my best to do so in Chinese, as that it was a Chinese-taught class, and I took up almost an hour of the class in doing so (I still feel sorry for the students and professor that had to sit through that hour - they will never, ever be able to get that hour of their life back, and they are almost certainly now all stupider for having endured my incessant prattling).  All in all, I thought it went OK - certainly plenty of room for improvement, but in all not too bad.  This presentation comprised some portion of the final grade (perhaps 50%?).

Then there was the final paper.  We were to choose a topic from those covered in the semester and write.  I believe my requirement was 3000 words, in English - no sweat, length-wise.  Topic-wise, problem.  There really was little of interest to me covered during the semester, so I went with the very tiny bit that I did find interesting, a two-chapter discussion of the effects of capitalism and the industrial revolution on the social sciences (focused on the university system in Germany) and the Americanization of the social sciences (how the German university model was transplanted to the US by exchange students and then came to be the model for the world).  Really, these chapters were more like history than philosophy, which is probably why I found them a little bit interesting.

But I couldn't resist adding a few anti-philosophy barbs at the beginning of the paper:

Taking this class has been a huge challenge for me. My background related to philosophy is spotty at best: I have taken but a single philosophy course in my life prior to this one, an introductory philosophy course during my first year as an undergraduate, some 10 years ago, and I found that course to be uninteresting and confusing. Bluntly, I found this course to be much the same, even though I tried to approach it with an open mind. At a basic level, the material itself does not have a lot to offer to the concrete-sequential mind. I come away from the semester with my impression reinforced that philosophy and the history of thought is an unproductive field of study, massively disconnected from the real world, utterly focused on endless consideration of topics that mainly have little utility outside the classroom.

Nonetheless, the task at hand is to produce a term paper that covers something related to this semester’s studies. While my shelf groans under the weight of the course’s assigned readings, I found little in them that resonated with me. The sole exception will be the topic of this paper: part II in Manicas (1987: 191-237), covering the modern social sciences.

I guess I can't be too disappointed with my passing grade when this was the introduction to my parting work in the class.


Not sure yet what I will be taking next semester, but I am fairly sure that it will not be a philosophy class (this one was required).


GJS