Monday, April 07, 2008

A truism?

I just came across this sentence in a student paper on Rorty's essay "Education as Socialization and as Individualization." Perhaps it's vacuous, but of course I had to post it here!

"Individuals create their values and beliefs based on knowledge and personal experience."

2 comments:

Noumena said...

Well, I suppose individuals might have their values created for them by the Keebler Elves. And our adorable fuzzy kitten overlords might provide us with beliefs by manipulating our mental states using their telekittenetic powers.

Yeah, I have no idea.

From an Intro paper on the mind-body problem: `With the understanding of the many facets of this complication [the mind-body problem], I am going to propose an argument for determining that human minds cannot act on or physically alter the state of human
bodies. With this argument I am not denying or refuting the entire mind-body interaction, only the
clause that states human minds can act on human bodies.'

I really have no idea which part is my favourite -- that arguments are `for determining' or that `the entire' interaction between mind and body has clauses for proper parts.

I worry about what our students learn from high school English teachers. Why does needlessly complicated, hopelessly obscure prose appear to be a virtue in high schools?

khadimir said...

Noumena, write a book about the telekittenetic powers of our fuzzy kitten overlords ... it'll be a best seller.

(Ok, maybe just with the philosophy crowd, but 10 minutes of glory, come on!)