Up@dawn 2.0

Monday, July 21, 2014

A Hilarious Second City Introduction to Metaphysics

"Sevren Darden was a founder of the legendary Second City, Chicago’s improvisational comedy group that has gone on to launch the careers of many comedic legends.
In this rare audio, he gives a hilarious 16 minute introduction to metaphysics."



A Hilarious Introduction to Metaphysics (& An Announcement for Chicago Readers)

Monday, July 14, 2014

Does E-Reading Threaten Learning?

I read my phone, my fire, my paperwhite, and my books. The more platforms the better, right? But there really is no substitute for a good old-fashioned bound and printed book.

...while digital devices may be fine for reading that we don’t intend to muse over or reread, text that requires what’s been called "deep reading" is nearly always better done in print... Digital reading also encourages distraction and invites multitasking. Among American and Japanese subjects, 92 percent reported it was easiest to concentrate when reading in hard copy. (The figure for Germany was 98 percent.) In this country, 26 percent indicated they were likely to multitask while reading in print, compared with 85 percent when reading on-screen. Imagine wrestling with Finnegan’s Wake while simultaneously juggling Facebook and booking a vacation flight. You get the point...
But will you get and read the book?



How E-Reading Threatens Learning in the Humanities - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Monday, July 7, 2014

Philosophy majors highly flexible in job market

"The philosophy major trains students’ general cognitive skills, improving their ability to reason, to make principled decisions, to fairly represent competing points of view, to write clear and logically well-organized prose, and to isolate the main point or problem in complex texts. These sorts of analytic skills make philosophy majors highly flexible in the job market.

Why does all this matter? US students entering college, unlike European students, have little idea what philosophy is, and bring to their selection of a major all sorts of misconceptions about philosophy, including that it is not practical because it will not lead to profitable employment. Many students who would enjoy and benefit from philosophical training do not, as a result, find their way into philosophy majors, and may also be discouraged from studying philosophy whatever their major. For many students these are important lost opportunities. And we need to ensure that our institutions of higher education make these important opportunities available."



Letter from the APA in Response to "A College Major Matters Even More in a Recession" - The American Philosophical Association