Recording courses

[d.e.wittkower]

I'm glad to hear you've found the classes to be of value. I listened to your edited version of the 'Perpetual Peace' lecture while repotting some plants this afternoon - it sounds great, and I forgot how much fun that class had been! And I thought the questions that were in there were (usually) great! I'm curious about your thoughts on the differences between student questions - my guess would be that US students would be more free-ranging/less focused on the text. Which is good, and bad.

Well, that's great then! I'll try to upload the rest of the recordings of the class sometime soon. (I need to get my optical drive fixed first) That way you can just pick up whichever sounds more interesting to you. I remember our week on Marx being a good time.

For future recordings, I've picked up a multi-directional mic. I couldn't use it in these classes because the classes were too large (30 - 40 students each), but my classes next semester will top out at 12, so we should be able to get everybody's voices in there. Recordings from next semester will include about 3 weeks on Kant's Prolegomena. Yay!

[CarlManchester]

I'm curious about your thoughts on the differences between student questions - my guess would be that US students would be more free-ranging/less focused on the text.

Yes, I think this is possibly true. I'm tempted to speculate that US students may tend a little to see philosophy as being "something to do with history" whereas British students might see it as being more "something to do with literature". This might be to do with the way they are introduced to philosophy at school - I emphasise that this is speculation - and might also be connected to the idea that America sees itself as a nation founded on principles, whereas Britain sees iteself as a nation that got its principles through the course of history. Both ideas are probably misleading in terms of their historical accuracy, but each, I think, forms a strong part of our respective national identities.

If there's anything in this, then maybe that's why I sense a bit of an undercurrent of "how does this text inform later history?" in your students' questionings, whereas a British student might be more inclined to ask "how have historical conditions informed this text?". And, as you suggest, a parallel thing might also be manifested in a British student tending to prefer textual analysis, because they are interested in the foundations of and antecedents to the argument, whereas the American counterpart is more likely to be interested in the ramifications of the argument.

Or maybe that's just all wrong. It's not intended to make British students seem smarter, by the way, just in case it comes across like that,

[d.e.wittkower]

I don't know, Carl. Sounds pretty reasonable, though!

[CarlManchester]

Personally, I think it's the greatest discovery since Australia, and I'm going to patent it.

Cheers,
Carl.