• Pantagruel
    3.2k
    (We really need a word for a proponent of scientism, because "scientist" obviously isn't it).Pfhorrest

    "Scientologist"? No, that's not quite right....
  • Artemis
    1.9k
    (We really need a word for a proponent of scientism, because "scientist" obviously isn't it)Pfhorrest

    Realist? Non-hog-wash-ian? Educated? Jk :razz:

    I had a philosophy class in high school and I don't feel like I came away from it with an understanding of what philosophy was at all, but that could have been because I was a dense scientism-ist at the time.Pfhorrest

    I think being a teenager as well as a total novice at anything at all, including philosophy, just means that in the intro courses lots and lots is going to be lost on you.

    After I graduated from college, I worked for several years as a paraprofessional in the public school system (one-on-one with disabled students who may or may not be integrating into regular classrooms) and so basically retook a lot of school classes with my students. I kept thinking "Wait! I learned this before? Where the heck was I? If all students actually remembered all this stuff after school, everyone would be so smart!"
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    "Positivist" seems to fit, thanks.

    (I remember the teacher of the class asking something like what's my philosophy, and I started to explain string theory to him, completely not getting what the question even was. A few years later, in a political science class my first year in college, I remember thinking that "my philosophy" was an ethical stance I had come up with that was basically utilitarianism though I'd never heard that word yet).

    basically retook a lot of school classes with my students. I kept thinking "Wait! I learned this before? Where the heck was I? If all students actually remembered all this stuff after school, everyone would be so smart!"Artemis

    I remember having a similar thought after re-learning some basic grammar concepts (like subjects and objects of sentences, predicates, etc) incidental to learning logic as I started to study philosophy, though in my case it was more that memories of having studied these topics in elementary school came back to me as I learned them anew, and I was shocked to remember that something like this was being taught in elementary school.

    I think an offshoot of that thought process was how I came to the conclusion that basic propositional logic should be taught in junior high alongside elementary algebra, since they use a lot of the same mental skills. I literally exclaimed out loud, upon seeing propositional logic for the first time in my first English class at college, "it's like algebra with words!"
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    Surprised to see that even three months later there's not a single person with an associate's degree here.
  • Qwex
    366
    Selt-taught but 16 years.
  • jgill
    3.5k
    One senior level college course, taken before the time of the dinosaurs.

    A PhD in math, during the time of the dinosaurs.

    Out to pasture, now. :cool:
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