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Philosophy class:A short story

one month ago
“Dude, I hate philosophy class,”said John's friend.
“Really” John said. “I always found philosophy pretty easy.”
“What?Whatever,I still need the credits.”

The two men sat down in their seats and saw a 60 or so year old man walk up and introduce himself to the class

“Hello everyone,I am professor lauris and today we will be discussing unanswerable questions like ‘what is justice’.”

John’s hand immediately shot up.The professor called on him and John gave his answer.
“Justice is getting what you deserve.”
The professor chuckled
“Maybe,but we have no reference point for what we deserve for certain actions so how do we know justice is truly what we deserve,and if justice is good then justice can’t be what you just said.”

“Yeah,no, what I said is the meaning.We have dictionaries.” John replied, holding his dictionary up.
“Don't talk back to me on things you don’t understand”
“I get that dictionaries can be a little confusing but I'm pretty sure I understand it.”
“I have trained in philosophy for forty years. How dare you act like you’re superior.How about this question.If you want to touch a wall you have to travel halfway there first, correct?”
“Yeah”
“And you have to travel halfway the remaining distance,Right?”
“Yes”
“And then you have to travel halfway the remaining distance again,so on and so forever and you should never make it to the wall.These questions show the complex world of philosophy.”
“Actually that answer is pretty simple.”
“What!You say that you can solve a question that the great philosophical geniuses of the past couldn’t solve.”
John then got out of his seat, walked to one side of the room and touched the wall.

Philosophy class:A short story

one month ago

Your grammar seems really rushed, I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't even proofread this before posting it. The story concept itself is really cool. It reads like a comedic jab mocking the seemingly pointlessness and inefficiency of philosophy. A common critique of philosophy is that it seems more like rich, old elitist white men with nothing else to do except think, so they spend that time intellectually armchair masturbating, and I feel like you deliver that critique in a palatable, lighthearted manner here. Kudos for that. More interesting though is seeing how strong their respective arguments actually were. Let's do a breakdown.

In the story we're presented with two different philosophical questions, namely: What is justice and Zeno's paradox. John claims the dictionary has the true meaning to what justice is. The professor rejects this on the grounds that it's not a clear reference point. On this one I'd say I have to agree with the professor in terms of the unknowability of what we deserve. John commits a semantic error by treating the dictionary definition as the full philosophical truth of “justice,” but John won in terms of semantics and strict definitions. Definitions are conclusions, not philosophical starting points.

The professor's argument against John's dictionary argument was HORRIBLE and was just an appeal to his authority as a professor. Laughable. Then the professor stumped, seemingly Gish gallops to Zeno's paradox instead, arguing it's unsolvable. John demonstrates he can touch the wall, proving Zeno's paradox bullshit? John's rebuttal to Zeno's paradox is a categorical error, confusing metaphysical analysis with real-life demonstration. Modern math has actually developed tools (such as calculus, in particular the concept of limits) that address infinite sequences summing up to finite values, so Zeno's paradox has actually already been solved mathematically. Hence this philosophy professor should probably have spent more time listening in math class, or at least done a quick google search before his class. 

Anyways, this story was clearly not well polished but I love the message. It's mentally stimulating, engaging and controversial in the best possible way.

Philosophy class:A short story

one month ago
This is neither funny nor clever. My recommendation is that you try harder.

I believe everyone can be educated on most things, so one day you may have thoughts that actually merit sharing to others. Keep writing. On the other hand, wit and humor is nearly impossible to teach and you seem to have neither. Good luck

Philosophy class:A short story

one month ago
I'm sorry your middle school teacher made you feel dumb by bringing up common thought exercises today, but this is not a good story.

First thing, you're going to need to learn how punctuation works, or you're always going to catch flak for it here. If you want people to read what you write, put some effort into readability.

Secondly, your protagonist comes of as shallow and unlikeable. Making an aggressively anti intellectual refusal to engage with ideas the thrust of a story is a questionable choice actually, when you presumably posted it here wanting thinking people to read and comment.

Finally, it's lame to make the character you set up as the antagonist intentionally incompetent to help prove the point of the protagonist. When this happens it always just makes them seem like a lazy mouthpiece for your own ideas, if you aren't willing to have them challenged like in any other story. You control the little dolls in this universe and the scenario you're setting up isn't fair or honest, and worst of all, not even entertaining to watch you get feeble burns in at a deliberately gimped straw man instead of writing real characters.

This whole thing just came off as lazy, I feel like I've already put more effort into posting in this thread than you did.

Philosophy class:A short story

one month ago

This has the start of a good idea, but I think the arguments on both sides are flawed. I don't have much to say other than trying to research philosophy and perhaps talking to some actual philosophy professors. And put spaces after punctuation. And using a consistent format. And you know what? Just proofreading the entire thing will probably fix those issues. Or better yet, have someone else read it, without you telling them anything about it, and write down what they say about it. Then look over the notes you took, and implement some of them.

I am sure that others on this site will also have better feedback than me, so take a look at other responses. Take what the majority of people seem to be agreeing on, and consider improving those pieces.

Philosophy class:A short story

one month ago
You're fucking subhuman.

Philosophy class:A short story

one month ago
Is that from the dictionary?

Philosophy class:A short story

one month ago
Go apologize to your teacher

Philosophy class:A short story

one month ago
Better yet, show them this thread.

Philosophy class:A short story

one month ago

They were molested by sixty or so old men, got it.

Philosophy class:A short story

one month ago
60 or so year old men... so basically 60 toddlers. That's pretty important I think.

Philosophy class:A short story

one month ago
Whenever you drop punctuation like a comma, question mark, period or exclamation mark, you have to add a space after.

Also, I'd expect a philosophy professor to have better arguments. The "What is justice?" question is pretty heavy and you could have quite a meaningful debate on it. It seemed like a bit of a waste to bring it up and then not pursue that.

For example, the philosophy professor could've argued that a dictionary can only provide a definition of the concept but is of no use when it comes to determining what people actually deserve.

I'd highly recommend checking out any debate footage you can get your hands on. It might help your characters behave more realistically when it comes to arguments between them.