A Touch of Philosophy

I spent a the day attending a one-day class designed to introduce newcomers to Philosophy at City Lit. Coming from a Computing background, I had already done bags of Logic and Reasoning, but I wanted to see if there was any relation between what I learned at Imperial and a more historical presentation of what could be seen as the same kinda thing.

Anyway, the course was pretty good both in terms of topic and tuition. I've recently had a passing interest in the subject and it complemented that pretty well - sometimes it seems like the course was designed especially for me.

Since it was over five hours long I can't really go into much detail as to what we did. But in brief we covered the following:

• Pre-Socrates (Thales, Heraclitus and Zeno), Socrates and Plato - Socratic Method, forms and innate knowledge.
  
• Modern Philosophy and Concepts.
  
• Rousseau and his Social Groups and Interactions.
  
• Rights and Freedoms, Choice.
• Kant's Moral Judgements - The three "oughts": Technical/Instrumental (you ought to wear something to stay warm), Rational (7+5 = 12 and not 11) and Moral/Practical (you ought not to lie. Why? Conclusion reached from higher moral faculty). Categorical Imperative.
  
• Sartre and his Alienation and Bad Faith.

Some of it was pretty challenging too, but I think I engaged the class enough. I'm not sure how successful I'll be, but I'm going to try to incorporate some of these concepts and ideas into my writings too.