Freshman Philosophy Class

I just finished reading David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. It's an incredible book, presenting some very novel and influential arguments about the problems of empirical knowledge, which continue to haunt philosophy of science and epistemology today. It's been since Freshman year in college, some 13 years ago, that I last read it. I definitely don't think I fully appreciated the book then, when first reading it, since it was my first philosophy class ever and I didn't properly understand the context or really even the radicalness of the arguments in the book. But it was an excellent class, taught by Professor Susan Stocker, an awesome teacher.

Oddly, my most vivid memory of that class is one day when class was running a little bit over time. My friend sitting next to me and I wanted to alert Prof Stoker of this fact, but decided it'd best to do it discreetly. We decided that when she looked in our direction we should look at our watches, hopefully cluing her in. My friend preferred to be much more subtle about it, only slightly tilting his eyes towards his watch as she turned to see him. I, on the other hand, preferred to be more blunt. When she turned to look in my direction, I distinctly cocked my head to look up at the wall clock above me (though I was wearing a watch). Prof Stocker could hardly miss this cue and she suddenly realized she was running over and dismissed class. My friend, of course, admonished me after class for being too obvious: "you don't want her to know you're trying to tell her that class is running over."

I just finished reading David Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. It's an incredible book, presenting some very novel and influential arguments about the problems of empirical knowledge, which continue to haunt philosophy of science and epistemology today. It's been since Freshman year in college, some 13 years ago, that I last read it. I definitely don't think I fully appreciated the book then, when first reading it, since it was my first philosophy class ever and I didn't properly understand the context or really even the radicalness of the arguments in the book. But it was an excellent class, taught by Professor Susan Stocker, an awesome teacher.

Oddly, my most vivid memory of that class is one day when class was running a little bit over time. My friend sitting next to me and I wanted to alert Prof Stoker of this fact, but decided it'd best to do it discreetly. We decided that when she looked in our direction we should look at our watches, hopefully cluing her in. My friend preferred to be much more subtle about it, only slightly tilting his eyes towards his watch as she turned to see him. I, on the other hand, preferred to be more blunt. When she turned to look in my direction, I distinctly cocked my head to look up at the wall clock above me (though I was wearing a watch). Prof Stocker could hardly miss this cue and she suddenly realized she was running over and dismissed class. My friend, of course, admonished me after class for being too obvious: "you don't want her to know you're trying to tell her that class is running over."

Freshman Philosophy Class