Philosophy Now Forum

Hello. I would love to solicit some feedback from the group on my education goals.

I am currently working full-time in the computer industry. However, I feel that my true interest has always been in philosophy. I also enjoy teaching. I have a bachelors degree in business and would like to pursue a Masters degree in Philosophy with a long term goal of obtaining a Doctorate and a career change teaching at the local University.

Are there people who were in the same situation as I am? How did you/they get around having a full-time job? Is it possible to achieve my goal through distance education? Thanks.

I don't know which country you are in, but three British universities which offer distance learning or part-time study are:

University of Wales, Lampeter www.lamp.ac.uk

Birkbeck College, London www.bbk.ac.uk

The Open University www.open.ac.uk

Hi. Thanks for the quick reply. I apologize for leaving that out. I'm in the United States.

Hello W.O. - welcome to the forum!

In addition to the places Richard has listed, you could also try the University of Illinois. I think they do
graduate philosophy courses by distance learning:

http://www.uis.edu/philosophy/curriculu ... udies.html

As for studying on one´s own, I have discovered an excellent Routledge series of introductions.
I am reading one on Husserl at the moment, written by a certain A.D. Smith and it is really good.
Whereas Husserl himself is probably un-readable.
I am looking forward to the other volumes. There are at least 20 of them.

Lusia,
That was my experience of reading the translation of his Ideas but then he 'got under my skin' by at least not being a German transcendental idealist(at least I hope not!? )
a_uk

Arising_uk wrote:he 'got under my skin' by at least not being a German transcendental idealist(at least I hope not!?

Now now, Arising, you only take against transcendental idealists because you experience them as they appear to you. If you could meet them as they were in themselves, you would appreciate their true beauty.

Richard Baron wrote:Now now, Arising, you only take against transcendental idealists because you experience them as they appear to you. If you could meet them as they were in themselves, you would appreciate their true beauty.

As they truly were? So an bombastic academic, a syphillitic madman, a violent misogynist and a genius with a complusive disorder syndrome, plus a few Nazis?

Alright, I do mean it but understand it does not deflect from their thoughts or the fact that for a couple of them I'd like to be in a bar with them. My take is that most are trying to replace or support their Christianity in aid of whatever 'German' identity it is that they hold. Do I think they are doing this deliberately? No, no more than I think I can understand that I'm trying to support what I think is best in my Cultural identity but, to me, its just a feature of translated grammar that truly makes me dislike their thoughts as it took me ages to understand that you should read the English translations backwards.
a_uk

Arising_uk wrote:As they truly were? So an bombastic academic, a syphillitic madman, a violent misogynist and a genius with a complusive disorder syndrome, plus a few Nazis?

But still, only appearances. You have not reached the noumena. Remember that bombast, academia and politics are only forms of our intuition.

Thanks to all for the excellent suggestions. I have looked into each one and they seem promising. I didn't know there were so many universities that offered online instruction.

I have also contacted the Graduate Chair for my local university and based on my long term goal of a Masters degree leading to a PhD it is his recommendation that I go straight to the university. Among other things it will allow me to start building my references for graduate school.

Given this information I have decided to try to get a job at the university so that I can study part time at first. If I find that I want to pursue it further I will consider going back to school full time and forgoing work for a couple of years. To do this may require selling one of our properties but that would be a sacrifice I'm willing to take.

Anyway, that's my conclusion thus far. Thanks again for the help!