Theme 1 - Reflection

Since this was the first seminar we have attended, and since there are so many new words, concepts and theories to take in, I found it hard to get a good grasp on the subject. I struggled therefore a lot with contributing on the seminar and instead tried mostly to listen, to catch up. What we talked mostly about was about perception and how it differs from person to person. It’s really interesting to think about something that we all take for granted, our surroundings, and how it is affected by our experience and history. I think I contributed mostly by asking leading questions, to drive the conversation forward and so that I could get answers and other peoples opinions on the things i didn’t understand.

I had prepared myself before the seminar by reading the texts, which took forever. Since the language in the texts were very advanced, I had to stop several times to read the same piece over again and to look up words. Normally when I read something I usually read the entire page and reflect upon what I’ve read at the same time. Now i really had to concentrate to get forward and stop to think about what the text is actually saying after nearly every paragraph. I also wrote down some questions that I had, which I brought up on the seminar for discussion.

I feel that i learned more on the seminar than I had on all the previous lectures because the tempo of the discussion in our group wasn’t to fast, yet we had time to cover everything using our own words, which helped to clear a lot of things up.

This first real week I have learned a lot. The philosophic view of our perception and surroundings, how we see “through” our organs and not “with” them. I think of it as an empty room which we then, as individuals, apply our own textures to. I have learned to question perception and that it is us who gives objects their properties. What is and what is not? I change a bolt in my car, is it the same car? If i continue, one piece at a time, until everything have been changed, is it still the same car? If a tree falls in a forest and nobody's around to witness it, has it happened?

I have learned tons of new words, the 12 categories with which we shape everything we perceive, a priori knowledge, a posteriori knowledge (without and with experience). Synthetic knowledge, such as math. I have learned that conception without perception is blind and perception without conception is empty. I have learned about empiricism, about meta-physics, the laws that define our surroundings.

I have learned about analytic judgement and synthetic judgement. A synthetic judgement example could be, a bachelor I meet are single, I can draw the conclusion that all bachelors are single. Because single is a property of the word bachelor. An analytic judgement example could be, “all cars are red”, this is something we need to investigate because the property red is not inherent in the word “car”.

I think that the biggest thing I have learned is to think in a new way, a different way. In almost all other courses everything is factual, there is no argument. Now there are no absolutes, it’s challenging to go through such a drastic change in learning in such a short time, but it’s also kind of relaxing.