This is all just assuming you're 110% going to monash in March:
Hi everyone!
I am intending to study some basic philosophy in Uni next year in my Arts degree but I have never done any Philosophy in High School and the only knowledge I have of it is my private reading/research.
So, I guess my question is for those who have done Philosophy in university: are there any assumed knowledge from VCE Philosophy (I doubt it, but..) and what sort of skills do we need for Philosophy and what sort of work is done in the subject?
At monash, your intro philosophy units (Life, Death, Morality and Time, Self and Mind) are very handhold-y, as far as first year subjects go. I mean, at least for LDM, this is second hand information for TSM, which I never did. Your very first lecture will step through the most basic sort of philosophical precepts imaginable -- what is philosophy? What is an argument? What makes for a good or bad argument? How should we talk and think about these things we call "ethics" and "morality"? Then you'll launch into common ethical schools of thought, like utilitarianism. I don't know how disadvantaged you'll be having not studied philo in VCE, but I know a lot - a lot a lot - of students who never did it in VCE but HD'd 1st year philo. Also, I found it to be a billion times easier than VCE, there's way less readings :p
There would surely be an exam, but what sort of practical stuff do you do in Uni Philosophy subjects (is it assignments, research?) and would it hard to start off without doing any formal philosophy in High School (I guess, is it hard to pass - let alone score well in?)
Yeah, every first year subject is required to have an exam, at least in arts. That changes after first year, some subjects will have exams, others won't. As far as first year is concerned, research is minimal. It's certainly permitted, and depending on your tutor or how relevent it is to your essay, it
may (emphasis on the may) score you brownie points. Or it could be a completely irrelevent article and might look like you're trying to show off haha. Again, this changes after first year -- I'm given to understand that they try and consolidate good philosophy research skills in second and third year units (moreso in 3rd year than 2nd year, because a lot of philosophy majors go on to do an Honours year, which is very research intensive), but for first year a lot of your sources and reading material will be more-or-less spoonfed to you.
Thanks everyone - anyone with any interesting pre-readings for introduction into Philosophy, please pop them below!
If you're super keen to launch into uni work (I know I was pretty antsy for getting into uni stuff, dat year 12 habit of feeling like you're wasting time not studying haha), try and get a copy of Peter Singer's Practical Ethics 3rd edition. He changed his mind on some stuff in the past decade, so it's important to get the most recent edition. The actual unit reader will be nearly impossible to find before the week before semester 1, but you might like to look up a philosopher named Judith Jarvis Thomson, she's like the secondary philosopher in Life, Death and Morality after Peter Singer. Her violinist argument (concerning abortion) and ideas on rights forfeiture (concerning self-defence, from memory) are somewhat pivotal to the unit. Maybe have a read of this too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problemI just read up on the link LaserCookie provided (on Monash Arts); is it true we need to major or minor in Philosophy to study any Philosophy at all? Can we just do it as a side elective without majoring/minoring in it?
No way. I'm not planning on majoring or minoring in philosophy, and I did a first year philo unit and a second year philo unit in my first year.
Also, if I choose to do Philosophy, do I have to do it for the whole degree or can I ditch it if we don't like it (perhaps at second year?)
You can ditch it whenever you like, very little is set in stone. I did a film studies unit in my first semester, and a language, and I have no intention of pursuing either of those subjects at any point in the future. That being said, it doesn't hurt to make up your mind on what you
do want to major in ASAP, to avoid doing superfluous units (especially if you're in a double degree course structure) that might make it difficult to finish your major/minor later on down the track. Like, if you accidentally do too many philosophy units, in an Arts/Law degree, but you want to minor in, say, Criminology, you may not have enough room to complete that minor.
At the same time though, you don't want to start your degree confident in what you want to major/minor in, and then discover after studying it that you can't stand the subject. I hope that doesn't sound too dreary, it's just something to be mindful of.