VCE Stuff > VCE Philosophy
Picking up unit 3/4 Philosophy
Incommensura:
--- Quote from: tullfrog on January 13, 2012, 10:51:57 am ---Things you should do:
Read all the set texts.
Make summaries of all the set texts.
Read broadly about the issues discussed and come up with your own viewpoint.
--- End quote ---
This is pretty much right, but I'd add a few things.
Reading the texts in Philo is not really like reading your English texts over the holidays. I know when I was reading Emma for Lit I was only partially paying attention (it was summer) which was fine because you just needed to have an idea of what was going on so you weren't going completely from scratch when we got to it in class.
Reading the texts for Philo is useless if you're skimming or not concentrating completely. If you don't understand a paragraph (which will happen), read it again two or three times (after 3 cut your losses and come back to it when you get to it in the course).
I actually think that's more valuable than making summaries, which I didn't do until term 3 holidays and only because I'd forgotten a lot of stuff from terms 1 and 2. The risk with making summaries in Philosophy is that for a lot of the texts a sequential summary of it will not obviously give you the argument which is the main thing you need to take out of the texts for this subject. Hume, for example, one of the Unit 4 Science and Knowledge philosophers, makes the same point in about three different ways across the course of the set text - just summarising would be pretty useless.
I'd suggest instead just getting to the end of the text and thinking to yourself (or writing if you want evidence of your own productivity) two things - "what is this philosopher's main point?" and "how did they reach that conclusion?" (or "what is their argument for that point?"). If you can answer the first question and have a decent go at the second then you're pretty well-placed at this stage.
MonsieurHulot:
I'm picking up 3&4 Philosophy next year, without having done 1&2.
What work should I do over the holidays to catch up, apart from reading my texts? VAPS (Victorian Association of Philosophy in Schools) offers a textbook for Units 1&2 (http://vaps.vic.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/Brochure-Philosophy-A-Student-Text-for-VCE-Units-1-2.pdf), would you recommend that I buy this and work through it? Thanks.
(Sorry if posting in this old thread isn't kosher, but it was on the front page and the content's relevant.)
Mech:
VAPS lectures are good. Do not know about their textbooks. Read the texts on the reading list. Chances are, however, you will only read excerpts from them. I suggest you read the whole thing to get yourself accustomed with the text. Do not expect to understand it all, but get the gist of the contents.
Voila, you are done.
Aurelian:
--- Quote from: Mech on December 04, 2012, 01:00:32 am ---I suggest you read the whole thing to get yourself accustomed with the text.
--- End quote ---
I wouldn't really bother at all with reading the whole texts - that would be quite a bit over the top, in my opinion, especially considering that there are 9 of them, some of which are quite lengthy.
Don't bother with the VAPS textbook at all; it wont really be relevant content-wise to your 3/4 studies. The best preparation you can do is to get the text excerpts you'll be studying in unit 3, and read through them. If you want to be a little more rigorous, get your teacher or a tutor to set you some questions for you to complete for correction. I'd advise not to really do much reading of actual texts for unit 4, since you'll just overload yourself with information; if you want a little bit of light stuff to do for unit 4, feel free to PM me.
Other than text-reading, brush up on your basic logic, since this is the toolkit for any philosopher. Also try to do a little bit of self-reflection on what you think it is to live a good life, since this is the central question of unit 3 (seriously, I'd really recommend doing this; it will help you down the track).
Mech:
--- Quote from: Aurelian on December 04, 2012, 05:58:52 pm ---
--- Quote from: Mech on December 04, 2012, 01:00:32 am ---I suggest you read the whole thing to get yourself accustomed with the text.
--- End quote ---
I wouldn't really bother at all with reading the whole texts - that would be quite a bit over the top, in my opinion, especially considering that there are 9 of them, some of which are quite lengthy.
--- End quote ---
I would read them all because I feel that it contextualises the ideas you are going to hone in upon. But, then again, I do philosophy for the sake of philosophy and not really just for the academic side of things. If you are deeply passionate about getting a strong foundation in philosophy, give the texts a read in their entirety (I remember a debate on radio about the nature of philosophy being taught within academic institutions and I am still of the opinion that the best philosophical education is one that considers history, background of the author and the whole text). Vignettes or fragments of a philosophical position can be very confusing if you do not know where it is leading to; it also, generally, means that people have misconceptions about philosophical positions (for instance, people reading sections of Hume and then thinking Hume is against causality or does not endorse causal realism in any form re: other subjects). However, if this is just an academic exercise to regurgitate the content, without a deeper understanding than just reading the excerpts, it is fine. You will be fine by VCE standards.
Get familiar with the text, see where the philosopher is going or the gist of things (which I believe is what I said in my OP). The excerpt selections sometimes do not do justice to the content and arguments of the philosopher; you may as well just pick up an anthology or read summaries online and throw the original texts away (which I am almost certain most philosophy students in high school do).
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