PHIL 2110

Professor Secada, in a word, is brilliant, and I don't use that word lightly. He is incredibly smart and profound, and most people would agree with this assessment. That said, this class is kind of dysfunctional. You have to do LOTS of reading, somewhere in the name of 2000-2500 pages, but can get away with skimming the main textbook and focusing on the primary texts. Exams, which he calls quizzes, aren't super difficult. They definitely test your knowledge of the content, as they should, but you often get three or four choices of prompts to respond to across one or two questions, depending on the weight of the quiz. Definitely casts a wide net on the quizzes, which is very helpful, but some of them have reading control prompts which come from the main textbook, and I have definitely lost points on the reading controls. Know who everyone in the textbook is, and a couple of things about who they are, what era they were in, and something they believed or were known for doing. Prof. Secada doesn't send lots of correspondence and his class lacks organization. It isn't always clear what he wants us to have read by the quiz dates. Our TA, James Reed, was our saving grace in this regard. He always pointed us in the right direction, but even he struggled to get answers from Prof. Secada regarding paper lengths, quiz materials, what the reading expectations were, etc. Prof. Secada, in spite of his very evident intellectual acumen, isn't that great of a lecturer. His lectures lack structure and are very hard to follow, though they are definitely interesting. Lectures don't always help you learn the materials but you should go anyway; sometimes he'd throw us a bone, pass around an attendance sheet, and say if you're here, you're getting a slight bonus on the quiz. TLDR: Very reading heavy, smart but disorganized professor, going to class can tangibly aid your grade despite attendance technically not being mandatory, read and understand all the primary texts, especially the Phaedrus and Proslogion, skim the textbook but try to pick up some knowledge from it, as there's some good stuff in there, start the term paper early-ish, and get help from your TA as needed. Don't know if he will do this course in particular again, but James Reed is among the best TAs I've ever had.

Taking this class as a non-philosophy major, I was frequently conflicted about this class while I was taking it. If I could describe Professor Secada in three terms, they'd be: aloof, out of touch, and extremely knowledgeable. While one may enter this class expecting a chronological narrative through the history of philosophy, as one may find in a regular history class, Secada doesn't fully do this. Instead, he spends the entire semester analyzing Phaedrus by Plato, and Proslogion by St. Anselm, and extracting the philosophical themes from within those texts. If this sounds iffy in its effectiveness, you'd be correct. Lectures also seemed not to follow the teaching of any major philosophical idea or movement, but instead some niche concept that Secada found interesting. Really, the general idea of the lectures, is that Secada knows his stuff, no doubt about it, but his ability to convey that effectively to the class is not always the most ideal.

Professor Secada insists that you complete all of the reading that he assigns for the semester. However, the reading he assigns consists of more than 2000 pages of often dense philosophical reading, which makes this essentially impossible. However, it's not entirely necessary. Some important philosophical concepts and works do require reading, and I would encourage you to do your best to keep up with it, but it's not essential to read absolutely everything. The final took the form of a term paper that, for me, was roughly 2000 words, and six pages long (seven with citations). The only piece of advice for this is to begin it as soon as possible and to stay on top of it, the semester slips by fast.

It is also important to note that my TA was Robert Ziegler, and I cannot emphasize enough how vital he was to my success in this class. I can confidently say I learned 90% of what I now know about Ancient and Medieval philosophy from the discussion sections. He explained and presented the content we needed to know in a fun, engaging way, that also followed chronologically as I had originally envisioned the content would. Ultimately, while I have my gripes with the class, if you're interested in philosophy, this class is genuinely valuable, I can look back on it fondly now, as the things I learned changed the way I view pieces of the world greatly, and allowed me a truly great insight into the field of philosophy.

This is a controversial class, I know, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. While Professor Secada might be guilty of some persistent communication issues, his lectures can be very fascinating, as long as you like philosophy and you're willing to follow along (since he can be hard to follow, as he has a loose lecture structure). I, for one, definitely became more interested in ancient and medieval philosophy, and although Secada's course structure is a bit weird (we focus on the Phaedrus and the Proslogion for much of the time), I learned a lot about individual authors as well as the general course of the history of philosophy. Certainly don't get me wrong: the Phaedrus and Proslogion were really cool. There are several short essay quizzes throughout the semester, but they're not hard if you've done the readings. And while Secada assigns a ton of reading and insists that you do it, some readings (like Kenny's history) are not actually necessary (if reading the hundreds of pages of Kenny—in addition to all the other readings—were in fact necessary, that would just be ridiculous). The term paper was not given a ton of direction, but it's not that long (2500 words) and you get the whole semester to work on it (but please start it early). My TA Robert Ziegler was great because he was extremely knowledgeable, funny, and would give us supplemental direction that Secada may have left out. He was very helpful in getting us to understand the concepts that showed up on the quizzes. I do recommend this class because I found it fascinating and valuable, although I do warn people to stay on top of things and be careful about what do you do and don't read. Just ask your TA and you'll be just fine. #tCFF23

HEAVY reading load for this class, professor has some great insight but the lectures are not enough to cover the immense amount of philosophical topics for this course.

Secada is incredibly boring. His lectures are enlightening, but they are fairly disorganized and hard to piece together. An excessive amount of reading. The grading is highly nebulous; the course has almost no structure. Very mixed

Boring class, but pretty easy.

Don't read Bertrand Russell for your understanding of history. He doesn't agree with Russell.

Secada is also a must-have professor if you're serious about philosophy.

Secada is brilliant, it's obvious. However, his lectures tend to get off track and he's incredibly disorganized, which fits the bill for the stereotypical philosophy professor. He is funny in an understated, dead-pan way, so it's impossible to dislike him. His material is too difficult to grasp (Aristotle can be a pill without the proper tools) without a strong lecture. I also had Jesse, who was by far the worst TA I've had at UVa. He did nothing, imparted no clarification on the lectures, and overall wasted our time completely. I might recommend this class with a more knowledgable, intelligent TA.

Secada is a very knowledgeable professor but at times can be really boring. He tends to get off topic in lecture and never really get back on track. My lecture notes are ridiculous and I can't really figure out what I was supposed to learn from them. That being said really make sure you fully understand the concepts said in class by either researching it on your own or talking to your TA. There's a term paper that's 50% of your final grade so make sure it's awesome. The quizzes that Secada gives are also all cumulative but they're pretty fair. You can get away with a decent grade without killing yourself. There is a lot of reading but Secada doesn't give any real deadlines for when they need to be read by. Keep up with them otherwise you'll get really overwhelmed by the end of the semester when you're writing your paper.