PHIL 3330

I really wish I liked this class more, but this class was no joke. I've only ever taken a 1000 level philosophy class before this (also with Harold Langsam), but the jump to a 3000-level was hard. The length of the readings were very reasonable, but I struggled greatly with the writing style and how dense the readings were. The writing style is very different from what I'm used to (I'm a Politics major). I will say that Professor Langsam is really good at explaining the lecture content and clarifying for students; he'll never move on until someone has their question answered in full. Professor Langsam is a nice old guy, but he's retiring after this year anyhow. I think he did a good job with the lecture content, even though some of the lecture content just went right over my head if I zoned out. The paper prompts were not too difficult, and Professor Langsam gave extremely thorough feedback on the essays, which is nice. I would recommend this class if you're more familiar with philosophy, but if you're new to philosophy, maybe start with a different class.

This course was not fun to take. Everything we learn is restricted to two books that are collections of essays. The class is centered on the physicalist vs. dualist debate on whether the mind is the brain or is separate from the brain. If that does not sound interesting to you, then the class will not be interesting. The class is not engaging as the professor lectures for the entire time.

You must read the 20+ paged essays for each class or you will fall behind. The professor professes how each author makes their argument, but that might not clarify the concepts.
The essay topics are arguing for an author's argument and/or evaluating the strength of an argument.
There is no extra credit.
#tCFS24

Professor Langsam was very nice in class and clearly deeply cared about what he was teaching. However, the readings were very dense and complicated, and more often than not the lecture was more him getting into the details of the paper rather than explaining it to us in a simpler way.
The grade consisted entirely of 4 papers, which was pretty fair. He graded the papers fairly nicely I would say.