Advertisement

Fields of Concentration

PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy has a small number of concentrators, 37 this year and about five more expected next year. It has however eight faculty men, headed by internationally famous Whitehead, who are either associate, assistant, or full professors. Nor does it need to rest upon the laurels it acquired under James, Santayana, Royce, and Palmer; it is still considered one of the best, if not the best, philosophy department in the country.

The peculiarly high proportion of outstanding faculty men to concentrators makes it posible for tutees to be sure of superior tutorial instruction. Uusually no tutor is less than a professor and no tutor has more than eight tutees. This highly desirable relationship coupled with the fact that the faculty men acting as tutors in this department have, apparently, a greater personal interest in teaching than is generally true of the larger departments, indicates that the tutorial system functions better here than in most fields.

The division between elementary, middle group, and graduate courses in the last two years has been adjusted satisfactorily and the courses now provide fairly complete, but not overlapping coverage of the field. Although care is to be exercised a student concentrating in Philosophy has no difficulty correlating it to any other non-scientific field, and the preparation for divisionals is not too arduous since tutorial work is the chief factor in the final grade.

Distinetive men in the department are: Bixler, Demos, Prall, Sheffer, White head, and Wild. The proportion of dead wood remarked upon by concentrators in all fields is, by comparison, remarkably low in Philosophy.

Freshmen planning to concentrate in Philosophy are advised, on the whole not to take Philosophy A until Sophomore year when greater maturity and concurrent tutorial make it more valuable. Philosophy B is not as good as A for one concentrating in the field, because it provides a critical, more superficial smattering of philosophical ideas than the actual philosophers studied in Philosphy A.

Advertisement

Next year there will be the following additions to the department: Gilson from Louvain, France, in medieval philosophy, and Lovejoy, known for his work on primitivism

Recommended Articles

Advertisement