My love is a professional philosopher. This has encouraged me to pay more attention to philosophers. It’s a group of people I mostly know because a lot of philosophers were also mathematicians. For a long stretch there they were also lawyers and priests, but that’s just what you did if it was the middle ages and you didn’t want to be a serf, a boatman, or a miller.
Back in September 2013, we got to talking about Pythagoras, who’s renowned for being a cult leader that might have done something in mathematics or philosophy or both. It’s hard to say. But in Pythagoras and the Golden Middle-Ish I was enchanted by something I hadn’t heard about Pythagoras before. Yes, it’s got Olympics content, because of course, Pythagoras. You would.
If that hasn’t satisfied your interest in philosophers, here’s a little pop quiz you can take. No fair cheating!
Philosophy is a remarkable subject – not for the abstract but for the practical side of the field. I studied post-grad under Peter Munz, a student of both Popper and Wittgenstein (he’d witnessed their infamous poker debate). A fascinating experience. And even today, what I learned helps me in practical ways.
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I had undervalued philosophy when I was a student and I admit I took a couple courses mostly to let me meet the education requirement without making me work hard. There was worthwhile stuff in the classes, understand, but it was about things like the understanding of what measurement error was that didn’t really test my mental boundaries. Now I know better what I was missing and I regret not making better use of my time. But fortunately I can pick up a lot of stuff just from listening to my love complaining about students.
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