Intro to Philosophy: Kant, Groundwork, sec. 1

In this session from my 2011 Introduction to Philosophy class at Marist College, we start our study of Immanuel Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. In this, and the subsequent video -- as opposed to going over the same material in my Ethics class --I focus more on the implications for the nature of the human person and less on the moral theory per se

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Immanuel Kant
• Kant
• introduction to Philosophy
• Ethics
• Metaphysics
• human person
• Duty
• Will
• Reason
• Desire
• Moral
• Goodness
• Deontology
• Will (philosophy)
• Groundwork

[gbisadler]

I'm very happy you're a European too. I'm sure it's questions all the time in university classrooms -- granted not exactly my experience or that of my colleagues from there -- but doubtless you know European pedagogical conditions much better.

These students at Marist -- as I've mentioned in comments on my other videos -- are rather atypical in their passivity. It's difficult to get them engaged in open dialogue. They do produce excellent reflective written work, though

[g0r3g4sm]

@gbisadler I'm from Germany, and it's not very different here in basic courses. I'm not a student of philosophy but of history, and I can safely say that a room full of freshmen students here is pretty quiet, too. Nobody wants to look stupid by asking "stupid" questions or saying something wrong. When you think about it, it's really sad. Took me a long time, but eventually I got rid of that awful attitude.

Thanks for this video, exactly what I was looking for. Keep it up!

[gbisadler]

@g0r3g4sm You're quite welcome, and thanks as well from me.

We often have a correlative problem in the US with student participation -- not that they don't participate, ask questions, make statements, etc., but that they do so without having studied the material under discussion. The best, of course would be students who are well-prepared, and who have overcome their reticence about public intellectual discussion.

[MINIHermanator]

Im not very happy with the lack of questions.

Im happy im a European; where we live in countries which question our government, our industry and our teachers, otherwise we would all be ignorrant individuals who do not ask questions to aquire knowledge but would rather remain silent and remain in the darkness.