Stepping up from school to university

1. Stepping Up
Dr. Brendan Larvor
www.herts.ac.uk/philosophy

2. Two Tasks
• Getting in to university
• Preparing for university

3. Be Interesting!
• Universities like independent-minded
curiosity
• You will need ways to meet people
• You will need skills that you may not
develop sufficiently on your course
So ...
Maintain your extra-curricular interests!

4. Be Bookish
• Always have a book on the go
• Make a study of your extra-curricular
activities
• Write!

5. Become a Research Leader
• You will have much less classroom time
at university than at school
• Exclusively solitary study is:
1. lonely and
2. Inefficient
• Study-groups and discussions don’t
happen by magic
So ...
Make them happen—start now

6. Yes but what is philosophy?
LITERAL MEANING:
A LOVE (philos) OF
WISDOM (sophia)
HONESTLY: A LOVE FOR PROBLEMS
Philosophers are trained to identify, assess
and not fear risks, but approach them with a
positive problem-solving attitude.
Philosophy identifies and evaluates
background assumptions and frameworks

7. Typical Philosophical questions
• How should we live our lives?
• How should we treat others?
• Are we machines?
• What are the ethical implications of
science and technology?
• When is a society just and fair?
• What is time?
What counts as knowledge?
What are the scope and limits of
science?
What is truth?
How does language acquire its meaning?
When is a reason a good reason?
What is the relation of brains to minds?

8. Philosophy?
What are you going to do with that?
Any job that requires you
• to think about and solve problems for
which there is no established technique
• to exercise your critical capacities to
overcome disagreement and to build
consensus
• to evaluate and criticise the arguments
of others
• to offer convincing arguments to others
• to manage persuasive communication
• to organise and lead people

9. Philosophy Course Structure
• Components
• Options
• teaching styles
• Assessments
• a typical week

10. What I wish every student knew before taking the course
• You have to read philosophy slowly,
carefully and repeatedly
• With a notebook for quotations,
summaries, questions and devastating
critiques
• Writing philosophy is difficult. Really.

11. Who was that?
Dr Brendan Larvor
Subject Leader for Philosophy
b.p.larvor@herts.ac.uk
01707 285659
www.herts.ac.uk/philosophy