Even though we see a proper established academics, teaching philosophy is still a challenge. Academic philosophy that we see today has a strict defined pattern and a syllabus for the subject. Philosophy is categorized in different subjects and different isms for the basic purpose of academics. But does a student going through and earning a degree with decent performance really getting what is intended by the course. I definitely doubt it. so what is it that is lacking ?
In my opinion, although everything that we learn should be interactive, learning philosophy is nothing but interaction. Learning philosophy is all about personal opinion. It isn’t about papers and publications. It shouldn’t be confined in the space of acceptance. There is no authority as such who can give credibility to anyone’s philosophy. The intention, as I understood it, of the academic philosophy is to give a better understanding of all the school of thoughts that earned recognition. That is ok to a certain extent. Confining philosophy only to recognized school of thoughts and their isms is not the right way of preparing any syllabus. Gathering ‘information’ should not be termed as ‘learning’. Whenever we get a chance of expressing, it is only legitimate if we express it in a defined format or structure. That is not healthy for philosophy. More weightage should be given to the attitude called ‘philosophy’. And in my opinion attitude can not be taught. It is, as socrates said, self learned. And what should the academics do? It should only provide the space for the attitude to blossom. Great philosophers should be introduced. And the background behind their philosophies should be explained. All the environment, socio political scenario in which they developed their philosophy should be explained with more importance. Then the thoughts and the philosophy will naturally follow with it.
Academic Philosophy
