philosophy or ethics and critical thinking first?

Sorry for misunderstanding, it is two classes. One is “philosophy” and a second one is “ethics and critical thinking”

Critical thinking first.

Forgive iambiguous, he has a tendency to derail threads with his repetitive, redundant rants, and he won’t accept any answers to his questions. He’s stuck in a loop of misunderstanding. But he’s harmless.

Sure, that’s one way to look at it. A “simple” way, for example. And if you manage to achieve some level of success as a critical thinker it is no doubt how you are obligated to think about it too.

As for derailing the thread, my post was directly in response to the OP. It was Mr Reasonable who shifted the thread into a discussion of me.

Shut up. The guy is asking about a sequence of classes, and you’re going on your dasein rant.

See OP, imabiguous is proving me right. He went and read some philosophy without developing critical thinking skills. Talk to him if you like. You’ll see what I’m saying.

They are both likely level 100 or 200. They wouldn’t let you take them out of order if order mattered.

I agree with captaincrunk. Philosophy is probably a survey class, and will cover ethics and critical thinking a little, but that could cut either way: on the one hand, you’ll be bored; on the other, you’ll have a good grasp of the material and may have some overlap in reading.

So, it probably depends more on you than on any objective factors. I’d say go with the profs you like, that seems like the most important factor.

Also, a philosophy 100 course will likely be boring if you have ever looked into philosophy before. It just touches on a few subjects and dances away. Some schools do a rotating set of concepts for their low level courses and that could be more interesting. I think a more focused low level philosophy course could be better. Like if you could find a course in ethics (which you have), mind or consciousness, epistemology, or metaphysics (might be boring) or otherwise. Take anything that sounds cool that doesn’t have prerequisites.

Point taken. On the other hand I can only react to any particular OP as I do: subjectively and “in the moment”. Basically what you seem to be arguing [and it doesn’t surprise me] is that there are “correct” or “incorrect” reactions. Simple or [overly] complex reactions. Whether it relates to playing the stock market or to exchanging points of view here.

So, sure, if my own reaction is deemed to be incorrect then that settles it.

All I am trying to convey re the OP is that with regard to ethics, there may well be limitations beyond which philosophers and critical thinkers cannot go.

That, in other words, there may well be a difference between a world of words and a world in which words are then understood out in particular worlds in very, very different [often conflicting] ways.

There are no pre requisites to any of them and I can take either one first. The reason I am asking this question is because I actually want to learn something from these 2 course and was thinking maybe it is beneficiary to take some of them first. One of the guys in this thread made a good point about taking critical thinking first because then when I study philosophy second, I can filter out philosopher’s ideas instead of just take them as all true. I will go with critical thinking first. And thank you for your response anyways.

A lot of people have trouble preventing themselves from being persuaded by, well, highly persuasive arguments…like the kind that you’ll get from philosophers. But since for every philosophical position, there’s an equally articulated one that concludes the opposite, then you know they can’t both be right. Critical thinking is quite possibly the most important thing that you can train yourself to do. I mean, look at half these guys on here. They’re not thinking critically, or even doing philosophy for real. Just preaching what they believe, high 5ing those who agree with them, and bitching at those who don’t. It’s normal, it’s what most people do in the real world. But it’s not philosophy and it’s incorrect.

Like try and tell James that he doesn’t have a theory of everything with his affectance bit, or iambiguous that some moral decisions are superior to others, or any of the little racist dudes that they haven’t escaped the problem of the one over many by making minor stipulations about the broad generalizations that they make to demonize and scapegoat outgroups, or the anti government conspiracy types that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. You’ll fry thier brains.

Or tell one of those chicken little types, who thinks thst civilization is coming to an end that the stock market is growing and that they should invest in oil and bombs for thier retirement. They’ll go nuts, but those are in fact great long term investments.

Like remember in middle school when everyone had to read some book, and at that point it may have been the only book that half or more of the kids had ever read? Then they all just agreed with it because it seemed deep to them. Then half of them lived the rest of thier lives without questioning it or reading anything else, and half the ones who read more just sought out more books with the same conclusions, and rejected books that disagreed with those?

This stuff happens in real life. Read 100s of books man. And don’t take any of them to be the truth. Don’t try and memorize everything some guy said so you can win arguments against laypeople. Read it all, and be able to argue either side. Like we got guys here who spent thier whole lives memorzinf Nietzsche the way a priest menorizes the bible, and that makes up 90 percent of what they know. Can’t even have a conversation with them without it turning into a Nietzsche jargon contest. Again…this is not philosophy.

Okay, one takes the course in critical thinking first. One masters the art of thinking critically and then one masters the art of thinking philosophically about ethics.

How then would one take these skills “out into the world” in order to establish if playing the stock market is a superior or an inferior moral behavior? How would one establish that aborting a baby or bringing it to term is the superior or the inferior moral position.

If “critical thinking” is defined as “the ability to think clearly and rationally about what to do or what to believe” what constitutes objectivity here regarding these behaviors?

Are there or are there not limitations “here and now” beyond which the critical thinkers seem unable to go?

I’m certainly willing to concede that, re a “theory of everything”, this moral certainty may well someday be established. I’m just noting the obvious: that, from my point of view [here and now], it has not been established.

But if there are critical thinkers here who think the opposite let them bring their conclusions down to earth in order to test them substantively pertaining to actual conflicting behaviors emanating from actual conflicting value judgments.

On a new thread perhaps.

See, you say, “new thread”, but what you really mean is, “smame old thread”. No one is interested.

New thread is code word for new victim. :evilfun:

To the best of my knowledge, no one here is obligated to be.

Critical thinker or not. :wink:

Okay then you start it. :wink:

Jeez you’re so needy.

My needs here revolve around exploring the existential relationship between identity, values and political power. As this pertains to the question, “how ought one to live?” out in any particular world.

And I always strive to suggest that there can be a world of difference between exploring this relationship in a classroom – or “metaphysically”? – and taking what you have learned there and plugging it into your actual interactions with others as that pertains to questions of ethics. In particular when moral narratives/agendas come into conflict.

Either I am right or I am wrong regarding the extent to which trained philosophers, ethicists and critical thinkers are able to truly designate a distinction between superior and inferior human behaviors. As this relates to the question of “good” vs. “evil”.

But the only way to really explore that fully is to intertwine theory and practice as this becomes relevant to human behaviors that do come into conflict because some insist one particular set of behaviors is superior to another.

Stock trading and abortion are just two of a seemingly endless string of moral conflagrations that go all the way back, well, a long way back in the history of human interactions.

What I challenge you to do then is to note how the capable philosopher and ethicist using the tools of the capable critical thinker intertwine words and worlds as this relates to actual behaviors embedded in trading stock or aborting a human baby.

We can take this discussion into the philosophy forum and explore it more substantively. If nothing else you can expose just how deficient I really am here in understanding these relationships as the “serious philosopher” would.