At this point in my college career, I’ve more-or-less lost my fear of the first day of classes. I have my “first day” routine down to a science: get to campus early, claim the first available parking space (even if it’s nearly a half-mile away from the classroom), get a soda and a pack of beef jerky from the vending machine, then wait in front of the classroom door till the prof lets everyone in.
That’s pretty much exactly what I did on my first day of in-person summer classes. Except for when I arrived on campus, I was relieved to see that it wasn’t a complete zoo. Only half of the main parking lot was full, and there weren’t many people out-and-about. As usual, I found a parking spot (which was much closer to the main campus building than I was expecting), hung my parking pass on the rear-view mirror, then made my way into the main building where my Philosophy course would be held for the duration of the summer.
For awhile, I just sat by the classroom door sipping my soda, watching as more and more students joined me. Unlike in my fall and spring classes, the summer class students were, on average, much older. Most of my peers were in their late twenties and early thirties. Perhaps a couple of them were in their forties. Overall, because almost everyone was older than me, I felt confident that I wouldn’t be the professor’s pet anymore, which was (and is) fine by me!
After the Spring 2023 semester, I was done with being the professor's pet!
A few minutes before class started, a short, scrawny guy that looked a lot like a stereotypical hipster approached us, unlocked the door to the classroom, and motioned for all of us to head into it. Because I was now a confident, eager-to-learn student who no longer feared professors, I chose a front row seat, and got ready to take some notes on Philosophy.
While I’ve never taken a Philosophy course, I figured it wouldn’t be that hard. I was vaguely familiar with philosophers dating back to Epicurus and Socrates, but I never really delved too deeply into philosophy. Most of everything I knew (and know) about philosophy came from my own life experience, but I wasn’t about to disclose that to the entire class. Rather, I was just interested to see how the class would go; either it would be really boring or really interesting. Either I would know damn near everything, or I'd know close to nothing. Regardless, I was in it to win it!
When the clock struck 10:00 AM, our hipster professor got right to business, introducing himself as someone who just recently graduated with his PhD in Philosophy, and was now teaching Philosophy full time at CU Denver, MSU, and, of course, ACC. However, like most PhD’s I’ve run into so far, instead of addressing him as doctor or professor, he asked us to just call him Tom.
“I’m your professor, but I’m not your authority figure, and I certainly don’t know everything there is to know about Philosophy.” Tom joked, “We’re all students of Philosophy in this class, including myself. Presumably, you guys are studying Philosophy for the very first time. First-time Philosophy students tend to have the most interesting and profound things to say about it… I’ve learned a lot from my Philosophy 101 students, and I'm excited to learn from all of you!"
Before we could get into any actual material, we spent the first hour of class covering the syllabus and getting a rough overview of the class. It was a fast-paced course because it was a summer course, but we’d get all A’s so long as we read the material and turned in our papers in time. None of our essays were particularly big or tedious ones. From what I saw in the course outline, we’d just be writing a lot of three or four page papers on what we thought about various philosophical arguments. Easy enough, right?
As soon as we finished going over the syllabus and class schedule, the prof immediately began to lecture us about Socrates and Plato. And, I’ll be honest, it was pretty boring at first.
“Great.” I remember thinking to myself, “It’s gonna be a boring philosophy class, and not a fun one.”
Because I had that shitty mindset, I don’t remember a whole lot that happened during the second half of class. But, I do remember going home and reading several chunks of Plato’s Apology, then writing a small, one-page response essay for it (which I got a 100% on).
The following Wednesday, the prof briefly went over Plato’s Apology, along with a handful of ideas that came from the Greeks that helped to shape modern western philosophy, and ended his lecture about that with, “Well… now that we got through the worst of this class, let’s dive into a fun and easy debate known as free will vs determinism!”
My interest in the class was suddenly piqued.
While I wasn’t super familiar with the free will vs determinism debate, I knew enough to know that the debate could essentially be boiled down to this: people either have free will to make their own choices regardless of what nature’s up to, or we’re completely bound and programed by natural laws. The determinist believes we’re all completely controlled by nature, while the free-will libertarian believes we have some (or even complete) free will to make our own decisions, regardless of nature’s grip on us.
Personally, I didn’t (and still don’t) know whether I agreed more with determinism or free will (or, perhaps both). I just didn’t feel like I knew enough to make a confident decision, which was okay. In Philosophy 101, it was okay to not even know what free will or determinism meant. And, there I was, already familiar with the subject!
For the record, I wasn’t smug about it whatsoever. I was just happy that, for once in my college career, I actually understood something right off the bat. It wasn’t like in my literature class, where 80% of the books the professor referenced went right over my head (as I’ve never been a fiction reader, unless I’m forced to read it for a grade, or it’s actually really good stuff), or in my math/science courses, where I worked my ass off to fully grasp the material. Philosophy has been easy for me, because I’ve been familiar with everything, so far, that the prof has referenced.
Ok, I didn’t know the names of the actual philosophers (D’Holbach and Campbell) arguing for and against determinism. But, I knew their arguments pretty well. By the time the second lecture on determinism vs free will ended, I already knew what I was gonna write for my free will vs determinism paper.
In short, while I’m not comfortable taking a hard stance on either side, I can understand where both arguments are coming from. That said, I don’t see the point of the argument, because, in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t seem to matter whether or not we’re truly free agents. Why? Well… A) it already seems like we have free will, and B) we can’t ever definitively prove nor disprove free will or determinism. So, why does it matter?
Am I being a little inflammatory by asking the question, “Why does it matter whether or not we have free will?”. Sure. But, isn’t that more or less the point of philosophy, in many ways? To be annoying and inflammatory (as Socrates was)?
All that said, I don’t think that philosophy is entirely useless. I mean… there must be a damn good reason why every college student is required to take a philosophy course, regardless of what they’re studying. Plus, I will admit, philosophy is fun. It’s fun to contemplate the meaning of life, the existence of God, whether or not living things have free will, so on and so fourth. But, I just think that some people take it way too seriously and way too far, which doesn’t seem to lead anywhere good.
What I mean by that is, fairly often, people who base their whole lives on proving or disproving a philosophical argument (or arguments), end up harming themselves in many ways. Nietzche had a very dark philosophy, and subsequently (and maybe even consequently) lived and died very depressed and mentally unstable. In modern times, Jordan Peterson (who is a psychologist by training but is more-or-less a philosopher at this point) subscribed to the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" philosophy so much, that he's basically killing himself with it. And, many, many, many people, including myself, find it much easier (and much more convincing) to use philosophy to advocate for giving up rather than pressing on.
I mean... isn't that kind of what determinism is saying? If someone dies as a result of suicide, determinism would say that person was predetermined to die the way they did, when they did. Even if they'd gotten the help and support they needed, and did everything in their power to overcome their suicidality, determinism would argue that it wouldn't have mattered one bit. That person was gonna die by suicide regardless of if they got help or stayed home and self-isolated all day.
Scarily enough, at this point in my class (which, I know hasn't been that long. I'm three weeks into an eight week Philosophy 101 course), it seems like determinism is the "more correct" answer than free will, because determinism is so... scientifically-based, for lack of a better term. Yet, I still reject it (by it, I mean hard determinism. I'm not yet sure about soft determinism, or any of the other determinisms out there), not because of science, but because of my own anecdotal evidence from living a life that has defied the known laws of nature, time and time and time again.
And, in a way, by rejecting determinism, I almost feel like I'm rejecting philosophy as a whole... at least, philosophy as it's often presented these days (especially online philosophy, where social media's basically turned everyone into the most insufferable doomer nihilists the world has ever seen, which I think has something to do with our mental health crisis. And is also why I decided to delete social media a long time ago).
More and more people, especially my age, think that we are all screwed. And, to an extent, I agree with them. I always like to complain and rant about the state of the country (and the world); how our politicians are corrupt, nature is dying, weather is becoming more and more extreme and destructive, Denver drivers are getting increasingly worse (somehow), on and on.
At the same time, I don't despair and give up like so many people do. Why? Because, I believe in miracles, and as pissed off at God as I am, I still believe in Him and pray for His guidance. I also believe in my own strength and ability to endure and survive the impossible, and figure out viable solutions to insanely difficult problems. I believe that, no matter how bad things get, there will always be something I can do to make things a little better, even if it's something as simple as taking two minutes to practice progressive muscle relaxation during a stressful situation.
I hope I'm making sense...
