I’m glad you enjoyed teaching philosophy, and I don’t want to negate that you had an impact onto your students. However, I can’t really agree with your optimistic view on the “philosophy classroom’ environment.
I’ve spent 5 years studying philosophy at the university and there is indeed a great benefit to discussing things and disagreeing on them, but what I want to state it goes well only as long as the topic *isn’t* controversial. AI risk, I believe, actually falls in this non-controversial category. However, when the topic actually is personal to people and politically-charged, then I’ve observed that there is no more rational discussion and/or good faith—either in the philosophy classroom, or, let’s say, “philosophical spaces” in the Internet. I can have a different opinion than my colleagues on the nature of time and space and it’s all good, but when it comes to discussing e.g. abortion and there’s disagreement, it’s not so “fun” anymore. At least that’s my experience.
I know what you mean and I’ve definitely had this kind of experience (and in particular, last semester which led me to want to leave both my university and academia—that’s how bad it was). What I wanted to emphasize while teaching is that it’s valuable to question our own thoughts, emotions, and experiences in the philosophy classroom, and it’s disappointing to see that most people are not willing to do that. But hey, at least I tried...
I’m glad you enjoyed teaching philosophy, and I don’t want to negate that you had an impact onto your students. However, I can’t really agree with your optimistic view on the “philosophy classroom’ environment.
I’ve spent 5 years studying philosophy at the university and there is indeed a great benefit to discussing things and disagreeing on them, but what I want to state it goes well only as long as the topic *isn’t* controversial. AI risk, I believe, actually falls in this non-controversial category. However, when the topic actually is personal to people and politically-charged, then I’ve observed that there is no more rational discussion and/or good faith—either in the philosophy classroom, or, let’s say, “philosophical spaces” in the Internet. I can have a different opinion than my colleagues on the nature of time and space and it’s all good, but when it comes to discussing e.g. abortion and there’s disagreement, it’s not so “fun” anymore. At least that’s my experience.
I know what you mean and I’ve definitely had this kind of experience (and in particular, last semester which led me to want to leave both my university and academia—that’s how bad it was). What I wanted to emphasize while teaching is that it’s valuable to question our own thoughts, emotions, and experiences in the philosophy classroom, and it’s disappointing to see that most people are not willing to do that. But hey, at least I tried...