PHIL V3237

Two papers and a final (which is two short essays - 1.5 hours each). You'll be totally free to specialize in your topics. Each paper lets you pick one essay from five topics, and the final is 2 essays from 7 topics. The topics are always decently general and expect alot of personal philosophizing. Not about repeating the material to show you know it, or anything like that.

One 6 page paper, one 10 page paper, 5 pass/fail Blog Posts and Class Participation

I expect that Gabbey gets mediocre reviews because the majority of philosophy students find the subject interesting to an extent in itself, but rely on professors to make it magical. Gabbey won't be performing any magic. If you're the type of individual who can be made to love philosophy, and you're looking for teachers who will create that fascination in your upper level classes, I might recommend Vogt, the Kitchers, or Bell, among others. And indeed, I wouldn't recommend Gabbey. To repeat most of the reviews on here, he is not a dynamic teacher as "dynamic" is traditionally conceived. If that's what you're looking for, you will be bored nearly to death in this class, and while you'll probably still be able to pull off a decent grade if you're quite smart, you'll get relatively little out of the experience. However, if you find philosophy to be extremely interesting in itself, and are taking this class with the priority of advancing your own knowledge, ideas, writing, and capacity to understand extraordinarily important and complex material, I would recommend Alan Gabbey more highly than any other professor. This man's understanding of early modern philosophy is unsurpassed. He is a scholar in the field, and he is more than willing to share his understandings with his students. You have the potential to gain as much as you want in this class. Far too often, I find that Columb…

Professor Paul is a fantastic professor to learn from if you want to really understand Descartes's philosophy. That we spent the greater part of a semester on only the Meditations on First Philosophy seems flabbergasting in retrospect, but by the end of the class you will understand exactly what drove Descartes to pursue his hyperbolic doubt, how modern interpreters have attempted to save him from his Cartesian Circle, and the philosophical tradition that he emerged out of and responded to. If you do not like Descartes, or find the pursuit of metaphysical certainty pointless, then you will probably want to skip this one. For someone that came to this class without a particular interest in Descartes or Epistemology, I still found that learning about him was valuable because of the enormous role he played in the history of philosophy as he ended the era of Scholasticism and ushered in the early modern philosophical debate between empiricism and rationalism.

2 papers 7-8 pages in legnth (25% grade each) and a final exam (30%). the final is open book (not open notes). it was funny carrying a backpack full of books to the exam. it's to allow you to reference and quote a bit more than otherwise.

Two papers, five pass/fail blogposts, class participation

This class was decent. As others have commented - he is not a dynamic lecturer. He speaks softly and it is sometimes hard to hear and follow him. His style is to go through the text in depth reading passages and commenting on them. It's a little dry but it was fine background in these thinkers. He clearly knows a lot about the subject. He encourages class discussion but he's not always able to discern (like many teachers) what the questions being asked are. Take it this way - it fulfills a philosophy major requirement, it's not that painful, and you should be able to pull off an A-/B+ easily. Look at the other professors teaching this period of history of philosophy and you'll see that's not the case. Also, he switches the topics he focuses on for the class per semester. Depending on your interests in philosophy, you might find one semester more captivating than another one.

Elliot Paul is a god. Ask him what Descartes would say about anything, and he knows the answer. This class is called "Late Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy" but he chose to do the class on Descartes. His knowledge on the subject is extremely impressive. He's clearly read the stuff at least 200 times. Aside from this, he is quite charming, soft-spoken but enthusiastic. Overall, knows his shit, is very articulate, and is a very nice person. Fair grader. Take a class with him!!!

2 papers, midterm and final. Lenient Grader..Nice man. An easy B+/A-, though not a gimme A.

True, not the most dynamic lecturer. But, he knows his stuff and the class is not difficult. You can learn a lot from this class, if you put in the energy. A good way to get that history of philosophy requirement out of the way. He's a charming old man. I recommend it.