How I became a philosopher
When people ask me what I do for a living, I love to tell them that I'm a philosopher. Partly because it sounds quite cool, and partly because it's true.

To what do I owe this career? It's the Oxford Latin Course, pt. 2. It was from this that I had, aged 14, to translate a passage involving Quintus (thinly modelled on the poet Horace) going to the forum to buy a copy of de republica. This was my first contact with Plato, and I wanted to know more about him. A couple of years later, I bought The Republic to read. I didn't understand it at all.

However, my A-level European history paper covered the Enlightenment, and I could remember enough about Plato (and, by that point, More) to be able to carry off a discussion about Voltaire, Montesquieu and the political thought underpinning the "enlightened despotism" of the Great Elector of Brandenburg Prussia and of Tsar Peter the Great; at the same time, it was being suggested that I might read PPE at university - which I duly did.

By the end of my A-levels, I'd re-read Plato, and had dipped into Scruton, Marx and Nietzsche. Scruton was a bad idea because he's a clown; Marx was a bad idea because Das Kapital is long and boring; Nietzsche was a bad idea because I was a neophyte. Nevertheless - I was hooked on philosophy. I did flirt with entering the real world for a while - but much preferred academia.

Gradually, I was drawn towards ethics, and specifically towards applied ethics, until (via a diversion into Heidegger and meta-ethics for my PhD) I got where I am now - to wit, an office in Manchester.

And that is how I became a philosopher. All due to part 2 of the Oxford Latin Course.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 15 May 2008, 15:44, 9 replies)

Heidegger
Gaahh! *brain melts*

See also Derrida, Lyotard, Foucault, Cixous.
Went back and tried the theory again recently, but after a six-year gap my mindset had completely gone in other, less esoteric, directions.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Thu 15 May 2008, 16:12, closed)

typical of you, Dr E
Couldn't you have just told the truth for once and said The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle?
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 15 May 2008, 16:15, closed)

Boss K
Yep - you need to treat Heidegger with care. Derrida's a charlatan; Foucault is deeply unreliable; I don't know much about Lyotard or Cixous. Fortunately, such is the nature of what I do now that I will never have to...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 15 May 2008, 16:15, closed)

Derrida
OMG!!!!

I attempted to read some of his writing on writing - paragraphs and sentences...I think that's what it was about.

My head almost exploded.

Give me lovely old Jean-Paul and his mate Maurice any day. Or even Roland Barthes.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Thu 15 May 2008, 16:26, closed)

Ahh the memories
Sadly the Oxford Latin course had a much less enlightening effect on me. I did kind of fancy Metella though. King Cogidubnus seemed like a nice old chap too.
(Errorist, Thu 15 May 2008, 16:56, closed)

^ Do you not mean
Cambridge Latin Course? That was the one with Metella and Quintus and Cogidubnus (best name ever) and Modestus and all those other awesome people.
( Maladicta, Thu 15 May 2008, 18:43, closed)

Are you beating the women off you with a shitty stick?
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Fri 16 May 2008, 22:51, closed)

^Pft,
not enough beating for my liking. Three people on b3ta expressed their love for him today. Philosophically speaking, he can get all the Kant he wants.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Sat 17 May 2008, 0:47, closed)

seconding Maledicta
it's the *Cambridge* Latin Course.
( catness, Sat 17 May 2008, 20:30, closed)