Living my dream
I knew what I was doing when I signed up to teach History and Systems in Psychology, a required course for GMU Psychology majors. I'm the only tenure-line faculty member to teach a section of History and Systems this semester. Most faculty avoid it. I find the history of psychology interesting, mostly because of the development of the study of mind/brain into a science. However, one of the perks for me is living out my fantasy of being a Philosophy professor, if only for a few weeks. The history of Psychology begins with ancient philosophical explorations of epistemology, the mind-body problem, and early hints of naturalism. The Roman Period and Middle Ages were largely void of significant contributions to philosophy, but things quickly picked up with the Renaissance (pronounced re-NAE-sense by one of my undergrad professors, much to the chagrin of my roommate of the time). I'll be covering the Rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, etc.) and the Empiricists (Locke, Hume, Berkeley, etc.) in the coming week.
LOL. You know, to this day I cannot think about or say the word "renaissance" without thinking about that weird inflection.
I can't imagine it's a bad career move to take on the class that nobody else wants to teach. Will the syllabus be online? I might audit from afar.
I actually said re-NAE-sense in my class once, and had to quickly explain myself. It was only embarrassing to me; I don't think the students noticed or cared. My point is that I, too, am cursed with that inflection probably for the rest of my life.
You can find the syllabus to my History and Systems class here.