Life Teachings In The Class Room: A Sample Essay For Inspiration & Mimicking

Throughout life, one has many experiences. Some of these are formative, allowing one to become a better person, while others only leave you with knowledge of diverse kinds. There are many different situations where one can learn varied aspects of the human experience. Nevertheless, educational courses do not always have this effect. Sometimes, theory can only serve on paper, without having direct correlation to one’s life.
However, this was not the case with the philosophy class we have just culminated. I feel that this course has given me a new outlook on life, and enhanced it slightly. I completely agree that taking this course has made me a better person, including making my social life better, something I did not expect.
Of course, this did not happen directly, as its subject was not social skills. On the other hand, in this course we were basically taught about arguments and their validity. Different types of logical constructions and connections were discussed, and we saw how some had more value than others. As a whole, we discussed that there were many ways to build strong arguments, instead of just one.
Perhaps the most relevant aspect of this is that it was not just a logic class, but we also applied this knowledge and method to important, contemporary problems. For example, we examined the death penalty, a controversy that I had not thought deeply about before. Even though I had an opinion and had expressed it frequently when arguing with my peers, I saw that this was not examined at all, which made the connections between my arguments frequently unreasonable.
This led me to reflect on my own life and who I was as a person, and my actions and habits, in terms of logic. Even though I had thought about myself with respect to reason before, I think that this time I did it in a more serious manner; furthermore, I had a greater base and knowledge with respect to this discipline. Doing this, I saw that I often acted irrationally, without taking good logic and reason into account. This often led me towards dubious conclusions, which I think were more geared by sentiment than by reason.
Interestingly, I did not see that at the time, believing that what I was upholding was very logical. My emotions and ignorance led me to sustain fallacious arguments while believing that they were reasonable. One of the most frequent errors I committed was the snowball fallacy, which led me to catastrophic conclusions, especially in terms of relationships, both amorous and amicable.
In this sense, I would take the slightest misstep that a person would commit and raise it to devastating levels. If a person took too long to come to my house, I would make a big deal out of it, as it would mean that they would also be so late if an emergency were to happen. Obviously, this did not make too much sense, and it hurt my relationships as well.
Besides the methods that I used in order to reach my conclusions, and argue, I also reexamined the final thoughts themselves. On one hand, I saw that I was right in many respects. Most of my points of views on different aspects of life have not changed significantly. I believe that I am still, in essence, the same person, as I have changed a couple of important ideas about life, yet nothing essential. The majority of my web of beliefs was correct, coming to sound and coherent conclusions.
However, I saw that what I thought was not necessarily correct because of the reasons I had given myself. Often, I noted that many of the arguments that I gave to support a given conclusion were filled with fallacies. Therefore, it was an unsound web of beliefs, even if many of the specific points were reasonable.
This was mainly due to the fact that there were many aspects of my life that I did not examine at all. I had may prejudices coming from different sources: my family, my teachers growing up, television shows I had seen, among others. These had taken a hold of me and led me to act in erroneous ways, just because I had not thought about what I had been doing until that point. I was acting without thinking, leading me to bad ways of being.
This was one way to see it, but one could also believe that I was actually acting reasonably, just not starting out from adequate premises. Every line of thinking has to start somewhere, and the truth value of the premises will determine whether or not the conclusion is valid. Even though I often acted logically, the problem was with the premises that I had departed from.
One of the biggest things that I changed was my point of view regarding other people’s perspectives. Before, I basically dismissed them without hearing what they actually had to say. During this class, I saw that this was a wrong way to go, as people could make their departure from different premises, allowing them to reach different conclusions while using logical reasoning. Furthermore, I realized that it was also possible for people to reach an adequate conclusion without using logical reasoning at all. Therefore, I realized that the only way to actually determine if somebody was reasoning logically was to hear them out through their process, instead of just focusing on their conclusions.
As a whole, this course allowed me to change as a person in a rational way. I am not sure if one can say that one is living a good life if one does not examine it logically. Even though one may be living and enjoying one’s time on Earth, if a person does not think about the goodness of his or her life, he or she will not be able to determine its quality.
Therefore, I would say that the first way that my life became better was that I was actually qualified to say how good it was. This was obviously the first step in enhancing other aspects of my life as well, because it served as a diagnosis in order to detect what aspects could be made better. After establishing these weaker points, I could take logical steps in order to make this part of my life better.
Nevertheless, I also saw that reason was not the only important aspect of the human experience. Being more aware of logical and illogical actions also led me to the conclusion that people simply act irrationally sometimes. Knowing that logical reasoning is a complicated and time consuming ordeal, it makes sense that people would not always go through all of this process in order to determine whether what they are about to do is reasonable or not. Therefore, even though I believed that people should always act logically, I saw that this was impractical, if not impossible.
Knowing that it was not always possible for people to act logically also helped me with my relationships, as I learnt to tolerate other people’s illogical aspects as well. Before, I used to be very fussy about people acting in a reasonable manner. I would often argue with others because of their behavior that strayed from rationality, as I believed that it was the only acceptable way to handle one’s self.
As I saw that being incoherent was sometimes also a natural part of the human experience, this allowed me to be a bit softer on the people around me that did not adhere to logic all the time. I saw that it saved me many arguments with my friends, partner and even family. Therefore, I also deduced that it was logical to be a little more accepting, as it allowed me to enjoy life a little bit more.
This course has definitely made my life better because it has led me to see life in a new way. Even though my approach has always been logical, I saw that there were many aspects of my life that I had not examined at all. This included many prejudices I had acquired as a child, and had not thought about since. Therefore, many of the logical connections I had made were useless because they departed from false premises.
Likewise, this course also taught me that the reasoning behind a conclusion is as important as the final thought itself. This is due to the fact that logic takes place articulating the different premises that lead towards a conclusion. Therefore, it is important to not just take the conclusion into account, but to examine the reasoning behind it as well.
Finally, it showed me that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to always be reasonable. As adequate logic may take a long time, it may be too cumbersome to do when taking split-second decisions as one often has to do in life. Therefore, I saw that it was only natural to be irrational sometimes as well. In other words, being rational led me to understand that people would be irrational sometimes.
As a whole, this course helped me become a better person because I was led to get along with people in a better way. I learned that I had to ask them for their reasons for sustaining a point, instead of automatically deriding them for their supposedly faulty conclusion. Furthermore, I saw that a conclusion could be correct even if the reasoning is completely illogical. Finally, that it is not always necessary for people to be rational, and that this may even be impossible.
These were very important life lessons that I learned from this philosophy course. I think that this is extraordinary because personal development is very infrequent in academic situations. Therefore, I would definitely recommend this class to someone else, as I think that we should all try to be the best people we can be.