
Carrie Fisher’s Private Philosophy Coach - tintinnabula
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/help-me-obi-wan-carrie-fisher-private-philosophy-coach
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Jun8
"“She called the department wanting to get a tutor in philosophy. They said,
‘What field?’ She said, ‘Philosophy.’ They said, ‘Yeah, but what field?’ ”
That’s a funny story to a philosophy wonk."

It's a bit of a pity that this viewpoint is the case, although one may argue
it's inevitable (e.g. over specialization in today's world, etc. A similar
case can be made for literary criticism perhaps.

I found this excellent discussion from the Phisophy Bites podcast on the
perennial "What is Philosophy" question very helpful:
[http://philosophybites.libsyn.com/edward_craig_what_is_philo...](http://philosophybites.libsyn.com/edward_craig_what_is_philosophy_)
(if you have 12 minutes 41 minutes please consider listening to this). Here
Edward Craig
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Craig_(philosopher)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Craig_\(philosopher\)))
argues that all people engage in philosophical thinking part of their lives,
it's not the domain of philosophers. He mentions the lamentable fact that
recently a lot of focus has been placed on explaining arguments, terms, etc.
rather than the arguments themselves.

Interestingly while enrollment in many majors in liberal arts education is
decreasing (e.g. [https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/06/05/analysis-
find...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/06/05/analysis-finds-
significant-drop-humanities-majors-gains-liberal-arts-degrees)) philosophy
enrollement seems to be increasing
([http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/education/06philosophy.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/education/06philosophy.html)).

~~~
trendia
Your article about philosophy enrollment is from 2008. The trend has reversed,
though both the increase and decrease in humanities majors were relatively
minor (12.5% vs 15%)

[https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/06/05/analysis-
find...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/06/05/analysis-finds-
significant-drop-humanities-majors-gains-liberal-arts-degrees)

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peoplewindow
Kind of a misleading title. I had assumed she had done serious study of actual
philosophy in her older years. Learning why and what she learned might have
been interesting.

Instead this is a story about when she was 20, didn't know anything about
philosophy, didn't care, and basically just wanted to learn to be an
interesting conversationalist. And for some unclear reason she decided that
paying for a philosophy coach was the way to go. Nothing about what they
actually discussed is in the article.

------
le-mark
_Some days, when Fisher was travelling, she let Notturno go inside her
apartment before she got home. “One time, she came in with a big smile on her
face and threw her coat on a chair and said, ‘They loved you in Los Angeles
last night!’ ”_

Skimpy article at best, one might suppose from this anecdote that she got
something from the lessons.

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tomc1985
Carrie Fisher was an amazing person, but can the world please stop with the
worshiping her?

~~~
cairo_x
What's wrong with worshiping her? Everyone has heroes. Carrie seems like one
of the better ones.

~~~
tomc1985
Nothing is worthy of worship, not even good people.

~~~
grzm
"Worship" has at least two senses:

> _1 : to honor or reverence as a divine being or supernatural power_

> _2 : to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion a
> celebrity worshipped by her fans_

[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/worship](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/worship)

I strongly suspect 'cairo_x assumed you intended sense 2. If you meant sense
1, I don't think that's very well supported by either the submission or the
world at large. Are you aware of a significant number of people who believe
Fisher is divine in the supernatural sense? If you _did_ intend sense 2,
perhaps you weight that word more heavily than is used in common parlance.

