<p>Next year, I will be a junior. So far, I am thinking about signing up for the following:
- AP English III
- AP Calculus AB
- Honors Physics
- AP US History
- AP Statistics
- Piano II
- Foundations of Western Philosophy </p>
<p>Philosophy is a new course that my school is offering. Has anyone taken this class and if so what is it like? Is it a very rigorous class? Also, what do you think about my choice of AP classes? What is the workload for those classes?</p>
<p>It’s probably not very challenging at the high school level, but that depends on your school. I’d recommend taking it if philosophy is interesting to you. </p>
<p>I took a philosophy class as my senior english class, and it was a great decision. I was and still am a planning philosophy minor, and the class gave me a great background. If it interests you, go for it. Though, if you have some background already, I warn you that modern philosophy is much better in my opinion. You can still get valuable bits and pieces from early western philosophy, just try to build them into more modern ideas.</p>
<p>
Why? (I don’t have an opinion…I’m just interested. I took Ethics last fall and I thought the more recent philosophers were easier to read, but I didn’t really know enough to make judgments about whether the content was better.)</p>
<p>@halcyonheather </p>
<p>While they old guys are important historically and influentially, every few hundred years or less a new guy comes along and revises / improves the same idea. If an idea was good 2000 years ago, it has probably been redone enough where you can read the most recent revision and still get the ideas of the old guy, and as you said, much easier to interpret. From there, you can always go back, but it saves a lot of time.</p>
<p>Also, the revisions are done with more knowledge available. Take Aristotle, who believed there were 5 elements in the world. We now know this to be false, but other ideas of his have been revised and survived / adapted. So, if you want a more correct version to build on, it makes sense to take one of the newer pieces.</p>
<p>Basically, historical importance rather than ideological uniqueness / importance. The first to do it is almost never the best.</p>