Philosophy

From the early nineties on I could contribute in Romania by way of a TEMPUS project of the European Commission  to found and to build up the Department of Engineering Sciences of the collaborating Universities of Bucharest.

The Romanian Higher Education system resembles much the French one with the Grandes Ecoles and their competitive entrance-examinations. Of all who passed the examinations only the top students were selected to populate this Department of Engineering Sciences - D.E.S.

In the D.E.S. they would enjoy an engineering education either in English, French or German, so that they could integrate easier in (Western) Europe and in the international scientific community during or after their studies without that many cultural- and language barriers they might have had otherwise. Furthermore, a substantial attention to humanities would form part of the education.

The D.E.S. has been successfully realised. At this moment already many of its graduates perform very well as a Ph.D. student or as a researcher in advanced technology research centers in the U.S.A. and in Europe.

Within the scheme of the project I was also detached to the University 'Politehnica' of Bucharest to give lectures.

In the first year I did an Introduction to Analytic Philosophy that included a short elementary course in Logic, either to fresh up already existent knowledge by earlier mathematical- or informatics lectures in the programme of the D.E.S. or to emphasize (again) its role in argumentation. This elementary course dealt with Definitions, Syllogisms, Sentential Logic and Predicate Logic. Also the philosophy of G.E. Moore (analysis, language and common sense) and the philosophy of  Bertrand Russell (logical atomism) was introduced. The introduction to the First Phase of Analytic Philosophy in Cambridge was concluded so to say with the Tractatus Logico - Philosophicus of  Ludwig Wittgenstein (Wittgenstein I ).

The very first day I came to Bucharest to work with the D.E.S. students I visited also the little book-stalls on the streets. What 'coincidence'... The very same day came a Romanian 

translation available of the Tractatus.

Although I had prepared already copies of  'the' English translation of the Tractatus it was a pleasure to advertise this booklet that was available for a prize less than that of a bottle of Coca-Cola, one of the common standard of values of the Romanian students those days.

We read the book the way I like it best, not immediately from page one till the last , but the structural way; in this, starting from the overview of the main theses.

The students were good and very enthusiastic, especially about the course I did on 'Freedom' next to the above mentioned. But this was more by reason of they felt to enjoy it itself, than because of they were engineering students. And also from the informal contacts with them I learned a lot about the revolution and how it happened out of their own experiences. And some of them were soldiers those days.

The next year I tried to involve the students closer in the different views on epistemology and science. So next to the 'regular' course to conclude the introduction to analytic philosophy by dealing with  Logical Positivism ( Vienna Circle and further developments -a.o. K. Popper-) I did a working group in which the students had to team up in groups up to four to prepare a point of view that was established in a current article from a philosophical magazine.

Out of the nine different articles I had selected and prepared we did five after a short general (historical-thematically) introduction to the philosophy of science. It had to be observed that even very excellent engineering students had great problems with presenting in a clear and short summary the central topic or the main view of a non-plain text. So some time had to be spent to introduce a few helpful techniques in this and to practice them.

It's just constructive thinking -besides some lateral creativity-, I guess and that's all technology may be.

 

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