The Education of Patrick

Self Education at it’s Best
Recently a friend gave me a book to read called Introducing Philosophy. Philosophy is a subject I've been interested in but have never learned. It was by far the best book anyone has ever given me to read. You see I've been wanting for some time to further my education in many areas. However, the lack of funds and the difficulties of scheduling have forced me to put it off for now. But this book, it has driven my thirst for knowledge even further and somewhere lost in the text I had the epiphany that I don't need to wait till I can take classes. I've decided to set up my own class structure for my self-education. The Internet (and library) truly is (are) a wonderful thing(s)! So I've chosen the subjects in which I wish to expound and I'm setting up a five day a week schedule in which I set aside two to four hours a day for study and each area of study will have a designated day. This, of course, is the theory. I have to adopt a mindset, which will enable me to make it practical. I believe I have to think of it as "going to class" just the same as I would if I were going to class at a school or college. I also think I need to have an action of recourse, or discipline, for missing class, an incentive if you will for not missing classes, such as depriving myself of some sort of privilege. Although, I can't think of an effective one at the moment. Possibly no TV, although that's not really much of a punishment to me as I really don't care if I see any TV or not. I'll have to work on it.

This plan of action is not intended to replace my plan of taking classes when I can. It is simply to suplement them intill that time.

Following are the subjects and schedule I've come up with thus far. A certain amount of "tweaking" will be necessary I'm sure.

Subjects:
 Philosophy
 Psychology
 Sociology
 Politics
 English
 History
 Literature
 Foreign Language
 Mathematics
 Science
 Physics
 Chemistry
 Biology
 Music
 Art
 Religion
 Mythology
 Health
 Business

Philosophy:
Meta-philosophy
Bio-philosophy
Philosophy of Science
Analytic Philosophy
Continental Philosophy
Ethical Philosophy
Political Philosophy
Celestine Prophecy
Epistemology
Ontology
School of Carvaka
Nyaya School of Hindu
Nicomachean Ethics
Hylomorphic Theory
Metaphysics
Phenomenology
Epistemology

Western
Critical Theory
The Enlightenment
Ethics
Logic
Paradox of motion
Paradigm
Existentialism
Empiricism
Marxism
Modernism
Postmodernism
Romanticism
Stoics
Transcendentalism
Structuralism
Post-structuralsim
Sophists
Semiotics
Relativism
Pragmatism
Materialsim
Monism
Materialsim
Logocentrism
Positivism
Functionalism
Fallibilism
Epicureanism
Dogmatism
Communism
Capitalsim
Buddhism
Behaviorism
Atomism

Ancient
Medieval
Modern
Contemporary

Socretes
Plato
Aristotle
Aquinas
Bacon
Descartes
Spinoza
Leibniz
Locke
Hume
Kant
Foucault
Hegel
Kierkegaard
Nietzsche
Marquis de Sade
Marx
Frege
Husserl
Walter Benjamin
Wittgenstein
Rousseau
Sartre
Russel
Derrida
Fodor
Kripke
Kuhn
Nagel
Rawls
Voltair
The Republic- Plato
A Theory of Justice – John Rawls
Walden – Thoreau
The Varieties of Religious Experience – James
The Prince – Machiavelli
The Myth of Sisyphus – Camus
The postmodern Condition – Lyotard
Meditations – Descartes
Philosophical Investigations – Wittgenstein
Ethics – Spinoza
Discourse on Method – Descartes
Critique of Pure Reason – Kant
Confessions – St. Augustine
The Concept of Mind – Ryle
Civil Disobediance – Thoreau
Being and Nothingness – Sartre
Being and Time – Heidegger
Against Method – Feyerabend
The Unity of Philosophic Experience – Etienne Gilson
What is it like to be a bat – Nagel
Quantum Mechanics – Bohr
Uncertainty Principle – Heisenberg

Eastern
Kapila yoynavalkya
Buddha
Gotavna
Nagarjuna
Confucius
Lao Tzu
P.R. Sarkar
Zhuong Zi
Mencius
Xun Zi
Zhu Xi
Han Fei Tzu
Yang Ming
Dharmakirti
Sankara
Ramanuja
Guru
Vivekananda
Aurobindo
Rodhakrishnan

Psychology:
Freud
The Freud Wars
Jung
Lacan
Malanie Klein
Psychiatry
Psychoanalysis
Psychotherapy
Evolutionary Psychology
“The Principals of Psychology” – James

Sociology:
Baudrillard
Politics:
American Politics
Fascism
Nazism
Communism
Socialism
Capitalism
The holocaust
Lenin and the Russian Revolution
Machiavelli
Political Philosophy
Trotsky and Marxism
Environmental Politics

English:
Grammar
Spelling

History:
American History
European History
World History
Ancient History- Greece/Rome

Literature:
Nathaniel Hawthorn
Walt Whitman
Thomas Jefferson
Edgar Allen Poe
Mark Twain
Benjamin Franklin
Abraham Lincoln
William Faulkner
Frost
James Joyce
Anais Nin
Origin of the Species
Audis Huxley
T.S. Eliot
Franz Kafka
Samuel Butler
Henry David Thoreau
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Foreign Language:
Spanish
Portuguese
Italian
French
German
Russian

Economics:
Keynesian Economics

Mathematics:
General Math
Algebra
Geometry
Trigonometry
Calculus

Science:
Fractal Geometry
Quantum Theory
Chaos
Consciousness
Darwin
Evolution
Einstein
Relativity
Time
Stephen Hawking
The Universe

Physics:
Newton and Classic Physics
Quantum Physics

Chemistry:

Biology:
Physiology
Kinesiology

Music:
Music theory
Fretboard Logic
Tablature
Rhythm/Chords/Progressions
Cross/Sweep Picking
Arpegios
Harmonics
Tapping
Song memorization
Improvising


Art:
Architecture
Drafting
Photography

Religion:
Natural Theology

Western
Christianity
Catholic

Eastern
Buddha

Mid-Eastern
Islam

Mythology:
Native American
Greek
Roman
Asian

Health:
Nutrition
Exercise

Business:
Marketing
Advertising
Finance

Schedule:
2 Hours per subject, per day. Semesters are four months each.
Semester 1-
Monday
Philosophy
Psychology

Tuesday
English
Literature

Wednesday
Mathematics
Science

Thursday
Music
Art

Friday
Health
Business

Semester 2-
Monday
Sociology
Politics

Tuesday
History
Foreign Language

Wednesday
Physics
Chemistry

Thursday
Religion
Mythology

Friday
Health
Biology