Philosophy (analytic): puzzle-making

My epistemology exam is done, and with it perhaps my final ventures into contemporary analytic philosophy.

I’m not sure exactly why, but the course/material didn’t grip me as I had hoped it would. The Philosophy of Mind course I took four years ago was completely different, I loved it.

Two possible reasons come to mind: one is that I was younger then and more nimble-minded, the other that I simply had more time to put into it. Given that many of the most nimble-minded people I know are significantly older than I am, I’ll blame my lack of time this year.

In any case, during the final I had a terrible sense of defeat, of having simply not ‘got it’, and I realized that to a very large extent, analytic philosophy is like puzzle-making. If you get it all together something rather remarkable emerges. But if you come short of that last key piece or two, you’re left wondering what it is/was all about. That was very much the case for me this semester. Sigh.