Professor
Adam Crager
1 of 1
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - this was the first actual philosophy class I've ever taken and was pretty uninterested in the subject, but Adam Crager made me like it. he is very passionate about the subject and philosophy in general so he made lecture extremely doable and interesting and gave concrete, relatable examples. the material was made so easy to understand thanks to his outstanding communication of the material and his love of teaching. our breakdown of the class was: -2 problem sets (was supposed to be 3 but we ran out of time so the second and third were combined to be 65% of our overall grade). your grade is basically in your TA's hands, so be aware of that. I had sahiba as my TA and would 100% recommend staying clear of her, as she gives absolutely no helpful information or guidance in writing the problem sets and contradicted the rubrics and wanted us to write what she wanted, not professor crager. overall, it's a fun and easy class that welcomes and eases you into philosophy here at UCLA.
Fall 2020 - this was the first actual philosophy class I've ever taken and was pretty uninterested in the subject, but Adam Crager made me like it. he is very passionate about the subject and philosophy in general so he made lecture extremely doable and interesting and gave concrete, relatable examples. the material was made so easy to understand thanks to his outstanding communication of the material and his love of teaching. our breakdown of the class was: -2 problem sets (was supposed to be 3 but we ran out of time so the second and third were combined to be 65% of our overall grade). your grade is basically in your TA's hands, so be aware of that. I had sahiba as my TA and would 100% recommend staying clear of her, as she gives absolutely no helpful information or guidance in writing the problem sets and contradicted the rubrics and wanted us to write what she wanted, not professor crager. overall, it's a fun and easy class that welcomes and eases you into philosophy here at UCLA.
AD
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2017 - The subject matter of this class is extremely boring. You remain somewhat interested almost entirely because Crager is a singularly passionate philosopher. The dude lives and breathes ancient philosophy, and it seems like nothing else (including course administration) matters to him. His glasses broke sometime around week 4, and he came to every subsequent lecture with his glasses at a 30 degree angle. He wears the same shoes, same jacket, same shirt every day. He's covered in chalk. He is habitually late 15-30 minutes. He speaks like four dead languages just so that he can read the original transcripts of philosophical texts. To summarize, his personality is entertaining enough that you still come to class; that, and you wouldn't understand the readings otherwise. The course material centers around 10th-14th century Arabian philosophy. It's all mostly rehash and rebuttals of the Greek stuff from 100A. Depending on how rigorous your 100B class was, you may be familiar with some of the readings. You spend a couple lectures learning about the ridiculous medieval theories of astronomy to which these old guys subscribed; I would have rather watched grass grow. The rest of the class was decently interesting. Grading consists of two essays. They're graded by a TA, so YMMV. However, they were very grounded in the class texts (little original thought required). So, just come to lecture, record it, and take very thorough notes, and you'll be able to answer everything.
Winter 2017 - The subject matter of this class is extremely boring. You remain somewhat interested almost entirely because Crager is a singularly passionate philosopher. The dude lives and breathes ancient philosophy, and it seems like nothing else (including course administration) matters to him. His glasses broke sometime around week 4, and he came to every subsequent lecture with his glasses at a 30 degree angle. He wears the same shoes, same jacket, same shirt every day. He's covered in chalk. He is habitually late 15-30 minutes. He speaks like four dead languages just so that he can read the original transcripts of philosophical texts. To summarize, his personality is entertaining enough that you still come to class; that, and you wouldn't understand the readings otherwise. The course material centers around 10th-14th century Arabian philosophy. It's all mostly rehash and rebuttals of the Greek stuff from 100A. Depending on how rigorous your 100B class was, you may be familiar with some of the readings. You spend a couple lectures learning about the ridiculous medieval theories of astronomy to which these old guys subscribed; I would have rather watched grass grow. The rest of the class was decently interesting. Grading consists of two essays. They're graded by a TA, so YMMV. However, they were very grounded in the class texts (little original thought required). So, just come to lecture, record it, and take very thorough notes, and you'll be able to answer everything.
AD
1 of 1
