Peter's academic interests. Part 3

This will continue on, I hope, from where I finished a couple of hours ago when I blogged on this topic with group 2. You can see that earlier response writing, Part 2 of my academic interests, here.

When I finished before, I'd just started second year at uni., and had surpised a few people switching from a Science degree to an Arts degree. I continued studying mathematics and physics as part of my degree, but my major was now philosophy. My parents were not exactly thrilled by this change, but they were very supportive. And I loved it.

Whilst continuing to enjoy mathematics, I became more and more interested in philosophy. I remember the first time I read Plato and attended lectures on hiim a first year student - there were a lot of us, and some perhaps just wanted another course, but I was enthralled. By the time I got to my senior year, the classes were much smaller - there were three of us studying logic in year 4, so we sat comfortably around the desk in our lecturer's office. I still think that Godel's theorems, dealing a bit of a blow to the hopes of some mathematicians, are an amazing thing to be able to prove with absolute certainty.

It is now many years since I graduated, but my interest in philosophy has never diminished, as you might discover over the next few weeks, but I will try to make sure that it's generally relevant to other academic areas. One of the things that first drew me to philosophy was that it looked at questions that cut across many, if not all, academic disciplines and that were important in every area of life. I still think it was weird that the teacher who explicitly told me to read philosophy was a Marist brother at my Catholic high school - did he really not suspect that philosophy tends to lead away from faith in religions? Anyway, I probably would have got there without him, but the interest he helped kindle has given me much pleasure for several decades now. And shows no sign of ceasing to do so.