BYU Humanities Report Card

"Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, critique." That's how the saying goes, right? Well, my name is Dallin and I'm a senior at BYU. Admittedly, I know very little about the technicalities of web design. So the idea of me critiquing the BYU Humanities website might seem like a job best left to a graphic designer. However, my professor felt that the Humanities webpage could use a fresh set of eyes, as the saying goes, and so he recommended I take a look at it. My critique, as you, the reader, have probably already gathered from this site, is a philosophical one. I have written a textbook with my professor on the philosophy of aesthetics applied to filmmaking, which we teach out of in our Intro to the Philosophy of Art class. I will apply many of the same principles to my critique of the Humanities website. Aesthetics is, after all, just a presentation, in one form or another, meant to evoke a certain response in the viewer, or, writ large, a general truth of human understanding. This idea is implicitly ingrained in the mind of everyone who creates: the desire to be part of the "great conversation," which, incidentally, is a name used to refer to the study of philosophy.

Plato		Aristotle
Unified	Weak	Unified action	Moderate
Accessible	Moderate	Developmentally accessible	Moderate
Ongoing	Weak	Persuasively ongoing	Strong
Hume		Kant
Unified by being liked	N/A	Unified through articulate review	Weak
Engaging by sensibility	Moderate	Engaging by sense	Moderate
Developing by tradition	N/A	Developing reviews	Weak
Hegel		Marx
Dialectically unified	Moderate	Unified collaboration	N/A
Actual accessibility	N/A	Engaging by apprenticeship	N/A
Ongoing evolution	Moderate	Productive development	Moderate
Kierkegaard		Nietzsche
Unified by progression	N/A	Unified by “will to power”	N/A
Engaging by mentorship	Moderate	Engaging by example	Moderate
Developing mentorship	Weak	Developing by examples	Moderate
Dewey		Heidegger
Unified problem solving	Moderate	Unified by possibilities	Strong
Accessible by application	Moderate	Engaging by disclosing	Moderate
Developing through revision	Strong	Developing by authentic choice	Weak