Review:
I highly recommend both the professor and the course. Prof Devigne acts as a brilliant and entertaining reading guide to Descartes, Hobbes, Smith, Rousseau, Kant, and Nietzsche, clearly explaining difficult ideas and livening it up with hilarious stories. It can be hard to follow the outline he makes on the chalkboard, because he scribbles all over until it looks like the work of Pollock, but if you are attentive it is fine. He is also very fair- unlike many professors, he reviews every paper to make sure that it doesn't matter which TA is assigned to your exam. I learned so much from the lectures, the readings, and writing the papers, which pushed me to think harder than I think I ever have in my life. The class is very large, about 180 students, but Devigne often asks for comments. If you are not into talking in front of so many people, I recommend going to talk to Prof Devigne after class or during office hours- although he may seem intimidating during lectures, he is really a nice guy. Also, the TAs are very good and helpful, especially Justin Race- he was amazing. It was one of the best courses I have taken here- definitely consider taking it!!!

Workload:
The amount of reading was not overwhelming, but it takes time if you want to read carefully and understand it (many students don't read anything until they have to write a paper, but I wouldn't suggest you do that). We had a take-home midterm (a 6-8 page paper and a 2-3 page paper) which was 40% of our grade. The final was take-home, about the same length, and 60% of our grade. That's all. The papers are very challenging, but there is enough time to work on them. I recommend taking the course with a friend or too, because you will need someone for bouncing ideas off each other, and then for emotional support if it is 4 am, you are still not done, and the paper is due the next day. This course is not too hard, but it is hard to do well- just make sure that you go to the lectures, and that you give your papers a lot of thought, planning, and time,

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