500 Pilgrims in Philosophy 10 To Quest for Meaning of Life

Professors have always thought that many undergraduates live meaningless lives, but until Monday morning at 11 a.m. when 500 people flocked to Philosophy 10, "The Meaning of Life," their fears were uncorroborated.

Robert Nozick, professor of Philosophy, joked easily with the hordes in Lowell Lecture Hall about the obvious difficulties of teaching a course on the meaning of life, saying that grading would be especially problematical.

Before telling the 500 listeners that he would require a termpaper and a final examination, Nozick joked that everyone would receive "Incompletes" pending the continuation of their lives. After 15 years, he suggested, everyone would write to him what they had done since taking the course and he would then grade their lives--C minus for example.

Rivals Beer and Wald

Phil 10, which will be one of the largest courses in the University if the first two lectures provide any indication of student interest, is perhaps the broadest course offered at Harvard, rivaling such full-year courses as Soc Sci 2, "Western Thought and Institutions," and Nat Sci 5, "The Nature of Living Things."

Nozick declined Monday to discuss the aspirations he holds for the course until it is under way, but said that the course will be a serious one and is not the joke many students seem to find it.

The 24-book reading list stunned and amused a good many of the students. The list includes classical philosophy such as Aristotle's Ethics and Plato's Dialogues as well as many more modern works on the religous philosophies of Zen, Buddhism, and Yoga. The 24 texts cost $49.70 at the Coop.

Of the students planning to take the course, some said the course will be a good opportunity to read works of philosophy they had ignored for too many years, but many were shopping for an enjoyable gut.

One junior who traditionally sleeps through most of his morning classes said, "For the last three years, all my bullshit answers on exam questions have basically been on the meaning of life; now Harvard has institutionalized it."

A tutor who is familiar with Nozick's philosophy courses suggested, however, that Nozick would surprise students by concluding that the question of the meaning of life is itself meaningless.