800 Students Gather For `Thinking' Class

Call it stargazing. Call it a sudden interest in philosophy.

But whatever the reason, more than 800 students swarmed into Sanders Theatre Monday afternoon for the first meeting of Philosophy 192--"Thinking About Thinking: Law, Science and Philosophy"--to watch Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz, Professor of Geology Stephen Jay Gould and Porter Professor of Philosophy Robert Nozick discuss their disciplines' contrasting approaches to knowledge.

"This course is designed to look at the way philosophers think about things, the way lawyers think about things and the way scientists think about things," Nozick said in his introduction to the course.

In discussing the law, Dershowitz said that lawyers are not particularly concerned with truth.

"Truth is almost no part of the legal enterprise," Dershowitz said.

Dershowitz and Nozick dominated the debate during the two-hour class. Gould spoke about scientific ethics, and interrupted Nozick briefly to yell at a Crimson photographer.