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Phil519

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    2013 Spring

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  1. For your interests, probably NIU and Brandeis would be the closest fit. UW-Milwaukee and Tufts would probably accomodate your interests. Really, for an MA program, just go to one with a good placement record and good funding. You won't need faculty in your specialty area until you are at the PhD level.
  2. If you are looking for funded masters programs in continental philosophy, then I would recommend Miami (Ohio) and LMU (L.A.). It may be difficult to get directly into a PhD program without a major in philosophy. Both programs have good placement records at the schools your interested in. I have a friend at LMU who is very happy with the program. While at the program he presented at several senior level conferences and has a publication in a top continental philosophy journal. I also know that some faculty there do have interests in American philosophy.
  3. The PhD program in question is very good for my AOI and has very good placement (its TT placement far exceeds many similarly ranked programs). In fact, it would be a great program to go to in a few years. My hesitations are these: 1) I went to a very small school that didn't have much breadth of coursework, so I am missing a lot of core coursework in certain parts of my AOI. I have taught myself a lot of the relevent contemporary discussions and issues. An MA program would help catch me up to speed on a lot of the stuff that my undergrad program couldn't offer. I suspect that it was my lack of coursework, in part, that held me back from other programs. 2) While my GPA was a 4.0 my junior and senior year, my freshmen and sophmore year GPA, for various reasons, consisted of mostly A-'s and a few B+'s. I think this also hurt my application and spending two years in an MA program could undo a little of the damage and potentially make me a stronger looking applicant. 3) In certain respects, it would be really nice to have a few more years of support and development so that when I do go to a PhD program, I will be more prepared for the graduate level writing and research. I know I am capable of that now, but I also know that two more years of practice would be an immense help to feeling more comfortable in a doctoral level environment.
  4. Hi, I have a question. Would anyone on this board ever turn down an offer from a leiter ranked PhD program for a top MA program? Lets say an applicant has funded offers from a few MA programs with excellent PhD placement and the same applicant also has an acceptance to a top 30 or 40 PhD program. Would there be any case in which it would make more sense go to the masters program in hopes of gaining more acceptances to PhD programs? Or is that just playing with fire (i.e. given the competative nature of doctoral admissions, there is no guarantee of gaining acceptance after an MA)? I understand that declining a PhD offer for a MA would add on 2-3 more years of graduate study.
  5. I'm pretty sure its CUNY, they are notorious for having a huge department, not a whole lot of unity, and a bad placement record.
  6. Richard Bernstein is currently the best writer on pragmatism. I recommend his book recent book The Pragmatic Turn as a good introduction to both classical and contemporary pragmatism (Hilary Putnam recently praised this book as being one of the best books written in the 21st century on pragmatism). He writes incredibly clearly and has an excellent knowledge of just about every area of philosophy (from Ancient to Modern, Kant, Hegel, American Pragmatism, 20th Century Continental, and Analytic philosophy). If you are interested in the pragmatic spirit of inquiry, two of his earlier books are also worth reading: Praxis and Action and Beyond Objectivism and Relativism. George Herbert Mead is a neglected figure in the historical pragmatic tradition that is becoming increasingly popular, especially in other disciplines like sociology. His social theory is similar to those of Hegel and Wittgenstein. He was heavily influenced by James. If you are interested in contemporary pragmatism (i.e. the analytic revival), then I would look especially at Hilary Putnam (basically everything he wrote after Reason, Truth and History), Richard Rorty (although his version pragmatism is extremely controversial and I would also look at critiques by Davidson, Bernstein, Putnam, and Brandom), Robert Brandom (epecially his essays in Tales of the Mighty Dead), John McDowell (Mind and World is difficult, but is definitely a contemporary classic), and Jurgen Habermas (who combines pragmatism with critical theory and other continental traditions). Hope that helps!
  7. I don't question the possibility of reading that much, I question how much you could begin to understand reading that quickly. Whenever I read Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Hume, Kant, or Nietzsche, I need to read each page 3 or 4 times just to get a basic grasp of what these thinkers are saying. Even then, I would meet with friends and literally go line through line through some of the works you are breezing through. With all that I felt I was going to fast even still. Ah well, perhaps you are just have a quicker cast of mind. Philosophy for me is about learning how to slow my thoughts down and chew over every little bit of things. Quick readings leave my head as fast as they enter it.
  8. you seriously read Hume's corpus, Nietzsche's corupus, the Philosophical Investigations, Being and Time, and the Critique of Judgment on top of everything else in the same semester? Even if you are re-reading those, how the hell did you get anything out of them? It seems completely counter-productive to speed through the classics at break neck speed.
  9. LMU, which has a terminal master's program, has one faculty member doing Latin American Philosophy and Race theory: Brad Stone. They also have strong offerings in Existentialism and Phenomenology. Also, I would look at applying for a fullbright if you want to take a gap year and study latin american philosophy/politics.
  10. Thanks for the advice everyone. Given how ridiculously competative the graduate process is, I am trying to minimize every potential weakness I can for my application. I would hate for the rest of my application to not be taken as seriously because my GRE's failed to make some kind of unofficial cut off.
  11. I scored a 165V and 159Q on the GRE recently. Is it worth retaking these? I am looking at schools ranked in the 20s and 30s in Gourmet. The other parts of my application are good. I am just worried about the quant score and I think I could do a bit better on verbal as well.
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