SelfHatingPhilosopher
-
Posts
97 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by SelfHatingPhilosopher
-
-
Harvard rejection by phone....
I can't imagine how roller-coasterey I would feel during that.
"Hello my name is Professor Importantguy and I'm DGS at Harvard University. I'm here to tell you about the status of your application. You're rejected. gg."
"You know that signed book I sent you? Yeah, The Metaphysics of Being and Nothingness... I'm going to need that back."
-
I was told the same, and it opened my eyes to new programs. I'm glad it happened too!
Edit: The head of the ad com at my undergrad institution referred to it as academic incest, with regard to doing both undergrad and PhD at the same place.
Premise 1: Early humans practiced incest because of Adam and Eve were the only humans there were. But then as they peopled the Earth, the practice of incest stopped.
Premise 2: Early philosophers often committed academic incest from the BA to the PhD. But now that the field has grown, the practice has stopped.
Conclusion: Check-mate, atheists.
-
So, now that Valentine's Day has come and gone, what did you guys get for your adcom? After speaking with some of my advisors who in the past were students of Brandom, my POI at Pittsburgh, I decided to get him a lavender-smelling beard comb. I forgot to do this last time I applied, so I have high hopes for this second application season.
- Table, Philhopeful, Monadology and 1 other
-
4
-
So let me get this straight: you claim their is no overlap between continental and analytic philosophy. Your evidence for this is to pick parochial, highly specific (and technical) issues in the context of contemporary analytic philosophy and then point out that no continental philosophers have made contributions to those issues?
Are you serious? That's not the only level of meaningful overlap, first of all. Second of all, it's disingenuous to expect the person you're talking to to be familiar enough with four technical and highly specific problems in philosophy to the extent that they could provide a refutation in all four cases (as a matter of fact, I am familiar with none of them because you picked topics in four of the areas of philosophy I am least interested in).
But here, I can point out to some more general overlap just off the top of my head:
As mentioned above, Lee Braver has written a book on how continental figures fit into the realism/anti-realism debate.
Philosophy of language (Habermas, Derrida, Deleuze, Heidegger, structuralism)
Philosophy of science (Deleuze, Foucalt, Bergson, Michael Polanyi, Catherine Malabou, Ernst Cassirer)
Epistemology (Any phenomenologist, Michael Polanyi, Foucalt, Cassirer, Gadamer)
Metaethics (Nietzsche, Deleuze, Derrida, Levinas, Sartre)
Metaphysics (Heidegger, Deleuze, Bergson, Badiou, Tristan Garcia, phenomenology depending on one's interpretation of it)
Ethics (Levinas, Derrida, Habermas, Sartre, Adorno, Arendt)
Political Philosophy (Habermas, Marx, Agamben, Derrida, Deleuze, Foucalt, Arendt, Adorno)
Now, if you want to find the relevance of Continental philosophy for particular issues within those fields you're going to need to actually read the continental philosophy or read people doing work on that very subject (some examples: Lee Braver, Hubert Dreyfus, Ray Brassier, Paul Katsafanas, Paul Livingston, Samuel Wheeler, Adrian Moore, Graham Priest). Sometimes the relevance will be oblique, sometimes more direct, and sometimes you won't be able to find any. Obviously you might not find it worth your while and would rather stick to analytic philosophy, since you'll have to do a lot of reading of unfamiliar authors. That's fair. But the claim that there is no overlap is just false.
I'd actually say it's the only meaningful overlap. Analytic philosophy is a science and deals with a narrow, technical focus. I could iterate through countless of other deabtes, and the result would be the same. Marx, Habermas, Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, Adorno... none of them have anything to say that will be useful beyond a very trivial sense because it's not grounded in anything nor is it technically developed.
I 've read a good bit of continental because I used to specialize in it. I've probably read more Hegel, Marx, Adorno, Sartre, and commentators than I have analytic philosophy; and yet, it's all been useless in any sort of metaphysics or political philosophy work that I've done thus far.
-
If you don't find any overlap, you're clearly not paying attention. At this point there has been plenty of work showing just how much overlap there is in each tradition (Lee Brave is an excellent example).
Really? I'm curious then.
If I'm doing phil science, and I'm wondering about resultant and component forces, and I'm reading Creary, Cartwright, and Wilson, I'm wondering what continental philosophy has to offer.
If I'm doing meta-ethics, and I'm trying to provide a formal semantics for expressivism in light of Being For, I'm wondering what continental philosophy has to offer.
If I'm doing metaphysics, and I'm trying to defend Boolos' account of plural quantification in second-order logic, I'm wondering what continental philosophy has to offer.
If I'm doing political philosophy, and I'm trying to give an argument against Cohen's account of societal development as a functional argument revolving around a society's productive relations, I'm wondering what continental philosophy has to offer.
Because obviously they've made no actual contribution to these problems, but I also don't see how they ever could, or how anything they've said thus far could be relevant.
-
I don't accept the distinction, personally. I think good philosophy is good philosophy. With respect to rigor, I think the some of the most detailed and rigorously articulated philosophy in recent decades has come out of the continental tradition. Paul Ricouer, for instance, is usually thought of as a prominent figure in contemporary continental european thought, but he is conversant with the work of the Vienna Circle, 20th century analytic epistemology, Bertrand Russell, A.N. Whitehead, etc. His three-volume work "Time and Narrative" alone speaks to his erudition. I suppose I am of the opinion that philosophy is best done in this spirit. Both "traditions" have made (and continue to make) meaningful contributions to philosophy. While I lean analytic, I take good work where I find it. Husserl and Gadamer are no slouches either. Levinas is brilliant. I guess I just don't see the meaning in the "divide."
Also your examples of paragons of rigor makes clear to me that we mean different things by the word "rigor"
-
I'm a party-line partisan analytic. I don't see any meaning in the distinction, but only because I don't find any overlap between continental and analytic philosophy and just treat continental as a different discipline like English or Anthropology.
-
I guess that's what one gets for having opinions on stuff.
That's what one gets for having WRONG opinions on stuff. </s>
-
I think this particular thread is lighthearted. I don't feel too passionately about my post regarding Kierkegaard. I evaluate a philosopher in terms of content and form. On these metrics, Kierkegaard is one of my least favorites. But I don't deny his contribution.
I think we need to engage in fistycuffs, because I think Kierkegaard's contribution and importance is nonexistent, but I think his content, and particularly his form weepingly beautiful.
- gingin6789 and ianfaircloud
-
2
-
You're trolling, right? I can't always detect sarcasm...
Completly serious. There's many more persons I could include too, to be even more controversial.
-
I'll be the first to bite on this new thread, but in a general way.
Basically I'm wondering how I can assess the climate for women at any one department. Is there a unified source somewhere? In particular, my only accept right now is at Rochester, and it looks like they only have two female grad students (out of 20). I'm wondering if the best way to assess the situation is to ask for the contact information of one of them? Do you think it would be seen as an odd request of the chair to specifically have the info of a female student?
I'm worried about... well, all the usual worries.
Any advice on this would be appreciated!
You should often be able to get their email online, either on academia.edu by searching for their name or the philosophy department's website under their grad student directory.
That said, it is otherwise perfectly fine to request the email information of the female grad students, though I don't know if necessarily you should email the chair. You might be able to go through the secretary who would in any case be the person in charge of maintaining the grad student directory with names and contact information. This is perfectly fine, but even more so given the three horrifying incidents that have occured within one year's time. And I can't imagine a better source of information on how the climate at a department is.
-
FUCK YOU AND YOUR REASONABLE MIDDLE GROUNDS!!! I'M GOING TO GO BECOME AN UBERMENSCH SO I CAN RAPE AND PILLAGE! HAVE FUN WITH YOUR LOGIC
EDIT: In all seriousness though, the fact that you didn't even read Nietzsche or Heidegger (and I assume others from the list) during your undergraduate career is a crying shame. I read Wittgenstein and Mill and Moore and others from that list, and I'm glad I did, even though I don't particularly like Moore. It does bother me a bit that there are places where a broad education at the undergraduate level isn't emphasized.
I took a 19th century course and a continental course. Read Nietzsche, Fichte, Heidegger, and others... waste of my time.
- Edit_Undo and philophilosopher
-
1
-
1
-
Rutger's is examining the situation.
-
You also realize that both sides made a testimony, right? And that they differed?
It doesn't seem right to weigh the two testimonies equally in this situation. You're mischaractizing the situation.
First of all, a charge of sexual assault is pretty substantial in and of itself. Yes, there have been cases of false accusations in the past, but by and large such charges tend to turn to be true. Thus, the simple fact a student has brought forwrard this charge should make departments wary of hiring such a person.
But the story doesn't end there. Let's look at the other facts. (2) The accuser tried to commit suicide. (3) The accuser was diagnoed with PTSD be a medical practioner. (4) An indepedent investigation found that wrongdoing had been committed. There's probably a lot of importants that need to be unpacked from (4), because I'm assuming the investigation just didn't hear the two different testimonies and release a judgment: "WE FLIPPED A COIN AND WENT WITH THEIR TESTIMONEY OVER THE OTHER." They did an investigation. They interviewed other students, other professors, and did other things.
So yeah. Innocent until proven guilty. But if I'm chair of a department, and some guy who wants to be responsible for the philosophical growth and education of my undergraduates comes in with a record like the above... I will not be at all comfortable.
If you will never attend a school at which a negative testimony has been filed, substantiated or not, then you won't be attending graduate school at all.And yet, oddly enough, I went through two departments without any of my professors managing to draw up a sexual assault charge even though some of them have been teaching for decades...
-
Was Ludlow ever proven in the court of law to have done something wrong? I can't believe that a program like Rutgers would take him in if he had. I know Ludlow was accused, but surely it takes more than a single accusation to make you turn down a $1 million dollar stipend from one of the best schools in the world...
Court of law hasn't been involved, but an investigation that was conducted during the university's investigation did find that he had done wrong and said to fire him.
-
Good point. I think the student's allegation in the lawsuit is sexual assault, but it's of course very possible that it was rape.
Sexual assault is a legal term that includes rape as it is commonly construed, in addition to some other things. But from the description of what is purported to have happened, the student passed out in the professor's apartment and woke up next to him in his bed.Actually, I think you're right, my accusation was too hasty and isn't accurate with what was reported. I read too much into it at first glance, although who knows.
"After investigating, the lawsuit says, Slavin found Ludlow “engaged in unwelcome and inappropriate sexual advances,” including “sleeping with his arms on and around (the student) on the night of February 10-11.”"
Actually I don't even know, there are other details that indicate more happened.
God, what is wrong with this profession and the institutions that protect criminals?
-
NBC is kind of watering it down by calling it sexual harassment… This is sexual assault.
which is already watering down what it really is: rape.
-
Let's get real and saucy. We've stated who our favorite philosopher(s) is(are), so let's now state who we most despise or find overrated.
-
-
You're considering accepting Cincinnati over Arizona? Interesting. I'm sure they'll be glad to hear that! I'd think that the pull of a top 15 program would be too strong...especially if you have a good faculty fit with Arizona profs and you would like to live in the region, etc.
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWhyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.................
If you want to make philosophy a career.... going to Cincinatti would be career suicide compared to Arizona.
-
I don't want to live amongst southerners
Wow. Such prejudice.
-
Just out of curiosity, what is your rationale for not waiting to see if you get in? I ask because I'm still trying to figure out this process, and it seems like if you're interested in political philosophy, you would want to wait and see what happens with Arizona.
Presumambly because even if he got in, he'd prefer Virginia or Chapel Hill.
-
I'm fairly confident that some of the top MA programs accept applications on a rolling basis. The thing is, you are probably less likely to get funding the longer you wait to apply. Still worth looking into, though.
GSU is the only MA program where you'd have a chance at funding. NIU's funding is gonna be dried up, and Vtech and UWM are closed.
-
During my first round I only applied to 6 programs which I felt I had a good fit with. I received only one outright rejection from a PhD program, but 1 PhD acceptance, 1 PhD waitlist, and 3 MA acceptances. I like to think whatever "success" I had, had to do with a sane decision procedure on where to apply and a customized SoP to each place.
Of course, I have no evidence for this, so your mileage may (will) vary. In the fall I plan on applying to at least 20 programs as well because holy shit this process is irrational and terrifying.
- philosophe and wandajune
-
2
Valentine's Day Gift for Adcom
in Philosophy
Posted
"No taxation without representation-in-Rawl's-original-position"