TheVineyard

I like this, although I would need an example of literature actually generating knowledge about the world...

You could scientifically research literature and its effects, I guess, and learn something about literature. Literature being a thing in the world, etc etc.

Well there are many worthless feats of humanity. Worlds largest cookie, for example. I guess they deserve to be appreciated... As far as literature, if you think the literature is cool/fun/beautiful, then enjoy it! Enjoy it like we enjoy video games. However, what I am interested about when it comes to philosophy is finding out the way the world is, or being less wrong about it. I think ultimately this work is best done by a philosophically informed science (or scientifically informed philosophy).

I cannot say the same about myself.

I don't want anything I say here to be held against me by students from my school, my own professors, or the rare professor that checks gradcafe and is on an admissions committee. I presented my package in my application. If I wanted more to be considered, I would have put it in my application. I figure that IF a professor does look at this kind of stuff (and I personally know at least one professor that does!) then everything I say would be up for analysis, might hurt my image, etc. What are the chances of this happening? Maybe 5%? 1%? I don't really care, any % chance of that happening is too much, and I know there is a nonzero chance of it happening. I would far more regret that a school bumped me off a waitlist or moved me from accept to waitlist because of an online profile that was overanalyzed, etc. TL;DR, it most likely doesn't matter, but that is a risk that I'm not willing to take, especially considering that I see no reward in making it known who I am. I haven't even listed all of the schools I'm applying to...I'm not sure how that could hurt me, but I haven't figured out if I should do it yet =P

I didn't say I would answer questions without providing the school. I said I wouldn't answer questions or tell the school until I have heard back from my schools.

I'll bite! I think philosophy isn't intertwined enough with science + empirical perspectives! It is my goal to make sure that philosophy and science are continuous, as a purely a priori philosophy is, IMO, almost completely worthless and gets us nowhere. Philosophy has a place in helping clarify science, and philosophical thinkers can also help with theoretical work and conclusion drawing regarding scientific research. I do not believe there is anything that philosophers can carve out that is unique and special and all-their-own. If the job of a philosopher is to be relevant, it can only be in conjunction with other fields. (ie., optimally, there should not be a "Philosophy Departments" as they currently exist, but there should be philosophically minded people well educated in other fields, and these people will reside in those other departments).

I only did a statement of purpose. I did write a history/diversity statement for some schools but not for Minn, and I certainly never wrote a statement of extenuating circumstances. I might have just opted out because I simply haven't had any seriously extenuating circumstances. But as far as only taking students interested in phil sci, looking at their graduate student roster, its mostly philosophy of science and mind students. http://www.philosophy.umn.edu/people/gradStudents.html

I don't remember what you're talking about with the 3 statement thing....I don't think I did that...The only difficult thing about their application that I remember was having to do that hard copy and scan it, etc. Now as far as Minnesota, as others have said, there really isn't much of a connection between them. Are you studying the philosophy of science? Remember that if you aren't doing phil sci, you aren't studying MN's specialty, so fit issues could always be at work. Also, there are very few phil sci people on this forum, so MN is probably underrepresented here.

I think that is right. Can never be certain with these kinds of things, but if a school puts together and notifies both accepted people and waitlisted people, then I think everyone else is pretty much out. With Duke and UNC, we can still hold out hope if we weren't accepted because they have not finalized a waitlist (or at least, they have not made it known).

Hey guys. I couldn't help but notice that many are you are applying to my undergraduate institution. If any of you end up being accepted there (my school has not given out acceptances yet) and you are seriously considering accepting, I would love to answer any of your questions. I know (almost) all of our faculty very well, both as people and as professors. Because I'm doing my best to remain anonymous on these forums, I won't say any more about what school it is. However, when I have heard back from all of my schools (hopefully by the end of March) I will privately message any of you who got accepted and see if you have any questions. So, are any of you doing your undergrad at a school that many of us are applying to? Would you be willing to help out in the same way?

I'm in at University of Minnesota - Twin Cities (focus in philosophy of biology)! Awesome news, very solid phil sci program, great to get this one in the bag so early =D

I'd like to formally upgrade your contrats...to formal.

I took it to mean history of analytic. Otherwise, its just the set of about 10 other subfields.

The informal notifications are reported when a faculty member reaches out to the accepted student and tells them that they have been recommended for acceptance, which essentially means there is only a couple days of red tape between now and the official acceptance. It is meant to personalize the acceptance process and make you feel special as an applicant.

Its good to have less competition, as long as there is actually a desire for philosophy of math students....which, from what I can tell, is a rare demand.

I feel like I'm one of the only ones not applying to USC...but then again I'm one of the only phil science people and there really was nothing attractive at USC for me.

It was added less than an hour and a half into the poll

There are several programs that have historically rejected before they accept.

I think that in this context, anyone interested in the philosophy of a particular science (which I am) would choose philosophy of science in this poll.

My whole undergraduate career is based on it, surprised to see there are so few others.

Minnesota emailed me saying that I was missing a transcript to a school that I received college credit from in high school (as in, our HS had teachers affiliated with a local college, and we could get college credit for our highschool classes). I called and said that these were taken in highschool (already evident from the dates on the official transcript I did send) and then they changed it. I wonder how many schools won't bother to send the email...

I actually studied under one of the absolute top Hegel and German Idealism scholars alive. Not even he thinks that Hegel was right about all that much. In my opinion, the fact that we teach Hegel today is embarrassing. It is very unclear, pretends to be relevant to the real world/open to investigation but is instead viciously arbitrary and based on anecdote and intuition. Anyone who actually thinks that Hegel's view of the world is correct must have a methodology polar opposite of mine, and because I see no way to reconcile philosophical positions between people who share different methodologies (they will simply question-beg each other) I might as well leave it at that.

I just cannot believe there is anyone alive that actually agrees with Hegel. He is the perfect example of an old white guy who was wrong about everything.

*Raises Eyebrow* ??