dgswaim

I could see Carnegie Mellon being into an applicant with this kind of background. Or even that "Group in Logic and Methodology of Science" at Berkeley.

There are lots of important works from the history of philosophy that I've not read. A partial list would include: Aristotle, The Metaphysics Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics Kant, Critique of Judgment Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding Mill, System of Logic Probably someday I'll have read them at least in part... but jesus there are a lot of books to read and very much less than a the amount of time I'd need to read them all.

"Stalker," Andrei Tarkovsfy.

Only if you're doing fuzzy logic.

I guess I probably read some stuff, too. I don't really remember. Too much beer and whiskey.

I drank a lot of beer and whiskey last spring. A WHOLE LOT.

I think it's great. Velleman is a good teacher. As far as logic background, it sort of depends what you mean. What I mean is that it's easier if you have a more model-theoretic foundation as opposed to a proof-theoretic one.

Parfit, On What Matters Vol. I (for a seminar) Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought Pierre Duhem, The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory Peter Bowler, The Eclipse of Darwinism Daniel Velleman, How to Prove It

Shameless plug for my own program: LSU's program has several people interested in this kind of stuff. Jeff Roland is heavily into philosophy of mathematics (especially realism and set theory) and logic (especially model theory). He teaches a seminar in philosophy of mathematics pretty regularly for grads and upper-division undergrads. He's doing a grad seminar on modal logics and philosophical issues related to them right now, which is a lot of fun. Jon Cogburn does a goodly amount of logic but leans more toward proof theory. He's directing a thesis for one of the students in the program right now, and the topic has to do with applications of fuzzy logics and other many-valued logics with respect to vagueness in metaphysics. He's into meta-metaphysics stuff lately, too. Really cool guy. Charles Pence was just hired this year, and (even though phil bio is his main area) he knows a lot about the history and philosophy of math, the history and philosophy of logic, and so on. So, if you wanted to write a thesis in phil math, phil logic, or some such thing, you've got your three person committee right there. Our program is a bit off the beaten path, but lots of good people here.

I've heard of very few cases where logic is counted as a requirement for admission. The only two cases I can think of are actually for terminal MA programs (Houston and SF State). But even in those cases, they'll typically still admit students who haven't met the requirement on a provisional basis, usually meaning that they'll have to take a couple of logic courses before that provisional status is lifted. Pretty rare, though. There are probably plenty of programs that would like you to in some sense demonstrate familiarity with logic, since logic is fairly integral to the mainstream of philosophy in the US. SO maybe audit the course and just mention that you've done so in your personal statement, or something like that.

Yeah. Go with the people that know you best. Ultimately what you want is to have letter writers that can speak at length about the quality of your work in such a way that it sounds like they really know your work and your abilities.

Last time 'round, I emailed several departments and asked if I should send my full sample (which was over their particular page limit), or instead send some section of it in order to meet the stated requirement. In each case they asked that I go ahead and send the full paper. Just my experience, so generalize with caution.

Have you thought about Saint Louis University? It isn't a "ranked" program in the overall standings, but very well respected for the kinds of things you seem to be interested in (action theory, Thomism, etc.). Eleonore Stump seems like she'd be a great person under which to write a dissertation, given your interests.

First of all, that score isn't that low even for a native speaker. Admissions committees seem pretty sensitive to language issues, and given that English is not your first language I find it very hard to believe that this score could hurt you much (if at all). It will certainly not hurt you so much as to make your packet an automatic "pass." I think you're in good shape.

Absolutely. Lots of people get into great programs with scores like yours.

Based on a conversation in another thread, I'm considering something like the following: "Hegel as Non-Spooky, Non-Onto-Theological Metaphysician, and the Reasons Why This Interpretation Holds"

My whole point has been that they are not, in fact, "benign" misinterpretations... mainly because they're not misinterpretations.

This is a good point, I think... but I really don't think Hegel was up to the sort of onto-theological work that Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and others seem to think. I think his reflection on the nature of Christianity in the Phenomenology and in his lectures on art and religion (not to mention his early theological work) bears this point out. But yeah. I think all of that stuff can be left aside and we can focus on more narrow questions like, "How does the section on 'Perception' relate to questions in contemporary epistemology?"

I think we just have a difference of opinion on this. The whole point of the work from people like Terry Pinkard, Catherine Malabou, Peter Wake, Robert Pippin and others is that to think of the Absolute in "spooky" terms is precisely the wrong way to think about it. I tend to agree. Hegel's system as onto-theology, I think, is not a good reading of Hegel. His ideas are, I believe, far more subtle than that.

He's not alone in that opinion; it just so happens, however, that I find this approach is quite incorrect. My experience was the following: I took a seminar on Hegel's Phenomenology, and the two texts we used were the Phenomenology itself, and Hyppolite's commentary. Hyppolite was totally unhelpful to me as someone coming up in a mostly analytic environment. Most of what happened in that class was utterly impenetrable to me. Some months later, I decided I really did want to develop at least a fundamental (if not detailed) understanding of the text, so I read through Pinkard's text, and having cleared up some conceptual issues, my second read through the Phenomenology was much more productive. I suppose one might call that spoon-feeding, but to my mind Pinkard's text just helped me to approach the Phenomenology with the right set of concepts in mind so as to not get taken down too many rabbit trails. This is a silly comment. It's probably not right, in the first place, to refer to either Pinkard or Pippin as "analytic" philosophers. They just write clearly. Writing about metaphysics does not entail writing in veiled, nebulous, quasi-mystical prose.

Yeah, that's fair enough. If you ever do feel like reading a commentary, I highly recommend Terry Pinkard's Hegel's Phenomenology: The Sociality of Reason. Thorough, clear, and enjoyable.

I thought Phenomenology of Spirit was pretty terrible the first time I read it. After having read some of the commentaries published by more analytic types i revisited it and have developed something of a deeper appreciation for what Hegel is up to. It's poorly written, to be sure; but I'm starting to think that he really did have some important ideas.

I haven't read Nietzsche since early, early on in my undergraduate studies. I never really found his stuff all that interesting or compelling (as Germans go, I prefer the idealist strain). Maybe it's time to revisit.

Sounds interesting. I never really thought of Nozick's "utopia" as particularly utopian.

Closer to Taylor, yes. Berlin is, after all, a historian, not a philosopher proper. He's probably more interesting to read (as a philosopher) after having already familiarized yourself with the "proper" history of philosophy first. Berlin draws upon figures from philosophy, religious thought, literary thought, and political thought and illustrates the broader intellectual landscape that illustrates the history of thought. So I say he's probably be more interesting after getting the historical basics because his work would go on then to show the broader picture in which philosophical thought is embedded. He's also just great fun to read. Lucid and elegant prose.