dgswaim

I remember reading Durant's "Story of Philosophy" many moons ago. It's light reading, but very enjoyable. Jaspers is pretty good, I think, on historical topics. Isaiah Berlin has written a lot about the history of philosophy. Stumpf is good for a broad outline of the major conceptual motifs from early modernity through the present. There's also Norman Geisler. For what it's worth, I really like Berlin as a writer on the history of ideas, personally. He's thorough and insightful, but essayistic, making it easy to digest broad topics. His main fault (if it's a fault) is that he gets distracted by fringe thinkers sometimes.

I too had a seminar in Hegel's Phenomenology during my last semester as an undergraduate. We also looked at some of his lectures on art and religion. I had been steeped heavily in Kant by then (in various other undergrad courses we had read most of the 1st Critique, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, and Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics). The Hegelian in our department also happened to be the fellow that taught History of Philosophy II (modern philosophy), so Fichte and Schelling were involved in the readings for that. So I too was lucky to have a pretty solid handle on the German Idealist tradition before coming to Hegel. I just prefer Kant. Kant looms heavy in the background of Hegel's thought, but I generally find that I start to lose sympathy once he moves past Kant (and to a lesser extent Fichte). Kant and Fichte are just the right amount of idealism for me. Hegel, too much (Hume, obviously, not enough).

I see no reason to retake. More than respectable scores.

Last time around I applied to a combined total of something like 19 schools (MA and PhD programs) and accepted a funded MA. In 2016 I'll probably apply to about 15 PhD programs. I have a tentative list (in my signature) of schools that seem appealing. I'd prefer, ideally, a program with people working in both "Continental" and "Analytic" philosophy. I'm interested in both and I'm interested in integrating.

There was one fellow that got in to all of the top 10 programs this last time 'round. Maybe lightning can strike twice.

You're probably thinking of the Blackwell volume that was edited by Gary Gutting. I've looked at parts of it, including Bergson's piece on metaphysics.

I have a long-standing love affair with the work of Henri Bergson.

I never know quite what to make of Hegel. I remember taking a course on Hegel's Phenomenology as an undergraduate and feeling mostly dismayed by what I felt was mostly abstruse and nonsensical theorizing. But then there were these flashes of lucidity in his work that felt so gratifying and that rang so true. As for post-Hegelians, I prefer Ricoeur, Gadamer, Levinas and the like. One thing that I've found about Hegel, generally speaking, is that most of his best insights, it seems to me, were already present in Kant. The one move past Kant that Hegel makes that I really quite like is to move past the idea of person as "substance" and toward the idea of person as "subject."

Sort of a difficult question to answer, so I'll give a couple of different versions of an answer. The books that really got me interested in asking and tackling philosophical questions in the first place: (1) Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (2) Levinas, Existence and Existents (3) Berlin, Against the Current The stuff that is really impacting my current work and thinking: (1) Lowe, Personal Agency (2) Ladyman and Ross, Every Thing Must Go (3) Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies (Increasingly, Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology and other thinkers in the phenomenological tradition are impacting my thinking. At one time I had decided (like many in contemporary Anglo philosophy) to write-off phenomenology altogether, but I now find myself wondering why) Stuff that I disagree with almost word for word and so influences my thought because of it: (1) Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide to Reality (I might say this has influenced my work more than anything, though not in the usual sense) (2) Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea (3) Churchland (Paul), Matter and Consciousness

Thanks for the recommendations. I've heard only good things about Malabou, in particular, though I've never read any of her work. I've been meaning to look at her The Future of Hegel for a while now, but I haven't gotten around to it. Also, I don't mind French thinkers too much, cumbersome as they are for me to read. I just do my best to plow through and hope something sticks. Such is the plight of the uninitiated. As to what's happening right now in mainstream analytic work on phil science, it's hard to say. Analytic philosophy of science is very article driven, so whatever's being published in the major journals is what's happening in the mainstream, and that can be pretty hard to keep up with on a consistent basis. As for book-length treatments and monographs, there's definitely some cool stuff out there. I'll limit my suggestions to books that are in some way related to the phil science stuff that I do (mostly philosophy of biology and metaphysics/epistemology). Some of these are books written by scientists that may as well be called philosophy of science. I'm limiting this to things published since around 2005: Every Thing Must Go, by James Ladyman and Don Ross Darwinism and Its Discontents, by Michael Ruse Personal Agency, by E.J. Lowe Life's Solution, by Simon Conway Morris Metaphysics of Science, edited by Stephen Mumford and Matthew Tugby The Believing Primate, edited by Jeffrey Schloss and Michael Murray What Darwin Got Wrong, by Jerry Fodor and the other guy whose name I can't remember Evolution: A View from the 21st Century, by Jim Shapiro The Extended Synthesis, edited by Massimo Pigliucci My favorite book in recent history on the subject of philosophy of science and biology, though, is a volume of essays called Beyond Mechanism: Putting Life Back into Biology. It's a bit pricey, but worth the pain, I think.

I was wondering if anyone out there has any reading suggestions on continental thinkers in philosophy of science. I've been looking at some stuff by Husserl (Crisis of European Sciences and Ideas) and some stuff by Gary Gutting. Any other suggestions? I don't know all that much continental philosophy, and I'm trying to expand my knowledge base. Thanks!

I'm very much the realist about science (and a non-naturalist, metaphysically), so I have little in common with Rorty (though I do appreciate his wit and clarity).

Susan Haack would be reason enough for me to apply to just about any department that housed her... but Miami is a no go. It's been difficult enough to adjust to the humid climate in Baton Rouge. Maybe a department in a more temperate region will give her a senior offer ( I would welcome just such a development).

Quine's naturalized epistemology and its influence on contemporary approaches in phil of mind.

"Walking flesh-sacks." I love it. I once talked about "animated meat edifices" in a paper. I find such things amusing.

Biola sounds like it's right up your alley. Moreland and Rae would be great people for you to work with.

I'm not familiar with his engagement with Ruse. In Where the Conflict Really Lies, he essentially frames the argument in terms of whether or not it's plausible to suppose a stepwise, naturalistic process could get you from an "ancient population of single-celled organisms" all the way to the human eye. His conclusion is that maybe it is (given something like Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker arguments), but that it's not so convincing as to compel anyone who's examined the evidence. If what you're describing is correct, then it sounds like his argument in Conflict is probably made more carefully than the one in his exchange with Ruse.

Are you referring to Where the Conflict Really Lies? As I remember he only discusses the eye very briefly in his discussion on Dawkins, and his arguments were pretty modest.

I for one have really enjoyed my summer so far. My wife and I moved to Baton Rouge at the beginning of May, and have found that we really enjoy our townhouse and the general pace of living offered by Baton Rouge. Good music, good food, a pretty good craft beer culture and so on. I've been getting quite a lot of reading done, both in philosophy and biological sciences. Plus, I'm about to head to Seattle for about a week. All-in-all, it's been an enjoyable summer.

I just finished the first section and I think they do a better job of defending a rigorously naturalist framework than probably anyone else I've read. I'm not sympathetic to naturalism/materialism or their treatment of what they refer to as "neo-scholastic metaphysics." But they do a good job of laying out the argument and making it an engaging read.

Nozick's "Anarchy, State and Utopia" and Rawls's "Theory of Justice" are probably the most foundational works in contemporary Anglo-American political philosophy.

Yeah, I've read the sections on Kuhn and Popper, and now I want to read the rest.

Restricting my list just to philosophy books, my list for the summer is as follows: Already Read: Agents Under Fire, by Angus Menuge Darwinism and its Discontents, by Michael Ruse The Emergent Self, by William Hasker Epistemology, by J. Gordon Wood (survey of virtue epistemology) Nature, Design, and Science, by Del Ratzsch Living with Darwin, by Philip Kitcher Currently Working On: After Physicalism, Edited by Benedikt Gocke Personal Agency, by E.J. Lowe Natural Agency, by John Bishop Philosophy of Action, Edited by Al Mele Every Thing Must Go, by James Ladyman and Don Ross Material Beings, by Peter van Inwagen Planning to Read: Life's Solution, by Simon Conway Morris The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science, by E.A. Burtt The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages, by Edward Grant Theory and Reality, by Peter Godfrey-Smith Inference to the Best Explanation, by Peter Lipton I've been overachieving this summer, but it's only because I've nothing to do until August. I've also read a handful of books and articles on evolutionary biology and bioinformatics. My main thing is phil science, but I'm finding phil biology in particular is super interesting. I have no fucking life.

Do you know anyone that has been actively engaged in academic writing? If so, I'd start by letting them read your work (if you trust his or her insight, that is).

KU Leuven is a good place to do philosophy if you're primarily interested in continental european philosophy. Also, they have a lot of US students, so they teach everything in english, which is a good thing if you don't speak Dutch. In particular, it's a good place to study phenomenology, if you're interested in that sort of thing. Husserl, in particular, is sort of a big deal at KU Leuven (they house the largest archive of his work). Also, if you're interested in the relationship between theology and philosophy at all (postmodern theology, mostly) then KU Leuven is a good place to be. Lieven Boeve (professor of fundamental theology at Leuven) conducts a graduate research group of philosophy and theology students on philosophical issues in theology related to postmodernist thought. If you're into that sort of thing, Boeve is a great person to work with. So... if that's the kind of philosophy you want to do, I'd say Leuven is a great choice (and it's in a cool part of the world). If you're wanting to do something else, I'd recommend looking elsewhere.