dgswaim

Geez. LSU funded me and one other person this year. Maybe SFSU could send LSU some money...

Just in philosophy? How do they have that many assistantships?

Oh man. U Chicago sounds like it's right up your alley. Good luck! While I'm mainly interested in broadly "analytic" work, I've always been fascinated by the phenomenology of religion stuff (esp. Levinas, Caputo, and Eliade). Really interesting stuff.

I don't like music when I'm reading. I find it distracting.

I can only really echo what Establishment has said. You might be able to get in someplace with a good writing sample, but it will likely be very difficult to secure funding. One route you might consider, if you apply and find that you're not successful, would be to take some graduate philosophy seminars as a non-degree student and do well so as to demonstrate your seriousness. Adcoms are gonna want some evidence that you're ready to focus on graduate level work. That's one way to provide it.

Alva Noe is a pretty innovative figure in embodied cognition. Also, though he's not a philosopher proper, Raymond Tallis has a lot to say about embodied cognition, physicalism/reduction/non-physicalism, and the communal structure of mind in his book "Aping Mankind" (he's also hilarious, which doesn't hurt).

Jaegwon is cool... but I'm no physicalist. I'm more apt to a Frank Jackson, Howard Robinson, EJ Lowe type realism.

Kuhn and Feyerabend are super interesting figures. Phil science is my main area, and while I take more of a realist tack, I appreciate that Kuhn, Feyerabend, Van Fraasen and the like have given scientists and philosophers alike some serious conceptual problems to think through. "Against Method" is perhaps the most fun I ever had with respect to reading in philosophy of science.

I wouldn't worry about going over the limit by a few pages. The sample I submitted was just under 25 pages, and I had the same worry. I consulted one of my professors and he told me, "Better to submit the entire paper than to cut sections that are important to the structure of the argument. Put another way, a paper that's too long is a venial sin, whereas an incoherent paper is a mortal sin." His advice was echoed by professors from many of the departments to which I applied. I wrote to several of them in advance asking whether they might prefer that I send just a section of the paper, or the paper in its entirety, and in each and every case they told me to go ahead and send the whole thing, if I indeed felt that it was the best reflection of my philosophical abilities. So I would say that you should fret not. The most important thing is to send what you think is your best piece of work to date, and it sounds like that's exactly what you're doing.

I'm thinking this topic could turn out to be an interesting paper on epistemology...

I was thinking the opposite. Shit philosophy is so very often in the eye of the beholder.

As far as content-type risks are concerned, I would say one thing, and that's that I would caution against openly endorsing widely disparaged positions. The reason I say this is that in my own writing sample (which was primarily concerned with topics in mind and epistemology as applied to philosophy of science) I endorsed a dualist picture of mind, and I think that might have caused some problems for me. In retrospect, I think it might have been better to simply write a negative critique of some of the prevailing views and then conclude with a sort of "we'd better go back to the drawing board" sort of thing. I could be wrong... but I have a hunch that I'm probably not.

There's a lot that Fodor and I would disagree over, but the dude is seriously funny (and he never pulls punches).

I'd have to say that I agree with jjb919. I'd say what you want to have is a paper that shows you can apply your creative philosophical insights in a clear and structured manner. Given that adcoms have only a limited amount of time to go over these papers, having clear signposts in your writing is probably a good thing.

In the reading I've been doing over the summer, I'm finding that I really admire the work of E.J. Lowe. Such a thorough thinker, and always careful and generous with the work of others. I'm finding a lot of his work is a good corrective to my own positions. A shame he passed away.

We are a rather scattered and choosy bunch.

Wow. You're applying to a broad range of programs! Are you preparing separate writing samples to fit each prospective field of study?

He's still at NYU, as far as I know. He was a senior undergrad when I was in my second year. I haven't kept in touch.

I'm moving next month. It's quick... but my wife and I found the perfect place and we don't wanna lose. Here's to living in Red Stick or the next two years!

I actually never took a course in metaphysics. Go figure...

American philosophy (and pragmatism in particular) I am totally ignorant of. I read a book by Dewey on religion, and I read James's essay "The Moral Equivalent of War." That sums up my exposure to pragmatism.

I think so. While continental philosophy is not my specialty, I was educated as an undergrad in a department that required me to do a lot of continental work. I think it's difficult to understand more contemporary figures in continental philosophy without first understanding the work of Kant. So much of continental philosophy is magnified through his work (Hegel, Husserl, Gadamer, Ricouer, Habermas, etc.) that to not have a solid foundation in Kantian thought is to be missing the conversation altogether, in my opinion. The Romantics you might be able to leave out, but then you're not getting a full appreciation of Hegel, which is also very central to contemporary continental thought.

Given your interests, I'd say some of the bare essentials are Kant's 1st and 2nd critiques, Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit," some Nietzsche, some of the German Romantics (Schelling, etc.), and then Heidegger and his contemporary interlocutors.

I'm still gonna be hanging around, though I won't be here quite as often. I wanted, however, to extend my very sincere congratulations to everyone who has been met with some level success. Philosophy is so competitive, so selective, and so to have success of any kind is something to be proud of. I'm also open to facebooking with anyone who's interested. Just PM me. Seriously though... congrats to all of you scholars and gentlemen. Edit: How could I be so sexist? Congrats to all you scholars, gentlewomen, and gentlemen.

I'm not sure what about this might be considered preachy. Seems like a well thought out response.