dgswaim

I've heard the same sort of thing, but I'm of the understanding that it can also vary from department to department. So I don't know. I wish I'd just done better in those first few semesters, really. At the time I didn't know that I wanted to go to grad school in philosophy, and so frankly I didn't give two shits about college algebra, U.S. government, etc. etc. Oh well.

Do your early grades make you as nervous as mine make me?

In my particular case, an MA might help me to shore up what might otherwise seem like deficiencies in my application. My path toward my BA was somewhat untraditional. I started at a community college at the age of 23, studied there for about a year, moved, transferred to another community college, and then transferred to a small (but well reputed) liberal arts university. I did terribly (for the most part) during my time as a community college student. I did well in my introductory philosophy and religious studies courses (my major and minor, respectively), but little else. I transferred to my degree-granting institution with something like a 2.65 GPA. Over two and a half years, however, of study at my four-year institution, I managed a 3.8 GPA and to graduate magna cum laude. Point being, in many cases it won't matter the circumstances that frame my trajectory given that I'm competing against students who have no such deficiencies. I take it that an MA (if no PhD program would have me) offers an opportunity for me to further demonstrate my seriousness as a student.

One of my undergrad professors went through their MA program and he reports that their students do very well at getting into PhD programs. If I get an offer someplace else with some money attached, though, I will surely take it! Still feels nice to have a little bit of affirmation, though.

If I had to venture a guess, I'd say first round of acceptances get posted next week between Monday and Wednesday (just based on results from previous years). That's just a guess, though... so take that for what it's worth (read: not very much).

I might be eligible for a partial tuition scholarship. I'd say the chances are slim but non-negligible. If it turns out to be my only offer, though, I'm willing to take out loans for an MA. It's only two years.

I got an email from Victoria Wike. It was a personal(ish) email.

Well... Loyola Chicago declined to admit me to the PhD but offered admission to the MA. It's a little bit like kissing your sister, but if all else fails, at least someone is willing to let me keep doing philosophy for a couple of years.

I hope it helps me! Not to sound selfish or anything... Seriously though, thanks for the info!

Kevin Spacey really is superb...

I'll watch the whole season tomorrow, though. It only solves my problem for one day...

Come on Illinois Urbana-Champaign...

All-in-all it seems like it's been a pretty slow week on the admissions front. Anyone wanna put money down on a big friday? Maybe we can establish an over-under...

BTW, Monadology, Lee Braver is one of the people I have in mind that I'd like to study under pending admission to USF. Very thoughtful and careful philosopher.

I think this is basically correct. As a kind of anecdotal report, I can say that Heidegger, Ricouer, Levinas, Castoriadis, etc., are not typically included as the supporting material for my arguments in any formal sense, but I certainly read their work and find that it influences my approach to philosophy in general. Setting aside the pragmatic issues, I find that it makes little sense to bracket off and ignore such a large swath of philosophical scholarship if it is indeed one's aim to do philosophy in a serious way. I am no expert in continental thought, but I feel like I'd be kidding myself if I were to take up the position that reading it and drawing upon its conceptual repository is of no use. That just seems silly.

I think you might be right about Heidegger, though I think that I think you're right for different reasons than you probably intended. I agree that Heidegger is not terribly useful to contemporary analytic metaphysics, but that's mostly because I don't think that his work is really particularly metaphysical in character. His work is not an examination of the deep structure of reality in the same way that someone like Peter Van Inwagen, for instance, studies the deep nature (which is to say, an articulation of the properties of matter, etc.). Heidegger, as I interpret him (I am no expert in his work, mind you) is primarily doing hermeneutics (picking up on the work of Hegel and Husserl), but primarily through the lens of a certain kind of formal ontology. Heidegger is exploring the nature of reality as it is expressed through the relations of consciousness (i.e. he is trying to formally articulate the way in which the world becomes meaningful to humans). Given my reading of Heidegger, I see his project as primarily epistemological. As for Derrida... some of his earlier work is ok. "Glas" is a mess. His "debate" with Gadamer was embarrassing. But there's some good philosophy in "writing and Difference." "Of Grammatology" is ok. I don't think, however, that Derrida's work is all that useful to analytic types. And boy do the pure analytics hate his guts...

I woke up today feeling rather happy and optimistic. Now I just feel... well... like shit.

Congrats to the Indiana acceptances!

Pinkard is a professor at Georgetown... so maybe you'll get a chance to get to know him!

Also, Terry Pinkard takes what I would classify as a largely analytic approach in his work on Hegel, focusing more on what Hegel's contributions to contemporary epistemology might be as opposed to Hegel as systematician/metaphysician.

Surely some of the recent work by Richard Rorty makes clear the connection between analytic and continental thought in phil science.

Something about having now had my highest of dreams dashed to pieces by Notre Dame makes me feel a little less anxious about the rest of my applications.

If you have a status update, there will be a link at the very bottom of the page when you log in. Hope your luck is better than mine. On the bright side, I get to drink out of depression for one more night.

Rejected by Notre Dame... expected... still sucks though...

I like the Malabou shout out. She's probably my favorite contemporary interlocutor on Hegel.