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Establishment

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Everything posted by Establishment

  1. I try to stay away from the Hong translations. I haven't taken any serious look at their translation, but the reliability of their methodology (if I remember it right, one of them translated from Danish to English, and the other did an English to English finalization) concerns me, and I've noticed they have a tendency to de-Christianize parts of Kierkegaard and also edit out the parts where Kierkegaard is vulgar.
  2. Don't forget the Holy Grail for logical progression: http://www.logicmatters.net/tyl/
  3. I'd wager, to my own chagrin, most of the interest is phil math/phil logic, and less so mathematical logic.
  4. It's good to hear that the climate has improved since that one murder a few years back between the grad students.
  5. Because it's a post that doesn't contribute anything other than being a jerky thing to say online to someone you don't know. I love it when people take it upon themselves to claim what others are actually doing or thinking. Thank you, but I can speak for myself, and that wasn't the reaction I had.
  6. Hi Daniel Jackson, welcome to this side of the Stargate. In terms of films about philosophers, there are a couple. There's a french film of Immanuel Kant's last days entitled, Les Derniers Jours d'Emmanuel Kant, made in 1993. A film entitled Wittgenstein made in 1993. Roberto Rossellini produced a few television shorts looking at Socrates, Augustine, Pascal, and Descartes. There are a few films that parade around as "philosophy films", say, Waking Life, Examined Life. I Heart Huckabees, and The Ister. The few good exceptions are films such as I Heart Huckabees, which is a rather nice comedy of no philosophical pretension. The Ister (2004) is a stylistically nice little film centered on interviews with European philosophers with Heidegger and the Danube river as a backdrop. It's value, so far as I'm concerned, had much more to do with its aesthetics than its interviews though. There are also those films that are sometimes called "philosophical films". These tend to really mean spiritual or meditative films of cinematic value. Often these works are produced by certain directors, such as Dreyer, Bresson, Bergman, Tarkovsky, and Malick. Sometimes particular works can be included, like Huston's 1987 adaptation of James Joyce's short story The Dead, and a number of Japanese films. These aren't important for thinking about problems, but they're morally important films nonetheless. Long story short, there really aren't any films on philosophy (that is, that depict philosophy in practice) for much the same reason there aren't any films that depict academic mathematicians or industrial engineers at work. But I think that Insofar as such a film might be possible, your best luck lies with certain films about the law. These are the cases in which you can have arguments between positions and evidential strength that are accessible and of interest to the layman. The best representation I can imagine is 12 Angry Men (1957). That is, if someone asked me what is the best film that represents what it is that philosophers do, I'd recommend that film. I also have a certain fondness of Judgement at Nuremberg (1961), particularly it's closing verdict, but it's not all that interesting in terms of argumentatives.
  7. I don't know if I agree with this. You don't need anyone in particular in your specialty area, because your specialty area as that area in which you are specialized is distinct from that in which are you are interested. If you don't get into any of your best fit PhD programs, you might find yourself deciding to attend anyways and specializing (if by specializing we're taking it to mean the area of your dissertation) in whatever comes your way while at your program. That said, we all have our interests, and want faculty who can encourage and develop our abilities in that area, whether at the BA, MA, or PhD level. I don't think there's anything wrong in going about finding an MA program based on a specialty area. You're still going to have opportunities to seek breadth if you so wish. One might also take a look at one professor's remarks here: http://dailynous.com/2014/10/28/pre-phd-program-coursework:
  8. M.A.'s are generalist programs yes, but they can be generalist programs in either the continental or analytic tradition. (For continental: See Loyola Marymount, Miami University, etc. For analytic: See NIU, Tufts, etc.) For your interests, you might consider UWM: UWM has Liston for philosophy of mathematics, I'm not aware of any other MA program that could offer that. (NIU's Valia Allori contra the NIU page, does not list phil. math on her own research interests.) UWM has Leeds, primarily I'd say, for (mathematical) logic, but a number of other folks too who you might be able to work with depending on your particular interests in logic (mathematical logic? phil. logic?). I think this is another area that's probably not covered at other places (Particularly GSU afaik) Phil language is popular enough that most MA programs could accommodate that interest.
  9. You really have nothing to worry about regarding logic. Worry about something else.
  10. I've never heard of logic being counted as an admissions requirement.
  11. I can already foresee that this comment is going to spark a debate.
  12. Just a point or two in case there's some confusion about the nature of MA/PhD programs and what "specialization" means. First, your specialization is not constituted, or at least not necessarily so, by your coursework. It'll be constituted by the focused research and writing that you do on your own, perhaps with the aided help of a faculty member. This is no different between the MA and PhD level. Say one wants to specialize in philosophy of art. McGill would be a reasonable place to attend because they have David Davies, but you're not going to fill up your, however many, years of coursework up with phil. art classes. Heck, there probably won't even be one phil. art class a semester to take. The only difference between the MA and PhD I'm imagine is that at the PhD level you have 2 or so complete years to work on your dissertation without coursework, whereas at the MA your specialization (if you take one) will be done on the side and culminate in a thesis. Secondly, you won't be "repeating" the broad education you got during your bachelor's at a masters. You won't be taking "Epistemology," where you cover the standard highlights. You'll be taking courses that are appropriate for graduate work in philosophy. Will they cover areas outside of your specialization? Yes, the same as at a PhD. Will they be "broad"ly focused? No.
  13. MA programs aren't about specialization, so you're going to be taking a broad list of courses no matter where you go. The best you can probably do is find a program with faculty strength in political philosophy and make use of that, in which case, Milwaukee seems like a good program.
  14. If you'd like, send your writing sample my way and I'll use it as my writing sample for my own applications. I'll let you know the sort of feedback I get based on where all I get in.
  15. I've always appreciated the Hegel scholarship which has been upfront in saying: Look, Hegel probably was crazy as shit, and probably did think of his work as an onto-theology or some other abstract nonsense. But that's not our concern. We're to to rehabilitate his work into something coherent and useful in contemporary analytic discussions. It might then be wrong to call this result Hegel, or Hegelian, but we will do so anyways. Heidegger is apparently becoming appropriated into analytic philosophy, but I haven't seen any scholarship yet be as upfront as I have seen some Hegel scholarship do. EDIT: I mean, it's a historical matter of fact whether Hegel's own intentions were as sophisticated as we'd like to think or not. The attitude that I've sort of hyperbolized above is merely the attitude of: Look, we ultimately aren't concerned with Hegel's intentions. Either his intentions match the sophistication we'd like or it doesn't. Either way, we're not going to bother with entering into debates on the historical matter of fact, and instead focus purely on our normative concerns.
  16. http://who-got-in.livejournal.com/
  17. Yup. I've said it before, but it's a shame WhoGotIn has been dying, since they were a lot more analytic focused.
  18. How's your knowledge of the history of analytic philosophy? Oftentimes those who say they have a good knowledge of the movements in philosophy don't keep up with what happened with Frege/Moore and onwards. If you're not open to reading primary material, then my suggestion would be to focus on the history of analytic philosophy. Acquiring or even shoring up the specifics of what Russell's, Quine's, or Kripke's account was will be more important for you as an analytic philosophy in being able to understand the sort of talk and references you'll be hearing than shoring up the details of what Plato, Descartes, or Schopenhauer said. So, I'd look at Soames. He's got a two volume set called Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, each about 450 pages.
  19. Leaving? Probably not. I'm a bigger fan of the North American PhD system than the European DPhil given the funding situation, the domestic employment advantage, and being not as strictly focused just on research. And since I'm largely expecting to go into a different career now, I feel a lot less pressured to apply perhaps as broadly as I otherwise would have (where I would have thrown the dice at some European and additional North American universities).
  20. Proof theory. I know there are other places. Texas A&M for instance. UC San Diego has Buss. But overall there's not much proof theory done in the states. There's probably more abroad. Amsterdam has a younger bloke and Troelstra, but I've heard Troelstra is no longer a viable advisor. There's Helsinki with Negri and Plato. Munich and St. Andrews also have a bloke or two.
  21. Probably around 3 or 4 PhD's. Carnegie Mellon, Notre Dame, and Ohio State. Maybe Stanford.
  22. That sounds like a decent enough spread by itself were you only applying to Philosophy PhD's. But especially with some alternative plans of going into the sciences, I wouldn't worry about it. I don't think your application plan sounds unusual. EDIT: I'd have to disagree with the above that your plan only makes sense given your pedigree. I think there's two conflicting opinions regarding the app process. Some want to apply to programs only once, and don't have any back up plans, thus they apply to ~20 programs very broadly to increase their chances. The chances of getting shut out are just as equal for someone of your pedigree as for anyone else. The main difference is that you have established a focused interest on a set of programs and have some plans for if you do get shut out.
  23. I think there's been data in the past that every year there's a couple of students that'll mop up the top-10/top-20 programs. We are the 99%.
  24. I was going to comment on that too, but to be fair, he just says mostly top-10, not only top-10. Also, I have a suspicion Infinite Zest wasn't referring to x-phi. I was reading a MA thesis from a recent GSU alum which incorporated some recent empirical psychology to address a problem raised by Hume. I don't think this is what x-phi is, and is probably the sort of thing usually meant by people talking of incorporating empirical data and philosophy. But Infinite Zest can speak for himself. EDIT: He beat me to it.
  25. Sounds like you two should talk about long term plans. In figuring out the answer to the question of where you two see yourselves ten years down the road, you'll be able to answer the relevant question of whose career is gong to take priority in terms of bringing home the bread, if the assumption is y'all are going to be wanting to settle down and start a family (something you mention in your post). Are y'all going to risk everything for you to attend a PhD program and try to find stable academic employment afterward, or are y'all going to depend on her career path? If the latter, then your pursuant of philosophy seems more equivalent to a hobby. In which case, apply to local programs until you reach success, and maybe afterwards try to pick up some adjunct work if you're looking for some supplementary financial income. The degree to which what I've presented is a false dilemma will probably depend on the degree to which your fiance's career will be sacrificed in a move to Oregon or wherever for your PhD (and the specifics of your long term futures. Do you plan to have kids? Is someone going to be a stay-at-home, or would you consider raising kids while both carry full time careers? Etc. etc.), which'll be specifics only the two of you are going to know about, and will have to consider in this discussion.
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