MorganFreemanlives

perhaps we can agree that our notions of the term analytic will wildly differ although even i will acknowledge he is certtaintly not the most "analytically " one. . pinkard clearly wrote far more eloquently and coherently than anything hegel wrote but that does not imply he interpreted hegel appropriately. although there is one correct hegel, namely hegel himself, his obscure style has created contrary interpretations, for example, zizek has a very Heraclitus like intepretation of hegel while others like british hegelians had an interpretation akin to Parmenides. a lot of commentary and re-interpretations of hegel and i believe pinkard is guilty of this, emphasize the sanitized version of hegel at the expense of the spooky absolute. Im glad analytic philosophy has finally welcomed hegel as worthy of analysis and i consider myself more on the analytic spectrum but lets not kid ourselves that sometimes the specific demands that analytic philosophy as a professional discipline with its specific style dont often tarnish some philosophers. Whitehead is perhaps an even better example of this. Unlike hegel, analytic philosophy for the longest considered him one of their due to his coauthorship of Principia but the amount of misinterpretations of Whitehead to make him fit more neatly in the puzzle solving canon is appalling.

the proud bombastic idealist in me feels morally compelled to share this. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Appearance_and_Reality/Chapter_I if nothing else, it will be productive methinks to be exposed to the opposite being.

and yet thats exactly my thoughts. always be skeptical of analytic philosophers trying to mold spooky metaphysician to a more naturalist friendly proposition filled work. spinoza is to a lesser degree a common victim as well. Joachim's spinoza> curley spinoza any day.

so much for philosophy being the major with top gre scores. now its used agaisnt us as something to expect and anything less is a liability. i wonder how much of it is undergrads having to artificially uphold that castle in the clouds. its true that there is a correlation between higher gre scores and majoring in philosophy but its not like taking 2 philosophy classes your sophomore year and 10 or so in junior year raised your IQ score by 20 points or anything. its just the fact philosophy attracts a disproportionate amount of intellectual self reflecting eccentrics and the perpetually curious (also common in the more difficult technical fields like physics, computer science and math, or at the creative almost encyclopedia end in history and literature), and many but not all of these are good at standardized tests. dont lose faith reixis. hopefully, more astute admissions people will see our worth despite our lack of gre brilliance , deem us exotic enough, and coursework wise too big to fail even if things turn for the worse, we can still take solace in not being dfinleys

what is your response to berkeley?

i was interested in MIT for some time until i realized they started requiring GRE very recently. The other thing about MIT is that despite getting a very high ranking in metaphysics in general, what they call metaphysics is nothing resembling say, what the 19th century called systematic metaphysics. dont get me wrong, analytic linguistically inclined metaphysics is fun too, but the juicy parts of metaphysics are both interdependent and lends itself to systematic schematization. it seems a lot of modern metaphysics is stepping in each others shoes without getting much above ground. compare Spinoza's ethics with Russell's On denoting and you will see what i mean.

this isnt even a question. you are definitely minority even if you arent lol. i get all my opinions on affirmative action from Thomas Sowell and im still putting that im a minority. (its not a lie either). if the academic market values the fact i was born in a piece of land i dont associate myself with and so was my family, thats their problem. the field is far too competitive to not use anything which isnt inmoral or illegal to your advantage in applications. now far more questionable is applying to place like penn state claiming you love critical race theory when in reality all you want to is "white man metaphysics" but thats not the case here. for what its worth, yes brazilian would certaintly fit URM category.

yes i understand the question. one approach to is to say the consequentionalist calculus should be able to tell us or at best hint at which of the conflicting loyalties to pick.but they are multiple problems for a theory of ethics like Royce's to adopt such determinants as necessary and sufficient conditions 1. royce is bizarre sort of virtue ethics where all virtues can be reduced to an instantiation to loyalty to loyalty. 2. more importantly the difference between obedience and loyalty is that loyalty is a personal dedication to a cause, and an individual must choose among a plethora of causes to dedicate himself to, many which are contraries. here is where it gets interesting. on the one hand we,admit loyalties are personal but also agree that they possess the virtually universal character of being manifested in others presumably with a similar impetus for the conviction of self realization. royce will no doubt suggest that when a man meets contrary loyalties , he must pick one if evidence is insufficient to make a meaningful choice (this often happens in our life by pragmatic demands or calculative limitations) indecision is equivalent to saying no to both and this he borrows from James' will to believe. BUT even when there is no such tug of war, the reason to support the loyalty with more cost benefit advantage must rely on a non trivial convinction of the truth of an objective scientific rational world in which the calculus can be safely grounded even if not fully conclusive, in other words, the ethical person must hold truth as one if not the greatest loyalty. here is where nietsche comes in. Royce claims that truth is such a grand cause of loyalty because its a universal manifestation of loyalty to loyalty in mankind. By extending our chronicles of truth, We are cultivating both our own loyalty to a beloved community which will carry on the torch of our progress but an equal loyalty in others whom we have affected or even inspired. This defense however is 1. a tad bit too social/religious for modern taste and 2.the line between obedience and loyalty become a bit fuzzy as far loyalty as virtue go with truth since we just implicitly admitted truth in varying degrees is a loyalty thats practically inevitable. what Nietsche's Uberman can do here is to show how whereas some seemingly loyal people are just driven by an impulse, however natural or right it is to the society, only the uberman by realizing that his own morality is created by picking his loyalties even if they would see inevitable, to an outsider is fully moral. furthermore, his realization that loyalties which are personal but extend beyond his mere self is his ideal is i think very compatible with the will to power, which is mysteriously both a personal manifestation and a universal. granted i think both royce and nietsche woudnt have liked the compromise. still to make a communitarian like royce and an individualistic nihilist like nietsche blend in somewhat without catching fire must be something.

as for my actual topic, i will likely write on an interesting relation gordel's incompleteness theorem and Bradley's metaphysics, taking into consideration an argument used by Lucas and Penrose contra materialism. BUT im biding my time a bit too much because this is one of those topics that if handled incorrectly ,can fail miserably.

the first thing that popped to mind was Nietzsche and his giant mustache blushing while Rousseau and Emerson point and laugh, "i knew it! you are one of us" Nietzsche is a figure i actually like. one of the sample papers i considered was a reconciliation of Royce's ethical philosophy of loyalty with Nietsche's conception of the Ubermesch. basically it amounted to concluding that the Uberman cant be conceived of building self imposed rules in a vacuum and must instead be empowered by submitting to loyalties he willingly honors, but these loyalties are partly faith based a la James because in deciding which loyalties to advocate for both ourselves and to promote loyalty in others, our calculus is necessary but insufficient to deal with such either/or problem. ultimately the uberman chooses and manifests his will by picking a loyalty in conflict with others when the world cant objectively provide him the ideal object of loyalty in his unique spatio-temporal circumstance. in other words, i create a a more selfish Royce and a more modest Nietzsche lol. i decided against this writing sample topic because ethics isnt one of my primary areas of interest. just in case, COPYRIGHT xD

im inspired to steal your idea

at this stage, we are either polishing or working hard on our writing samples for this upcoming application season. i know this is a delicate topic and the last thing we want is someone stealing our writing sample ideas so feel free to be as vague or precise as you desire. what is your writing sample about?or if you are still in that contemplation phase,what topics/theses are you considering?

in a very brief incomplete summation, you can say fichte took kant and removed the thing-in-itself in favour of a subjective idealism of the transcendental ego. Schelling who was a roommate and friend of hegel for many years developed an objective idealism which perfected spinoza in its unique romantic style. hegel however found that schelling's absolute as a ground of being was too homogenous. "the night in which all cows are black" as he said. hegel then saw that speculative philosophy was opposed to two divergent systems emphasizing one part over the other (self vs other) its in a combination of this and religious overtones that his dialectic is empowered. i think its a pity however that Fichte an Schelling despite being given due credit by some scholars are only seen as a stepping stone and not as genuine philosophers who could compete with Hegel. after all we do view as Kant as being at least equal in philosophical consideration, but Kant remains forever more studied because he is historically more radical. to prove this point, Hegel borrowed a lot of of his ideas from Schelling and Fichte when he wrote An Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation the authorship of his book was confused as kant and only after he cleared that it was Fichte who wrote it that Fichte became famous.

yes im not taking it, but they are some days where my ambition wins over my principles, and i entertain the idea. but then i realize even if i accepted paying 150 to takea test whose existence for philosophy applicants offends me, the thought of having to PAY to send my scores to more than 4 universities is where i draw the line. so i must pay the people who coerced me to pay the equivalent of 3 applications to take the test and fee of 27 dollars per place to prove to universities i paid you guys too much money and took your test seriously? and if i have any reservations to this insanity i deserve to be shut out for not obeying directions? if i had the leadership skills, and philosophy folks werent as dispassionately rational. a massive gre boycott would be in order, dozens sending some note To places that require the test, like im part of AOTT (Association of opposers of trivial testing) in their admissions app and claiming they refuse such suspicious tests to determine their fate and that since at least good 50-100 of the applicants send the AOTT note.we would have lots of coverage, leiter reports would link an article and multiple institutions would drop the gre by popular demand in the foreseeable future. sigh a man can dream. sadly this would never happen as 1. this would require at least 1 or 2 years of dozens of applicants likely forfeiting possible admissions and glutting the few non gre places 2. we live in de-principled times, we dont care about lost causes or only potentially possible changes and 3. this is exactly like the train robbery situation from william james. if everyone of us applicants rose against the oppressor which is admission folks holding us on the pretext that if you dont turn in your gre scores we will toss your application , then the train robbery would be stopped. the problem, never does everyone or even most or half rise to the occasion and the few mavericks that do will be shot down. nothing will change, the ETS Monopoly will remain and we might as audition for a new version of pink floyd's the wall video, but instead of being grinded to sausages like in the music video, its gre scores going to a trash can.

i have heard that university of Barcelona and university of Amsterdam have their own decent logic programs.

this brings up a question though, what is the minimium decent score in the math section as to not warrant concern that it may work against you

oh man, dont get me excited like that. with a title of that i thought you meant most or all the graduate philosophy programs said screw you GRE this year. 165 an 160 is very solid. i wount retake.

about 8-12 places, but its a forced number on me. since i wont take the gre, u.s and canada is about 6 and the UK is about 6.

speak of the devil, i was just reading his writing sample on hume to get some ideas on how to perfect my writing sample.

why only top 10? apply to top 30's if you want to avoid major disappointment. not to say you cant get in to any or even all top 10, but this is not something you should expect. also to warn you, it seems you are interested in very empirical philosophy, perhaps even X phil, which means many philosophers hold will that agaisnt you. dont believe me, head over to leiterreports where he is currently doing a poll on what people who go to his site think of xphil. only 3 percent thinks its foundational and 41 % think its bad philosophy and psychology combined. thats twice as bad as the suspicion agaisnt metaphysics! what im saying is, very few people should be cocky enough to only or even mostly apply to top 10, unless you can afford applying all 10 and it won flinch your bank account. in your case, be particularly wary of enemies you can make along he way on sample paper alone. apply to top 30 schools with a particular focus on x phil, philosophy of bio, neurophilosophy ect where this bias is less likely to manifest.

i remember a quote from quirkyguard (my affectionate nickname for him) stating that if hegel left his work in the logic as mere conjecture, then he would have regarded it as one of the greatest works ever written, but on the certainty that hegel swears by , its just charlatanism. my advise on hegel, has always been, if you are not \ willing to work your way up from kant to fichte to schelling and then hegel, dont bother with the chronological approach. you will misinterpret far too much. i started getting Hegel after reading Bradley's Appearance and Reality which is also speculative, but its 1. speculative in such a way as to be friendly to analytic philosophers to comprehend, the first one third of the book is like 12 concise arguments and 2. many of the ugly parts of hegel like his historicism which is awfully anthropocentric, and the ambiguity of spirit as a substance vs process are not in bradley. once i understood him, hegel was easy. but here is the rub, once i read Bradley, i coudnt take hegel too seriously anymore. way too much bright eyed theory. im glad i learned analytic philosophy first. it gave me the impatience to always prefer concise an clear argumentation.now that my iterest is thick systematic metaphysics, i coul choose my battles wisely.

i recommend Samuel Alexander's Space Time and Deity.

dont worry TOO much. remember that admissions committee hold pedigree in high regard because they view it as safe applications, but they also know this might put otherwise talented students without such privilege at a disadvantage. you are as talented an international student resume as it could get barring a kripke so if they dont accept you, how could they possibly take any other non national? this is just a conjecture i have always abide by but i think when an applicant has something very interesting going for him like URM status, interesting and relevant exceptional circumstances, and underrepresented interest in philosophy which would otherwise fit perfectly with a department and so on, an the department accepts a decent amount of applicants, i would say at last 7 or 8, the applicant's chances are what i would call a zebra admission. its that one spot for the promising black sheep where his real competition will be other black sheep. the black sheep may not always be the very best applicant per se, but he is a welcomed spot for diversity and all that warm fuzzy stuff. URM are the best example of this. graduate admissions are always pressured to accept more females and minorities for a variety of reasons, so lets say they admit 10 people in 1 year, they may want to save 1 or 2 spots to this category of students or at least make the preference for such selection obvious. in that regard your chances of admission may not be 10/x where is the number of applicants but 1/ subset of x where the subset is the top student who happens to be a minority, and this will make your chances of admission far more manageable. you already have an application thats worthy of comparison to non minority applicants and the main hurdle of getting good letters from known people you seem to have overcome so i will not worry too much at this point.

this is indeed a very impressive resume. your number of classes may be slightly mitigate by the prestige of your school but 20+ i already that stage where the academic variety and amount is too big to fail you. as for your publications an conferences, even if they werent in amazing places, it takes passion to do that much. im presuming you are a underrepresented minority yes? if so you have a very good shot at top places provided the writing sample fits with the rest of the profile. at first i was gonna recommend to apply to a few places that dont require gre but universities may be able to over look if its just a native tongue thing. i would replace penn for cornell since cornell has a reputation for favoring talented non-conventional students. i would consider a safety school in the UK or canada but that is up to you. with only 6 spots its really difficult . apply to a few places willing to refund you or waive the application fee in special cases like yours. i think columbia and a few others do this but im not so sure. this advice will be more controversial an you prob wount like it but i feel compelled to inform you of it as a possibility. if you are low on cash and what you desire is going to a solid philosophy program even at the expense of a couple top ones, you can save the gre money (thats 180 dollars you can use on app and i doubt your application will improve because of gre scores, if anything due to language barrier it could count slightly agaisnt you) an apply to places that dont require it, that is, cornell and john hopkins, most canadian universities and the UK universities. the Uk in particular has more affordable application costs, even oxford being less than 50 dollars if i recall correctly. in my case, im going this route because of an intense dislike of gre but in your case, it may simply be a way to get the most of your buck.

consider a long term relationship, for about 3 years or so and take summers off to visit one another. ph.d programs cause a lot of friction with couples and often separate during this time. if your relationship is worth the struggle, a small stop or slowing down the way will put it to the test. this way, she enjoys her promotion , you go to the best place you can possible an everyone fulfills their desires. if this doesnt work out , then at least take solace that she prob wasnt worth deferring or giving up on a top school for. if it does work, then the sacrifice was all the more worth it, so apply to all the schools you were going to and apply to more NYC schools if you like to increase the odds. another approach, is to still consider the long term relationship but apply to places that will be quite close,like say within a 8-12 hour drive radius, so that you visit each other quite often and keep the morale up. this will be easier on both parties, and this will significantly extend your grad school choices given that the northeast has a goo concentration of top programs. no, choice here however will be easy unless you hit the jackpot on where you get accepted.