TheChosenOne
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Posts posted by TheChosenOne
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2 hours ago, Abendstern said:
I just want to add one thing to this conversation before I keep my mouth shut and enjoy seeing the women here trounce all of the sexist arguments flying around. That is, I think we should consider what we, as future grad students, can do to help change things (whether or not you are a supporter of affirmative action). I think one big way would be to really acknowledge the fact that women and minorities usually face a sort of constant drag on their confidence. Many of them admirably overcome this, but we (namely, white, male, heteronormative men) should be particularly cognizant of the fact. Yes, argue your point an do it well, but then sit back, listen, look for someone who might feel left out and ask them their opinion. Be charitable when someone is speaking, and don't just tear down their argument. Amend it -- build it up -- and *ask* them if that was what they meant. Don't talk over them or cut them off -- allow some breathing room. A lot of the more sexist views I've been reading here seem to misunderstand the nuance of this dynamic. To be fair, I've often missed this nuance. Like a lot of us here, I tend to argue my point forcefully -- in a way that I wouldn't recommend. But I've come to see in my professional life certain women who, despite being annoyed and upset about some unfair thing that has happened, instead just sort of sit there and take it (in a way that infuriates me, because it's so unfair to them). It's not that they face a situation that I wouldn't face -- it's that society has taught them not to be confrontational in a way that I wouldn't think twice about being. It's a kind of societal conditioning that men (at least men like me) really don't have to deal with as much. 12 men in a classroom with one women -- even a forceful one -- is a really unfortunate situation for everyone in that room. And consider the fact that hearing diverse opinions benefits us men too.
I personally would like to ask the women of this forum: what can we do to be better allies? What is it that we might do in the philosophy classroom (or beyond) that particularly annoys you, and how can we fix it while still maintaining our ability to engage with you in substantive philosophical inquiry? Maybe we can open this up to another thread to jumpstart that sort of constructive discussion?
Great post. I too am interested in what the women of this forum have to say.
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31 minutes ago, TheJabberwock said:
This.
Also, as a white male (who unfortunately shares a name, albeit differently spelled, with Shawn3007+) I would like to say I am in favor of affirmative action and some badly needed diversity in Philosophy. Now for sarcasm: "Boy! Women and minorities sure do get better treatment in philosophy programs, that's why all of the programs are full of women."
Affirmative action isn't in place to punish white people (although given some people's attitudes, I garner less sympathy if they are punished...), it's to help under-represented groups and to try and better reflect society. If (A) we want everyone to have an interest in philosophy (presumed by our valuing of it), then (B) we should want our philosophy departments to better reflect our society (thereby representing everyone and hopefully inspiring diverse groups to work in philosophy). A. Therefore, B. This is one of many arguments of why affirmative action is good, one I felt was neglected in the above discussion.
Congratulations for all of those who have been accepted thus far, and on to the point of this thread: "I want an acceptance too! And, I must be rejected since I haven't heard anything (even from the school that had a February 15th deadline). AND, I can't stop checking my email........ AHH!"
Even if we grant your argument and concede B, B alone does not prescribe affirmative action as the solution to the problem. Yes, we should take steps to effect an accurate reflection of society in philosophy departments - but we had better not do so in ways that are equally morally disgusting.
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Profound.
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50 minutes ago, Hermione27 said:
"I know you said that you are bowing out, but I figured I will try to engage in your argument.
First I will say that this is a topic that affects many of us. It is not something merely abstract but a lived experience for us women and us minorities so it will ignite passion in us. It has clearly ignited passion in you! So while I understand that you were trying to be sensitive I hope you understand that people like me, I am Latina, are suggested all the time that we only have something because of our minority status. We have earned none of what we have.
Anyways, you begin by saying “In an application to any sort of university, the only relevant features of the applicant should be those over which he has some control. (And back off, determinists.) Being a female or black or Latino or whatever should mean absolutely nothing. But this is not the case.” This has never been the case that the only relevant feature is the application features. One of the most relevant features is something that none of us has any control over: fitness. The department needs people with varying interests that still fit into the department. I could have a better application, at least how you seem to define better, having better GRE scores but maybe I do not fit into the department. And fit is something not as easily determined by a quick online view of the program’s website as people believe. For example, maybe one of the professors who works in your AOI is leaving soon so will not be willing to take more students on, etc. These are things that only an admissions committee would know. Maybe one of these women’s specific topics of interests intersected with several professors. And there is nothing morally reprehensible about reviewing an application against the department's interests
My second point merely mirrors what other people have pointed out: you cannot know if your application is better because you do not have knowledge of either of your recommendations. Of course you can guess at what your says but unless you read it you do not really know. From what I have read by professors on Leiter’s Report, that aspect is the only one that definitely sinks an application all by itself! Even a relativiely low GPA will not necessarily doom you. So you are missing one of the most important pieces of the puzzle and judging without it. Not to mention, you cannot know if your application is better because you do not know how the adcomm people judge “potential.” That is what they are looking for. Potential is not easily given by numbers though numbers do help. Potential is not merely based on academic merit. Maybe the person on the adcomm read the woman’s sample (the one with only a BA) and saw that while maybe her sample was not as polished, or whatever, that her ideas showed potential as a philosopher. You cannot know.
Lastly, anecdotal evidence is not proof for anything. It takes a small sample size and extrapolates from it. If we trust anecdotal evidence then we would have to trust that merely being outside when it is cold will make you sick, seating too close to the television will damage your eyes. Also, it is fallacious reasoning (hasty generalization fallacy). The scientific research backs up that implicit bias happens. When people look at a resume/cv from someone name Maria Rodriguez and John Smith, and both have the same qualifications, they are more likely to judge the former more harshly. Mind you these are CVs in which they had the same credentials on both. That is only one example in the implicit bias literature. There are many more. These biases are against minorities and women when they apply to jobs, graduate programs, etc. There are some people who may give just a little bump to a woman or minority if they know the literature on implicit bias. However, it would not be used to give someone something they do not deserve.
However, many people are against affirmative action and those policies are actually not enforced at many universities. Well, that is not completely true, the quota policy of legacies at universities are enforced at the Ivies for undergraduates. The evidence does not support that white men are being discriminated against. It supports that women and minorities are not welcomed in philosophy and are discriminated against. Only 30% of PhD's earned in philosophy are earned by women (http://www.newappsblog.com/2011/05/the-low-percentage-of-women-earning-phds-in-philosophy.html). I cannot find this other source but I remember being shocked by the percentage. Only approximately 2% of PhD's philosophy are given to Hispanics/Latinos. It is the same for Blacks. Thus it is not clear that minorities or women are being favored in the admissions process. There are not that many women or minorities in PhD programs in philosophy to support what you are saying
Also you said that these girls are equal caliber to you (maybe lower). That means that they deserve the shot they have been given.
By the way I am a Hispanic woman who has not been accepted into any programs. I think it is safe to say that it is not always the case that race/ethnicity and gender are not major factors in admissions. You are right. The system is corrupt. However, it is not corrupt in the way you think it is."
I can't resist responding, given that you must have put a lot of effort in that post! I'll respond systematically to each of your points, in order.
First, of course I do not mean to suggest that persons who are women or a minority or both do not earn what get, inside or outside academia. (I don't think you took me to be saying that in the first place, but I'd like to make it clear.)
Second, regarding your point about fitness, you are absolutely right. I concede your point. Nevertheless, there is a sense in which a person's fitness is determined by her areas of interest, and a person does have control over her areas of interest. Perhaps you may cavil over whether such things as "interests" are really under one's control, but it is certainly unlike judging a candidate according to really uncontrollable and irrelevant contingencies to a candidate's aptitude, like race and gender and sex.
Third, it is true that I do not know what is said in our professors' letters. And I am going off of (many) personal anecdotes and (much) testimony from authority (professors). Nevertheless, I think my opinion is somewhat justified. If we're getting technical, I take my epistemic probability that there is racism and sexism in this process to be greater than 50%. Of course, I don't have straight-up proof...but to fair, I don't think you do either. Which leads me to...
Fourth, your cited statistic does not show that "women are not welcomed in philosophy and are discriminated against." There are too many factors that could plausibly undercut this inference from the fact that 30% of philosophy-PhD-earners are women. For instance, there are less women that apply in the first place! That could serve as a good explanation for the data. (Maybe it is a problem in itself, but that is a different discussion.) Or perhaps, due to chance and circumstance, it turns out that women don't complete programs as often as men do. I have heard that many women have to delay completing their degree or even drop out because they get pregnant. That's a circumstantial barrier men don't face.
EDIT: Also, I notice I'm getting a lot of downvotes, which I don't think is really fair...
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Thanks to the understanding few. I'll bow out now; I think I've said all I need to.
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Can we just drop it? I would hope as philosophers that you wouldn't be throwing around these irrelevant ad hominems (which I really ought to systematically ignore) and that you would focus on the actual points I'm making. Maybe I'm a moral monster for calling my 20-year-old female peers "girls", but that doesn't impact the soundness of my argument at all.
- NathanKellen and blubed
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Congrats! (wrong thread though
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First, I would like to apologize to anyone I may have offended by anything I may have said. I apologize especially for calling women "girls" and "gals". That is not something I take care to be sensitive about (I do refer to men as "guys" if that means anything to you), so I am sorry if it offended you.
Second, I would like to point out that I took deliberate care in my original post (and my subsequent posts) to make no claims about the intrinsic qualities of females or minorities. I did cast evaluations on the two women I know personally, for the purpose of illustrating my point, by I did not mean to use them to represent all female philosophers.
Finally, I acknowledge whole-heartedly that women and minorities face many grave challenges, and I am sorry if I did not acknowledge those challenges outright. Nevertheless, my focus is on the racism and sexism of this particular situation. I think it is obvious that considerations of gender and race are weighty factors in the application process, and I do not think that should be the case.
I do stand by everything I said, but I apologize if it was offensive.
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I mostly agree as well. I do think though, based on the body of evidence I have, that my female friends and I are of the same caliber. I could have defeating evidence -- maybe there is some magic word present in their letters but not in mine -- but as best I can tell, we are pretty much equal.
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Fair enough, and thanks for the sympathy. I will say I have independent evidence for my broad statements besides the failure of my own application. I have anecdotes from others, first-hand knowledge of these girls' application quality, conversations with my professors to go off of.
- lesabendio, blubed and philstudent1992
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And philosophe - your concerns about diversity are legitimate, and I appreciate the cordial tone of your posts. I will still say, however, it is still not clear to me that abandoning the principle of evaluating applicants based on academic merit alone is morally justified. Far from it.
- lesabendio and brush
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Fair enough - high-stakes for justification, suspend judgment; low-stakes, I'd still say they're fake.
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I know these two personally, know their scores, their letters, and their writing samples. I actually helped one write hers. I've also got better GRE scores, and an MA. (She's only an undergrad.) So it is frustrating to watch her get in to so many places while I've gotten pretty much nothing.
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Man, getting a call from Dave Chalmers or another big-wig philosopher...I think that would be the most amazing experience in my life to date, lol.
I would probably not be able to assert any meaningful utterances for the first five minutes of the phone call. I'd just be letting out emotive sounds and sobs.
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It's like 9pm in New York; I doubt Chalmers would call people this late at night. (And to rule out the possibility that the phone calls were made earlier today, there is evidence against it: (i) both posting were made back-to-back in the past hour, unlikely if the calls were made earlier today, (ii) the "I am shaking" comment makes more sense if he had just received the call.)
- Disgruntledlurker and brush
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I'm here to vent about the severe racism and sexism among admissions committees. In an application to any sort of university, the only relevant features of the applicant should be those over which he has some control. (And back off, determinists.) Being a female or black or Latino or whatever should mean absolutely nothing. But this is not the case.
And it's no small matter. My white male friend and I have received only rejections and anticipate many more. I applied to a ton of schools and anticipate maybe one or two acceptances (but only after sitting for many weeks on a waitlist). But we know two gals at our program, of equal caliber with ourselves (perhaps lower), who each got into nearly every program they applied to, some within the top 10, with full funding. In fact, when one of these gals was flown out to a top university, they practically begged her to come.
Obviously, I don't think that every person on admissions committee is a racist bigot. They are pressured by the university, yadda yadda. But I think there are some spineless cowards out there for letting this crap get this out of hand. Some disparity will always exist -- whatever, not much anyone can do about that. But when it becomes pretty much the ticket for securing acceptance, it's obvious the system is corrupt.
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1 hour ago, sneakysombrero said:
Any chance USC isn't done with its call list? I'm perplexed because I don't see anything in my youSC portal inbox (i.e. no rejection or waitlist letter), nor have I received an e-mail, but I haven't received a call either.
Also does anyone want to claim the USC waitlist? I have a sneaking suspicion it's a troll, would be nice to have that suspicion allayed...
A friend of mine was waitlisted at USC today...so they did send out at least some waitlistings.
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Assuming a rejection from UNC.
Are Indiana rejections done? I didn't get anything...I don't think there is an online portal to check.
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Virginia rejections are out - no email, check the portal.
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Claiming one of the USC rejections. (No email, checked site.) Sucks, I thought I was a good applicant. A ton of rejections this year; I heard that there were going to be less applicants across the board.
(0a/0w/1r out of 19)
@iunoionnis - I doubt 170 verbal will help you that much more than 166. Focus on the writing sample.
Who is your favorite philosopher? What was your favorite reading?
in Philosophy
Posted · Edited by TheChosenOne
David Lewis for sure, even though I am diametrically opposed to pretty much every position he adopts, lol.
Alvin Plantinga is also a good philosopher and a great writer...but I find myself at odds with many of his views as well (especially his extravagant Platonism).
Dean Zimmerman is up there. Great metaphysician, reasonable personality. Love his stuff on time.
David Albert is up there, too. Probably my favorite philosopher of science. Makes the issues of QM easy to understand. Engaging writer.
Others: Jaegwon Kim (Mind in a Physical World), Yablo (for everything metaphysics), Azzouni.
But really, apart from David Lewis, I haven't really "given myself" to a particular philosopher. I'm more interested in the debate itself; couldn't care less who the players are.