what my application looks like

[quackademic]

I feel very sorry for your wife, David.

[quackademic]

So, David, honest question: what was your criteria for choosing the schools to which you're applying?  

[dfindley]

.....primarily the ones that would accept an application with only a single letter of recommendation.....

Most schools I emailed wouldn't budge on that standard.

[gatewayselect]

.....primarily the ones that would accept an application with only a single letter of recommendation.....

Most schools I emailed wouldn't budge on that standard.

 

I hope you realize that at no point in your statement did you mention to the university why you thought you would be a good fit for them. Regardless of everything else, your money will be wasted because you will get rejected everywhere since there aren't any professors there who are interested in the work you're doing.

[philstudent1991]

You've gotta get more letters. Letters from the mailman and your friend's kid's babysitter are probably better than only 1 letter.

[hj2012]

If letters of recommendation are a problem and you're not looking to enter a Master's program, would it be possible to audit some classes at a local university? That might help you make connections that lead to more letters. 

[quackademic]

I'm impressed at how seriously people are taking someone who proudly self-published an original metaphysical treatise.

But let's leave aside how laughable this is on its face, and try to reason through the situation together.

Dave: For the sake of argument, let's say that your work is as groundbreaking as you hope it is. Even so, your insistence on self-publishing contradicts the ideals of the academy, which is premised on *peer review*. This raises two questions.

1) Did you consider the message that self-publication would send to the career academics who will be reviewing your application (i.e. that you refuse to submit to the standards of the very academy that you're asking to join)? It's kind of like showing up to karate school wearing a home-made black-belt because you like to practice roundhouse kicks in your basement.

2) Given the contempt you've shown for the status of graduate school/academic philosophy as a 'career', why do you want to join the academy in the first place? Have you considered that this might not be the place for you? Reading/writing/caring about 'philosophy' and being an academic are *not* coextensive categories.

Have you considered blogging as an alternative?

[dfindley]

Hey ;O)

 

I actually turned to Wikipedia for a cursory review of the 'Academy', which was primarily historical. We remember the term traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, the 'Academy'. The institution has evolved since then, through the Hellenistic period, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment.. what exactly the 'Academy' is in any context is probably largely determined by the contemporary, relevant culture. The Catholic Church and Scientific Method have probably been the most influential. American Bureaucracy and social-liberal culture probably exerts a lot of influence.

 

What is the Academy, exactly? Who sets the standard? ...and I understand that peer-review is an important factor in academia -- a sort of formalized 'Dialectic' -- but to presume that individuals are discouraged to think or publish for themselves, I think, is in poor taste. Individuals are, after all, the primary drivers in the intellectual pursuits.

 

1 -- I don't know. that point hasn't ever been a real dwelling point for me. I thought (maybe day dreamed,) all sorts of different responses.

 

2 -- I tend to be very idealistic when I think of a career in academia. Unfortunately I get the impression that it is more and more resembling early Christian monastic schools. It is not the Church but the social-liberal and bureaucratic culture, and the mass of plebes that flock to it and swell its ranks. It is corrupt when it begins to emphasize 'points' 'scores' 'ranks' 'grades' as standards for success. These things can have their value, but the real significance lies in progress and innovation.

 

When the latter is just blatantly ignored in favor for the prior, then I think we can say that the contemporary American 'Academy' has fallen into corruption. And, in my recent experience e-mailing maybe a couple dozen departments, academic philosophy may very possibly suffer it the most.

 

No, I don't want to blog :OP

Edited November 28, 2013 by dfindley

[Cottagecheeseman]

wow. Just wow.

[bar_scene_gambler]

It's really not worth it. The talk gatewayselect posted was very enlightening, and I think it's fair to say that this is a case of terminal crankage. Just let dfindley do his thing, because there is absolutely no convincing him that what he's doing is the wrong way to do philosophy. He will continue to be blinded by his own sense of self-importance, regardless of what we say to him. 

Edited November 28, 2013 by bar_scene_gambler

[quackademic]

Why thumb your nose at blogging, Dave? It would allow you to get your ideas out there without the reactionary standards of the corrupt American academy stifling your genius. Far more people will be exposed to (and respect) your livejournal than your dabblings with the vanity press.

As for it being useless to reason with d-money, in a way you're right. But I'm not really trying to change his mind. He's shown that he's going to believe whatever he wants to believe, so that would be impossible. I'm just interested in probing how this kind of mind works.

Where do you ideally see yourself in ten years, David?

[Philhopeful]

I'm going to give some advice that presupposes that the work has the potential to be just as historic as Dfindley thinks it is. 

 

Whether or not American academic institutions are right to prioritize the abilities of a professional student over pure originality, the fact remains that basically every philosophical work that has gained historical prominence has been published through academic institutions or by people who were members of these institutions. Further, these institutions are the ones with the money to fund research. Even if you disapprove of them--you're going to need to engage with them. Applying for a graduate school is the right start.

 

The difficulty is that the feeling that I and I think a lot of other people here share is that the people deciding about whether to offer you a position may not give your work enough attention to realize it for what it is if the other parts of your application aren't in order. Most likely they are going to see few recommenders, a low gpa, read a page or two at most and move on. Just reading your introduction, it doesn't seem like the kind of thing that people will get from a few pages. Like Heidegger and Hegel, it seems like you make a big promise about where you'll end up, but then need the readers patience to even get to the thesis that you ultimately will want to defend.

 

What I'd recommend you do is postpone your application until you can get a few more recommenders and find some new ways of distinguishing your work. If you are really confident in your ideas, then maybe try condensing one of your best chapters into an article showing the promise of your ideas against contemporary schools. If you can get the article through double blind selection into a leading journal, then you'll be in a great position to start conversations with faculty across the country, who could support your application, and the honor of the journal by itself would go a very long way towards getting you in. I think that this is probably compatible with the Heideggarian type of investigation you seem to be gesturing at in the introduction--just try writing on some small issues that you think motivate your argument or that you have something interesting to say about without too much requirement that people buy into your whole system. If asked to do something like this, Heidegger could have exploited his interesting phenomenological observations even without his just as interesting ontology.

 

As a disclaimer--I don't think that people on here are giving you enough credit. I have a hard time imagining any ordinary undergraduate producing what I read. I was a little concerned that you didn't motivate the importance of your primary question--perhaps especially important because a lot of people would dismiss it as nonsensical out of hand (maybe even Heidegger). However, I'd be really interested in seeing how you develop "positive nihilism". If I wasn't literally scraping up every dollar I have on applications, I would consider buying it. You know you might also consider just trying to get some faculty to read it from outside departments and seeing what they say. If you send this to someone who works in the tradition as opposed to whoever happens to be the grad point person that year, you might get some interesting responses.

Edited November 29, 2013 by Philhopeful

[dfindley]

Thank you so much for the constructive advice.

Yes, you are right. I should, a long time ago, have been working on developing a journal submission. I guess u have Ben over reliant on the idea that some of my core concepts would speak for themselves.

For example, in the cover letter I explain my approach to coming to terms with the noumenal by utilizing a simple A / -A logical dynamism. Schelling developed this approach, originally, but he used it ti determine the phenomenal / noumenal divide in terms object / subject.

Apparently this particular approach had been forgotten. I took it and simplified, improved, the dynamism to illustrate the divide in terms being and nothingness, using eleatic metaphysics to illustrate it in specific terms.

I suppose the other fellows reading through this patent sufficiently schooled in metaphysics to realize the significance in this movement. It is the most logical approach to kants noumena to date.

And hence my belief that my treatise earns historical significance.

I just desperately need in graduate school so I can study and research full time. For years..! Frankly I don't give a damn if it be nyu or... Arizona. As long as it would give me the opportunity to do what I need to do.

If I don't get in, I will be publishing academically for next year.

Thanks for the advice, actually.

[ancientatcontinental]

Philhopeful's comments were very nice and generous.  I hope you get into a nice program.  That attitude will help when teaching.

 

Still, I think it would be best for Findley to stop wasting his own time.  People have been suggesting that Findley here apply to continental programs.  I have to say, it doesn't matter; this application will not make it into any Ph.D. programs.  It's not like only the top 20 programs have a boatload of applicants; smaller, continental, pluralistic, etc. programs also often get 300 or more applicants. It's standard to eliminate any applicants which don't meet certain GRE and GPA minimums (e.g. at my continental/history of philosophy department, they eliminate any GRE's below the 90th percentile in verbal).  Letters of recommendation are a must.

 

Moreover, Findley, your attitude is terrible.  Graduate school is a professional program.  You don't like that?  Then don't apply.  You want people to send you money just because you think you're smart?  It's not going to happen; this is not how graduate programs work.  I aspire to someday be a philosopher, but my graduate program does not somehow give me that.  I work hard and do this because I like teaching, I like scholarship, I like the environment, and I love philosophy.  For me, I think of graduate school as a necessary but not sufficient condition to being a philosopher, a teacher, a scholar, etc.  Other people perhaps can do without it - great!  But for me, I need to work on these things, and even getting through grad school is no guarantee that I will be talented at any of them, I do not think I would be able to do any of those things without it.

 

Also, a lot of people have been very nice, and giving your 'book' the benefit of the doubt.  Sorry, but it's terrible (and not even close to what a dissertation in continental philosophy looks like).  On the very first page you start with an Heidegger misquote with no citations.  Heidegger says, at the beginning of his Introduction to Metaphysics lecture series (1935): "why are there beings rather than nothing?".  I am not a Heideggerian, but this is just egregious (keep in mind that one of Heidegger's most famous positions is that there is a difference between Being and beings!).  Then there is clearly an extended case of not knowing what words mean - phenomena, noumena, dynamism, etc.  You talk about things being "Eleatic" or "Hegelian", but there is clearly no attention to what Parmenides or Hegel actually said (or poor Schelling!).  Lastly, this is the 21st fricking century - stop it with the gender biases in your writing!  Oh, is MAN the culimination of 'metaphysical dialectic'?  Seriously, this is merely sexist.  Your work is not just poor scholarship, it's poor philosophy.

 

My advice. If you really want to be a philosophy professor, then this is what you have to do:

 

Stop wasting your money and time on applying to Ph.D. programs.  Your only bet is to rework your application completely and apply to MA programs (one of the ones you have to pay for, because funded MA's are just as competitive as Ph.D.'s).  Totally change your attitude.  Throw out all your own 'philosophic research'.  Genuinely let it go.  Devote yourself to scholarship for a while - read the classics, read commentaries on them.  Research small-scale questions, or investigate the history of philosophy.  I am all for breadth, but in your case you have sacrificed all depth.  Hell, just pick out a single work and take your time figuring out what is really being said here - use secondarily literature as well!

 

This is obviously not what you want to hear, but you should know that you are not going to get into any programs.  If you apply to more schools next year with the same application, you still will not get into any programs.  You are wasting your time and money.  You need to completely change things from the ground up, and even then you're going to have to work your way up from the bottom of the field.

 

My guess is that none of this is palatable for you.  Ok, then do something else with your life.  Sorry, academia is incredibly competitive.  It's bloated with talented and hard working students who didn't write off their early modern philosophy professors.  Every year, there are so many great and smart applicants who don't get in, and a lot of them even do everything 'right' (sorry everyone!).  And this is just the beginning.  What about when you want to apply for fellowships?  When you need to teach courses?  Adjuncting?  How about that dreaded job market?

 

You want somebody to fund your studying?  Get a part time job and live within your means.  Take your free time to study.  Hell, most graduate programs pay you well below the poverty line anyway!  And adjunct professors get paid so far below minimum wage it's atrocious (e.g. $3000 to teach a course that meets three days a week).  You think you don't need all this academic bullshit, then don't deal with it.

 

Maybe he is a troll though!  If that were so, then I acknowledge the greatness of the trolling and am glad to be fooled.

Edited November 30, 2013 by ancientatcontinental

[Seeking]

Dfindley,

 

You need to understand some pragmatic aspects - 

 

You may be right about points, ranks etc taking precedence over pure research, but that's how it is and the Graduate School is not going to change because an applicant says so. If you want to get into their program, play by their rule. 

 

When you actually reach the Professorial rank, you can begin to change the system your way. But as long as you are on the receiving end, you can't change the system. Till the time you become a Professor, you have to play by their rules, or you don't get there - it's as simple as that.

 

1) So, I would say, postpone your application till next year. This year, take a couple of non-degree credit courses in your area of research and do well in those courses. This will also give you the two more referees you need at the moment and you will be able to show  better grades in the area you want to research in.

 

2) Further, it's true that your book may be ground breaking, but the academia looks at the publisher's name on the front page before reading the book. Therefore, the suggestion given above is really good that you should send your book to two professors in your discipline to get comments about how to revise your book for a publication from a well-known publisher. Revise the manuscript according to those comments and send it for publication to a well-known publisher.

 

If your book is ground breaking, some or other good publisher will definitely publish it. You may have to contact several publishers before you get accepted by one and you may have to face rejection by a few, but you'll make it if your book is good. Tell the publishers that you have sought comments from scholars and have revised the book following those comments.

 

Use this year to do all this. Then, next year you will be ready to apply to Graduate school with a book accepted for publication by a well-known publisher, with better grades and with 3 references.

 

3) Finally, you should take into account the fact that your ideas may be innovative, but it's not possible to elaborate upon all your innovative thoughts in a 2 page personal statement, which is the most important part of the application. Writing sample also helps, but they usually don't have the time to read through every sentence in depth to understand the innovative thoughts that have gone into making of the writing sample. They have about 300 applications to go through. They will most probably skim through your writing sample to see if you have the potential to write academic papers and will look at your personal statement.

 

So, I would say apply next year to whatever school in the US you want to go to, but also apply to UK and some European universities. This is because in Europe you have to submit a full-fledged research proposal instead of a personal statement. A research proposal will give you the opportunity to highlight your theoretical arguments and to discuss how you want to further explore these ideas. besides, in a research proposal you also have to show how your research is innovative and ground breaking.

 

Because of the nature of the application format in Europe, I think your application will be more successful in Europe than in the US. And if you apply to top ranked universities in UK and in EU, you can get a job in the US with that degree.

Edited November 30, 2013 by Seeking

[Cottagecheeseman]

Ancientatcontinental, You're my Hero!

[bar_scene_gambler]

^Ditto. Thanks for adding another voice of reason ancientatcontinental, and well said.

[dfindley]

You're all so pathetic.

[Seeking]

Ok, go ahead and apply and see how it goes.

[Cottagecheeseman]

Dfindly, whyd you gotta throw those ad hominem attacks everywhere?

[sacklunch]

When people stop down voting you know it's all over...  

[quackademic]

You're all so pathetic.

^ most ironic post

[DHumeDominates]

Sorry to bump this, I just saw it referenced in another thread and has to see what the hub-bub was.

 

First of all, I don't think this is a troll. I've met a lot of philosophy majors that act this way, get bad grades, have enormous egos, and not very much respect from their teachers; they do things on the interwebs to make themselves look awesome, like publishing their own work, and feel greatly abused by the system that fails to recognize their awesomeness. In other words, I know this attitude when I see it.

 

Secondly, I have some actual helpful advice for Findley:

I have a fantastic GPA, I have fantastic GRE scores, I have fantastic letters of recommendation. My coursework spans about a dozen disciplines and I have a second major in a scientific discipline, also with an excellent GPA. I have research and teaching experience already. My innovative ideas in papers were taken and pushed for publication by my professors, in reputable journals, allowing the work to speak for itself. In addition I wrote something wholly new and risky for my application essay. I do not feel confident I will be accepted even with all of this. This is the sort of thing you're competing against. It's hard to believe that you have really tried as hard as someone like me and yet you feel entitled to at least the same consideration. I have a slightly higher opinion of the people who look at our applications, and I always expect that no matter how good I look, there are several more people with far more awesome writing samples and credentials. I'm just trying to keep it real.

 

dfindley has been banned from Grad Cafe. Everyone knows he's a complete failure.

[philosophe]

dfindley has been banned from Grad Cafe. Everyone knows he's a complete failure.

 

I'm actually glad this thread has been bumped... even though I've seen DFindley's ridiculous comments in other threads, I hadn't seen where it all began! What a good read.

 

loling all over the place. 

[Cottagecheeseman]

Someone posted this on another site and I just had to repost here!