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Reflections on the Philosophy Graduate Admissions Process

Well, I'm glad that's over.

On Wednesday, I accepted an offer of almost full funding from the UC Irvine philosophy department. By "almost" I mean that I was waitlisted for funding and the spot I got was actually a California resident spot, so what would have been my stipend is being used to pay for the out of state tuition. This only affects the first year, since it only takes a year to establish residency in California.

When I was applying and waiting anxiously and so forth, I wasn't able to find many resources online that were helpful, so I thought that I would post what I have learned over the last year for the benefit of everyone else who is looking for this sort of information. First, I'm going to give the strong and weak points of my application so there will be some context, and then I'll say what happened in terms of results and when.

Strong Points

These are the factors that I think were in favor of my application.

• Publications


• Perfect scores on GRE Math and Critical Writing


• Undergrad at Penn (rated 27 for philosophy grad school on Philosophical Gourmet and 5 for undergraduate education on US News and World Report)


• Recommendation from a very widely known and well respected scholar of ancient philosophy


• 3.88 major GPA


• Additional majors in classical studies (with Greek language and literature emphasis) and computer science


• Graduate work in ancient philosophy and contemporary metaphysics

Weak Points

There are the factors that I think were against my application.

• 680 verbal - a little low for a philosopher


• Relatively low overall GPA (3.52), mostly due to science and Greek langauge classes


• Limited background in contemporary philosophy (Penn has traditionally been a very historical department), but said I wanted to do metaphysics


• Other two recommendations both from assistant professors (at one of the schools I visited, someone asked me why, given my work and interest in early modern philosophy, I didn't have a recommendation from a particular Penn scholar in that area - he didn't know that the scholar in question hasn't taught a course in early modern since I've been here!)


• "Two body problem" - Lauren and I had to find somewhere we could go together, which limited options both in terms of applying and accepting (of course we knew this was going to happen before we decided to get married; we decided to just deal with it).


• Questionable match for some departments. My principle interest is in historical and contemporary metaphysics. The historical periods I am interested in are ancient and early modern. I'm especially interested in idealism, and I'm also interested in philosophical theology. I said all of this in my personal statement. Ancient and early modern are the strong points of my record, but I thought I might want to focus on contemporary metaphysics, so I was trying to apply to programs that were good in (at least) early modern and contemporary metaphysics. Some of the programs I applied to may not have thought they matched my interests very well. Also, I felt that I needed to explain my approach to philosophical theology, to show that I wanted to really do philosophy and not what I call "apologetics in the bad sense" (by this I mean that I actually wanted to learn things and not just make up arguments for things that I already knew to be true). The amount of space devoted to philosophical theology in my personal statement may have hurt me at schools that don't really do philosophical theology.


• Another potential weakness that I feel the need to mention, because people who know more than I do have thought it would be an issue, is that I hold various positions that are considered rather unorthodox in contemporary analytic philosophy: most importantly, Christianity, and idealism (I don't list libertarianism, because I'm not going into political philosophy). It is possible that this was a stroke against me at some schools, but I sincerely hope it wasn't. Philosophers cannot afford this sort of dogmatism.


• There was simply an enormous applicant pool this year. Most of the top programs told me they had over 100 applicants - in several cases over 200 - for fewer than 10 spots. Some schools saw an increase in applicants this year of as much as 50% over last year. When I list schools I applied to, I'll mention specific numbers where I have them.

Selecting Schools

I began talking to professors about where to apply when I was a Sophomore or a Junior. The most important thing I can recommend is to get to know the contemporary literature and look for where the philosophers you like are located. You should also consult The Philosophical Gourmet (PG) (including the specialtization rankings) and your professors. In retrospect, I suspect that it would be good, especially if you have recommendations from professors who are not well known, to apply to places where your recommenders have connections. It may be worth applying to departments that are not on the PG rankings at all, because even the schools that are near the bottom can be pretty competitive.

Results

As everyone probably knows, application deadlines are mostly between Dec. 1 and Jan. 15. So, here's where I applied and what happened:

School	PG Ranking	Initial Result	Final Result	Notes
Rutgers University	2	Rejected via conventional mail March 12
Princeton University	3	Rejected via e-mail March 5
Stanford University	6	Vague responses to repeated email inquiries; finally got unofficial rejection in response to an email on April 8; official rejection via postal mail today (April 18)		Approximately 180 applicants for 8 spots
Harvard University	7	Rejected in response to email inquiry March 5		Approximately 240 applicants. They didn't say how many spots there were, but they list 52 current graduate students (if I can count) on their web-site, so probably about 10 spots.
UCLA	7	Rejected via email February 22
UC Berkeley	12	Wait-listed via email March 17	I told them I was very interested in their program but probably couldn't come because Lauren had been rejected by their physics department. I did not hear from them again after this.
University of Southern California	16	Wait-listed via email February 27	Rejected via email April 13	I don't know how many students applied, but the word I got (through unofficial channels) is that they made 9 offers and all 9 offers were accepted. I was the first of two students on the wait list.
Yale University	16	Rejected via email February 25		In a cover letter to my writing sample (I used the version of this paper which was reduced to meet the 10,000 word limit for Religious Studies), I asked that it be brought to the particular attention of Kenneth Winkler, since it criticizes an assertion he makes in his book Berkeley: An Interpretation. This gambit evidently did not pay off.
UC Irvine	20	Accepted via email January 30; told that the graduate chair would be "working on putting together a financial offer for" me.	Offered partial funding via phone on April 15 (see below)
UC Davis	35	Accepted with full funding via email February 22; received funding details via email February 28	Turned them down because their physics department isn't any good
Boston University	50	Wait-listed (position 7 or so) in response to email inquiry on March 12	See below	Over 200 applicants for 6 spots

Lauren and I thought we were doing pretty good when we both got in to UC Irvine before the end of January. There was a period of relief. Irvine and Davis both paid for me to visit them in March (note: when you do this, you will be expected to pay for your airfare out of pocket and it can take several weeks to be reimbursed), and I liked both departments. Lauren got in to a wide variety of physics programs and spent a lot of time flying hither and yon. At some of these places, she mentioned that we were getting married, and that she wouldn't be able to come unless I got in there or somewhere nearby, and in several cases the physics department wrote to the philosophy department, but it doesn't seem to have done much good so late in the admissions process. I wonder if it would have been better to mention the "two body" issue up front. The reason we didn't is that we had been advised by professors at Penn that there is still a lot of discrimination against women in physics and it is much worse for married women. Accordingly, we decided not to bring this up until after Lauren was accepted.

When I visited UC Irvine, we were told that, due to the UC system budget crisis, there was not yet funding available. Six letters were in the process of being sent out. I was confident that I was one of them. When I didn't hear anything I wrote to the graduate chair and was told that I in fact offered position 17. Meanwhile, I was in contact with USC where I was in position 1 on the waitlist for admission with funding. When Lauren visited Davis it became clear that this wasn't going to work for us, so I was counting on USC. Boston U got thrown into the mix as well, which wouldn't have been a particularly great option, comparatively speaking, were it not for the fact that Lauren got in to Harvard.

You are ordinarily expected to make a decision on which school you will attend by April 15. Come the middle of April, I was still sitting on wait lists. This was the point at which the process became really stressful. Lauren managed to get extensions from the three schools she was serious considering, depending on where I got in, until the 17th. On the 13th I was rather shocked to be rejected by USC. I emailed UCI and Boston again, a little bit panicked. I started looking at technical jobs in the Boston area, and evaluating the possibility of reapplying after a year. I got conflicting advice from Penn professors on reapplying. When UCI and Boston didn't get back to me I called them on the 14th. By this point I had learned that there were only two or three people ahead of me at UCI and that, in the past, when other departments hadn't filled all of their spots at UCI the funding had sometimes gone to the philosophy department, so I was guardedly optimistic again. I had heard on March 31 that 2 of the 6 spots at Boston were already filled. When I called I learned that that number was now up to 4, but couldn't get an exact number on how many people were ahead of me. I was told that one of the two people who had an offer outstanding had been "unresponsive" as they were trying to get a hold of him, so the process might continue through the 16th.

I called both places again shortly after noon (east coast time) on the 15th. No news. Finally, shortly after 10AM California time (1:00PM here on the east coast) the graduate chair for UCI called me and said that he had an offer of almost full funding for me, and described the details. He said he needed an answer immediately. I said I needed to talk to Lauren and to Boston University. When I pressed for time, he told me that he had classes to teach that would occupy him from 11AM to 5PM, and before that point he had to either start the paperwork for me or call the next person on the wait list, so I would have to get back to him within 30 minutes. I'm not making this up. Fortunately, Lauren wasn't in class, and I had her financial offer from UCLA (which is where she is going) handy, and we had already investigated commutes and such pretty thoroughly, so I was able to get a hold of Lauren on the phone, and we decided that if Boston did not have a fully-funded offer for me I would accept this one (we weren't sure what we were going to do if they did have an offer). I called Boston, and everything was still up in the air, so I accepted at Irvine.

An interesting note: on the 14th, Lauren wrote to UCI's physics department telling them that she wouldn't be coming because (among other factors) I still had not received any funding. Very shortly after I received my funding offer, the physics department contacted her to ask if she would be able to come now that I had funding. The physics department was recruiting her fairly aggressively; it is not clear whether this had anything to do with the resolution to my funding situation.

This post has been mostly narrative, because my experience is mostly all I have to draw on in terms of advice on the process. In retrospect, here is what I would do differently:

1. Begin working as closely as possible with tenured faculty members as early as possible, and get recommendations from them


2. Tailor my personal statement more closely to individual programs - don't dwell on subject areas that none of the program's faculty is interested in


3. Networking - try to develop actual connections to other departments, through participating in conferences or writing to philosophers whose work you are doing research on

It all worked out alright for me in the end, by the grace of God (there were a lot of people praying). Best of luck to everyone else!

Official Xebra Launch Announcement

Today my employer, Hx Technologies (which, of course, does not endorse this blog in any way, shape, or form), officially announced the launch of Xebra as a free open source project available on SourceForge. Xebra is a complete platform for distributing and viewing DICOM medical images. It is written in pure Java and hence platform independent (well, at least it runs on any platform that can run Java 1.6 which unfortunately at present does not include Mac OS X).

I have been working on the Xebra project on and off with one other developer for about a year and a half now, and the GUI is looking pretty slick. Unfortunately, the install process is still a bit involved. Anyone who is used to downloading projects from SourceForge will probably have no problems, however, and Xebra uses a Java WebStart-based thin-client, so installation is required only on the server. It is my hope that we will have a demo server available eventually, but I'm not sure when that will be. I realize, however, that a lot of non-technical people read this blog, so you may not be used to running your own servers and compiling things from source, but I encourage you all to at least check out our nifty screenshots.

Paper #2: For Real This Time

Before I left last week, I sent in to Religious Studies the final draft of my paper "The Semantics of Sense Perception in Berkeley," which they have accepted for publication. The paper discusses the meaning of the "universal language of the Author of Nature" Berkeley argues for in the Essay Toward a New Theory of Vision and elsewhere. Essentially, the question I try to begin to answer is "if sense perception is a language by which God speaks to us, then what is he saying?" (I say "begin" because I have not developed a detailed semantic theory, but only offered some considerations with regard to what kind of content the perceptual language must have and how its semantics resembles the semantics of human languages.) The paper had to be cut down from about 13,000 words to just under 10,000 to meet Religious Studies' length limit and these journals sometimes take rather a long time to publish, so I intend to get the long version nicely fromatted and PDF'd to post here sometime soon. I want to get a link up to my first paper first so they're in order, but The Dualist still hasn't come out. If they delay much longer I'll just post my own version.

Introducing Guest-Blogger Lauren!

So, now that I've started blogging regularly again (at least for the last three days or so), I'm leaving town and going to be away from the computer for about five days. However, there is good news! This, I think, will be an excellent opportunity to hand over the reins to my lovely fiance, Lauren. (I expect she will continue to blog occasionally after I come back, but I figured this was a good time to start.) Lauren is entering her senior year at Penn, majoring in physics, math, and philosophy. She's been instructed to stick roughly to the general subject areas ordinarily discussed on this blog (but that can be interpreted a bit broadly), so I'm hoping she'll tell us about some of the philosophical insights we can get from physics, or vice versa. Additionally, Lauren, like me, is an amateur Bible scholar/theologian, and often picks up things I miss in these areas. In particular, she is much more knowledgable than I on the subject of Reformation-era theology (this probably has something to do with her Presbyterian pedigree). Political issue are, of course, always on-topic on this blog as well.

Lauren and I met through Campus Crusade for Christ at Penn. The wedding is set for August 2, 2008.

Kenneth L. Pearce, BA BAS

You may have noticed that posting has been extremely light lately. I haven't been busy so much as disoriented. Graduation was last week (whence the title of this post!), my assorted housemates have been moving out, I've done some moving myself already, and am going to finish moving this evening. However, I'm not starting work for another few weeks, so once I get settled down in my new place and my head stops spinning, I expect there to be a flurry of postings. Here are some things you can look for over the next few weeks:

• I've already started writing a rather substantial post entitled "Libertarianism Under Uncertainty and Prohibiting Abortion."


• The U.S. Supreme Court has granted cert for the Washington primary system case. Arguments will be heard in the upcoming season. With luck the modified blanket primary could be reinstated in time for the '08 election. The State's brief and the Grange's brief are available online (so far I've read the State's, but not the Grange's), and I expect the political parties will have responses soon, so I will hopefully be writing some analysis of these arguments soon.


• I'm hoping to actually write down the blogging rules that I've been making exceptions to. That doesn't mean I'll stop making exceptions to them, but at least they'll be written down so visitors can find out what ordinarily goes on on this blog. Besides, I have to have rules in order to break rules!


• It's been brought to my attention that my analysis of Carl Trueman's comments on gender attitudes in "Reformed church culture" as applied to the Christian community at Penn was overly simplistic. This resulted from my only accounting for people's stated considered positions on moral and spiritual obligations with regard to gender roles, and ignoring gut reactions, jokes, etc. I may try to correct the analysis, because I'm curious about the etiology of radically conservative views on gender roles (I consider myself a moderate), and whether the anecdotal evidence I can provide from here lines up with what people have seen elsewhere.


• Lauren studies physics, math, and philosophy. I'm hoping to get her set up for a little guest blogging in the near future (now that we're all official and stuff!). I intend to try to convince her not to run too far afield of the normal subject matter of this blog, but hopefully she will be able to apply her physics knowledge to some of the issues that are discussed here. (She's been correcting my erroneous statements about physics on this blog for two years now!) In particular, I'm hoping that she'll be writing on something along the lines of "the argument for indeteminism from physics," and that this will be comprehensible to those of us who don't do abstract algebra or similar fancy math whiz stuff.

Additionally, I'd like to give you all a little more information about what I'm going to be doing for the next year as it will effect blogging. (This is not an exception to my blogging rules, because of the "as it will effect blogging" qualification - but my blogging rules, which I have yet to write down, are purely arbitrary anyway, so I suppose it doesn't really matter.)

I'll be remaining in Philadelphia this year, writing software. As I previously mentioned, I'm not working right now. I'll be working a few weeks in June, then going on vacation, then starting for real on August 1. The effect of work on my blogging habits is unpredictable: on the one hand, when I'm not in school, I don't have any other outlet for my thoughts, nor am I required to read or write anything (well, I have to write things in Java, but not in English). On the other hand, when I am working 40 hours a week programming, I typically don't much feel like sitting in front of a computer screen any more when I get home. I think that in the past the net result has been that I am less likely to keep up with reading other blogs and responding to them, but more likely to blog on philosophy or other books I am reading.

Lauren has another year at Penn (which is high on my list of reasons for hanging around). We're planning the wedding for summer of 2008. I'll be applying to begin a Ph.D. program in philosophy in the fall of 2008. Lauren will be applying to programs in physics, also beginning in fall of 2008.

In the intervening year, I will most certainly be continuing to study philosophy, because I don't know what I would do if I stopped. I also will probably have more time for biblical studies and such, and so I'll probably be posting on both philosophy and theology, as before. Here is a partial reading list in philosophy that I hope to get through in the coming year:

First, I hope to finish the following books that I have already begun:

• Peter van Inwagen, Material Beings


• Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana


• David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds

I also hope to get to the following books (some of which I am rather embarrassed not to have read yet):

• G.W.F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit


• John Locke, Second Treatise on Government


• Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity


• Augustine, Confessions


• Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume 2


• Peter van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will


• George Berkeley, Siris

Those aren't in any particular order, and I may change my mind about which books to read in my time away from the university here, but these should give you some taste of what I expect to be blogging about in the next year here. I will also consider requests for blogging topics, or suggestions for books to add to the list.

Important Announcement!

So, I normally make it a rule not to post anything of a personal nature on this blog and, likewise, with one notable exception (it was snowing on the Parthenon!), not to post photos. However, as we all know, rules were made to be broken.

This is a picture of a diamond ring. The beautiful woman wearing the diamond ring is Lauren. We haven't set a date yet.

"The Life and Death of Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare

Tonight, my proposal to direct Shakespeare's "The Life and Death of Julius Caesar" was officially approved as the Underground Shakespeare Company's 2007 main fall show. Auditions will be open to all.

Plot Summary: Rome. March 15, 709 AUC (44 BC). After decades of bloody civil war, the Populist Party has seized the city by force and installed its leader, General C. Julius Caesar, as consul for life, effectively giving him absolute power. A group of Constitutionalists led by Senator C. Cassius Longinus (C-Syria) plot the assassination of Caesar and the restoration of the ancestral constitution. They believe their plot can be successful if only they can gain the support of the immensely popular independent, Senator M. Junius Brutus (I-Cisalpine Gaul). However, they have forgotten to account for one factor: the powerful rehtoric of the young upstart Senator M. Antonius (P-Italy). As the Roman mob sways back and forth under the manipulation of the divided senate, Rome descends again into chaos, riots, and, ultimately, civil war.

My First Academic Journal Paper!

Last night I received word that a paper I wrote entitled "The Ontological Status of Dreams in Berkeleian Metaphysics" has been accepted for publication by The Dualist! The paper argues that the characteristics of dream perceptions by which we, in practice, distinguish them from waking perceptions prevent dream perceptions from functioning as a language in the way Berkeley believes waking perceptions do and thus provide a principled grounding for an ontological distinction between dreams and waking life. The dream characteristics used are based on the four tests proposed by Leibniz in his "On the Method of Distinguishing Real From Imaginary Phenomena." When the journal comes out it will be available online. I'll post a link as soon as it is up (I understand it may be a few months before that happens).

The Evangelical Libertarian Classicist?

It's official! Ok, so actually it's not official, but it's true: having just submitted my last assignment for my Attic tragedy class, I have completed all of my major requirements for classical studies (Greek language and literature emphasis). One down, two to go...

This is also my last assignment for my semester in Greece. On Friday I'll be heading back to Philadelphia where I will be working as a 'software engineer' for Hx Technologies this summer, then back to Penn for another year to finish up my other two majors in computer science and philosophy.

There may be lighter blogging when I first get back to Philadelphia because of (a) not wanting to spend more time in front of a computer after doing that for 40 hours a week for work, and (b) possibly having erratic Internet access when not at work until June 1 or so, but I'll try to keep updating at least occasionally.

Greetings from Athens!

On Monday afternoon, I arrived in Athens, Greece, where I am studying this semester at DIKEMES, the International Center for Hellenic and Mediterranean Studies (the ackronym is Greek). Since "what I did to day" blogs are a pet peeve of mine, I will not be expending a great deal of effort to report my activites here. However, I do want to give my readers some idea of how this will effect my blogging.

The first and most obvious result is that, as I am studying ancient Greek literature, I will be quite likely to blog a great deal more about that issue than I ordinarily do. Additionally, I am taking a class on the Orthodox Church, so Greek Orthodox theology may be another topic I blog on with some frequency.

The other issue, of course, is the amount of blogging I am able to do. I am not sure precisely how this will be effected. I don't have internet access in my apartment here, but I have access from the DIKEMES academic center, and I have long gaps in my class schedule during which I may have spare time. I expect my classes to be less work than at Penn, and I also have fewer extracurricular responsibilities. On the other hand, I am in GREECE, and will quite likely have better things to do than write on my blog much of the time. There have also been some technical difficulties (the wireless network here is extremely unreliable, so I'm plugged in to the wall at the moment) that have prevented me from writing up to this point.

And now, since I am in Athens, the obligatory picture of the Parthenon. This picture was taken from the balcony of the DIKEMES academic center where I am studying (click for a larger image):

You will notice that the sky is rather white, making the Parthenon a little difficult to see on the picture: this is because for the last 48 hours it's been SNOWING. I didn't get any snow in Palouse or Philadelphia this year, but it finally caught up with me over here on the Mediterranean.

Shakespeare!

I apologize for the lack of real content on this blog recently. I've been very busy working on the Underground Shakespeare Company's production of "Titus Andronicus", which opens tonight! Those of you who are at Penn (or otherwise in the Philly area) should come out and see it. Details here. Once the show is over at the end of this weekend I should hopefully have more time for everything, including blogging (once I catch up on the school work I'm getting behind on during this show). In particular, look for a post on "Creation science" in the near future.

The Future of This Blog

In case you hadn't noticed, this blog has been awefully sparse for the past few months. I had an extremely busy semester and not much time for blogging. It is now summer (that is, the spring semester of school is over), and working 40 hours a week and having Saturdays and Sundays off and not taking work home in the evenings is sounding restful. So, in this post I'd like to give some idea on what sorts of things will be influencing my topics over the course of the summer, and then comment briefly on a few issues I missed.

• This summer I'm going to try to dive back in to some serious intellectual Bible study. I'm currently in the middle of studies on Isaiah and John the Beloved (covering his life and the four books that bear his name, but probably not the Revelation), so I'll be working (and perhaps blogging) on those.
• I'm going to try to read as much of the New Testament in Greek as I can. I've gotten through about 4/5 of Matthew already (over the course of the last year), and I'm hoping (optimistically) to make it to the end of the gospels by the end of the summer.
• At present, I have a list of philosophers whom I dislike without ever having read. This is bad. I'm going to try to eleminate it by reading them all. The names on the list are Wittgenstein and Hegel (for whom I have a mild distaste) and also Nietzsche (whom I rather despise). So I will be reading Wittgenstein's On Certainty and Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, and probably also something by Hegel (haven't determined what as yet).
• I'm also going to try to eliminate what I see as some important holes in my knowledge of philosophy by reading Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and Locke's Second Treatise on Government (and probably the first while I'm at it).

I may be blogging on any or all (or none) of these things over the course of the summer. Now, here (as promised) are the important issues I missed:

• Terri Schiavo: This was a complicated issue; I don't think it was nearly as cut and dried as most of the Evangelical bloggers I read seemed to. We can't keep people alive on life support forever, it just doesn't make sense. If they are really gone, we have to let them go. On the other hand, removing a feeding tube is much different than turning off a heart and lung machine. The big issue, I thought, was that her "husband" fathered children by another woman while she was in the hospital. This, I think, should have invalidated the marriage leaving her in the custody of her parents. I don't believe that the ends ever justify the means - I am a non-consequentialist - and so I must condemn the actions of the Republicans in Congress on this issue as they flagrantly disregarded the Constitution.

• Pope Benedict XVI: What a great guy. I'm enthusiastic about the new Pope. He seems solid. From what I can tell, he takes Scripture seriously and views the Church councils as a tradition of Biblical interpretation rather than an independent authority. Good stuff.

• Beth Stroud (momentarily) Reinstated: (See the great interview at WesleyBlog). What a mess. I can't understand why there is any question about this. If an individual who claims to be a Christian and is a member of the church is unrepentant about sexual practices that do not conform to Biblical standards we are required by Scripture to excommunicate him (see 1 Corinthians 5). In fact, this is one of only two cases where the New Testament contains explicit instructions to excommunicate an individual (the other being Titus 3:10-11, "Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned.") This is a paradigm case for Scriptural excommunication. Note, however, that excommunication is rarely, if ever, practiced properly. Jesus views it as a way of motivating people to repent, not as unlovingly excluding them (Matthew 18:15-20). The point is for the Church to show quite clearly that it does not condone the individual's actions, and in so doing to hopefully motivate the individual to repent, at which time he is to be admitted back into the Church, preferably to a celebration along the lines of the Prodigal Son. Why is this not being practised? a) People don't read the Bible, and b) people don't believe the Bible. The Church needs to start taking Scripture seriously again and practicing what it says.

I think those are all the critical things I've missed. Hopefully I can keep up on events as they happen from now on (at least for the rest of the summer)!

Ever Wondered What Things are Like Where I Come From?

You can read about it in the Times today. This is an excellent and accurate description of what things are like in Eastern Washington (in the context of a discussion of the Washington gubernatorial election, in which, according to the Secretary of State's office, Republican Dino Rossi won the machine recount by a mere 42 votes, the closest election in Washington's history, and a manual recount is now underway). Enjoy!

Underground Marlowe Company?

The Underground Shakespeare Company's main fall production, Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, featuring yours truly, opens this Thursday at 8PM in the rooftop lounge of Harnwell College House here at Penn. Click here for more info.

Penn HumanitiesForum/Class Schedule

A long overdue update on factors which will determine the content of my non-political postings over the next semester/year:

1. The first meeting of the Penn Undergraduate Humanities Forum was today. I was awarded a year-long research fellowship with the Humanities Forum last spring after submitting a research proposal. This year's theme is "Sleep and Dreams" and I will be doing research on my favorite philosopher, George Berkeley to determine how his philosophy of immaterialism ("To be is to be perceived," roughly equivalent to Schopenhauer's "To be object is to be object for a subject," but easier to understand since he is an 18th century English philosopher instead of a post-Kantian German philosopher) can deal with the fact that we perceive things in dreams which we would like to say are not real. Here is the text of my proposal:

         In an attempt to rebut the atheism and skepticism of his contemporaries, the early 18th century British philosopher George Berkeley proposed a theory he referred to as “immaterialism” (others would later call it “idealism”) the physical world is made up not of matter as an independent entity but of ideas, and as such exists only so long as there is a mind perceiving it. This solves all sorts of philosophical problems, but raises several of its own. One of these is the question of false perceptions. In dreams, for instance, we perceive many things which we want to say are not actually real and, as Descartes had pointed out earlier, we often have difficulty distinguishing between dreams and waking life. Berkeley's answer to this, in brief, is that we would not even pose the question unless we somehow perceived the unreality of dreams, and this perception, like all others, is part of that stuff of which reality is made. Berkeley also suggests that the perceptions we have of the real world are ideas impressed upon our minds by God, whereas dreams might be considered to be internally generated.

         While this is the beginning of a solution, it is by no means complete. If we perceive a difference between dreams and waking life, what is that difference, what faculty of the mind is responsible for our perception of it, and why is it not always accurate? In those cases where it is not accurate, and we do not know correctly whether we are asleep or awake, what has caused this failure? How can Berkeley explain these failures within the framework of his immaterialism? Is he forced to concede that dreams have some degree of metaphysical reality? If so, what makes waking life more real than the world of dreams? Is it really even coherent to say that one thing is “more real” than another?

         These questions only scratch the surface of the inquiries required in order to create a complete philosophical theory of dreams consistent with Berkeley's metaphysics. To this end, I propose to delve further into this topic under the title “Are Dreams Real?” The intention of this research will be to examine George Berkeley's own philosophical writings and the writings of his contemporaries as well as those of later idealists in order to arrive at a functional neo-Berkeleyan metaphysics of dreams. By terming the theory I am looking for “neo-Berkeleyan” I understand a number of restraints to be placed upon it, in order to make it consistent with Berkeley's own principles. First, it must not posit matter as an inert, non-thinking substance existing outside of any mind. Second, it must be consistent with basic Christian doctrine and a simple, straightforward interpretation of the Christian Scriptures (however, my research will center on the writings of modern philosophers and especially Berkeley himself rather than on the Bible). Finally, the theory must be consistent with “common sense,” which is to say that upon having constructed our theory we must be able to continue speaking about dreams in the way people ordinarily do without contradicting the theory – when we dream we must leave reality, and when we wake we must return to it.

2. My class schedule. I should have posted this sooner but didn't. I'm taking two philosophy class, Intro to Ancient Philosophy, and Formal Logic II. I'm also taking Greek and two courses in computer science, but it is unlikely (though not impossible) that these will inspire anything posted here. In fact, it's probably also unlikely that I'll post anything about formal logic. It is, however, quite likely that I will post on ancient philosophy periodically. For instance, right now I am posting the observation that Parmenides of Elea holds very similar views to Immanuel Kant and I don't understand how it could be possible that my TA doesn't see that.

Once the political season is over, these are the things that will likely be determining the content of my posting. Enjoy :)

Penn Humanities Forum

Good news! I've been selected as an Undergraduate Fellow of the Penn Humanities Forum. As part of the humanities forum, I will be doing research on metaphysical idealism generally and George Berkeley specifically to determine how such theories can deal with dreams, and whether or not an idealist must consent that dreams have some degree of reality. I'll be working on this beginning next fall and presenting my research next spring.

undergroundshakespeare.com

So the Underground Shakespeare Company's "Merchant of Venice" which I performed in this past weekend was decidedly successful and a lot of fun. Somewhere along the way I found myself becoming the company's webmaster. I can't take credit for the site, as most of it was already in place when I got it, but I am now working on some updates, upgrades, and revisions. Check it out at undergroundshakespeare.com.

Status Report

The Northwest is covered in massive snow! We measured the snow on the ground in our yard at seven inches this afternoon, and it is supposed to continue to fall for quite a while.

I was in the Tri-Cities the last couple of days, and made it back alive. Tons of snow there too. Yesterday (Jan. 1) evening I was driving down I-82 from Richland to Pasco (going less than 35 MPH on the 70 MPH freeway) and hit black ice and spun around in circles and hit the cement dividing wall. Bent up my bumper a bit, knocked off my front license plate (optional in Washington anyway). No real damage to me or the car.

I got all the way from the Pasco to Palouse (over 100 miles) without incident this afternoon, then going around the corner to my house I slid off the road into my own yard and got stuck, so I left my car there. Very convenient place to slide off the road. Snow is fun, but not for driving!

Latest News

• As of 3:30 yesterday (Thursday 12/18) afternoon, I am all done with finals. Hurray! The classes I just finished are Greek, Calculus, Physics, and Jewish Law and Ethics.
• I'll be getting home for break around 11 or 12 tomorrow (Saturday 12/20) night.
• I was just cast to play Lorenzo in the Underground Shakespeare Company's production of "The Merchant of Venice" next semester. Exciting!
• I'm flying back here to Philadelphia on January 11th. The classes I am taking next semester are History of Modern Philosophy, Aesthetics, Computer Science, and more Greek and Calculus.

Merry Christmas!

Up and Running and in Philadelphia!

So this site is finally back up again, after about two weeks fo downtime. During that time I've moved to the other side of the country, and am now up and running on my brand new computer from my dorm room at the University of Pennsylvania. I moved in on August 28 and classes started on September 3. It's great to be here, and good to have this site up and running again!

Site Downtime/College/etc.

This site is going to go down sometime soon, probably Friday, and it may not come back up for a while. I am leaving next Tuesday (August 26th) for the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where I hope to enter the Computer and Cognitive Science program, through which I would get a degree from the School of Engineering and Applied Science in computer science and a degree in philosophy from "The College" (the arts and sciences school). I'm getting a new (much faster) computer when I get there, and it may be a little while before I get everything transferred. I'll move in and get my computer and stuff on the 28th, so look for the site to be available again any time after that. Hopefully it won't be too long.

As for the move, I could sure use some prayer. As I'm going off to college on the other side of the nation, I will, right at the same time, be removed from everything that's familiar, be temporarily without a church or any kind of accountability structure, and exposed to new temptations. Please pray that I can, as all of the Church should, influence the world around me more than I am influenced by it. The Church must infiltrate the world, rather than the world infiltrating the Church. I want my life to be true to this. Your prayers are appreciated.