PhD Candidate in Philosophy here, ask me anything!

Does God real?

Not sure this is a significant or meaningful distinction. I work in history of philosophy and metaphysics. Every decent department is primarily 'analytic', although again it's hard to see that as a term that means much.

I guess I didn't know I was

Primary qualities are also essentially manifest properties. And I don't work on hermeneutics

I know the mathematics you need to know to prove soundness and completeness + have a basic understanding of incompleteness. You know, enough set theory to do basic model theory stuff, and know a decent amount of logic. But I don't know this.

I think the most interesting philosophers working today are probably:
Michael Thompson
Sebastian Rödl
Kit Fine
John MacFarlane
Richard Moran
Jonathan Lear
Nomy Arpaly
Robert Pippin
Sam Scheffler
Michael Della Rocca
Huw Price
Mark Wilson

I dunno, it depends what you are interested in. But these people all do great work, much of which is of general interest.

A bit of string?

this is not OP

I really want to study Philosophy too, i think its really fun, way more fun than math. But the problem is the jobs, what can i work as with a phd? will i become a potato farmer?

You don't know enough real analysis for me to consider you a likeable person.

The job market is bad, but there are jobs. And a phd in philosophy can be more versatile then you might think.

Plus you can always just be an academic administrator.

what the hell does that mean

that's okay with me.

I mean there is a bit of truth to what you say, but anyone getting a phd who is the least bit competent knows a great deal about what is going on in the field in general. it's kind of expected of you.

You don't know enough real analysis for me to consider you a person.

>in the United States
you think US is not a cesspool of dirty analytics?

I'm not sure how what I wrote is confusing at all. The academic job market is bad, but most people from my department are getting jobs eventually. Just more years on the market + post docs/VAP positions etc are the norm.

again, analytic v continental is not a very useful distinction, but pretty much every country does 'analytic' philosophy.

>philosophy in the United States

The mathematics he engages in, i.e. Logic, is far more fundamental, intricate, and complex than undergraduate real analysis; so the superiority that you presumably feel over OP isn't really justified.

Mathematicians, in contrast to logicians, are well known to have a poor grasp of Logic.

What kind of standard is that? To me, if you haven't worked through Rudin's Real and Complex Analysis then you are unworthy to speak to me. I still consider human beings to be human beings because human beings are biologically human beings, as I have read in journals.

While getting the philo degree, can you take on writing or major anything else meanwhile?

I think the general consensus is that the US has the best philosophy departments in the world. There are other great departments--oxford, cambridge, St. Andrews/Stirling, Toronto, Humboldt, LMU-Munich, ANU etc. But philosophy in the US is in pretty good shape.

It's a PhD, its pretty much full time work. I'm either teaching or doing my own stuff. But you can, if you have the time. You can study whatever you like.

t. American

He thought you meant you were studying American Philosophy specifically.

To be this deluded

Are you serious?

Are you deluded too?

What is continental philosophy so bad?

I'm OP. People who complain about philosophy in the united states generally fall into two camps: (1) people who know nothing about philosophy, and (2) people who are upset that their little pet interest (and here it is usually heidegger and french deconstructionist bullshit) doesn't entirely dominate the field. These people know about as much philosophy as the first group, but are significantly more annoying.

You seriously expect a board full of pseudo-bibliophilic man children to ask you any remotely stimulating questions lmao

It isn't in general. It does attract a lot of people who don't know much philosophy and have annoying rhetorical flourishes they use to disguise this, but there is quite good stuff that gets labelled 'continental philosophy'.

What are your opinions on Stirner's philosophy?

I dunno, maybe. Mostly I am just doing this to put off grading papers.

>departments
>good

There's literally nothing wrong with Derrida.

Have you read Of Grammatology?

Please say a bit more about this.

I know nothing about it.

Answer my question, you whore.

>I know nothing about it.
Thanks for being honest. Most people on this board will just spew nonsense or rant about it.

Well, I've read one essay of his I quite liked (Plato's pharmacy), and have read bits and pieces of of grammatology, specters of marx, maybe a bit more. I find his writing to be fairly obnoxious, and it is clear that his influence has been a fairly negative one, but there are people I know well who are good philosophers who find worthwhile things in him.

I was just saying that there are a small faction of people who read everything through Heidegger + Derrida and complain about their marginalization within the profession. They have a handful of departments, but thankfully exert little influence in the field.

>I guess I didn't know I was

well, you are.
you know you're a disappointment to your parents.
why don't you do something more useful instead?
like work in a shop or something

>Coming onto Veeky Forums to have serious discussions

look at this butthurt anal(lytic) faggotini

Why do you think that is? What I mean is that, Heidegger is considered by many the most important philosopher of the 20th century, so why does he not have much academic clout among academic departments?

> I work in history of philosophy and metaphysics

What period/philosophers do you work on?
What do you think about the grounding literature?

Started your dissertation yet?

There are people who work on Heidegger in many top departments--NYU, Columbia, Harvard, Georgetown, Chicago, Berkeley, for example. But Heidegger's originality and importance is contested even by people who work on hermeneutics. Michael Forster, for example, who is probably the leading person who works in that area, finds him to be fairly derivative. But my general point is that even if he is a great philosopher a department needs to cover ancient, early modern, kant, medieval, plus logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of language etc. Maybe even a bit of non-western philosophy (although this is really rare). Why should everyone be working on Heidegger?

Because he's not an analytic

OP is trying to blur the lines, oh it doesn't matter, there's no divide, it's the same thing etc.

He has enormous clout with people that know, they're often not ones to be in charge of depts. do you think OP has any motive in criticising the ground he stands on? He literally came on here to satisfy his vanity

Late Medieval and early modern. I generally think it is a positive direction for metaphysics, and there is a lot of interesting stuff there. And yes, I've started my dissertation

>Because he's not an analytic
This is not the answer.

And I did offer some reasons, here>He has enormous clout with people that know,
Yeah, this is not true. He has many fans, but plenty of people know heidegger well and don't have a high opinion of him.

This is probably just because I'm a retard who knows nothing about professional philosophy, but why is it that philosophers who have been largely discredited by contemporaneity, are still the subject of serious academic study and research. For example, physicists no longer study the theories of Bohr and Planck

I don't think you understand my point. There are a lot of people you can disagree and have quibbles with (essentially how deluded analytics lead each other in circles day in day out) but there are others, ones when you disagree with you just reveal yourself to be a retard, because you're disagreeing with "being". Most analytics are borderline autists at best and they inherently don't get "being", and the hate they get is deserved.

Could you expand on why those who know Heidegger well don't think highly of him? I noticed you said some consider him derivative, but what do you mean by this? Any other criticisms?

History is a crucial element of Philosophy, moreso than in other fields. You generally do need to "start from the Greeks", because everything lese will ve in dialogue with them. For the same reason the Rationalists, Empricists, and Kant are crucial.

I don't know of any philosophers who have been 'refuted' or superseded in the same way that past scientists have. And there are plenty of people who study the history of physics, they just put them in different departments.

But also because philosophy is not a normal science, and it doesn't make progress by discrediting previous philosophers.

So people not having a high opinion of Heidggeder is a red flag of red flags. It basically says this fucking person is some kind of autist, raw intelligence caught in knots. Doubly so if they hold any academic position, those are literally dead people walking.

Cool, and good luck!
Was there any difficulty in transitioning from doing coursework and stuff to working on a dissertation?

You are clearly the sort of idiot who knows little about philosophy I had in mind. People who don't think highly of heidegger are 'analytics' and disagree with being, huh? This is rather pathetic.

None of them have been discredited, that's not how it works.
>physicists no longer study the theories of Bohr and Planck
Because mental masturbation.

This is a pretty embarrassing display. But, as I said above, the party-line heideggerians who know nothing of philosophy are both sad and annoying. And all this railing against analytics! How cute.

What do you think of these departments:
Michigan
Duke
Penn
Brown

Why isn't there greater research done in aesthetics? Is it not as respected or popular as mind or language?

What are your thoughts on critical theory/cultural studies?

have you read much donald davidson?
if so, what is your opinion of his work especially with regard to anomalous monism? do you see any ethical ramifications in this theory?

Who still considers Aquinas' theological proofs legitimate?

Thank you! I did find it challenging, I had some issues with supervisors and had to change topics once, but not everyone has a hard time. Particularly if you are one of those people who write the three papers dissertation--they seem to have an easier go at it.

This is the divide I'm talking about you sperg :3

Cuckolics all think they're legit because he's a saint and it would break their minds for him to be wrong.

Provincial pigeonhole faggot detected

How does it feel knowing that I know more about your field and specialty when I'm in a totally different one? Pleb

could you answer this user's question, OP? I'm interested as well

All of this depends on what you are interested in. Michigan is an exceptionally good department, Brown is a strong department with good coverage in ethics/moral psych and kant and post-kantian european philosophy. Duke is okay, not terribly interesting in my opinion. Penn has had a rough 5 years or so, and is not very strong at the moment. They still have some good people though, and I think they are trying to rebuild.

I'm not sure there isa good reason there isn't more research in aesthetics, honestly. What is popular isn't always popular because it is the most interesting work.

And I'm a fan of critical theory in general (if we are talking frankfurst school stuff). I don't really know what 'cultural studies' means, honestly.

s m h y'oull cowards don't even habe F A I T H

Heidegger's view that understanding meaning, and possessing language, are fundamental to the manner of existence of Dasein just repeats thoughts found in herder and hegel. Same with his notion of fore-understanding and the manner in which our active engagement with the world is more fundamental than our speculative contemplation of it. Not much new.

I think we finally made him leave

>Same with his notion of fore-understanding and the manner in which our active engagement with the world is more fundamental than our speculative contemplation of it

That's Hegel alright.

still hereHerder, faggot

What a fucking retard you are. This is the embarrassing display if there was one. You're actually studying philosophy full time and this is what you come up with.

>nothin new
critique of Shakespeare ... Nothing new Chaucer did similar things

Kill yourself OP for all that is true and just

I was asked why some people who work on hermeneutics might find heidegger derivative. I don't work on hermeneutics, and I like heidegger, but i answered the question. Is there anything wrong with my answer?

Why are you so angry user?

What is your favorite work of literature?

how are they illegitimate?

Lookout Cartridge by Joseph McElroy
Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders by Sam Delaney
The Magus by John Fowles
Aberration of Starlight by Gilbert Sorrentino
The Ghost Writer by Phillip Roth

Let's look at the first one, the argument from motion:
> Our senses prove that some things are in motion.

Not necessarily true. Motion is a physical manifestation of the human tendency to perceive things in a causal manner.

> Things move when potential motion becomes actual motion.

ok.

> Only an actual motion can convert a potential motion into an actual motion.

This is like saying 'only a man can convert a baby into a man.' It assumes a priori existence of the thing become, which completely undermines Aquinas' notion of a prime mover, in which the mover is in existence before the moved.

> Nothing can be at once in both actuality and potentiality in the same respect (i.e., if both actual and potential, it is actual in one respect and potential in another).

Fine.

> Therefore nothing can move itself.

Semantically spurious. Consider a human moving. He both moves himself in one framing of man as the subject, and is also moved by his neural impulses which are generated from external stimuli in another framing.

> Therefore each thing in motion is moved by something else.

See previous point.

> The sequence of motion cannot extend ad infinitum.

In a causal framework, which is not necessarily how the world works.

> Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.

Assuming Aquinas' former premises, the prime mover would also have to be an object capable of motion, which necessarily inserts it into the framework of causality, which in turn necessitates that it has the potential to be acted on by another object. Aquinas fails to break the infinity of causal relations and instead makes a logical leap in the conclusion toward a god figure that does not follow from his premises

Just want to say that this is NOT op.

>Not much new

Bro this is literally your entire field, there is nothing new in philosophy. University / academic philosophy studies are a huge circle jerk of fedora-tier lefties that enjoy wasting time.

For gods sake choose anything else. You can read philosophy on your time and skip wasting 100k on a degree proving you read the texts.

At least go to university for a field that can actually grow and evolve. I'd recommend literature, history or even divinity school.... and that's coming from a STEM major that's going into medicine.

>. University / academic philosophy studies are a huge circle jerk of fedora-tier lefties that enjoy wasting time.

Back to /pol/.

ALSO I WAS ANSWERING A FUCKING QUESTION. The question was: why would people who work on hermeneutics be less than impressed with heidegger and think his work is somewhat derivative. I think I answered the question, although a few people have complained about it.

also you are a fucking moron.

Are you a homosexual Jew by any chance?

>back to /pol/
>also you are a fucking moron.

This is the level of banter I expected from a "Phd philosophy" student.

k

nope

What makes you say that?

ITT: OP is getting mad and showing his colors

Should I major in English or Computer Science at my state school?

Ignoring your reddit-tier replies, your first post makes it painfully obvious you found this place through /r/Veeky Forums.

>Motion is a physical manifestation of the human tendency to perceive things in a causal manner.

I didn't want to be associated with this thought.

shoulve used a trip, dumb fucking reddit op nigger with a cuck baby

Can you tell me why you think this? It isn't true, not that this means much.

What's wrong with it?

What's better:

Majoring in STEM at a state school or majoring in humanities at an Ivy/Stanford/Top tier schools

He's slowly realizing that philosophy is the lowest tier of academic fields out there at the moment. It's a bitter pill to swallow but best that he takes it now.

What do you lads think: philosophy, anthropology or sociology... all bottom of the barrel or is one of the true king of shit degrees?

anthro for sure

The Heidegger autist in this thread is a fucking retard. Heidegger is a nonentity in philosophy.