...over at the Singleton blog.
Here are two positions that I'm pretty sympathetic to:
- the modal ontological argument is sound
- goodness is rooted in the necessary divine nature (along the lines of simplicity, rather than DCT)
If these are correct, then the nature of moral goodness is also necessary. But I want to say of the following that one is true and the other is false:
- if God didn't exist, morality would still exist
- if God didn'te exist, then morality wouldn't still exist
I need to think more about counterpossibles and the way to get one of these (the correct one) to come out true, and the other false.
I haven't listened to the recording (so I don't know how unintelligible I am), but I enjoyed my conversation with Luke. So, if you want, enjoy.
Last fall, I was asked to teach a two-week graduate course at Peking University in China. In the interim, I've been working on scheduling the details. One important detail is arranging for legal entry into the country.
Just over a week ago, while walking through Colonial Williamsburg with my friend Neal, I received a call from the clerk in Washington DC helping me get a visa that my application was denied by the Chinese government. (Allison's visa was approved with no problem.)
The consulate of The People's Republic of China has rejected your request for a visa to enter the country... You need to contact the State Administration for Religious Affairs of the People's Republic of China and get a letter of invitation or a Visa notification form.
I've been trying to accomplish that for the past week and a half, without seeming to get anywhere. The clerk called me this morning, and in my passport he noticed that the visa I had from my trip to China for a converence was valid until April of this year, and was a multiple-entry visa. So now I don't have to worry about getting a new visa, but can simply use the old but unexpired one. Wewww. One less thing to worry about.
Here are three issues that I'll be starting to do some research on in the short to intermediate future. Any suggestions on what I should make sure not to overlook in these areas would be greatly appreciated:
(1) the vice of envy, particular as it relates both to jealousy and prudence/practical wisdom
(2) divine freedom (there's a big literature on this--I'm mainly interesting in comparisons between human and divine freedom)
(3) the development of the capacities involved in free will--this could either be discussions of what those capacities required are (e.g., Wallace's "reflective self-control") or discussions of these capacities from developmental psychology.
Thanks.
A few days ago I received some good news that, now that I've arranged for a leave of absence from my university, I'm in a position to share. I've been awarded one of two Templeton Foundation Research Fellowships at the University of Oxford (yes, the Oxford) for next year. I'll be a fellow in resident from (roughly) Oct 2010 through June 2011, where I will conduct research on a new book project on free will. Further details on the fellowship can be found here, and my project proposal is here.
Allison and the children will be going with me for the year. We're still working out a lot of the details, both here (e.g., what to do with our house) and there (e.g., which of the colleges I'll be appointed in). But we're really excited about the opportunity, and I confess to being humbled that I was selected.
I'm not a big fan of the start of a new year. Don't get me wrong, New Year's Day is one of my favorite days of the year. But that's just for the football and the time with friends, and one of the few days of the year I don't feel like I should be working. The actual new year stuff tends to drive me nuts--the hype over a fluke of our contingent calendar, all the year-in-review programs that relive much of what I didn't care about the first time, etc.... Yet I can't seem to avoid taking a look back at the past year. Quite a bit has changed for us: new job, new part of the country, new students and classes, new house, looking forward to a new child. And while it's been a tough and, especially, draining year, it was a good one filled with great opportunities and adventures (e.g., my China trip, the NEH in Salt Lake City). It dawns on me that I don't blog nearly as much as I used to. Some of that is due, no doubt, to how swamped I've been this fall. But I'm not sure if that's the only reason. I'm actually thinking of starting a group philosophy-related blog with a couple of friends, which would address some of what I used to bring up here (e.g., issues related to the profession). But I'm not sure if I'll continue to put much content up here. I guess the new year will tell.
As most of you probably already know, initial data has been released from the PhilPapers survey (as well as from the metasurvey). I don't have time to fully digest and process this data, but here are some quick thoughts on things that caught my eye (in no paticular order):
- phil of mind was, by pretty sizable margin, the highest reported AOS. In fact, of the 3226 people who completed the survey, 721 reported phil of mind as their first AOS and 385 reported it as their secondary AOS. Assuming that people did not double report their AOS's (I can't remember if you could do this when filling out the survey; even if you could, I'd think not may people would), greater than 1/3 of respondants work in phil of mind. This struck me as very odd.
- of the people who took the survey and filled out gender (I'm assuming by 'gender' they meant 'biological sex'), only 488 (of the 3013) are female. This is surprising to me given that the vast majority of respondants are born in the 70s or 80s (and thus are either grad students are new PhD's). I would have thought that this proportion would be higher, not among the profession, but among this sub-population.
- more people identify more with Davidson than with Plato (and more with Carnap than with Aquinas and Augustine combined!)
- of all respondants, 2/3 accept or lean toward atheism while only 18.5% accept or lean toward theism. Among people who identify phil of religion as an AOS, the percentage of those accepting or leaning toward theism is 68.3%. (For a discussion of this issue, see here and here.)
- (metaphysical, not political) libertarianism is a very minority view in general (18.3%, not too surprising) but also among philosophers of action (22.4%). Libertarianism is much more widespread among philosophers of religion (49.1%).
- free will skepticism is higher among philosophy undergrads than among either the general population or among PhD's.
A non-final draft of the Pacific APA schedule is here. As with most Pacific APAs, there looks to be a great set of papers related to free will and moral responsibility.
....we got our house today. Pictures to follow in a day or two.
My first use of profanity in print.
With the move to NNU, I tried to avoid all travel this fall. But next spring is going to be one my busiest travel semesters yet. Here's what my schedule is looking like so far:
Spring Break, 15 - 19 March (my trip to China will be this week, and either the week before or the week after)
Pacific APA, 31 March - 4 April
Wisdom Conference, 15 - 17 April
I have at least one other trip this spring, but it's not scheduled yet.
I'm a little slow in posting this, but I think it's rather fun.
According to what two friends and colleagues write in a professional journal, I'm a kleptomaniac and it's almost my birthday. Oh, and I have friends. Surprising, huh?
I've been working on a book chapter on free will. My primary aim is looking at how various positions go about trying to answer the Existence Question:
the Existence Question--do humans have free will?
My aim is this chapter isn't to provide an answer, but to provide a framework for understanding how one's answer to the question depends on other issues involving free will. (These two posts at the GFP were part of my process of thinking about these issues.)
If you're interested in taking an early look at it and giving me some feedback, let me know. I need to make revisions by 1 December.
It's been a pretty good day here today. I've had reason to drive me scooter around for various errands; had a good day teaching Aristotle (though this is the end of my teaching Aristotle for the term); got some books in the post we've been waiting for; received an invitation from another university to come give some talks; found out that I can probably get by with being on the APA program twice, once in a regular session and once in a session sponsored by an APA committee; etc.... But best of all we finally got approval from Bank of America to buy the house we've been trying to get for way too long. Back on May 3, we put an offer on it and the sellers accepted our offer. But since it's a short sale, their bank (BoA) had to approve it as well. They approved the sale on 20 August, but it's taken until today for them to give us the approval letter. Now that they have, we can work towards closing and finally settling in!
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