Last week I received this semester’s first stack of papers to grade. I’ve set a goal of grading two papers a day. At that pace I’ll be finished by the time we resume class after Reading Week and I won’t want to kill myself for trying to grade so many at once.

So far, I’m pleased with the quality of papers. They are for my Philosophy of Religion class, so it’s a subject I care about quite a lot. At this point in their educational journey I’m not expecting them to be all that original in what they have to say, but do expect them to say it well. What really makes me happy is to see someone carefully present an argument and then nicely evaluate it. It might be their own argument or that of someone else. But either way a good philosophy paper needs an argument and it needs a good examination of it. Most have done this, some have not. 

One thing that has been encouraging is that I’m starting to notice just how much I’ve learned over the years. It’s easy to be so caught up in what you’re doing in school that you don’t actually realize you’re learning quite a bit. For example, I had one student cite an author as advocating a certain position but because I’m familiar with the book, I knew he only said that in the introduction to his book while explaining various other views. It wasn’t until chapter 3 that he advocated a more nuanced, but similar, position.

This whole process makes me think back to my time as a 3rd or 4th year student and the types of papers I turned in to my professors. I get the feeling that some of my students are turning in work that is better than the work I turned in at that stage. That is exciting.

This post was a bit random (with a lot of rambling), but hey it’s what I was thinking about and I couldn’t fit it into 140 characters for Twitter. By the way, this is my first blog post with the tag ’school’ indicating not my own education but to my educating others. Wow.

Well, the new academic year starts tomorrow for Tyndale University College and I actually feel ready for it. I thought I’d be a bit more nervous about starting my first full-time teaching job, but right now I feel good. That may change as the day goes by tomorrow, but at least I won’t lose sleep over it tonight. I’ve had the chance to meet a handful of students (most philosophy majors) and look forward to meeting a whole lot more tomorrow. One of the reasons I wanted to become a professor and teach at a school like Tyndale is that I had several professors that were very instrumental in helping me become who I am today. Starting tomorrow, I have an opportunity to play a similar role.

Once the semester gets rolling, I probably won’t have a lot of time to post. But I have a feeling that the upcoming presidential election will force me to squeeze in a post every once in awhile.

Talk to you then.

This morning I had the pleasure to send off the final copy of my dissertation prospectus to my advisory committee. It took me much longer to write than I thought it would, but considering there were some major changes in the dissertation’s aim, that isn’t too unexpected. 

For now, the title of dissertation is “A Rational Problem of Evil: The Coherence of Christian Doctrine and the Free Will Defense.” If you’d like to read a bit more about the project, I’ve posted a copy of the prospectus on the “Research” page of this blog.

Okay, so it’s been almost a month since I’ve posted last…oops. Things have been really crazy for me and the wife, but in a good way. In may we spent one weekend in Chicago, one in Springfield, MO, one in San Francisco and one in Sacramento. Wow! I’m now teaching an intro to philosophy class at OU and it’s going to kick my butt. It meets Monday through Friday, so I have to prepare lectures every night! I hope to get a few days of lectures prepared in advance, and then can get back to blogging. Here are some neat pics from our trips.

From Travel

The pic above was taking at a really neat coffee shop on Michigan Ave in Chicago. I tried to convince the owner that he should open one up in Norman, but I’m not sure if he bought the idea.

From Travel

This is, in my opinion, the best used bookstore ever. Green Apple Books has an amazing selection of books, and they are very organized. Within their philosophy section, they had all sorts of sub-sections. It was great, I got to just jump right past all that continental stuff! Click the ‘travel’ link underneath either picture to go to my album with lots more pics from our trip.

Last week I took my general exam and yesterday gave a defense of my answers. Well, I passed and am now an official candidate for the doctoral degree. (That sounds so cool.) When talking with people about this exam, many weren’t too sure what the exam was like and what types of answers the exam committee expected. So, I’ve decided to do a series of posts where I’ll present one of the questions I answered and then give my response (in a truncated form). Because I still have to finish a paper for my Kant seminar by tomorrow, this post will only contain the questions that I answered. I’ll start posting my responses next week.

1. Discuss one of the three traditional classes of argument for theism: The Ontological Argument, the Cosmological argument, and the Teleological Argument. In your discussion present at least two forms of the argument– a classical form and a contemporary form. The latter may be a version of your own invention, but it should be the best version you know of. Evaluate the argument. Discuss the issue of whether the traditional arguments have any use for religion as a practice.
2. Present the argument that infallible foreknowledge seems to entail the non-existence of human free will. Give at least three traditional compatibilist solutions to the problem and briefly evaluate them. Present your own evaluation of the argument.
3. What is meant by religious exclusivism? What is meant by religious inclusivism? Distinguish inclusivism/exclusivism about truth and inclusivism/exclusivism about salvation. Explain the theory of religious diversity John Hick calls pluralism. How is it meant to circumvent the unappealing aspects of both exclusivism and inclusivism about the truth of different religions? How well does Hick succeed? Discuss some of the objections raised to Hick’s theory.
4. Distinguish the logical and evidential problems of evil. Carefully explain the most compelling version of the Free Will defense. Discuss the prospects for a version of this response as a plausible way out of both problems.

Well, I’m now off to start working on that last paper. I’m very excited about the thought of not having any more term papers after this one. I guess you could consider the dissertation as one big term paper, but that takes all the fun out of it.Cheers,

I don’t have a terrible amount of time, but thought I would take a few minutes to give everyone some updates on past postings.

1. I have previously posted about how difficult doing philosophy can be. Well, I believe that to be true more than ever. I am currently working on what will probably turn out to be the most difficult paper of my philosophical career. Who would’ve thought it’d take more time to write a 6-7 paper than other papers that were 15-20 pages? In sum, Kant is not a good writer and almost impossible to figure out.
2. In regards to a post a couple weeks back about the ban of incandescent bulbs, I just thought it was interesting to note that there are a few countries that have taken the same step. Which countries? Cuba and Venezuela. Yes, that’s right. Fidel Castro and his buddy Hugo Chavez have banned incandescent bulbs. While I don’t think the California ban would be implemented the same way (government ordered teens went into people’s homes and removed the bulbs themselves… I don’t see a bunch of people ransacking SoCal homes to take out the incandescent bulbs), I do think our continuous progress toward socialism is a bad thing. I don’t want to commit the genetic fallacy here, but it is interesting that our public policy is starting to look more and more like certain socialist countries. (Well, maybe it’s not the genetic fallacy if we’re talking about socialism. I can just argue against that outright.)
3. My wife is an amazing person. Most of you already know that, but I just thought I’d take the time to say it myself for those that don’t know. She has so much on her plate and yet continues to be supportive of me and my goals. I’m often impressed.

That’s all for now, my paper is due on Friday and hope to give some more substantive updates once that’s over.

We are officially getting a dog! We’re going to call him Aquinas (it’s been Orlando which is just a little soft for me) and he’s currently 8 months old. If everything goes as planned he’ll come home with us next weekend. Oh yeah, in case you’re wondering, he’s a Cardigan Welsh Corgi. Another exciting thing is that this week I had my advisory conference.

This is a meeting with what will likely be my dissertation committee (there could be one two members that get changed out, but that’s not very common) about my future courses and the scheduling of my general exam. It looks like this Spring I’ll take the last exam of my educational career. If that goes well and I pass the exam, I’ll be considered ABD (All But Dissertation). From there I’ll have 2 to 3 years of funding to write my dissertation and teach one class per semester. It’s still kind of weird to think that I’m this close to finishing the program. Wow.

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Have you ever wondered what happened to common, run-of-the-mill decency towards one another? I’m shocked at people that just don’t give a damn about anyone else. Think about it… Go to the grocery store parking lot and there are stray carts left all over the place, 20 ft from the cart return. How long do you think it’d take to walk that cart over? 20 seconds? 30? Drive through a construction zone and everyone thinks they have to drive in the soon-to-be-closed lane all the way until the cones force them over. Don’t they understand that if everyone just merged over as they had time that everyone would get through it faster? No, of course not because they’re to concerned that those 5 other people are going to get through the zone faster. When was the last time you’ve gone out to eat dinner and didn’t see someone (at your table or otherwise) interrupt a dinner to answer a phone call?Just an ounce of common decency would drastically change any of these situations. I’m almost certain that the cause of the lack of decency is an increase in self-centeredness. In this culture it’s terribly easy for us all to become more and more self-absorbed and forget that the world doesn’t revolve around us. Throughout the next couple of days, ask yourself how you may have allowed the me-centered culture to change your attitude toward others in a negative way.
Grace and peace,

1) My wife, Tina Marie, and I closed on a house this morning. We’re pretty excited about it and can’t wait to start moving into to it. The whole process has been so smooth and stress-free, it’s amazing. I can’t believe I’m old enough to buy a house and finally in a place to afford one (that last part is mostly due to my sugar-momma [who is not yet a momma!], remember grad students don’t get paid much). I bought a really nice 2 wheel dolly from Home Depot today; the beginning to my new tool collection!Here’s one pic of the house from the realtor website we found it on. Once we take our own I’ll post some more.2) Game 1 of the NBA Finals is tonight. I’m in shock that the Mavs made it. I’ve been wanting this for so long I can’t believe it’s happening. I really don’t like Shaq, Gary Payton, or Pat Riley and love Mark Cuban, Dirk-the-German-wonder, and Avery Johnson so I’m sure you know who I’m pulling for. I really hope the refs don’t decide the series either way. The NBA is very susceptible to having games ruined by ticky-tack fouls (or fouls only going one way). I’m hoping for another good series with no external influences.3) I submitted my general exam reading list today and promptly realized that I left out Leibniz’s contribution to the problem of evil debate. That’s a big mistake that I’m sure I’ll hear about from my committee. Oh well.4) I started painting this huge house in OKC this week and it’s going to be a killer. Its a 2 1/2 story wood paneled house that has like 45 foot gables. Me and a good friend from the philosophy program are painting it together. This week we worked 7 to 5 and will probably keep that schedule most of the summer so we can actually finish it. I’ll post a pic of it when I can.Well, that’s about it for now.

Well, I finished my PhD qualifying exams this morning. The first one on the history of modern philosophy was yesterday and went well. I answered the three questions that I was really hoping were going to be on the exam:

1. What is the charge of circularity against Descartes in the Meditations and how could one defend Descartes against this charge?
2. Explain the view of creation as held by Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza. Be sure to include Descartes’ discussion of the creation of eternal truths, Leibniz’s divine calculus, and Spionza’s necessitarianism.
3. What is Locke’s view on the primary/secondary quality distinction? How does he argue for this distinction? How does Berkeley critique Locke’s view? Does Berkeley misunderstand Locke?

This morning I took the exam on metaphysics and epistemology and, again, the questions I wanted to be on the test most were there:

1. What is the ontological argument for the existence of God and what are the objections to it? How does it stand up to those objections?
2. What is (are) the main problem(s) of free will? What is a compatibilist response to the problem(s)? How does compatibilism stand up to objections raised against it?
3. What is Gettier’s objection to the traditional account of knowledge? What are the possible responses to that problem? How do the responses fair to objections?

I feel really good knowing that I answered everything that I wanted to and don’t think I forgot anything that was crucial to the arguments. My only concern is that in preparing my notes and outlines, I may have overlooked or forgotten something important and because of that, it didn’t end up on the exam. I don’t think that is a real plausible scenario, but it is plausible at least.So, I leave with another request. Please continue to pray for favor among the 5 professors that will be grading the exam. I need to get a ‘high pass’ to continue in the program. I’ll keep you updated.Grace and peace,

Well it’s that time of year… I’m among about 8 other graduate students that are trying to spend their time studying for the upcoming M.A. general exam/ Ph.D. qualifying exam. This Thursday at 10:00 I’ll be taking a 2 hour test on the history of modern philosophy and then Friday at 10:00 I’ll take the metaphysics and epistemology exam. This is quite frightening because if I don’t get a “high pass”, I don’t get to stay in the program.Fortunately, I have past exams to look through to see what type of questions are usually asked and, in some cases, what the chances are of certain questions being on the exam. This second part is a tremendous help. It’s not too fun to think that you have to know enough to write for about 40 minutes each on 6 questions when there are about 40-50 questions to study. My study guide is somewhere between 45-55 pages long, and that’s with eliminating many of the questions that have been asked in the past. Here is a list of the questions I feel like I need to knock out of the ballpark the following questions/subjects:

1. Anselm’s Ontological Argument
2. A compatibilist response to the free will/determinism debate with a critique of that response
3. The functionalist account of the mind/body problem with critique
4. A response to Gettier’s critique of knowledge consisting of ‘justified true belief’
5. An argument for epistemological skepticism with critique
6. Descartes’ main purposes in writing his Meditations
7. The charge of circularity against Descartes and a defense of him
8. Leibniz’s law of the ‘Indiscernibility of Identicals’ and what its supposed to support
9. Spinoza’s position on the mind/body problem noting his doctrine of explanatory isolationism
10. Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz on God’s creation of the world
11. The discussion around Locke and Berkeley’s conception of primary and secondary qualities
12. Berkeley’s idealism with critique, noting how he thinks he avoids skepticism
13. Hume’s view on causation and/or induction

Some of these are almost gauranteed to be on the exam, whereas others just might be. Of these 13 questions, I’ll answer 6; 3 on Thursday and 3 on Friday. I’m hoping that I’ll have time to at least briefly study for about 6 others just in case I get totally screwed and most of these 13 are on the test. I figure if I can really blow them away with my answers on 2 out of the 3, then it may not be so bad if I don’t do as well on that final test. My prayer is that the questions on the exam will include most if not all of these questions. That way I can really just pick the ones I feel the best about and not just the ones I feel less screwed about.I’ve had my break now, so it’s back to studying. Well, it’s actually time for dinner, but then back to studying. Please pray for me this Thursday and Friday morning. Thanks.Grace and peace