008: Eighth edition, eighth week (of term)

The arrival of winter, deadline season, and a somewhat spontaneous trip to Spain.

On winter

I noticed this morning, as I walked to the main university campus, that I could see my breath in the frigid air. Winter had made itself known in a decidedly non-gradual manner.

It’s impressive really, the efficiency of it all. Autumn had been escorted out, winter ushered in, and I hadn’t even noticed.

A view from Framwellgate Bridge.

I remember the transition to autumn: the gradual turning of the leaves, slippery footpaths covered in swathes of orange and red, then brown. Winter afforded us nothing of the sort. In a matter of days, the trees were bare, my wool coat was exchanged for a warmer puffer, and my breath was visible.

I stuffed my hands into my coat pockets while navigating down the steep path, appreciating, for the first time, that someone had raked the leaves. The ground was surprisingly devoid of mud, a rarity given the weather we’ve been having (weather, of course, being synonymous with rain).

Even though we’re still a month away from the solstice, it feels as though we’ve crossed the threshold into proper winter. It’s not an entirely unwelcome change — I’ve always found the cold exhilarating. There’s something about it; your hands are numb, your senses vivid, heightened, and all of a sudden you’re struck with the overwhelming feeling of being alive.

Week 8

Anyway, that’s enough about the seasons. We’re now in the eighth week of (our ten-week) term. Which, as you all know by now, can only mean one thing: essays.

I have six due in December:

• 4 due on December 9th

• 1 due on December 13th

• 1 due on December 16th

I’ve learned (through private responses to my last post) that you’re curious to hear more about the academic side of things at uni. That proves convenient, as I find that distilling my thoughts here makes things a lot easier when it comes to actually writing essays.

If you’re not in the mood for academia at the moment (a feeling I empathize with, as I reach my sixth hour in the library), feel free to skip ahead; the next section is on my upcoming trip to Spain!

So, what are these essays on?

• Philosophy of Mind

  • This is the one I’ve made the most progress on — I spent the vast majority of the weekend in the TLC (my personal favorite of the university’s study spaces), yet I only have 500 words to show for it.

    • Still, progress is progress. And the lion’s share of the work is the research bit, which is done!

  • Essay title: Explain and evaluate one dualist model of psychophysical causation.

    • Fancy words aside, the question is a relatively straightforward one (once you wrap your head around minds, bodies, mental states causing physical states, etc.).

    • This relates to the topic of my last post. If interactive dualism is to be viable (that is, if mental events are indeed causally relevant in the physical sphere), dualists need to offer a plausible model of what this causal relationship looks like.

    • I will most likely be focusing on Sophie Gibb (one of my professor)’s double prevention model.

      • She details the model in this paper, but in short, her view is that mental events are only causally relevant in that they prevent the prevention of physical events — they don’t cause physical events, they enable them to be caused.

  • Only somewhat related, but it’s amazing having professors who are key thinkers in this space.

    • For instance, Philip Goff (Google him!) is one of my professors for this module. I recently stumbled upon a podcast that he co-hosts and…he had David Chalmers on as a guest!

      • David Chalmers is a big name in philosophy (it’s like saying he had Aristotle on — a slight exaggeration, but it gets the point across). And he and Philip Goff have known (and argued against) each other for years!

• Research Project

  • The research project is essentially a mini dissertation (I believe the final paper is 5,000 words).

    • For this deadline, however, we only need to submit a 1,500 word project plan.

  • You each formulate your own research question, the only caveat being that it has to fall under your seminar topic (which we chose at the beginning of the year).

    • Mine is the political action paradox — a key debate in moral and political philosophy.

    • It seems, for democracy to be effective, that citizens have certain duties (e.g. voting, making sure that they’re well-informed, acting against injustice).

    • However, for any one citizen, the chance that their vote (or signing of a petition, participating in a protest, etc.) will make a difference to the outcome is small, infinitesimal even. Given this, do citizens really have a reason (or duty) to participate?

      • The vast majority of us have the intuition that yes, there is still reason to participate. But once you get into the weeds of it, it’s incredibly difficult to pinpoint why.

  • I have yet to flesh out my research question, but the topic is an interesting one, and I look forward to delving into the literature.

• Economic Theory

  • Essay title: Expected utility theory is a model of decision making under uncertainty. The theory relies on behavioural assumptions, but growing empirical evidence has uncovered asystematic departures from the implications of these assumptions. Do you think expected utility is still a useful theory even given its limitations?

    • As a former ABF student, my intuitive response is a resounding ‘yes.’

    • I’m sure there’s literature to support this response (in fact, we were given two lead articles to begin our research with, so I suppose the next steps here are reading those!)

• Moral Theory

  • The list of essay titles hasn’t been released yet; they’ll come out on November 25th (a fact I’m extremely grateful for, as that means I don’t have to think about it until after I get back from Spain — more on that later!)

• Class & Nation in British Politics

  • Essay title: Does class have any continuing political significance if it is no longer the basis of voting behaviour?

    • Note (given the name of the module) that this question is about the UK in particular.

  • I’ve only done a brief, initial round of research, but I’ll argue yes, that class does have continuing political significance even if it’s no longer the basis of voting behavior.

    • Reasons are still TBD — I’m considering drawing a distinction between ‘actual’ class (based on the government’s categories) and ‘perceived’ class (or how people identify themselves, class-wise).

      • I believe there is literature to support this, that there is still a correlation between ‘perceived’ class and how people vote (even if the same is no longer true for ‘actual’ class), but I’ll need to look into it more.

      • I’m also wary of arguing anything that might not play in the question’s sandbox (as this answer could be interpreted as “actually, class is still the basis of voting behavior [and your question is wrong]!”

        • But then again, that sort of thing might be appreciated in a politics module.

• The Philosophy of Economics & Politics

  • Essay titles (the options I’ve narrowed it down to):

    • “Democracy is incompatible with liberty.” Discuss.

    • Does democratic capitalism contain the seeds of its own destruction?

  • Evidently, I still need to decide which one of the two I’m doing (and then actually start researching and writing), but at least the questions are fascinating!

I might get another issue out before these deadlines, in which case you’ll hear an update on how these are going — hopefully significant progress. If not, wish me luck (I’ll need it)!

(Another) trip to Spain

As you may know, I went to Spain last year with Elliot (a BCA friend who’s now at Oxford), and then my mom (she flew over, and we drove the span of the country for an additional week).

Well (as you’ve probably gathered by now) — I’m going back! We didn’t manage to cover Galicia at all in our Great Spanish Road Trip, and I’ve wanted to go to Santiago de Compostela ever since Alexa and I did a project on it in Profe. Seltzer’s Spanish class.

I booked the flight about a month ago. We were in the midst of our house search for next year (a story for another time, but let’s just say those were a hectic few weeks), and I wanted something to look forward to: a date on the calendar, a trip to plan.

Luckily, one of the perks of studying abroad is incredibly cheap flights to Europe. After last year’s trips to Spain and Norway, I’ve become something of a budget airline expert — my return flight to Santiago de Compostela was under £20!

I’ve managed to work it out so that I’m only missing lectures, not seminars or tutorials (which are compulsory), and I’m heading out later this week. Also, I’ve resolved to keep notes as I go along, so hopefully I can quickly turn around an article on the trip. If not (after all, these 6 essays will be due soon after), I can guarantee lots of pictures along the way!

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Thanks for reading, and I’ll be back in your inbox with the next issue soon! As always, a reply (even just to say how you’re doing, or that you don’t want to see anymore philosophy talk here!) is always appreciated.

Hope to hear from you soon!
Kaylyn

P.S. I’m happy to report that my culinary abilities have improved exponentially since my September issue. I’ve now expanded into stir-fry noodles (with beef), mapo tofu, and a delicious (if I do say so myself) noodle soup — the wonders of chicken stock cubes!