The Philosophers' Cocoon

Teaching Bullshit and Assholes - Part 1 (Guest Post by C. Thi Nguyen and Imree Parma)

Teaching “On Bullshit”

by C. Thi Nguyen

I recently taught a "Bullshit and Assholes Week" in my introductory ethics class, and just had a lifetime peak teaching experience. It was for my first attempt at teaching Harry Frankfurt's "On Bullshit". Raw, pure, unrefined teaching ecstasy.

I was actually prepping for the class the day before and totally freaking out that I'd picked something too hard for gen-ed, intro ethics – that it was too dry and too tediously analytic. But it turned out to be a TOTAL DELIGHT. It is, in fact, a perfect way to introduce students to conceptual analysis. Because the article is, I now realize, this perfect escalation of gradually improving attempts at getting the right analysis of "bullshit," in a wonderfully teachable sequence.

First pass: is bullshit the same as lying? The answer: no, because there's plenty of bullshit (administrative red tape) that's not lying. Second pass: is bullshit pretentious lying? No, because some bullshit is pretentious, but not lying (excessively precious artisanal-signaling food). And some bullshit involves lying, but no pretension.

The moment the article really hit, for my students, is when Frankfurt proposes the account that bullshit is bullshit because it is sloppy. And the students all saw it at the same moment: that excessively precious artisanal-signaling food may be bullshit, but it is certainly not sloppy. In fact, it is bullshit because *too much care has been put into it," perhaps in the wrong sort of way. And so "bullshit" needs to be an abstract enough concept so that it encompasses some bullshit which is bullshit because it is sloppy, and other bullshit which is bullshit because it is too carefully crafted.

When the students saw it, they were, like, jaws agape in illumination and pleasure. I think they went from laughing at the fact that the professor was talking about bullshit, to laughing at how deep the analysis could go.

Confetti hobbies - a different take on passions of philosophers outside of philosophy (Alison Reiheld)

by Alison Reiheld, Assoc. Prof of Philosophy and Director of Women’s Studies at Southern Illinois University – Edwardsville

Writer Brigid Schulte first came to my attention through her article “Why time is a feminist issue.” Schulte describes a time-use expert’s claim during an interview: Schulte had roughly 30 hours of leisure time every week. Upon hearing this, Schulte says, “I sat in my chair, phone to my ear, jaw open, and utterly frozen in disbelief.” Why? It didn’t feel anything like that between her kids and housekeeping duties—“laundry, the grocery shopping, the cooking, the child care drop offs, the dry cleaning, the bills, the pediatrician appointments, the summer camp planning"—demanding work, and a boss who “liked to say the best workers were always in the office until 9 and 10 at night.” When the time-use expert sat down with Schulte, they actually found 27 hours of what the expert called ‘leisure’ and Schulte called “bits and scraps of garbagey time… five minutes here… ten minutes there.” Even waiting by the side of the road for a tow truck, the expert said, counted as leisure. This is where Schulte coins an extremely valuable term: time confetti.

Schulte finds several explanations for time confetti. Drawing on research, she says that women don’t have a history of culture or leisure (unless you were a nun, Schulte notes, or unless you were quite upper class, I note). My own studies would indicate that this is in part because women have a culture of care—caretaking for property, and caregiving for persons. This leads in to Schulte’s next explanation for time confetti: women around the globe have felt that they “they didn’t deserve leisure time… Instead, they felt they had to earn time to themselves by getting to the end of a very long To Do list. Which, let’s face it, never ends.”

While I expect one could make a similar gender-neutral case for the pressures of the protestant and capitalist work ethics—productivity uber alles; look upon my busy-ness ye mighty and despair!—men in heteronormative households do experience different kinds of demands on their time outside of work than do women. These are often claims that they can discharge at a time of their own choosing such as yard work or general maintenance rather than ones that must be done right now and every day such as meals and the nitty gritty of care for dependent persons. It is for these reasons, among others, that Schulte comes to conclude the claim in the title of her piece, namely that time is power and time is a feminist issue.

So why write about this in a blog ostensibly on a philosopher’s hobbies? Well, for one thing, as a philosopher, I am prone to analyzing my own life and reading and thinking about it, looking for patterns and trying to make sense of it. It’s the philosophical equivalent of the practice of medicine: gather signs and symptoms, analyze recurring patterns, and diagnose before attempting to treat.

Instead of pushing back as hard as I might against time confetti, since the demands and obligations of paid work and unpaid work are real and genuinely owed to self and others, I have worked to fit my leisure within existing obligations and time confetti. This works in two ways. First, I view work as a break from caregiving, and caregiving as a break from work. This is a bit of a mental trick (ambiguity intended), but it leads to much less stress and better balance. Similar thinking allows me to choose ways of caring for my family that feed my own soul. Second, in the interstitial bits of time I have for myself, and from each of these activities, I carve out leisure. This results in what I have begun to think of as confetti hobbies.

Passions of philosophers outside of philosophy -- Marcus Arvan

I hope you all are enjoying Helen's series on the passions of philosophers. I, for one, have found it fascinating (and fun!) to hear how diverse everyone's passions are, and how those passions enrich their lives and in some cases intersect with their philosophical work. Because my own passions have played such an important role in my life--and a rather odd role in my philosophical work--I'd like to share my passions with you all as well.

My first passion is video-games. For some reason, I've always been drawn to them like a moth to flame. When I was something like 3-years-old, my brother was a national teen racquetball champion so I often traveled with my parents to his tournaments. Since we had so much time on our hands--and this was when arcade games were first coming out (gulp, yes I'm that old!)--my mom basically gave me a bunch of change and let me play videogames at the racquetball club until my heart's content. My favorite game was Ms. PacMan, and I played it constantly for hours on end, challenging other club patrons to one-on-one games, etc. For what it's worth, although I'm sure there are those out there who might doubt my parents' wisdom in letting my play videogames so much, it's actually one of the (many) things I admire about them as parents. They never imposed their views on my about what I "should" be doing, but essentially always let me explore my interests freely as long as they weren't clearly negatively affecting my life. Since my videogame obsession never really did get in the way of anything--I always did well enough in school, played sports, played outside, etc.--they never really stopped me.

Anyway, my videogame obsession began early in childhood--and it never really stopped throughout my childhood or my adulthood...until a few years ago (more on this later). Indeed, when I was really struggling in grad school, aside from my band, the game Halo 2 was my only real outlet. Alas, this time videogames did get in my way. I pretty much played Halo 2 non-stop for about a year, wasting a ton of time when I really should have been working on my dissertation. Yet while I felt like a degenerate, as fate would have it, it wasn't wasted time. As fate would have it, all of my "wasted" time in life playing Ms. PacMan and Halo 2 ended up inspiring what I still think is still one of my best philosophical ideas: the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Simulation Hypothesis and new theory of free will that I defended in my 2013 article, "A New Theory of Free Will." I will explain how this is below--but, before I get to that, I would like to introduce my other two passions, as they ended up interacting with my videogame passion in inspiring some of my philosophical work.

Passions of philosophers outside of philosophy -- Helen De Cruz

There was a time in my life where little else seemed to matter but to get a permanent academic job. At one point, I let the job market get to me and fell into a pit of despair. Then I made the decision that being an academic philosopher cannot, must not, be the only thing that matters. I made the conscious effort to make time for my at that point long-neglected hobbies, while also trying to eke out a publication record and looking for the elusive permanent/tenure track job (and raising kids). 

I have several hobbies. I draw (nowadays mainly on the iPad Pro). I play the Renaissance lute, the guitar, and recently I bought a ukulele. I have a mezzo soprano voice with a decent range, and used to sing in a choir, but now mainly sing to accompany my lute playing. I also enjoy reading fiction, especially science fiction and fantasy. I play the occasional single-player computer game, preferably something with puzzles and atmosphere.

It is good for me to have things that I don't have to excel in. There is an expectation of excellence in academia--being good is not good enough. Hobbies, by contrast, are entirely under your control and there is no pressure. Hence I like to have many hobbies I am OK at, rather than just one I am very good at. The hobbies provide a welcome balance and perspective.

Here I will focus on the Renaissance lute. The Renaissance lute is a difficult instrument to play well. Mine has eight courses (15 strings, 7 doubles and a single) and is tuned in G. The repertoire is huge, spanning from about 1500 to about 1620. There is no uniform notation. Instead, there are at least 5 distinct styles of tablature, some of them are very pretty (see below an excerpt of Capirola's Lute book from 1520), some of which are impossible to master except by very dedicated people (e.g., German tablature). See here to watch me play a Passacaglia by G.A. Doni. 

I like the emotional register music provides. Currently, I am learning some Elizabethan lute songs by John Dowland and Thomas Campion. It is a relatively small but beautiful repertoire, blending sophisticated metaphysical poetry and daring musical phrasing. One feature I find very attractive is the deliberate melancholia in many of these pieces. There is absolutely no attempt to be cheerful or to sugarcoat things (see below - In Darkness let me dwell, performed by Michael Chance, lyrics below). 

In darkness let me dwell

the ground shall sorrow be

The roof despair, to bar all cheerful light from me

The walls of marble black, that moist'ned still shall weep

My music, hellish jarring sounds, to banish friendly sleep.

Thus, wedded to my woes, and bedded in my tomb,

O let me dying live, till death doth come, till death doth come

Dark thoughts, sadness, despair, are an intrinsic part of human experience. It's something that isn't a part of the culture of happiness, it's something that we can at best manage. The Elizabethan lute songs come to terms with, and expresses this feeling.

I was very fortunate to live in Belgium which provides state-sponsored music education (for people over 16, I think it was about 150 euros per year, an absolute bargain for three hours of music tuition per week: 1.5 hours of music theory and reading, 30 minutes of one-on-one practice, and 1 hour of playing in ensemble per week; I had formal tuition for about 7 years. Since I've stopped music tuition in 2011 (moving to the UK, which does not provide state-sponsored music tuition), my technique has remained static. I learn an occasional new piece but not at the pace at when I was in music tuition. I have no specific ambitions. Perhaps, when the kids are bigger and I can manage time a bit better, I would love to play in a small amateur ensemble. For the moment, amateur dabblings at home are satisfying enough. 

Passions of philosophers outside of philosophy -- Heidi Savage

Today's interview with a philosopher who shares their passion outside of philosophy is Heidi Savage, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Geneseo. Her passion is photography. Let me know at helenldecruz at gmail dot com if you'd like to be featured! 

Can you tell me something about your side-interest/hobby My hobby is that of taking photographs using a digital single reflex camera always on manual so I learn the ropes of how to set everything up to produce the effect I am going for, although I have a phobia of photographing people as I find it very embarrassing, save for the one I have included. I think photography suits my personality because while it requires a lot of work to produce something worth looking at, it takes no patience at all in collecting the material necessary to do so. Likewise, it’s a craft you can learn by trial and error, another aspect that suits me quite well.

My approach to issues in general is often akin to throwing spaghetti at a wall to see if it sticks. If it does, I guess it works. If not, I try again. I actually sometimes think of philosophy on this model, truth be told. I’m not really much for wasting time on something whose outcome is hard to predict. With photography, at least in the digital age, the result is right there, you can see it right away, and if it’s bad, you can just delete it and start over. Actually, I used to be a painter and sketch artist, but I found that it required too much commitment to one and only one piece at a time, and I became very obsessive and perfectionistic about it. So I stopped doing it. Then, I found the creative outlet for me: photography. Interestingly, I also learned that you can find out about how much your own biological shortcomings or differences can make to how you see the world, and then conjecture about how that affects your overall cognitive approach to things. My husband for instance is far sighted, and so his photographs often have long stretched out lines that disappear into the horizon. In contrast, I am near sighted, and so mine are often close ups. I often wonder just how much actual vision can literally affect your “vision.”

How did you get into this hobby? The story behind how I got into this is a bit depressing. My mom became very ill with inoperable, slow-growing brain tumors, and I was her care taker for about a year. Well, taking care of a sick person often leaves you sitting around a lot with quite a bit of anxiety. So writing was pretty much out. I happened to have a plain old canon powershot with me, and I just started taking pictures around the house — of flowers, houses, grass, whatever. Anyway, I found it quite relaxing. The whole process. Taking the gazillion pics of the same thing from different angles and in different lights and then editing them on my computer. It was something I could do that made me forget where I was for a little while.

Are there any significant accomplishments you’d like to share? Not especially. I’ve won a few online photo contests with some of my shots, but I’m still really just learning and with a tenure track job, my learning curve might be a bit longer than others.

Do you have goals that you want to achieve? I would like to learn how to take shots in low light and I would like to learn better how to compose a shot as well as take more impactful shots. I also have aspirations to own about 10,000 worth of different lenses! The lenses are more expensive than the cameras themselves I’m afraid.

Does your hobby relate to philosophy at all? Any crossovers? The only connection I see between philosophy and my hobby is that my personality and general approach to things is expressed in both, and in the connection between one’s actual physical abilities and one’s mind-set.

How do you make enough time for your hobby? These days I don’t. It’s something I now have to force myself to make time for. But when I am not teaching I will often get up at sunrise to catch those shots during what photographers call “the golden hour.”

Passions of philosophers outside of philosophy -- Mason Cash

Wittgenstein once wrote: "This is how philosophers should greet each other: 'Take your time!'" (Culture and Value). When working on a philosophical problem, a long slow fermentation period is optimal, if one wants to make a worthy contribution.

This also applies to bread making. Bread made quickly (like most commercial breads) has little taste, while a long cool fermentation gives the enzymes enough time to break down natural starches in the flour into sugars, producing a superior bread with complex flavors.

Academic philosophy and baking bread also have conveniently complementary schedules. Bread making involves short periods of work, interspersed by long periods of waiting. Work in philosophy involves long periods of concentration, with short breaks. So a day spent working on a problem, or grading papers, or planning classes, while intermittently turning ingredients into dough, into bread, fits my schedule very well.

Passions of philosophers outside of philosophy -- Jason Brennan

I’ve been an avid guitar player since about age 12. While I’ve learned to play many different styles (classical, jazz, blues, rock, country, etc.), my favorite style is “shred”: think intricate, technical, but exciting lead guitar work à la Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, or a lot of 80s hard rock bands. Fast two-handed tapping, sweep arpeggios, pinch harmonics, funny whammy bar screams—that’s the kind of stuff that gets me going. Or, if I’m in a classical mood, I might play Paganini or Vivaldi violin-pieces on guitar.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2STiKIQ15RuMUhPSEFKb1NSVVE/view (click to play a sample. Unfortunately, I didn't succeed in embedding it)

 I don’t have an exciting story for how I picked it up. I just started listening to hard rock and heavy metal music in 4^th grade, and knew early on I wanted to learn to do that fancy guitar work. Sometime in middle school, I purchased a used guitar from a friend. It was cheap red “Rokaxe” brand; I’m pretty sure it was made out of congealed wood goop rather than real wood. I started taking lessons and learning music theory the next day, and kept at it.

Throughout high school and college, I only had cheap equipment, despite being in a few gigging bands here and there. But in 2005, Arizona, my graduate school, gave me a cash award for being the most outstanding graduate student, which I used to buy a semi-custom Carvin. Since then I’ve collected a good range of axes, including a Music Man Majesty, Fender American Deluxe Telecaster, Carvin DC747 seven-string, an 8-string guitar, and, most recently, a replica of Eddie Van Halen’s “Frankenstrat”. I play all these through a four-channel high-gain Marshall JVM tube amplifier and half-stack.

Now that my kids are older (nine and five), I have far more time to play. I manage to practice about half an hour a day most days. I recently formed/joined two bands. One, Fürst Try, plays my kind of music: 60s-80s hard rock (Cream, Hendrix, SRV, Van Halen, AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Journey, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Rush). We’re a power trio. I do vocals and guitar. The other, He’s Not Here, plays 80s new wave and post-punk (e.g., the Pretenders, Psychedelic Furs, INXS, Police). It’s not my kind of music (in part because it’s not challenging), but it’s something to do.

The way I make time for this is the way I make time for everything else: In college, I transferred to a new university and switched majors. I had to overload on credit hours, plus work part-time, plus try to maintain enough of a social presence that my girlfriend (to whom I’ve now been married for almost 16 years) wouldn’t leave me. I learned then how to manage my writing and reading time effectively in order to get things done. There’s no big secret: I make sure to write for 3-4 hours a day every working day, and I always write before I do anything else. I don’t let the urgent take precedence over the important. I find that’s good enough to be productive while still maintaining a good home-life balance. (I play with my kids daily, read to them, take them to sports practice, cook dinner, do laundry, and hang out with my spouse.)

There’s no real link to philosophy, but for fun, I tend to sneak guitar and music references into most of my writing. That said, when Peter Jaworski and I were writing our 2015 book Markets without Limits, we wanted a metaphor to express the idea that certain markets are good at any number of widely varied conditions, while other markets were good only under very particular conditions. I said to him, “Oh, that reminds me of how guitar amps work. Every guitar amp has a bunch of knobs on the front that control gain, volume, equalization, and other factors. Certain amps, such as the Marshall Super Lead, sound good no matter how you set those knobs. Others, such as the Mesa Boogie Mark IIC+, sound bad at most settings, but then are glorious when you put the knobs just right.” To my surprise, he (and, it turned out, dozens of audiences around the country) found that metaphor illuminating, so we put it in the book.

My mentor, David Schmidtz, tells his graduate students the following bit of advice: “Earn rewards, then take them.” It’s part of his recipe for making sure you stay motivated and don’t burn out. On a daily basis, that might mean that if you get four hours of writing done before lunch, you can go out to lunch. On a weekly basis, it might mean that if you meet your goals, you can see a movie. On a longer scale, it might mean that when you get your first book contract, a job, or tenure, you buy yourself a prize or take a trip. He certainly means that you should reward yourself for doing your work by giving yourself time to do your hobby.

 

Passions of philosophers outside of philosophy -- Mike Austin

One of my favorite things to do over the past 15 years has been coaching soccer. Thanks to my daughters, I’ve had the opportunity to coach. My passion for the sport has grown and I’ve been motivated to learn more about the beautiful game. Being a coach also gives me some justification for watching Arsenal and Sporting Kansas City matches in order to develop my knowledge of the game. Or so I tell myself.

One of my first memories of soccer consists of being in a field in Kansas, where we not only dodged our teammates in scrimmages and drills, but also had to dodge cow patties. I played soccer off and on growing up, was a referee for youth games, and helped run some clinics with my dad and younger brother.

I started coaching youth soccer when I was still a graduate student at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Our oldest daughter wanted to play, and they needed coaches, so I volunteered. She and our middle daughter both played soccer through their middle school years. After that, they focused on music and marching band. Our youngest daughter kept at it and truly loves the sport. I coached her at the youth level from U8 to U12, and enjoyed that a lot. Going into her 8^th grade year, her last year of middle school, they needed a coach and I took the job. After she moved on to high school, I kept coaching the middle school team because of how much I loved working with the young athletes and being around the sport as a coach. 

I’m very proud of the program I’ve helped build at the middle school. We compete against much larger schools, and for years the girls didn’t expect to do well against them. However, each of the past 2 seasons, we were undefeated in our league games. The girls now expect to compete with the teams from these schools, and it’s been rewarding to see them grow in skill and confidence. They play with so much heart and determination; it makes me proud to be their coach.

Just this month, I was named the high school girls soccer coach, which means I will once again coach my daughter, in her senior season with the team (I was granted permission by her, thankfully). We have some goals as a team related to different competitions that we’re in, but as a coach I also focus on doing what I can to encourage them to become better athletes and better people (as the Positive Coaching Alliance puts it, see here).

It is easy to make time for coaching soccer, because I love it. I do less (sometimes no) writing during soccer season, but that is an easy trade-off for me. My philosophical interests related to character and its relevance for different realms of human life cross over with my role as a soccer coach. Being a coach enables me to test out some of my views on character development and sport in the real world, and it gives me food for thought as I reflect on these issues. I’ve written papers on sports and neo-Aristotelian moral development, sport and humility, and I recently published a paper on sport as a means for cultivating the theologhttp://www.positivecoach.org/ical virtues of faith, hope, and love. I also hope to write a more popular-level book on sport and moral development in the near future.

I’m looking forward to many more years of coaching soccer, and hopefully a few more trophies along the way. But most of all, I value and look forward to the relationships I am able to have with these young athletes, encouraging them to see themselves as athletes, to value excellence, and to have some fun along the way.

Passions of philosophers outside of philosophy -- Tomas Bogardus

Today's interview with a philosopher who shares his passion outside of philosophy is Tomas Bogardus, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. He works mostly on the mind-body problem and the rationality of religious belief, and has a forthcoming paper on whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God. Let me know at helenldecruz at gmail dot com if you'd like to be featured! 

1. Can you tell me something about your side-interests/hobbies, and how you got into them?

Most of my free time is spent hanging out with my wife and daughter, and that’s what I enjoy most. Aside from that, these days, I have three main hobbies. I’ve been surfing for about twenty years now, and being near the ocean was an attraction of my current job at Pepperdine. My commute into Malibu takes me down the coast through Ventura and western Malibu, and there are lots of surf spots on the way. When I have some extra time and the waves are good, I’ll magically compress a longboard or a funboard into my Honda Accord and make a little surf stop on the way to campus.

My wife, my daughter, and I live at a bit of an elevation now, close to Los Padres National Forest, and it gets cool at night, so I’ve learned from my neighbors how to hunt, butcher, and season firewood. (Don’t worry, the trees have all fallen naturally.) On one of these adventures, I happened into some really beautiful and rare wood from a giant Catalina Ironwood tree that had died in the drought. The wood has a shimmering ochre color, it’s super dense (hence, “ironwood”), and looks almost like copper when it’s sanded and finished. After burning more of the wood than I’d like to admit, I decided to try my hand at shaping it into little hearts and triangles, and gifting them to my wife and daughter who display them around the house. At first I had only a circular saw, which I’d run with one hand while guiding the wood with my other hand. By the grace of God, no fingers were lost during that reckless confusion. Things have progressed a bit now, I have better tools, and some of the necklaces I’ve made are featured in a local store here in my hometown, and on the website of a chic local clothing line. (You can see some by following the new ojai_holtz account on Instagram.)

Passions of philosophers outside of philosophy -- C. Thi Nguyen

By C. Thi Nguyen, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Utah Valley University.

Unexpectedly, it turns out - to my brain at least - that the pleasures of rock climbing and the pleasures of philosophy are weirdly similar. Before I starting climbing, I’d had completely the wrong idea about it. I’d thought rock climbing was something for thugs and bros. I had this vague mental image that involved some combination of pull-ups, screaming, and maybe spraying Red Bull on people. But it turns out that rock climbing is this subtle, refined, and in many cases hyper-intellectual sport. It’s puzzle-solving, but with your body.

What I mostly do is a sub-discipline of climbing called bouldering. This involves finding short little climbs - like 10 to 20 feet - often steep and overhanging, which force you through a handful of moves of great difficulty and trickiness.

(This isn’t me. This is current female world champion Shauna Coxsey. Note the toe hook.)

Bouldering originally started as a way to train for longer climbs by replicating the most difficult sequences in a safer environment, much like a book of chess problems. In fact, some of that language is still there - we call them “boulder problems” and talk in great detail about which particular sequences will solve them.

The aesthetic of the whole business is: you want to find a weird little climb that, at first, seems utterly impossible. There just aren’t enough handholds; the feet are all in the wrong place. And then, slowly, piece by piece, you put together a solution. If you move your hand here instead of there, then you can inch your left foot up a few inches, and then rebalance yourself, and then get your hips over just the tiniest bit over to the right, and then you’re in the position to just barely reach that next hold, and then…

A really interesting boulder problems - and that’s exactly the language climbers will use - often involves bizarre solutions. Like hooking your heel around something over your head, or sneaking a toe in between two fingers, or squeezing a corner of rock between your heels while you ever so carefully inch your center of gravity over.

Climbing isn’t thuggery. It’s solving a logic problem, with your body, in the alphabet of yoga.

And that’s another thing: the skills aren’t what I expected. Upper body strength eventually turns out to be important for, like, climbing cave roofs, but it’s much more about: balance, finesse, precision and refinement of movement. Check out, for example, this video of rock climbing legend Lynn Hill dancing her way up some boulder problems:

I’ve seduced some very large number of philosophers into rock climbing, despite their initial reluctance and disbelief. The pleasures of climbing, especially of bouldering, are about puzzles and epiphanies, about weaving your way through something you thought was impossible, about success through subtly and refinement. And sometimes, it’s about trying really, really hard.

It’s so weird, and it’s so satisfying, that explaining this pleasure to myself has actually inspired a recent turn in my philosophical work. I became entranced with Bernard Suits’ view on games - that they’re arbitrary goals and obstacles taken on for the sake of the activity of overcoming them – because it explained so much about my bizarre love of bouldering, and board games, and, in fact, some parts of philosophy - because it was the only way to explain what the hell I was doing with my weekends.

It’s also an excellent thing to do after a long day of mental labor. I have trouble hauling my mind out of philosophy-land — problems in my papers, admin stresses. But climbing is so intense that it breaks through all that. You absolutely cannot be distracted when you climb. A favorite yoga writer, Godfrey Devereux, once explained that difficult and precarious yoga positions were just tools to help you meditate. They give instant feedback on your degree of mental focus. If your mind wanders, your body would wobble and fall over; yoga amplifies and physicalizes the mind’s focus level. Climbing is like that. On a hard climb, if your focus isn’t absolute, you will fall off the damn wall.

Finally: I’m a terrible rock climber, though I love it dearly. And doing something I’m terrible at, regularly, has helped my teaching. It’s easy to forget how alien and difficult and weird and tortuous philosophy is for so many people, since we live there. But forcing myself, several times a week, to deal with my recalcitrant body, and guide it through tiny subtleties of refined motion, reminds me of what it’s like to learn something you’ve got no instinct for.

Passions of philosophers outside of philosophy -- Sara Uckelman

Today's interview with a philosopher who shares her passion outside of philosophy is Sara L. Uckelman, lecturer in philosophy at Durham University. Let me know at helenldecruz at gmail dot com if you'd like to be featured! 

1. Can you tell me something about your side-interest/hobby, and 2. How did you get into this hobby?

I’ll take these two together! It was the summer I was 13, and my mom saw an advertisement for what was essentially a local “Ren Faire”, and thought “that sounds like something Sara would be interested,” and we went on a family outing. Yes, indeed, it was something I was interested in, but I figured – there’s no way my parents will want to get involved, and there’s no way they’d let their 13 year old daughter go off and do this by herself, so I filed away the name of the group so I could look it up again when I went off to university.

One thing led to another and a few months later my mom was like “But I thought that group would be something you’d want to get involved in,” and it turned out they didn’t have any objections to my being involved without them! So that is how I joined the Society for Creative Anachronism a few months shy of my 14th birthday. This year, I have now spent 2/3 of my life as a member.

Photo by Rick Williams

The SCA is a world-wide educational non-profit dedicated to the study of pre-1600 European culture (and cultures it came in contact with). We have events on weekends filled with all sorts of medieval activities – cooking, sewing, music, fighting, fencing, archery, dyeing, brewing, calligraphy, illumination, you name it, we do it. It isn’t a re-enactment group like Civil War (American or British!) re-enactors are; we don’t re-create specific historic events or characters, and the only level of authenticity required of participants is that one makes an attempt at pre-1600 clothing – and “attempt” can be taken very loosely! People are encouraged to develop “personas”, but this is also not a requirement. My persona, Aryanhwy merch Catmael, lives in the 11th C and is the daughter of a minor Welsh lord; she’s widowed and has three childrens, and beyond that, the details are hazy.

Because it is a world-wide group, I have been able to be involved continuously through undergrad grad school, through moving from one continent to another, to living in three different countries in the latter continent. After we moved to Europe, my husband told me that if there were ever an event in some neat castle or something, maybe he’d like to come too. So I took he to Raglan Castle, where we have a 10 day event every August. Now, the SCA is a family affair; our five-year-old daughter has been attending events since she was four months old. When we moved from Germany to England 2.5 years ago, we moved 20 minutes away from another SCAdian family, whose young daughter was already a friend of ours. How often do you move countries and end up 20 minutes away from good friends?

3. Do you have goals that you want to achieve (e.g., getting to a certain level/winning in a certain kind of competition?)

My main interests within the Society are heraldry and onomastics (the study of names); and calligraphy and illumination. I had long been interested in names, but it was taking on the office of “herald” in the Society (someone who helps people pick a medieval name and coat of arms, and develop a persona) that caused me to concentrate this interest into pre-1600 Europe, and to first learn about medieval names and naming practices, and then ultimately being doing my own original research. As a result of my research, I held the highest onomastic office in the Society for two years about a decade ago – in the middle of writing a PhD in medieval logic, my onomastic research gave me an outlet that was still scholarly but <i>wasn’t</i> my dissertation!

4. Are there any accomplishments that you are particularly proud of and want to share?

So many. A few years ago, I finally took my onomastic research “professional”, so to speak, and launched the Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources; (blog http://dmnes.wordpress.com/), an ongoing concern that I have actively incorporated into my academic research agenda. I, who have always felt I had no artistic skill whatsoever, have developed my drawing and painting skills to be able to create beautiful images on parchment, often with real gold leaf (see here for pictures!). And, despite both being bad at sewing and hating it, I have managed to sew enough outfits to keep three people entirely clothed medievally for a 10 day stretch. Oh, and I’ve recently gotten into sausage making and charcuterie. I make a damned good lamb bresaola, if I do say so myself.

5. How do you make enough time for your hobby?

It’s been a part of my life for so long, its just part of the routine. Some years we get to more events than others, but if I need to be sewing new clothes for an event, then I sew while watching TV in the evenings, or I bring my sewing along to departmental meetings. If I have an illumination commission that I need to finish, my daughter and I will sit and paint together on a weekend. My onomastic research has always been my haven and quiet space – if ever I am stressed or anxious or worried about something, if ever my other research isn’t going well, I can sit down and transcribe and analyse some names, and come away relaxed and with a sense of accomplishment. I also like to tie getting to events with traveling for conferences; because it is a world-wide group, pretty much anywhere I might go for a conference is within spitting distance of a local branch. Maybe they’re having an event the weekend after the conference, or even just a local get together, or maybe I can just meet up with someone for a beer. 

Photo by Delia Richter

6. Does your hobby relate to philosophy at all? Any crossovers?

The SCA is how I ended up doing a dissertation in medieval logic in the first place! When I first discovered that not only were they writing logic textbooks in the 13th and 14th centuries, what they were writing was really really interesting in terms of modalities and dynamics, my first thought was “What, you mean I can combine my hobby and my academic interests into one and write a dissertation on it?!” I also love giving classes on logic and philosophy at SCA events. Two of the highlights of my logic/teaching career involved Raglan Castle: One year I lectured on Paul of Venice’s Logica Parva (c. 1400) in Latin (well, partially), and another year, I hosted a public salon on Avicenna’s Logic, complete with drawing a square of opposition in the dirt beneath one of the castle bridges (see here). (for more info on the SCA see here www.sca.org) 

Passions of philosophers outside of philosophy -- Gregg Caruso

Today's interview with a philosopher who shares his passion outside of philosophy is Gregg Caruso, Associate Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Corning. Let me know at helenldecruz at gmail dot com if you'd like to be featured! 

1. Can you tell me something about your side-interest/hobby

For several years now, I have been obsessed with collecting fossils. Since I live in central New York State, most of what I hunt and find myself comes from the Devonian period—a geologic period of the Paleozoic, spanning roughly 60 million years from the end of the Silurian (416 million years ago) to the beginning of the Carboniferous (358 million years ago). The fossils in the Devonian rocks of New York have attracted the attention of serious and causal collectors for nearly 200 years. I am very lucky to live in such a fossil-rich part of the country! At the start of the Devonian, the North American protocontinent was located at the equator, with much of what would become New York covered by a shallow tropical sea. The fossils in this area provide a nice snapshot of the rich diversity of life in the ancient Paleozoic waters. I sometimes joke and say "I collect seashells, they just happen to be 390 million years old." The most common fossils in this area are brachiopods, gastropods, cephalopods, and various species of sponges and coral. If you are lucky, however, you may also find eurypterids (ancient sea scorpions) and trilobites (ancient arthropods that look like little alien bugs).

Now that I have been collected for a number of years, I really prize the "big finds"— which for me are full trilobites. They are very hard to come by because most of the time you just find bits and pieces—e.g., a part of the head shield, a segment of the thorax, or a tail piece. It is also hard to find fully outstretched ones since trilobites when scared would tuck in their legs and antennae and roll themselves into tight little balls. Collectors call these "rolly pollies" and I have at least a dozen of them. My most prized fossils, however, are the fully outstretched trilobites I have collected myself.  

Here is one example. I found this little guy by cracking open rocks at a quarry near Buffalo, NY. I typically use hammers and chisels of various sizes when I'm out collecting. If I am luck enough to find a trilobite, I then bring it home and take it to my prep lab, which I built in my garage. With this trilobite I used drills and picks to shape the rock and clear away some of the big stuff. Then for the more delicate work, I put the little guy in my blast tank and use my airgun. The abrasive and air pressure need to be enough to eat away the rock but not the shell of the trilobite. As you can imagine, it took a lot of trial and error for me to figure out the right combination. In the end, though, you get this beautiful display piece! 

In addition to going out and hunting fossils, I also buy and trade fossils with other collectors. My collection includes some museum-quality pieces. I have a number of big and small ammonites, some rare species of trilobite from around the world, as well as dinosaur bones, teeth, eggs, and tracks. At some point, I will need a larger space to display my collection—it is starting to take over our house. 

 

2. How did you get into this hobby? 

 It was my daughter Maya. She rekindled in me a love of dinosaurs and one weekend I thought it might be fun to go out searching for fossils together. I also thought it would be an enjoyable educational activity for the whole family. Since there are no dinosaur fossils in this area, we started looking for other things. At first I just fumbled about not knowing where to look or what to look for. Then I started doing some research. I discovered a great fossil park near Buffalo, NY called Penn Dixie. During our first trip there I got hooked. We started finding horn coral (buckets of it), brachiopods, and pieces of trilobites. I left with a new hobby. My wife, Elaini, and Maya also enjoyed themselves—Maya especially enjoyed playing among the rocks and hitting things with her hammer. We still enjoy going there, even if now I often have to bribe my daughter by promising to take her to Chuck E. Cheese afterwards.

Over time, though, my hobby has become an obsession. I now typically go on fossil trips myself. I joined a few groups that organize outings—such as the New York Paleontological Society and Paleontological Research Institution. And when I am traveling or on vacation I also like to see if there are any good fossil locations nearby. Last summer when we were down in Florida, for example, my wife sent me on a day trip for my birthday down the Peace River with a guide searching for ancient shark teeth. It was a great adventure. After rowing for about an hour, I had to stand in chest-high water with a shovel and sifter digging into the gravel bed below. I was a bit nervous because I saw three alligators long the bank of the river but it was worth it since I left with dozens of shark teeth, including two megalodon teeth.  

3. Do you have goals that you want to achieve (e.g., getting to a certain level/winning in a certain kind of competition?) 

I have no particular goals. Of course I would love to unearth a complete dinosaur skeleton or discover a new species of trilobite, but that will never happen. I will have to settle for going out west one day and spending a few weeks looking for dinosaur fossils with an expert. I fancy myself an amateur paleontologist and I just want to continue learning. It has been a very rewarding hobby thus far and I just want to continue doing what I’ve been doing for as long as I can. 

4. Are there any accomplishments that you are particularly proud of and want to share? 

I’m not sure it’s an accomplishment, but I am very proud of the skills I have acquired finding and preparing fossils. While the process can be time consuming, the end result is a one-of-the-kind work of art.

5. How do you make enough time for your hobby? 

That’s difficult. I always have a number of projects in the works so one’s free time is never truly free. Nevertheless, I just force myself to take the time. It’s a great hobby because it includes a number of different components. It’s part treasure hunt, part scientific adventure. And when you do not have the time to go out hunting for fossils, you can always read and learn more about fossils. Or you can go into your lab and prep some fossils. Or you can work on keeping records or create informational cards for your fossils. Or you can simply study your fossils.

6. Does your hobby relate to philosophy at all? Any crossovers?

Well, there is some really interesting work being done in the philosophy of paleontology. See, for example, the blog Extinct, which is run by several philosophers who work at the crossroads of philosophy and paleontology. Reading that blog has tempted me to write about my two loves (philosophy and fossils) and how they relate, but I haven’t found the opportunity to do so yet. Perhaps one day I will write a book entitled Socratosaurus, exploring questions about knowledge, language, and the philosophy of science through the lens of paleontology. There definitely are issues to be explored here. Unfortunately, I have not done so myself.

On a more basic level, however, I will say that my hobby has provided me with a deeper understand of evolution—and evolution has always been of great philosophical interest to me. To that extent, they are related.

 

Passions of philosophers outside philosophy - Rachel McKinnon

This is our first instalment of the philosophy side-interest/hobby project. The author is Rachel McKinnon, Assistant Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the College of Charleston. 

Can you tell me something about your side-interest/hobby? 

I race bikes (bicycles) at an elite level internationally. In the US, I carry a ‘Category 1’ license, which is the highest category (they go from 5 to 1). I also have an international ‘UCI’ license, which lets me race around the world. This year, I’ll race primarily in the US, and I’m targeting the Canadian Elite Road National Championships in June. Next spring, I’ll spend some time in and around the Netherlands racing (e.g., possibly also Belgium, Germany, France).

I also co-founded and serve as captain for an international cycling team, Foxy Moxy Racing. Our one sentence description is: "Racing bikes, radically promoting trans and gender non-conforming inclusion in sport." We have racers all over the US and Canada. That adds an extra, interesting layer to my life.

I started racing just over two years ago. I’ve been an elite athlete most of my life, with my primary focus on badminton and golf when I was younger. But when I moved to the US in 2014, there wasn’t any elite badminton in my area. I needed a new sport, and somehow I found myself in cycling.

At the moment, I train 12-15hrs/week. In the winter it’s a little more (up to 18-20hrs/week).

 

How did you get into this hobby?

 Since I couldn’t really continue training in badminton without quality facilities and competition in my area, I struggled to stay fit. I don’t really like running, and it’s pretty hard on my body. So I put on some weight, and found my way in a spin class in December 2014. And I loved it! I had a road bike in undergrad, and had thought about racing, but never got around to it. I was loving the spin classes and decided to buy a road bike in February 2015. I did my first race in March 2015, and won my first race in April.

Are there any significant accomplishments you’d like to share?

I’m a two-time defending state champion in the road race and current criterium champion. In 2016 one of my main season goals was the Crossroads Classic, a four-day race series in NC. I won all four stages, the overall yellow jersey, and the blue jersey sprint competition. I also took 3rd in a big pro criterium—the USA Crits Speed Week #3: Michelin Test Track event. In 2017 I’ve had a great start to my season with four wins, including Stage 2 in the pro Tour of the Southern Highlands stage race.

Do you have goals that you want to achieve (e.g., getting to a certain level/winning in a certain kind of competition?)

My primary goal is to win the 2018 Canadian Elite Road Race National Championships. I’m hoping to be on the podium this year. I think that’s attainable. My really ambitious goal is to make Team Canada for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the road cycling event.

Does your hobby relate to philosophy at all? Any crossovers?

 My various sports careers (including my 6yr stint as a professional poker player) have certainly informed my philosophical work on the metaphysics of luck and how we evaluate performances. I think that athletes (and poker players, definitely) have fairly sophisticated understandings of luck and how to think about performance norms. I draw on sports examples often. Much more recently, I’ve been working on issues of trans-inclusive sport ethics, law, and policy. And being an elite trans athlete is certainly helpful for that work! Increasingly, I find myself enjoying that work, too. I think it has the chance to make a real difference in people’s lives. I’ve also started teaching our sports ethics course, and the personal experience as an elite athlete is extremely valuable.

 How do you make enough time for your hobby?

Really, really good time management. I basically only have my work and my cycling. I’m single; I don’t have much time for a social life. I don’t really drink, since that interferes with training. I think I’m pretty lucky that I’m able to finish projects relatively quickly. But I’ve certainly had to scale back my research output as my cycling became more serious. I rarely work on weekends, as I’m usually doing 8+ hrs of training, or I’m out of town racing. So I mostly schedule my life around training and racing where I can. I have a really good daily planner and calendar!