In What Time Travelers Cannot Do, Kadri Vihvelin objects to David Lewis's explanation of why a time-traveler cannot kill his own grandpa (From The Paradoxes of Time Travel). To begin, consider the following argument against the possibility of time travel:
The key premise is 2. Suppose Tim entered the time machine on July 4, 2000 and traveled back to July 4, 1940. If, in 1940 Tim kills his grandpa, then his grandpa wouldn't have had a son, and then his son wouldn't have had Tim. So Tim would never have been born. Which means that time wouldn't be alive to enter the time machine on July 4, 2000. We're forced to accept the two following statements: A) Tim entered the time machine on July 4, 2000. B) Tim did not enter the time machine on July 4, 2000. (Because he was never born) A) and B) contradict. This is why some people think that premise 2 in the argument is true. No one can make contradictions true, so no one can kill their own grandpa. Lewis claimed, however, that this argument commits the fallacy of equivocation. This fallacy is committed when an argument depends on the use of a key term and the definition of that key term changes from one premise to the next. Here's a humorous example: 4. Everything that runs has feet. 5. My nose runs. 6. Therefore, my nose has feet. The conclusion is obviously false. The problem with this argument is that the meaning of 'runs' changes from premise 4 to premise 5. This is the fallacy of equivocation. In the case of the time travel argument, Lewis claimed that the term 'can' changes from premise 1 to premise 2. In premise 1, 'can' refers to the ordinary sense of 'can' in which someone has what it takes to kill their grandpa: they have the training, the rifle, the ideal settings, clear vision, the ability to pull a trigger, etc. But in premise 2, the sense of 'can' changes to something else. We can see this by imagining Time-Traveling Tim the moment before he attempts to kill his grandfather. He has the training, the rifle, clear vision, etc. So he obviously 'can' kill his grandpa in the sense from premise 1. But if we interpret premise 2 like this, then it is false. So in order for the argument to work, it has to slide into another sense of 'can'. But when we do this the argument commits the fallacy of equivocation. So either way, the argument fails. Lewis thinks that premise 2 is indeed false. He thinks that time travel is possible. But he also thinks that Tim doesn't actually kill his grandpa in any time travel scenario. This is how he avoids the problem of the contradiction between A) and B). He says that the most likely reason is that every time Tim tries to kill gramps, something goes wrong. Either the gun jams, or he misses, or the cops stop him, or his grandfather falls right as the shot is fired, etc. So Tim 'can' kill his grandfather in the ordinary sense, but he won't because he's still alive in 2000. Now back to Vihvelin. Vihvelin thinks that Lewis is wrong. She thinks that premise 2 actually uses the same ordinary sense of 'can' that premise 1 uses. But she thinks that premise 1 is false. Her explanation for this is that we should define what we can and cannot do on what we could possibly do, keeping everything about us as similar as we can. She explains this by the use of a special kind of conditional called a 'counterfactual'. A counterfactual is an 'if, then' statement in which the part after the 'if' is false. Here are some examples: C) If I had bones made of adamantium, then I would be heavier than I am. D) If I was from the planet Krypton, then I would be just like Superman. E) If I was 7 feet tall, then I would have played college basketball. All of these have false antecedents (the part after the 'if'). They are "counter to fact". That's why they are called counterfactuals. They are also all true. Adamantium is a very strong metal that is supposedly heavier than human bone. All aliens from the planet Krypton are supposed to be more powerful than Earthlings. And I was a pretty good basketball player, so if I was that tall, then I definitely would have played in college. We can define what we can and cannot do by using counterfactuals like these. Consider these two: F) If I try to sink a 3-pointer, I would or at least might succeed. G) If I try to slam dunk on a regulation hoop, I would or at least might succeed. F) is true (I'm still a pretty good shot after all these years!). But G) is false. Even in my prime, I was never able to dunk (I'm too much of a white boy!). So we can say that I 'can' sink a 3, but I 'can't' dunk. Alright, back to Vihvelin. She thinks that we should define 'can' based on what can possibly happen and we know what can possibly happen based on what would or might happen. Consider this counterfactual: H) If Tim had tried to kill his grandpa, then he would or might have succeeded. Is H) true? Vihvelin reminds us of what Lewis said: in order to avoid a contradiction, we have to say that Time-Traveling Tim always fails whenever he tries to kill gramps (either the gun jams, or he misses, or he chickens out, etc.). But if he always fails, then there is no possible way that H) is true unless there's some kind of miracle. But this is exactly like F)! I cannot dunk. Obviously. Would you believe me if I said, "I can dunk, it will just take a miracle!" No. You'll rightly call me out as a liar. I can't dunk. Therefore, Vihvelin also says that we should say that Tim can't kill his grandpa. In this series of posts, I'm talking about my experiences getting a Ph.D. in philosophy. One goal is to offer some advice to people who might be considering whether or not grad school is for them. The other is target audience is those that are already neck deep in their studies and wondering how they're ever going to finish. These posts are organized according to the following questions.
1. Should you even go to grad school? 2. How do I get into grad school? 3. How do I finish grad school? After seminary I enrolled in the MA in Philosophy program at UMSL and we moved to St. Louis. Two weeks after we moved to a new city, not knowing a soul, we found out that we were having a baby. 'Life-changing' is an understatement. Cannan was born during the middle of my second semester. That semester, I had to change the way that I approached school. I had to become even more of a planner. From day one in my spring classes, I was immediately thinking about paper topics. Once I had decent ones, I started writing right away and had completed multiple drafts of my work weeks before the papers were due. Having a child taught me the next lesson: Doing this allowed me not just to complete my work during the end of the semester when I wasn't sleeping much because of a new baby, but I made decent grades too. In fact, one of the papers I wrote that semester ended up being the writing sample I used when applying to Ph.D. programs. The main task you must complete, of course, is the dissertation. Many students drop out of Ph.D. programs during the dissertation writing process. Many others take several years to write their dissertation. One of my professors, David McNaughton, gave me the best advice about writing dissertations. (I don't think it was original with him but I'll give him credit anyway!) Once you've sufficiently narrowed down your topic, write every day. It is simple advice. But it works. All you have to do is set a goal: a number of pages, words, or amount of time actually writing. My goal was to write for two hours a day. I've heard of other people setting the goal of writing one page a day. Then set a time. The best time to do this is first thing in the morning (even if you're not a morning person). By the time that I wrote my dissertation, I had three kids. So I decided that if I was going to get any writing done, it had to be while they were asleep. The time that I chose was the two hours before they usually woke up: from 5am to 7am, every day except weekends. I did this every day for a year and by then my dissertation was mostly finished. The beauty of this method is that first thing in the morning you've already accomplished a lot. You don't have to write any more, but I found that this method built momentum so that I wrote at other times too. But because I had already written, I didn't feel like I had to. It was liberating. So this concludes my series of posts on reverse engineering grad school. Let me know if you have any questions! In this series of posts, I'm talking about my experiences getting a Ph.D. in philosophy. One goal is to offer some advice to people who might be considering whether or not grad school is for them. The other is target audience is those that are already neck deep in their studies and wondering how they're ever going to finish. These posts are organized according to the following questions. 1. Should you even go to grad school? 2. How do I get into grad school? 3. How do I finish grad school? The first thing you should do is figure out what you want to focus on. Every field of study has subfields. If you go to grad school you're going to have to narrow your focus to one of those subfields. I'll talk about philosophy since that's my area of expertise. But the principle is the same whether you're going to study Classics, Literature, History, or Theology. Your focus will help you narrow down which schools to apply to. The faculty of each school has their own expertise and this is reflected in what the department is known for. When considering further study in philosophy, I was already interested in philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and ethics. In particular, I was interested in studying the nature of human action, free will, and moral responsibility. So I naturally looked for schools with professors who focused on these topics. That's how I ended up at Florida State. As a department, FSU has several excellent philosophers who write about these topics. You can find out more about these specialties at the Philosophical Gourmet. This lists out each specialization and the main schools who are known for that specialization. You can also look up the authors of your favorite philosophy books and see where they teach. If they're teaching at a school with a grad program, then you can try applying there and studying with them. I didn't major in philosophy in undergrad, so my story might be different from yours. I didn't decide to pursue graduate studies in philosophy until I was half-way through the M.Div. program at NOBTS. Because I didn't have a good background in philosophy, I decided first to get an MA in order to increase my chances of getting into a good Ph.D. program. I picked out five good programs from the Gourmet Report, applied and then waited. I was accepted into two programs: the University of Missouri-St. Louis and the University of Houston. UMSL offered me a TA position that would pay tuition and provide a little for living expenses, so it was a no-brainer. The application process involves several parts. One is the writing sample. The writing sample is a big part of your dossier. I spent about a year working on my writing sample. I presented it at conferences and received really good feedback. If you want to get into a good program, work on getting a polished writing sample by getting as much feedback as you can. Another one of the major parts of a Ph.D. application is letters of recommendation from your professors. So one of the things that I planned out during my MA was to take two courses from each of the professors that I planned to ask for a letter. This helped me pick my classes. Sometimes it was a hard decision because there were multiple interesting classes to choose from. But the goal I had set helped to make the decision for me. This might change as you go along because you might change your mind about the topic that you want to research or you might not get along with a professor. But for the most part, this is a good idea. This allows the professors to get to know you better and to be able to make detailed comments in the letter about your work. The more details the better. Lastly, apply to as many programs as you can afford. This is for two reasons: One, the competition is stiff and you are unlikely to be admitted to any one particular program. And two, the application fees add up quickly. Some are $80-100. I applied to 17 Ph.D. programs and spent over $1000 on applications (including taking the GRE and having them send my scores.). I was accepted to two programs, waitlisted to three, and rejected from the rest. If you want to read more about applying to Ph.D. programs, check out the following helpful resources: http://www.apaonline.org/page/gradguide http://schwitzsplintersunderblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/applying-to-phd-programs-in-philosophy.html http://philosophy.olemiss.edu/a-guide-for-philosophy-graduate-students/ In this series of posts, I'm going to talk about my experiences getting a Ph.D. in philosophy. One goal is to offer some advice to people who might be considering whether or not grad school is for them. The other is target audience is those that are already neck deep in their studies and wondering how they're ever going to finish. I'll organize the posts according to the following questions.
1. Should you even go to grad school? 2. How do I get into grad school? 3. How do I finish grad school? I'm a planner. I like thinking about the future and deciding between possible courses of action to accomplish goals. So, when I went to grad school I naturally began figuring out exactly what I needed to do in order both to finish and to get a job when I graduated. But first, let me tell you a little about my situation. I decided to go back to school in 2006 mostly because I was curious about some things and I wanted to learn. In other words, I had a lot of questions. Don't go to grad school unless you are genuinely curious about the subject matter and you can see yourself studying this topic for many, many years. Maybe a better way to put this is, Can you be happy doing something else? Grad school is a long hard process. The job prospects at the end of it are not guaranteed. You should definitely count the cost. If you can be happy doing something else, then do it. When I started, my wife and I had been married for a couple of years. If you have a family, the first thing you have to do before you go to grad school is make sure that your family is on board. She was incredibly supportive through the whole process. She believed in me, encouraged me, and I finished because of her support. This will not work unless your significant other is game. This is even more crucial when kids are involved. At major research universities faculty spend the majority of their time reading, thinking, and writing. They teach two classes a semester and have TAs do all of their grading. This sounds like a great gig. But these types of jobs are few and far between. You are extremely unlikely to get one of these jobs (They get hundreds of applications for one spot!). It is way more likely that you'll get a job like mine in which your main responsibility is teaching undergrads. Don't go attempt a Ph.D. unless you love teaching. Why? Because you're going to spend most of your time reading, thinking, and preparing for teaching - not to mention time spent doing administrative stuff like committee work. You might have a little time for research and writing - but most of that is between semesters. In the humanities in general and philosophy in particular, the job prospects are pretty rough. There are way too many Ph.D.s and not enough jobs. There are horror stories floating around on philosophy related blogs and websites of people who have been trying to get a permanent job for close to a decade. They bounce around from temporary job to temporary job. Some stick it out. But it is hard. Others decide to quit academia and pursue other careers. So when you're counting the cost, ask yourself if it would be worth it if you can't find a permanent teaching job. You have to consider this because it is a genuine possibility. Like one of my friends said, studying philosophy is intrinsically valuable - that is, it is valuable in and of it self. So don't attempt a Ph.D. unless you're ok with facing tough job prospects. Ok, I did my best to scare some of you away. If you still think you might want to do this, check out the next post in the series: How do I get in to a good grad program? While attending seminary I decided to pursue graduate education in philosophy. You can read part of that story here. I knew that since I didn't have an undergraduate degree in philosophy, I would have a hard time getting into a good program right out of NOBTS. So, I applied to five terminal MA programs in philosophy to see what would happen. Somehow, I was admitted into two of the five - The University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) and the University of Houston. UMSL offered me a funding package. I would work as a teacher's assistant and they would pay my tuition and give me a small stipend for living expenses. I still think that it was a miracle because of a lack of background in philosophy.
My first semester at UMSL was rough (to say the least). I was in over my head. Surrounded by really smart people who knew more philosophy than me, I developed impostor syndrome. I was in a graduate seminar on Intentional Actions and we were reading G.E.M. Anscombe's Intention. I was lost. I didn't understand. I read and re-read and re-read again. My first paper was not very good. But the professor, Eric Wiland, was lenient and gave me a B+. I wasn't the only one who didn't do well, so he gave us some more detailed instructions the next class period on how to write a philosophy paper. My second paper was on whether St. Peter denied Christ intentionally. I thought it was a little better, but I still felt lost and that I didn't belong and that I was never going to make it in philosophy. A few days after turning in the paper, I was going to the cafeteria to eat lunch. I was on the down escalator and Dr. Wiland was on the way up. He saw me as we passed and quickly told me that my paper was good and that he liked it. That one small comment, in passing, so simple, changed my trajectory in grad school. I went from believing I was in over my head and I wasn't cut out for this to believing that I maybe I can do this. Now of course it wasn't easy after that. I still had to re-read Anscombe multiple times and work very hard. But I knew that if I did so, I could have a chance to be successful. And maybe, even that I belonged there. For this, I am thankful. In 2006 began attending New Orleans Baptist Seminary to study theology. But while I was there I signed up for a class called Metaphysics* that was taught by Jeremy Evans. At the time, I didn't know what metaphysics even was. The first day of class, Jeremy asked everyone what they think of metaphysics and what they hope to learn in the class. I had to admit that I had no idea. So why did I sign up for a class, not knowing what it was even about?
All I can say is Providence. Anyway, Jeremy was an excellent teacher. I took several more philosophy classes with him. He always made time to talk to those of us interested in philosophy outside of class. We even had a Plato reading group with him and a couple of other students. He was very generous, even though we were clueless. Jeremy was a big influence on me and my desire to study philosophy. He encouraged me and wrote a letter of recommendation that helped me get into the MA program in philosophy at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. For that, I am thankful. *Note: Metaphysics is not what you normally see in the "metaphysics" section at the bookstore. It is the study of the ultimate nature of reality. You can read more here. This will primarily be a place for me to test out ideas, share things that I have learned, and write about anything else that comes to mind.
Who am I? I'm a philosophy professor at Porterville College. We're located in California's central valley (It's where all of your almonds and walnuts and citrus fruits come from). I'm originally from the small town of Oxford, in beautiful Alabama. I attended Jacksonville Sate University, also in AL. After that I moved around a bit. I moved to Georgia to play music with my friends. I met my beautiful wife, Celeste, while living near Atlanta. I worked odd jobs for a while. Then I decided that I wanted to study theology. So, I started attending New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary's extension center in Marietta, GA. After a year we moved to New Orleans were we spent the next two. I graduated with an M.Div. in Christian Thought. I took a few philosophy classes while I was there and I realized that I wanted to spend the rest of my life reading about, thinking about, and teaching philosophy. From New Orleans, we moved to Saint Louis, Missouri where I completed the terminal MA program at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. With our new son, Cannan, in tow, we then relocated to Tallahassee, Florida where I completed the Ph.D. program at Florida State. Twin daughters, Story and Ever came along in FL. The day after graduating from FSU we loaded up the truck and moved to Cali. |
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