Update

When I started grad school, I figured one of two things would happen: (1) I would post a lot more to this blog, or (2) I would basically stop posting altogether. It looks like (2); my first-year seminar has seen to that. We are getting some incredible training, which involves mulling over complicated issues in some classics (and some recent stuff discussing the classics) in analytic philosophy and answering questions, about half exegetical and half evaluative, about them, every week. So far, we've covered Frege's theory of indirect sense, Russell's theory of descriptions, Russell's 'Grey's Elegy' argument, Tarski's theory of truth, and now we're on Quine's "Truth By Convention". I've already written more for this class than I did for any class I had as an undergraduate.

If anyone who reads this blog is applying to graduate school in philosophy this fall, and has an interest in (i) language, (ii) metaethics, (iii) free will/moral responsibility, or (iv) early modern, I strongly encourage applying to USC. (This is not to mention metaphysics and epistemology - the first 4 are just the areas in which USC is pretty clearly among the elite programs in the country.) The professors here are super-available. Soames, for instance, is on campus all day, every day, and seems to teach something every semester (not to mention some undergrad courses). There are always several graduate students in the lounge, and they are always willing to talk about philosophy.