The Brackenridge was not my first research grant at Pitt, but it still surprises me just how much doubt is a part of the research process. It is very easy to approach any project with the mindset of essentially already having a definitive answer in mind to your question and as someone who has the…
Tag: Philosophy
Brackenridge: The Problem of Academia and the General Public
Most people struggle to relate to academic research, but this struggle is primarily a symptom of the language and methods academics use. While it is true that the problems some research seeks to address are not intuitive, I would argue that the easiest way to communicate research to the public and to other experts is…
Brackenridge: Lessons in Communicating Philosophy
It is not uncommon for many people to struggle to apply philosophy to their daily lives, but that can hardly be blamed on them. Philosophers (and I am not innocence of this myself) tend to struggle to demonstrate to people how they can integrate philosophical concepts to make sense of their lives. I do believe…
Brackenridge Introduction: The Place of Aristotle and Kant in the Cosmopolitan Story
I have always had a broad interest in philosophy, and ethics especially, but it was my research mentor’s, Dr. Pendlebury’s, class on Kant that encouraged me to approach ethics from a Kantian perspective. If you knew the history of my intellectual relationship with Kant, this change in focus may appear strange, especially considering that, for…
My CURF: The Promise of Moderate Cosmopolitanism
As I have already noted in my past blog posts, the goal of my research was to derive a non-egoistic cosmopolitanism from Aristotle’s writings on friendship. However, I think the more interesting question is, what kind of cosmopolitanism does any interpretation of Aristotle warrant? Before answering the question, I want to quickly summarize the development…
CURF Becoming a Researcher Cuts in the Thread of Argument: How to do Philosophical Research
During the second semester of my freshman year, I took a class on Aristotle proctored by my mentor, Dr. Whiting. As I already mentioned in my previous post, I always had an interest in exploring Aristotle’s philosophy more deeply. One of the questions I wanted to focus on during Dr. Whiting’s class was not just…
CURF Introduction: Ancient Philosophy and Cosmopolitanism in the Modern World
I have always had an interest in ancient philosophy since high school, but it was my research mentor’s, Dr. Whiting’s, class on Aristotle that truly cemented my desire to engage with ancient philosophy more deeply. Aristotle’s virtue ethics has particularly caught my attention, and my fascination with it has only deepened over time. In his…
Teaching Ancient Law
Hello everyone! My name is Tyler Viljaste, and I am a Junior pursuing a dual degree and Bachelor of Philosophy in Politics&Philosophy and Finance. This semester, I am working with my fellowship mentor Bernard Hibbitts on a special teaching project through the Chancellors Undergraduate Teaching Fellowship for his honors law class entitled “How Law Began”….
Evolving Perspectives on Research
Before starting the Brackenridge this summer, during the past spring semester I completed philosophy research in a directed study for a different topic in the field of metaethics. (The focus, similarly to my initial plan in the Brackenridge, was trained on a specific position in the field of metaethics, this one called neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism….
Interdisciplinary = Greater than the Sum of its Parts
Over the past few weeks, we were exposed to the prospect of interdisciplinary research. Because my own project is focused in one field of discipline, it was nice to work with other researchers for a different subject matter, consciously uniting our various backgrounds to tackle an issue related to higher education accessibility or inequality. My…