Ta, dear Melbourne

I had a wonderful if frantic last week in Melbourne. Most of the week was the Australasian Assoc. of Philo annual conference, and I gave a talk on Tuesday that went well. Heisenberg again. I wonder if he feels slighted now that I'm writing my dissertation on something different... too bad. He is dead, after all.

So the conference was a blast, though I got into a hearty argument with my new friend Jimbo from Sydney (post-doc, American) about the merits (or demerits) of all the coursework we do in the States. It's a pain in the ass, all those classes, but I went to talks at the AAP from every field you could think of (minus ethics...sorry, I just can't do ethics) and was able to contribute to most of them. I loved having the generalist background which allowed me to keep up on epist, metaphysics, and all the rest. But Jimbo says it's better to have 2 more publications than 2 years of coursework under your belt when you go on the market. Perhaps I'm too much of a romantic about what this discipline ought to be, but I really disagree with Jimbo. Granted, he's recently BEEN on the market, and I have not... but what would become of our field if everyone was only ever a specialist from the get-go? No fun. Plus, being a philosopher of science, I bring different sets of questions to topics like consciuosness and metaphysics of time... and likewise, my friends who deal more with epist or metaphysics or ethics bring different sets of questions to the table as well.

We had a lot of fun, though, all arguments about the nature of time and coursework and consciousness, etc. etc. aside. Lots of good food and drinking and philosophy talk, of course. I also got to hear ALL about what American philosophy PhD students are *supposed* to be like. Eech. I'll spare you the details but they think we're all fast-talking jerk-faces. I tried to remedy that as much as possible. I think deep down they're a bit intimidated by our coursework (yeah, that MUST be it...ahahaha.....ahaha.......ahhh)

I had dinner with Neil Thomason and his partner Rosemary on Friday night, as my flight wasn't until midnight. Neil does philosophy of science at Melbourne. He's from the States, but loved Melbourne too much. He's an incredibly bubbly old chap who invited me to dinner after he'd found out that (i) I took a course on History and Philosophy of Statistics, which he loves but no one really has ever heard of, and (ii) I love opera almost as much as he and Rosemary do. We sat in front of a fire in their beautiful living room, drinking Cabernet Sauv. and listening to Bel Canto arias. It was a lovely evening, all told. Also, I ate 9 pieces of pizza, had three glasses of wine, a small bowl of nuts, two helpings of salad, some dessert pudding and a cup of tea. I had to prepare for over 24 hours of airline food, after all.

Oh shoot! It've gotta get going to the conference. More later...