Shelley Weinberg is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign specializing in early modern philosophy and especially in the philosophy of John Locke. She published Consciousness in Locke with Oxford University Press in 2016. Along with her research and regular teaching, she acts as a faculty advisor for the Office of Research Advising and Project Development in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research. She teaches an adult education course in the Urbana-Champaign community for the Odyssey Project through Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities.
What is your work about and how has it been received?
In Consciousness in Locke, I develop a conception of consciousness both textually and philosophically consistent with Locke’s philosophical psychology, as well as with some his seventeenth century contemporaries and predecessors. I then trace that conception as I see it employed in other aspects of Locke’s philosophy: in his epistemology, his theory of moral motivation and in his theory of personal identity – his most well known employment of consciousness. Although I suspect many identify my work with Locke’s theory of personal identity, I think my work on his epistemology is broader and perhaps of greater contribution. That work includes looking to Locke’s philosophical psychology in providing a unified account of Locke’s understanding of how we achieve knowledge of both general and particular truths, and why Locke would think that knowledge comes in different degrees of certainty. Much has been written, of course, on Locke’s treatment of the skeptical challenge insofar as he claims we have knowledge of external world objects, but there had been much less engagement with how his account of “sensitive” knowledge fits into a broader account of our knowledge generally. Coming soon after my book was published, Matt Priselac’s, Locke’s Science of Knowledge (Routledge, 2017), confronts some of these same issues.
I suppose what I like most about the book is the way in which it tries to tie together some of the most important aspects of Locke’s philosophy by tracing a single thread. Much recent work in Locke scholarship has focused more on the metaphysics and natural philosophy. Though I do have chapters on personal identity and freedom and moral motivation, my focus is really more on the epistemology and philosophy of mind and how Locke’s fundamental understanding of the mind underwrites much of the rest of the philosophy – particularly the metaphysical aspects mentioned above.
I’ve been very lucky in that the book has been well received. I was honored with the Journal of the History of Philosophy’s 2017 prize for the best book in the history of philosophy published in 2016. That was quite a surprise and really something for me! I came to the Academy rather late in life as a second career. At first, I was happy just to get through graduate school, and then to get a job, and then to publish a book. (As some may not yet realize, with a little bit of age comes a lot more tiredness!) To have my work singled out for a prestigious prize was beyond my imagination. Just as meaningful to me personally, though, have been the acknowledgements and kind words of many of my Locke studies colleagues. They are a fantastic group of people (and scholars) – so collegial, so helpful, and a lot of fun. I’m honored in so many ways to be among them.
What directions would you like your work to take in the future?
Consistent with my focus on the importance of first-personal (conscious) experience in Locke’s theory of knowledge, going forward I would like to extend my interpretation to Locke’s understanding of probability and to his religious epistemology. Relatively little has been written on the latter, which I hope means there is room for a comprehensive look at how it all fits together. I anticipate (fingers crossed) having a piece in print in the not too distant future, which tries to pull a good bit of it together. I also think it might be interesting to compare the religious epistemologies of much later figures who, in my view, have similar subjective aspects at work. This is a big project that will take quite a few years to complete.
In the meantime, I am co-editing The Lockean Mind with Jessica Gordon-Roth. This 200,000 plus word volume includes upwards of 45 contributions from leading scholars. As well as many of the usual suspects – senior Locke scholars – we’ve included those still up and coming, as well as many more women and other under-represented groups in philosophy. We’re very proud of both the quality and diversity of our contributors. As time goes on, I also hope to be more involved with The Locke Society.
My work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has taken a new turn with my involvement with the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research. In my role as a faculty advisor with the Office of Research Advising and Project Development I have the opportunity and privilege of working with colleagues across the humanities, arts, and related fields in the preparation of grant proposals for ACLS, NEH, Guggenheim, and other fellowships as well as with those working toward the publication of a first book. I take enormous pleasure in this work; I have gotten to know many of my colleagues across campus as well as learn their current and past scholarly projects. I’ve learned a ton about things I’ve never even thought about.
In important respects, perhaps the work I am doing with the Odyssey Project and Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities is particularly rewarding and wonderfully fun. The Odyssey Project was founded by Bard College with the intent of introducing or re-introducing higher education to those in the community who have not been able to pursue it. A number of universities across the country are affiliates in implementing the program. Adult students enter as a cohort taking four humanities courses, two each semester: American history, literature, philosophy, and art history. College credit can be earned at the University of Illinois and other participating institutions across the state. It is a terrific springboard to higher education for those left behind for whatever reason. Last semester I had students ranging from ages 20-65, from four different ethnic backgrounds, and speaking four different native languages. It’s been a wonderful experience, and I hope to continue with it as long as they’ll have me.
Do you see any connections between your professional work and your personal life?
I guess I can see my work with the Odyssey Project as bringing me full circle to where I started in my first career in social work – not the clinical kind, but the finding people in the most distressing circumstances and connecting them with social services and other opportunities in the community kind. It’s hard to describe the reward that comes with building relationships that is the byproduct of this sort of work. I do love teaching my grads and undergrads at the University of Illinois, but there is something different about my Odyssey students. They come with a thirst for knowledge and openness to learning, to discovery, to engaging with others intellectually that is not as prevalent as I wish it were at the university. It’s a difference in kind, not necessarily in degree. Perhaps it comes from having been out in the world, knocked about, and realizing how valuable education is both for its own sake and to set the stage for a better life.
Having been both a social worker and a professor (and to have the former kinds of experiences in the latter job) has provided me the opportunity and privilege not only to pursue intellectual goods in my research and teaching, but also to experience the reward that comes with developing the kinds of relationships with my students (both at the U of I and with Odyssey) that open up a sense of the personal very important to me in my professional life.
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