Emily Rose Ogland has just completed an MA in Continental Philosophy at the University of Warwick (UK), having graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 2018 with a BA in French and Philosophy. Her research interests center largely on phenomenological questions of human nature and intersubjectivity. She is pursuing an MA in Literary Translation and hopes to translate recent French research in this field. Emily Rose is currently working for the Blog of the APA as the Social Media Coordinator.
What excites you about philosophy?
I had not known what philosophy was until an intro course, late freshman year (which I took almost by accident.) But from that very first day, I could see that the conversations I had been having in my other classes – in literature, history and the sciences – could extend further, with a relevance of meaning that I could only intuit before.
Philosophical conversations excited me because I could draw connections between all of these disparate fields and notice the patterns that emerge between them. Philosophy, I learned, dwelt in the unfolding of clarity, which illuminates the human capacity to wonder and to express.
We constitute philosophy as much as it constitutes us – and, for me, the vibrancy of this experience is in the exploring of it.
If you could wake up tomorrow with a new talent, what would you most like it to be?
I’ve always had a passion for languages. Imagine being able to find one’s way in every language in the world and to communicate with anyone? Languages, like windows, open onto the world and into the societies in which diverse people express themselves meaningfully to others. So, to be conversant in languages would allow a constant surprise of fresh discoveries. While this would not be an altogether new thing for me, to feel it as a talent would be a profound joy.
Plus, I’d imagine it might make philosophical writing a bit easier, too…
What common philosophical dilemma do you think has a clear answer?
For a philosophical dilemma, philosophers need look no further than what it is that we ourselves do. What is it, precisely, that we are doing when we ‘do’ philosophy? For the scientist, philosophy may yield further grounding to scientific inquiry; for the metaphysician, philosophy comes alive when we discover better questions about the reality before us; for the ethicist, philosophy teaches us to act in more meaningful ways. Philosophy, therefore, dwells in the asking of questions and in the reflecting on answers – in the practice of being and the discovery of our nature.
How do we define it, then, if it is all of these things? The greatest dilemma, it would seem, is nothing other than philosophy itself. So it’s ironic, then, that the question above is asking for clarity in an answer when we ourselves, as philosophers, proceed in such diverse ways.
But I think this precise lack of conclusiveness concerning our own endeavor shows that philosophy is, and should be, open-ended. And, moreover, insofar as we expect philosophy to give us clear answers to the classic questions – on the meaning of life, God in Heaven, or about these tables and chairs before me – any such clarity, almost always, presupposes some sort of closure at the very outset from which inquiry is to begin.
As Maurice Blanchot famously said, sometimes “the answer is the misfortune of the question.”
What is your favorite book of all time? (Or top 3). Why? To whom would you recommend them?
If philosophers are rare, those who would consider Hegel among their favorites are even rarer. Fewer still are those who would choose his Science of Logic as their favorite book. But in my view, it is one of, perhaps the most, sustained exercises of concise thought that exists. Nevertheless, I found it to be an absolute page-turner… even if I turned them slowly, and with many coffee breaks.
In a sense, Hegel began where Kant had left off – but to do so, he had to show that Kant had not really discovered the beginning. Hegel’s Logic begins without such presuppositions, and goes on to derive the fundamental dynamics that underlie all existence and give vitality to all that we do.
This was quite thrilling for me to behold. Its usefulness is inexhaustible, as it is applicable to everything– science, philosophy, politics, and the arts, equally and interresonantly. And it remains, in my view, the way to intuit the importance of anything else I read.
What would your childhood self say if someone told you that you would grow up to be a philosopher?
My younger self would probably groan. When I was younger, I rebelled against philosophy, and any sort of theoretical, abstract thinking. When I was learning to read, for example, I would ask my dad what words meant, and he would give me a long derivation, tracing their etymology back to their Indo-European origin. For a five-year-old, this was boring; I would reply, “tell me that when I’m older.”
That soon became the phrase I would use whenever I encountered something that I sensed I couldn’t understand. The truth is, I was scared by the freedom of abstract thinking, and the expanse of interpretation. English classes in high school were daunting, but science and math provided more secure answers and the anonymity of new languages, such as French, allowed me to proceed more imaginatively, in a sort of disguise.
It wasn’t until the freedom of exploring new subjects at a liberal arts college that I was ready to embrace the open-endedness of learning. But I suppose you could say it was inevitable.
So, I suppose my younger self would say: ‘Wow… you’re older now!’
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form here to nominate yourself or a friend.
Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall is an editor at the Blog of the APA who currently teaches philosophy, religion, and education courses solely online for Montclair State University, Three Rivers Community College, and St. John’s University.
