Fernando Alvear is a Philosophy PhD student at the University of Missouri, in Columbia, Missouri. He mainly works on issues at the intersection of Epistemology and Philosophy of Language.
What excites you about philosophy?
I like to understand philosophy as the discipline that takes care of the questions and issues that lie at the frontiers of what we take for granted, or of what we think other disciplines can take care of. So, I like to see Philosophy as a tool that helps organizing that messy, tangled mass of issues. For instance, in epistemology, semantics, or philosophy of mind, the task (for me) is to come up with a way to handle the things we call knowledge, meaning, or consciousness, and I find that task extremely fascinating and relevant.
Another thing that is exciting about philosophy is teaching it. I like to engage in discussions with others, but especially when the aim is not to convince, but to understand and discover. This happens a lot with my students, since they come with their own interests, skills, and opinions, and bring creative and highly relevant answers and thoughts, usually very different from mine.
What are you working on right now?
Currently I am working on three very exciting fronts. One is a paper about epistemic modals and the disagreement between contextualists and relativists. I am boosting already known concerns about the kinds of examples that philosophers analyze and bring to the discussion. Specifically, my concern is that many of those examples convey pragmatic implicatures, so they are not suitable for revealing anything semantically about the modals in question. For example, if you are looking for your keys, and you are told “Your keys might be on the table,” you wouldn’t take that as a statement about bodies of knowledge or perspectives; most likely, you will just go to the table and look for your keys there!
The other front is a research project about attributions of moral praise. Praise has been relatively neglected as a research topic in moral psychology, and naturally one would expect that theories of moral judgment that account for moral blame should also account moral praise in a consistent and unified manner. We think that such theories need to be revised in order to fulfil that expectation. But also, it is an interesting question whether this expectation is legitimate at all. I am working on this under the MU Experimental Philosophy Lab, together with Philip Robbins and Paul Litton, faculty members of my department.
And finally, the last front is a teaching-as-research project, about the importance of office hours in the context of philosophy courses. There are a lot of innovative and effective teaching strategies for our lectures, but it is not clear what a Philosophy TA or instructor should do in their office hours. We want to know what tasks are most useful to do with that time, and also the factors that make them sufficiently accessible to all students (and not just to a few of them).
What topic do you think is under explored in philosophy?
Besides attribution of praise in the context of moral psychology, I think we could explore more the practice of teaching philosophy and the ways that they can improve our students’ lives as professionals, but also as human beings. Some students of ours are interested in philosophy mainly because of its topics, but since the vast majority of our students take philosophy as a general educational requirement, I think such students will greatly benefit from a good philosophical experience. I think this is a great opportunity for us, to show that, besides “being right,” there are other and often more important intellectual values, such as “being intellectually humble,” “being charitable to the other’s perspective,” “being willing to change one’s view,” and the like. I think that we, as philosophy instructors in high-level academic institutions, are very well placed for this task.
What are you most proud of in your professional life?
A student of mine once wrote in its course evaluation: “He never wasted my time.” Considering that it comes from 19-20 year old college student, I take it as one of my greatest achievements.
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.
