The APA blog is working with Cliff Sosis of What is it Like to Be a Philosopher? in publishing advance excerpts from Cliff’s long-form interviews with philosophers.
The following is an edited excerpt from an interview with Yujin Nagasawa.
This interview has been edited for length. The full interview is available at What Is It Like to Be A Philosopher?
In this interview, Yujin Nagasawa, H.G. Wood Professor of the Philosophy of Religion and co-director of the Birmingham Centre for the Philosophy of Religion at University of Birmingham talks about growing up in Tokyo, IBM, baseball, Shinto and polytheism, rhinoceros beetles, Osamu Tezuka, pro-wrestling and his buddy Chris Hero, moving to the states to study at SUNY Stony Brook, Compuserve, being inspired by David Chalmers’s book The Conscious Mind, going to grad school at ANU to study philosophy of mind, how his interests shifted to philosophy of religion while working on the dissertation, omniscience, Daniel Stoljar, Frank Jackson, afternoon tea parties, Being John Malkovich, Gamera, landing two postdocs and not experiencing summer for 2 years before finding himself at the University of Birmingham, his wife and his ikizama, his dog, the relationship between philosophy and religion, theodicy, the ontological argument, the problem of evil (for atheists), David Benatar and anti-natalism, the Global Philosophy of Religion Project, pierogies and pizza…
Any sign you’d grow up to be a philosopher?
At one point, as a teenager, I was attracted to science, especially astronomy, because I thought it was fantastic to be able to understand what happens in the universe even if it is extremely far away. I had a telescope and enjoyed stargazing every night. However, one day, I read a philosophy book, and it fascinated me even more than astronomy because philosophers seemed to be talking about the nature and structure of everything, even beyond any empirical observations. Many philosophers say that when they were kids, they liked asking questions about everything or enjoyed debating with their friends, but this was not true for me. I was more interested in understanding the world and ourselves. This is linked to my approach to philosophy today. For me personally, philosophy is not so much about disputing difficult issues or persuading others that I am right and they are wrong. It is more about exploring and understanding the wonders of the world and our existence within it.
Did you start thinking about what you wanted to do in college, if college was even on the table?
I went to a Christian university in Tokyo that was connected to my high school. I wanted to study philosophy, but they did not have a philosophy department there, so I decided to study law instead. I hoped to specialize in jurisprudence, which I thought was the closest subject to philosophy. However, the professor of jurisprudence there, Hajime Yoshino, was an unusual scholar. He studied logic and the philosophy of language because he had just received a major grant from the Japanese government to build a form of artificial intelligence to emulate a lawyer’s reasoning and decision-making abilities. This was 1994, only a year after the release of Windows 3.1 in Japan, so he was trying to build this system on Unix and MS-DOS! He told me to forget about law and study philosophy and logic instead, which I found both funny and unexpected. I then started to contemplate the possibility of studying philosophy more thoroughly in the US, where my brother was studying mathematics.
What was the plan?
The plan was to major in philosophy, but at that time, I didn’t fully understand the distinction between continental philosophy and analytic philosophy! I should have chosen a department specializing in analytic philosophy because my interests were in logic and the philosophy of language. Ironically, however, I chose SUNY Stony Brook, which is well-known for specializing in continental philosophy! I just thought Long Island would be a nice place to live and study. Luckily, though, there was a small but excellent group of analytic philosophers there, such as Patrick Grim, Peter Ludlow, and Gary Mar. Patrick and Gary were leading the Group for Logic and Formal Semantics, which aimed to develop philosophical computer modeling, while Peter was working on the philosophical foundation of generative linguistics. This ultimately made it the perfect place to cultivate my interests. It is worth noting that Stony Brook has produced some brilliant analytic philosophers, such as Kathrin Koslicki, Jason Stanley, and Eric Steinhart.
What did your parents make of your decision to major in philosophy?
My parents have always been passionate supporters of education and also wanted their children to be cosmopolitan. Thus, they liked the idea of my brother and me studying in the US. They did not object when I decided to major in philosophy. I am sure they worried about whether I would be able to find a job after graduating, but they did not discourage my decision. I think they were quite brave.
Overall, in college, how did you grow as a philosopher and how did your views change?
In college, I was still very much a “student of philosophy” rather than a philosopher. I did not have any specific philosophical views about any subjects at that time. However, I thoroughly enjoyed learning new things during my four-year stay in the US, and, looking back, I think I was absorbing everything (particularly related to philosophy) with excitement, just like a sponge. I think that may be one of the advantages of being young. I wholeheartedly encourage young people to explore the world, try to cultivate new skills and knowledge, and pursue their passions.
When did you decide to go to grad school? Where did you want to go and why?
I started to prepare for my graduate studies during my final year at Stony Brook. At the time, I was mainly interested in the philosophy of mind. David Chalmers’s first book The Conscious Mind, which revolutionized the debate on consciousness in the philosophy of mind, was published when I was an undergraduate. Many philosophy students at that time were influenced by the book and wanted to study the philosophy of mind. I was one such student. I hoped to study in Australia because I thought Australia was a fascinating country, which has, despite its relatively small population, produced many of the greatest philosophers of mind, including U.T. Place, David Armstrong,J.J.C. Smart, Keith Campbell, Frank Jackson as well as Chalmers.
Where did you apply? Where did you go?
I applied to the Australian National University (ANU) and the University of Sydney. Both offered me a scholarship and allowed me to enroll in their research-only PhD program without having a master’s degree. That was unexpected. I was attracted to Sydney, which many consider one of the best cities to live in the world. However, I ultimately decided to attend ANU in Canberra instead because ANU was well-known for having one of the very best philosophy programs in the English-speaking part of the world. While I was there, from 2000 to 2004, there were truly outstanding scholars at all levels. Senior professors included Frank Jackson, Michael Smith, Philip Pettit, Bob Goodin, Geoffrey Brennan, Martin Davies, and Kim Sterelny; midcareer scholars included Daniel Stoljar, Karen Jones, Richard Joyce, and Peter Godfrey-Smith; Karen Bennett, Michael Ridge, Andy Egan, and Laura Schroeter were postdocs there at the time. J.J.C. Smart and David Lewis often hung around as well. I am sure I have omitted many more distinguished names. One of my fellow PhD students at ANU was Lisa Bortolotti, who has been my colleague at Birmingham over the last 15 years. Birmingham had vacancies for two junior posts in 2005, for which we both applied. We said at the time that we might end up getting jobs in the same department, but that was only a joke. Landing a permanent post in the same department with Lisa was one of the most delightful surprises I have had in my career!
Was grad school what you expected?
I feel very fortunate to have studied at ANU. The philosophy program at ANU was an unusual place where all the faculty members had research positions and did not have teaching duties apart from PhD supervision. It was also unusual in the sense that there were always many first-class visiting researchers who stayed in the program on a relatively long-term basis. This was an intellectually rich environment for PhD students like us because we worked very closely with our supervisors while also receiving useful feedback on our work from visiting scholars from all over the world. The nice weather and friendly atmosphere also helped with building bonds within the philosophy community at ANU. I had not expected to complete my PhD in such a wonderful environment.
Favorite classes/teachers? Who was your dissertation advisor?
The PhD program at ANU did not involve any coursework, so I did not take any classes there. My supervisory panel consisted of Daniel Stoljar, Frank Jackson, and Martin Davies. Frank and Martin were already distinguished senior scholars at that time. Frank held a major managerial role at the university when I arrived in Canberra, and Martin had just moved from Oxford to ANU to accept a professorship. I mainly worked with Daniel, who was still a young researcher in his early thirties. I did not know much about his work, but at our first meeting, I immediately knew that I wanted to work with him. I presented my ideas about externalism and memory to him. I was not able to present them very well, but he quickly grasped my argument and wrote it down on the whiteboard. He then analyzed the structure of the argument and explained to me how I could improve it by modifying one of its premises. At that moment, I felt I had never met anyone so smart—I realized that he could see things I could not see!
You can get full access to the interview and help support the project here.
Clifford Sosis
Cliff Sosis is a philosopher at Coastal Carolina University. He created, and in his spare time he runs What Is It Like to Be a Philosopher? in-depth autobiographical interviews with philosophers. In Sosis's words, "Interviews you can’t find anywhere else. In the interviews, you get a sense of what makes living, breathing philosophers tick. How one becomes a philosopher. The interviews show how our theories shape our lives and how our experiences influence our theories. They reveal what philosophers have in common, if anything, and what our goals are. Overall, the interviews give you a fuller picture of how the people who do philosophy work, and a better idea of how philosophy works. This stuff isn't discussed as often as it should be, I think, and these stories are extremely interesting and moving!" He has a Patreon page here and tweets @CliffordSosis.
