Research
Below I’ve tried to address some basic questions about my research that one might ask.
Why Research at All? Aren’t You Just a Teacher (Git Your Butt Back in that Classroom!)?
I’ve been told by some colleagues that “teachers” (this term restricted to professors with 4/4 loads and up) should stick to teaching and leave the research to the “researchers” (this term restricted to professors with less than 4/4 loads). It’s a kind of Putnam oriented division of labor: they think, we “teachers” are supposed to teach what other people think up. I don’t mind divisions of labor, but this one I have a hard time “getting on board” with.
Although having a 4/4 load can certainly put a serious crimp in your research output (slowing it down to a meager crawl most of the time), it does seem painfully clear to me that without a research focus and with a continually forward-moving pace (however slow the advance), an instructor cannot be truly successful in the classroom (not that “being a good teacher” is the only reason to conduct research, but it is one of them).
At least in my own case, when I am not “thinking” about philosophy independently I get stale in the classroom. I get bored, and frankly I get resentful — I start to feel like a civil servant. Perhaps, to use a Confucian phrase, when I teach too much and think too little I tend to focus too much on transmission, and not enough about innovation. When I am doing research I get fired up and passionate in the classroom because I’m connected to what I’m talking about as a participant. I feel more alive in general — I feel like I am “hooking into” something bigger. All in all, there’s a sense of connection that good teachers need not just to their students and to their pedagogy, but also to the subject matter they got into this business to think about. After all, I always wanted to be a teacher, but not just any teacher — I wanted to be a philosophy teacher. So doing philosophy as a philosopher comes first.
Generally What I Tend to Think About
So what am I up to and thinking about? First, let me put it all in context. My dissertation (finished back in 2002) was on John Locke and dealt with his (admittedly strange!) doctrine of mental abstraction. Specifically, I looked at how this process was meant to work psychologically (and whether it survived the attacks against it at the time) and also at how abstract ideas as mental objects were meant to his work within Locke’s theory of language. Very close to defending my dissertation, however, I got the Chinese Bug (after attending a talk on Confucianism and care ethics by UConn philosophy department alum Chenyang Li).
Ever since, my research direction has turned almost exclusively towards Confucianism and virtue ethics. That said, I also have research interests in Existentialism, though it often gets fit into the larger picture in a comparative sense (seeing lines of coincidental agreement and disagreement between ancient Chinese thinkers and the more modern Existentialists). No doubt, what interests me in both is the discussion of the question of selfhood, which I find personally fascinating. I suppose also the “what is the meaning of life?” thing is floating around in there somewhere.
Lastly, because teaching is something that I actually love to do (it is not a necessary evil to me as it is for some), I also have strong interests in understanding how students tend to learn philosophy, and also in investigating what best practices professors should use to get students to engage with philosophical subject matter in a successful manner.
Published Work and Work in Progress
Below I have listed my published work and some works in progress (I’m on sabbatical for the 2009 calendar year, so hopefully many of these projects come to completion!).
A. Published Work
- 1. Existentialism for Dummies (Wiley Press, 2008)
- 2. “Instilling Virtue: Weaving the One Thread of Confucius’ Analects,” in Discourse, Dec. 2006.
- 3. “Thinking Outside the Room,” in Teaching Philosophy, Dec. 2006.
- 4. “Confucian Harmony and Cosmetic Surgery,” in Teaching Ethics, Aug. 2007
B. Work in Progress
- 1. “Marcel and Confucius: An Existential Encounter with Lunyu”. My main paper project right now, it focuses on drawing some important lines of similarity between the thinking of Catholic Existentialist (and communitarian) Gabriel Marcel and Confucius.
- 2. Ethics for Dummies. I’m on contract right now, and in the middle of writing the book with my good friend Adam Potthast (who teaches at Missouri Science and Technology). Scheduled for publication in June 2010.
- 3. “Virtual Debating”. On the use of online forums to increase critical thinking skills through group debate.
- 4. “People Behaving Badly: Who is to Blame? A Confucian Analysis.” A comparative examination of the differences between Confucian and typical Western intuitions about personal responsibility, and how they are explained by different understandings of the self and of free will.
- 5.” Confucian Negotiation”. An analysis of the Confucian notion of ‘shu’ (partly critical of the approach taken by other authors). I argue that shu involves not only a kind of reciprocal negotiation with another living person, but also with one’s ancestors.
