It's In!
Wednesday May 30, 2007
I’ve just returned from Stoke-on-Trent, legendary home of Robbie Williams and Wedgwood crockery, where I have at last, after four and a half years, submitted my PhD thesis. Having got the thing bound, I left three copies in the care of the Faculty Office, went and had a coffee in the philosophy department to recover, and then caught the train back home. The oral examination should be several weeks’ time.
Looking back, it seems strange how the thesis has turned out. It started off exploring the territory somewhere between the work of phenomenologist Emmanuel Levinas and various thinkers who would now be called, very broadly, Mahayanist; but as time went on, so the thrust of the work shifted, and much of the explicit reference to elements of Buddhist thought has been done away with, although it bubbles away in the background and pops up in the footnotes. Instead what I ended up exploring was the way that stories can be a means of thinking through ethics free from the obsession with foundation, grounding and absolute certainty.
One of the reasons I have found doing the work for the thesis so satisfying is that I’ve never really had the first idea where it has been leading me. As I wrote in a much earlier post, it has been not a matter of seeking but of finding. If I remember rightly, Einstein once said that he had no idea what he was doing when he was developing the theory of general relativity, but that was what made it research. One of the most curious features of academic life these days is that this understanding of research has been lost. Customarily you are expected to know (or pretend that you know) what you are going to find out before you have even started. Then you are expected to go and find it out. Then you must conclude by saying, “look what I’ve discovered.” Such an approach, needless to say, is doomed to repetition.
Anyway, thanks to excellent supervision, I haven’t been caught in this particular hall of mirrors, and the research has always been intriguing and bracing. Given the change of emphasis and direction in the thesis over the last four years, one of the last things I had to do was to apply to change the title, and the final title – although it will not win any awards for snappiness – sums it up well: Naive Phenomenology: Thinking Ethics Through Stories. I had no idea that my research would land me up here, but flipping through the thesis, I’m pleased it did. It’s been an interesting ride.
Having said this, it doesn’t feel like it’s the end of the road. After years of thinking about ethics, I am beginning to wonder if the language of ethics is itself a red herring. Ethics without ethics… now, there’s a thought…
Congratulations, Will! I’m glad to hear that you let the ideas themselves guide you – that’s a tribute to the imagination and flexibility of your committee (do you have thesis committees over there?) that they gave you that freedom. I can’t think of too many places in the U.S. where that could happen, except possibly Harvard.
Yay! Many congratulations and I look forward to hearing about your successful defense!
Congratulations, many many congratulations. It gives the rest of us hope that one day we too will join the ranks of those who have survived our Ph.D. programs!
— Erik Davis · May 30, 06:58 PM · #
Congratulations Will.
It sounds like a great journey.
— Jonah · May 31, 12:21 PM · #
Thanks for the best wishes, folks. Yes, I have been lucky to be studying in a place that is so flexible. And I’ll post again about my thesis defence – whether successful or not!
Best wishes,
Will
