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Interview with John Carriero
John Carriero
Ally Peabody
John Carriero, Professor of Philosophy, was interviewed by Ally Peabody. Ally is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Philosophy. She is particularly interested in ethical, meta-ethical, and ontological questions involving moral standing.
AP: So, what brought you to philosophy and made you want to become a professional philosopher? And, how has philosophy enhanced your life?
JC: I started out as a math major. I think a lot of philosophers start doing something else. There are a lot of routes in; it could be political science or English, but I was in math. Then I took a history of philosophy course from Ed McCann. I found it fascinating, and it felt to me, because you know we were fairly rigorous and looking at arguments carefully, a little bit like what I was doing in math. But the subject matter seemed just so much more interesting. Immortality, the self, free will, can somebody knowingly do evil? After that—I was hooked. It was a yearlong course, and I think I changed my major right in the middle of that year. Over time, I’ve come to think that philosophy is a lot less like math than I used to, but it was a natural route.I don’t know whether philosophy has enhanced my life in any direct way, but I find that I run into former philosophy majors all the time (my dentist was a philosophy major, my previous primary care physician did philosophy and history of science), and I think philosophy majors are a little bit more open to thinking about things, a little less prone to taking things on authority, a little more reflective. As a group—it’s hard to generalize, but I think they’re a little more curious. And I think that’s all to the good, and contributes to a happier life.
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Interview with Mark Rubin
Mark Rubin
Dan RanWeiler
Mark Rubin ‘98, UCLA philosophy graduate alumnus, was interviewed by Dan Ranweiler. Mark is a Principal Software Engineer at Yahoo. Dan is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Philosophy.
DR: Why did you choose UCLA for graduate school?
MR: My advisors at Princeton pushed me to visit UCLA, and so did Kit Fine. And after that visit, there was no doubt in my mind where I was going to go. Literally, the first seminar I sat in on, I witnessed one person make a point and another person say, “You know, I think if we take what you said literally, everything you said has to be false, and I can prove it.” And then they did! And then they said, “But I think you said something interesting that I’ve never heard before and it was really fascinating,” and they resurrected this person’s argument by tweaking it a little bit, giving them complete credit, and pulling something beautiful out of it. I had really never seen anything like that in a philosophy seminar before. It was a beautiful pursuit of truth, and humility, and cooperation. The person whose argument had been resurrected was very grateful. And I just thought, “Wow, this is the kind of philosophy I want to do.” I hadn’t even realized people were doing it. And I saw that consistently. People were friendly, but more importantly, they generally were just more interested in the truth than they were in winning an argument. -
Interview with Monika Zemsky
Monika Zemsky
Jordan Wallace-Wolf
Monika Zemsky ‘95, UCLA philosophy undergraduate alumna, was interviewed by Jordan Wallace-Wolf. Monika is a mitigation specialist. Jordan is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Philosophy, pursuing a joint J.D./Ph.D. His research interests include action theory, ethics, and law.
JW: So you were a UCLA undergrad and you majored in philosophy?
MZ: Yes. I also did a degree in Medical Ethics. -
Interview with Daniela Dover
Daniela Dover
Sarah Beach
Daniela Dover, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, was interviewed by Sarah Beach. Sarah is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Philosophy, specializing in meta-ethics, social and political philosophy, and feminist philosophy. This interview was conducted over email.
SB: Why philosophy?
DD: I knew I wanted to be an academic by the end of the first semester of college. As soon as I saw what it was like to be allowed to just read and write and think all day, I knew I wanted to keep doing that, if I could get away with it -
Interview with Michael Rescorla
Michael Rescorla
Andrew Lavin
Michael Rescorla, Professor of Philosophy, was interviewed by Andrew Lavin. Andrew is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Philosophy. His research interests are in the Aristotelian tradition and in the philosophy of perception, action, and cognition.
AL: I know you came most recently from Santa Barbara, but where are you from originally and where else have you taught?
MR: I grew up in Philadelphia mainly and then I went to school in Boston, I attended Harvard for both undergrad and grad school. Then I got the job at UCSB, where I taught for about 13 years before coming here.
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