Intellectual Capital

Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire. Pre-Socratic philosophers imagined that the entire world was composed of these four elements. Colin McGinn, one of the newest members of the University of Miami’s philosophy department, concentrates on two of those elements—wind and water. On any given weekend you’re likely to find him windsurfing, kayaking, or surfing at local beaches. But it took more than the allure of South Florida’s water sports to attract the British-trained and former Oxford and Rutgers professor to the University of Miami. For McGinn, it was the opportunity to join one of the most dynamic philosophy departments in America.

According to the 2006 survey of The Philosophical Gourmet Report, a recognized ranking of philosophy Ph.D.-granting programs, only MIT’s ranks higher than the University of Miami’s among philosophy departments of comparable size. The recent additions of McGinn, Mark Rowlands, and Otávio Bueno—highly esteemed philosophy scholars—reinforce the department’s standing. Harvey Siegel, chair of the Department of Philosophy, notes that Miami achieved the largest increase in ranking—jumping 12 places from 2004 to 2006—of any philosophy department in the country. “Thanks to the dean’s and administration’s support, our recent hiring of several internationally recognized scholars has in turn improved the quality of our students,” he says.

There are currently 55 undergraduates with a declared major in philosophy; a far larger number of students take one or more courses in the department. While some of these students will pursue an academic career in philosophy, most go on to law or medical school or pursue other careers. Siegel notes that pre-med students majoring in philosophy are attractive to medical schools because of the analytical skills they have developed; the same can be said of pre-law philosophy majors and law schools. Overall, students report that their philosophy studies help them develop habits of clarity of thought and reasoned debate which they apply to law, politics, and other fields.

Fundamental Inquiries

Part of the value and allure of the study of philosophy is the nature of the questions it asks and the rigorous analytical methods it utilizes to pursue those questions. “Philosophy asks questions that can’t be definitively answered by other disciplines but that underlie inquiry in those disciplines,” Siegel says. “For example, ‘How (if at all) can we distinguish between appearance and reality?’ or ‘What makes an action morally right or wrong?’”

It is philosophy’s focus on fundamental presuppositions of inquiry, argumentative quality, and analysis of the nature of and relationships among concepts that enables philosophy students to become critical thinkers and lifelong questioners.

McGinn has examined philosophy itself: why people are drawn to study philosophical questions in today’s world and how those questions are relevant to the way we think and act. “Philosophy intrinsically asks interesting questions, including ethical questions,” he explains. Reared in England, McGinn received two degrees in psychology from Manchester University. Then, at the age of 22, he began post-graduate studies in philosophy at the University of Oxford. He is the author of 17 books exploring—among other relationships—movies and the mind, ethics and fiction, and imagination and meaning. In The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth-Century Philosophy (2003), McGinn presents an academic examination of the great philosophical figures of the 20th century alongside the personal stories of the teachers who informed his own ideas.

A recurring theme of McGinn’s work is the interface of science and religion, a topic that reverberates in our contemporary cultural and political debate. “On one side,” he says, “you have those who support science and empirical measurement; on the other, you have those who go by faith and acceptance of a sacred text.” For McGinn, a noted atheist, philosophy can fill the gap between knowledge and faith. “There are many questions that cannot be answered by science alone,” he says, “such as the foundation of ethics, questions about the self, questions about space/time and matter, and the relation of mind and body.”

Sublime Insights

While McGinn’s personal journey from psychology to philosophy is fairly straightforward, the journey of Mark Rowlands, another new addition to Miami’s faculty, is more unusual. Rowlands, a native of Wales, also attended Manchester University, on a Royal Air Force scholarship, majoring in aeronautical engineering. After a year, he switched to philosophy.

“I have no idea why I became a philosopher,” he says, “other than the fact that I loved the field as soon as I encountered it.” Says McGinn, who was Rowlands’s thesis advisor at Oxford, Rowlands was always destined to distinguish himself, and I merely greased the way.”

Rowlands, now a highly regarded scholar in his own right, is a prolific writer of academic as well as general interest books on philosophy, having published ten books and numerous journal articles. His books include The Body in Mind (Cambridge 1999), The Nature of Consciousness (Cambridge 2001), and Body Language (MIT 2006).

Otávio Bueno, another new member of the philosophy department, is a native of Brazil, where he received his undergraduate and master’s degrees. Like new colleagues McGinn and Rowland, Bueno did his doctoral work in England. He then taught and visited at several other universities in America and Brazil before coming to the University of Miami. Bueno’s inquiries focus on the philosophy of science, which considers critical features of scientific methods and practices, examines important scientific theories and results, and tackles their philosophical implications. He also conducts research in the areas of philosophy of mathematics, logic, and the overlap between art and science.

“I like to address various problems simultaneously,” he says, ”and I enjoy bridging the gap between areas of knowledge—for example, between different scientific disciplines.”

Despite the early concerns of his parents—both medical doctors—about his career path, Bueno has thrived as a philosopher and is a frequent speaker and contributor to academic journals. His books include Constructive Empiricism: A Restatement and Defense (1999) and Elements of Paraconsistent Set Theory (1998). Bueno is collaborating with a number of faculty in the Miller School of Medicine and the College of Engineering, as well as faculty in the natural sciences who share his interest in the philosophy of science and mathematics.

With its growing excellence and prestige, the philosophy department will continue to make this classical discipline relevant to preparing the University’s students to think critically and analytically. “With its origins in the ancient world,” says Siegel, “philosophy imparts skills and values that will prepare our students to be citizens and scholars of the 21st century.”

By Samantha Phillips