Here is some information about me, John McAteer.
I have an M.A. from Biola University (where I received rigorous training in contemporary analytic metaphysics and epistemology) and expect to receive my PhD from the University of California at Riverside in March 2010. At UCR I focused on the history of philosophy, especially the early modern period.
My dissertation is on the relationship between aesthetics and ethics in early modern philosophy as seen in the use of terms such as “moral beauty” and “moral taste” among the British Moralists. My future historical research will examine moral taste themes in the work of other early modern thinkers including Jonathan Edwards, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, the German and English Romantics, and the American pragmatists.
I am also very interested in the philosophy of film – both aesthetic issues in the theory of film (as exemplified in recent work by analytic philosophers such as Noël Carroll, Gregory Currie, and Berys Gaut) as well as the use of film to communicate philosophical ideas (as discussed in recent work by philosophers such as Thomas Wartenberg, Stephen Mulhall, and others working in the tradition of Stanley Cavell as well as others in the psychoanalytic tradition such as Slavoj Žižek). I plan to unite my research on ethical theory and film aesthetics in an analysis of the way narrative artworks such as films can help us cultivate virtue. This project requires antecedent work on some of the most pressing issues in contemporary aesthetics (e.g., In what sense can we learn “truth” from art?, Is there more than one “true” interpretation of artworks?, etc.). As a Christian scholar I would also like to apply this research to an investigation into the role of religious ritual (conceived as a kind of “performance art”) and religious experience (which I take to be akin to aesthetic experience) in moral formation.
My future research will combine all these areas in a project on the history of aesthetic responses to the problem of evil and the meaning of life. Inspired by a diverse group of writers from Annie Dillard and Wendell Berry to Martin Buber and Martin Heidegger, I will argue that mystical experience (whether conceived religiously or aesthetically) lies at the heart of any adequate response to the problem of evil. This approach is helpfully clarified when discussed in the context of films such as Bergman's Winter Light, Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest, and Malick’s The Thin Red Line among others which (in my view) attempt to bring viewers into the kind of aesthetic/religious experience required for finding meaning in the world. In other words my project is to show that some cinematic artworks function as a kind of secular liturgy which allows our post-Christian society to overcome the problem of meaning generated the fact that the death of God did not solve the problem of evil. I believe that this function of art is essential to our society’s well-being because without some response to the problem of evil, then we have no grounding for what Kant called “moral faith” and it is impossible to sustain our motivation to moral action. In short: we must believe our choice to live morally has some meaning, and art can help us retain this belief by forming our moral taste and moral imagination. I have had some success engaging college students on these films at culturally diverse campuses such as the University of California, Riverside, and I believe a popular level book on this subject could be successful.
While my dissertation, professional presentations, and teaching experience are primarily in the areas of ethics, aesthetics, early modern philosophy, and philosophy of religion, I consider myself to be something of a generalist. It is impossible to separate “practical” areas such as ethics and aesthetics from fundamental issues in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophies of mind and language. For example, my dissertation on Hume’s concept of “moral taste” required me to discuss of the ontology of evaluative properties, the epistemology of value judgments, and the mechanisms of the human mind involved in these judgments.
My standpoint as a generalist is also made necessary by my interest in philosophy and film. I am part of a new wave of philosophers who are trying to read films as philosophical texts in much the same way that Martha Nussbaum taught us to read novels as philosophical texts. (One of my next aesthetics research projects will be to clarify what exactly it could mean for an artwork to be a work of philosophy.) While ethics and religion are probably the two most common areas of cinematic philosophizing, there is also a large number of films about skepticism, personal identity, and other epistemological and metaphysical areas.
My interest is film is a scholarly one, but in my three years teaching philosophy (at a variety of schools, from a large public research university, to several small private liberal arts universities, both religious and secular) I have also found that film and other media can be pedagogically useful for engaging introductory students and other non-specialists. In addition to my scholarly research I am committed to undergraduate liberal arts and interdisciplinary humanities teaching (though I don’t think research and teaching are as distinct as they are often made to sound), and I am convinced that in this increasingly wired world where technology is second nature to young people, we must discover ways to use emerging technologies for effective facilitation of learning. I have used Blackboard, eCollege, and similar internet-based software both for courses taught exclusively online and as a supplement to traditional face-to-face courses. I have also seen iTunes podcasting and YouTube videocasting used profitably. The next step will be Skypecasting (i.e., video conferences) and virtual environments such as SecondLife.
So far my research in ethical theory has been primarily historically based, but I also have strong interest in contemporary applied ethical issues. (Actually, I think the history of philosophy and the contemporary first-order practice of philosophy neither can nor should be entirely distinct from one another.) I took a graduate seminar in applied ethics which focused primarily on biomedical issues. And I have taught or assisted courses on a variety of applied issues including media ethics, business ethics, sexual ethics, etc. Currently (inspired by journalist Michael Pollan’s work in The Omnivore’s Dilemma) I have a strong interest in the ethics of food/eating, a topic which includes issues in environmental ethics, animal rights, technology ethics, and even social/political/economic policy.
In light of my eclectic research interests and teaching techniques, I believe I would contribute to the academic (if not ethnic) diversity of almost any university's philosophy department. My formal training is in the analytic philosophical tradition, but I also find myself increasingly interested in so-called “continental” thinkers. In addition to the areas evident from my CV, I also have a strong research interest in offbeat areas such as the philosophy of sex and love, philosophy of evil, mysticism, and the meaning of life.
If your philosophy department is hiring, and if my work sounds like an interesting complement to the work you are doing in your department, please email me at filmphilosopher@gmail.com.
I have an M.A. from Biola University (where I received rigorous training in contemporary analytic metaphysics and epistemology) and expect to receive my PhD from the University of California at Riverside in March 2010. At UCR I focused on the history of philosophy, especially the early modern period.
My dissertation is on the relationship between aesthetics and ethics in early modern philosophy as seen in the use of terms such as “moral beauty” and “moral taste” among the British Moralists. My future historical research will examine moral taste themes in the work of other early modern thinkers including Jonathan Edwards, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, the German and English Romantics, and the American pragmatists.
I am also very interested in the philosophy of film – both aesthetic issues in the theory of film (as exemplified in recent work by analytic philosophers such as Noël Carroll, Gregory Currie, and Berys Gaut) as well as the use of film to communicate philosophical ideas (as discussed in recent work by philosophers such as Thomas Wartenberg, Stephen Mulhall, and others working in the tradition of Stanley Cavell as well as others in the psychoanalytic tradition such as Slavoj Žižek). I plan to unite my research on ethical theory and film aesthetics in an analysis of the way narrative artworks such as films can help us cultivate virtue. This project requires antecedent work on some of the most pressing issues in contemporary aesthetics (e.g., In what sense can we learn “truth” from art?, Is there more than one “true” interpretation of artworks?, etc.). As a Christian scholar I would also like to apply this research to an investigation into the role of religious ritual (conceived as a kind of “performance art”) and religious experience (which I take to be akin to aesthetic experience) in moral formation.
My future research will combine all these areas in a project on the history of aesthetic responses to the problem of evil and the meaning of life. Inspired by a diverse group of writers from Annie Dillard and Wendell Berry to Martin Buber and Martin Heidegger, I will argue that mystical experience (whether conceived religiously or aesthetically) lies at the heart of any adequate response to the problem of evil. This approach is helpfully clarified when discussed in the context of films such as Bergman's Winter Light, Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest, and Malick’s The Thin Red Line among others which (in my view) attempt to bring viewers into the kind of aesthetic/religious experience required for finding meaning in the world. In other words my project is to show that some cinematic artworks function as a kind of secular liturgy which allows our post-Christian society to overcome the problem of meaning generated the fact that the death of God did not solve the problem of evil. I believe that this function of art is essential to our society’s well-being because without some response to the problem of evil, then we have no grounding for what Kant called “moral faith” and it is impossible to sustain our motivation to moral action. In short: we must believe our choice to live morally has some meaning, and art can help us retain this belief by forming our moral taste and moral imagination. I have had some success engaging college students on these films at culturally diverse campuses such as the University of California, Riverside, and I believe a popular level book on this subject could be successful.
While my dissertation, professional presentations, and teaching experience are primarily in the areas of ethics, aesthetics, early modern philosophy, and philosophy of religion, I consider myself to be something of a generalist. It is impossible to separate “practical” areas such as ethics and aesthetics from fundamental issues in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophies of mind and language. For example, my dissertation on Hume’s concept of “moral taste” required me to discuss of the ontology of evaluative properties, the epistemology of value judgments, and the mechanisms of the human mind involved in these judgments.
My standpoint as a generalist is also made necessary by my interest in philosophy and film. I am part of a new wave of philosophers who are trying to read films as philosophical texts in much the same way that Martha Nussbaum taught us to read novels as philosophical texts. (One of my next aesthetics research projects will be to clarify what exactly it could mean for an artwork to be a work of philosophy.) While ethics and religion are probably the two most common areas of cinematic philosophizing, there is also a large number of films about skepticism, personal identity, and other epistemological and metaphysical areas.
My interest is film is a scholarly one, but in my three years teaching philosophy (at a variety of schools, from a large public research university, to several small private liberal arts universities, both religious and secular) I have also found that film and other media can be pedagogically useful for engaging introductory students and other non-specialists. In addition to my scholarly research I am committed to undergraduate liberal arts and interdisciplinary humanities teaching (though I don’t think research and teaching are as distinct as they are often made to sound), and I am convinced that in this increasingly wired world where technology is second nature to young people, we must discover ways to use emerging technologies for effective facilitation of learning. I have used Blackboard, eCollege, and similar internet-based software both for courses taught exclusively online and as a supplement to traditional face-to-face courses. I have also seen iTunes podcasting and YouTube videocasting used profitably. The next step will be Skypecasting (i.e., video conferences) and virtual environments such as SecondLife.
So far my research in ethical theory has been primarily historically based, but I also have strong interest in contemporary applied ethical issues. (Actually, I think the history of philosophy and the contemporary first-order practice of philosophy neither can nor should be entirely distinct from one another.) I took a graduate seminar in applied ethics which focused primarily on biomedical issues. And I have taught or assisted courses on a variety of applied issues including media ethics, business ethics, sexual ethics, etc. Currently (inspired by journalist Michael Pollan’s work in The Omnivore’s Dilemma) I have a strong interest in the ethics of food/eating, a topic which includes issues in environmental ethics, animal rights, technology ethics, and even social/political/economic policy.
In light of my eclectic research interests and teaching techniques, I believe I would contribute to the academic (if not ethnic) diversity of almost any university's philosophy department. My formal training is in the analytic philosophical tradition, but I also find myself increasingly interested in so-called “continental” thinkers. In addition to the areas evident from my CV, I also have a strong research interest in offbeat areas such as the philosophy of sex and love, philosophy of evil, mysticism, and the meaning of life.
If your philosophy department is hiring, and if my work sounds like an interesting complement to the work you are doing in your department, please email me at filmphilosopher@gmail.com.
