Dissertation Supervision

I thought I'd follow on from my previous post on the theme of dissertations to give a better picture of how my supervisions went because they may be hard to imagine. Just because I did gain a great deal from them doesn't mean the decision over my Cavendish dissertation and  supervisor were right. It's still unjustifiable,unfair, unethical and plain wrong. And I'm still angry 😠about it!

Anthony Price's dissertation supervisions prepared me very well for presenting my future papers and answering questions. It wasn't all contras - it was mostly philosophical discussion, exploration of topics and probing/testing my thesis. Discussion with him isn't some vague chit-chat - it's like developing a train of thought, constantly building on each other's thought. We had 50/50 input in discussion time because we both talk a lot and are quick to respond to each other's academic points. I'm glad I experienced that because it is something which is a very rare skill. You don't get to just throw out some random thought in the hope that you are more or less on the right track! He'd immediately catch you out if you tried that so you learn to always stay very tight to a point that you can substantiate, which is very demanding. Talk about strict! But it's helped me greatly in doing my own research now, post-degree, and writing it up as papers and books. I even learnt from him how to construct a stance / interpretation / theory without introducing unnecessary errors. This is rather an essential skill of you want to do research, write papers and books! 🙂👍

It was really Price who planted the seeds 🌱 of seeing myself as a lifelong philosopher and researcher when he told me that my ideas were good enough to continually build on post-dissertation and showed me how to take a narrow topic and expand it until it becomes a lifelong research project. He certainly talked to me as if we were both on the same level, both philosophers. That's very rare generally but especially when in the role of a supervisor. He also inspired me because, when I arrived at college, he'd already been a lecturer a long time but he had done that without a PhD and only became a Professor the year before I undertook the dissertation with him. Which only goes to show, you don't need a PhD to be a scholarly researcher or a lecturer. And he was definitely the second best lecturer in the department, after Susan James (who did the traditional academic route). 

As I write my books, I can still hear him say things like - "what if x and what if y? Would you still maintain.....or not?" If not, why not? And does that impact on your thesis?  

Another recurrent question was "where is it in the text?". And not just in supervisions but it also became a big feature in a final year group tutorial on Aristotle (for which he was the tutor even though he is a Platonist, not an Aristotelian. Lecturers only took final year tutorials😯🙄😪). 

Him: It's not in the text! 

Me: Yes, it is in the text.

Him: I can't see it in the text. 

Me: Well, it's in my edition of the text. 

Him: I've never heard of that edition. 

Me: It exists because I've got it at home. 

Him: You'll have to bring it in and show me the book and point to where it is in the text. I'm sure it's not in the text. 

Me: But I've written a direct quote so of course it's in the text. 

Him: Well, bring it in and show me but I've never seen it in a text. Aristotle never wrote that.

Me: I can't bring it in, it's too heavy, it's a thick book of all his works. But it is in that text so Aristotle did write it, maybe you just have a different translation. 

Him: Aristotle didn't make that point, so he couldn't have written it, he's never argued that. 

Me: Yes he did argue that because I read it in the text! And I directly quoted him! So you've already seen what it says in that edition of the text. 

Him: I won't believe Aristotle ever wrote that or argued that unless you bring the book in and show me where it says that in that text. 

I still laugh about this exchange between us! 😂😂😂😂😂 *

Although I think the other students were a bit horrified😯🙁and concerned 😒😕. Obviously their supervisors didn't put them under pressure. However, they missed the point. Price was showing the limitations of empiricism by practical example. Hume was an empiricist. So it was directly relevant to my dissertation.👍 And he was showing in practice the problem of empiricism. Not that he let on. 🙃Well, Price is the old-fashioned type of academic, especially Oxbridge style. But I prefer that style to even a more modern Oxbridge style. Why? I find it more academically challenging because there is always a good point to what he is saying, even if it's not always immediately apparent. Unlike some lecturers who can just fall back on "I don't agree with you" without substantiating why it is they disagree and how exactly they would support their argument. I didn't ask you to have the same opinion as me, but you do have to provide a plausible argument which demonstrates why you disagree and why your argument holds water. 

He also gave me confidence that I could tackle any style of contra because if you can survive him, you can survive anyone! Although I had a preview of how tough holding your own against a lecturer's contra can be while still a 1st year. I was unhappy with the way an MPhilStud student tutor had marked my ethics essay. To cut a long story short, Gemes did an impromptu 1-to-1 tutorial with me in his college room which lasted a fair amount of time. I can only best describe it as feeling like being dragged backwards through a thorny bush🌿🍃😳😬😲! It was quite Price-like but nevertheless different because Gemes has a more bombastic and aggressive style, so you really have to hang on by your fingernails 😬💅! If you don't know your work back to front and inside out and can totally defend your stance as well as any randomly plucked out section of your work then you are overwhelmed. I loved it, I was fine, it was an academic challenge and they don't come by very often so make use of the opportunity when it arises! I was satisfied at the end because I'd eventually managed to out-manoeuvre his argument! All credit to him, he did concede at the end of the tutorial. 👍🙂💪

This shows how, if all tutorials were still done 1-to-1 with lecturers (as they were in my mother's day) then students could go up the learning curve faster yet at their own pace. And they wouldn't be able to just sleepwalk through their degree by rarely speaking in tutorials, barely writing any notes during lectures and tutorials, rarely asking questions at either and just learning their few marked essays off by heart and hoping the exam questions match it so they can just write out their term-time essay. If you do that, then don't expect to go straight into research afterwards because you won't know your subject well enough and you won't have developed your verbal, written, thinking and research skills. You have to develop a thick skin if you don't already have one. You often hear lecturers say they have to be gentle with PhD students because they are over-sensitive. Oh for goodness sake, why are you doing a PhD if you don't want to tough it out with a scholarly lecturer?! 🙄  

If we had been able to have two supervisors (as PhD students do) I would have chosen Anthony Price as a secondary supervisor (and no 🙄 I haven't suddenly turned into an Ancient Philosopher) with Susan James as the primary supervisor (yes, I'm still a Spinozist!🙂💪). Their academic styles complement each other in various ways. I can imagine what she'd be like as a supervisor even though I haven't worked with her (or for her!). She has the same style as Price but puts it subtly, so you can miss her points if you don't stay mentally alert! Unlike Price, she can ask questions that many might think "oh that's a very easy question" so they answer the question too quickly and superficially without thinking. At which point she'll sit back and grin to herself, knowing she's made them fall into the trap she set out for them if they haven't looked at their subject or their chosen philosopher broadly enough and thoroughly enough. One example that comes to mind is a question she asked at a Hume conference: Do you have to be happy yourself in order to write about happiness? Sounds simple, doesn't it! But in fact, it's layered and needs a lot of unpacking. The speaker fell right into it and said yes! I thought, oh dear, you've totally failed to answer the real question and answered like a child which, given you are a lecturer, is very unfortunate. Hume suffered from depression yet wrote about happiness so you either don't even know the basics about his life or you've contradicted yourself by claiming he wrote insightfully about happiness and then implying in your answer that Hume couldn't have done because he wasn't happy. He also missed the deeper epistemological point of how do we gain knowledge of emotions? 

So she is just as tough as Price and like him she also has many different styles. Both are old-school, Oxbridge academics - you can either keep up with them or you can't. They will adjust to you if you can't keep up but then you won't get the best out of them. They were the only two that taught me that students claimed they couldn't understand. Well, if you can't understand her lectures then you are asleep 😴 because she packages it (and her fantastic handouts📃🙂) in such as way that it is easy to understand and methodically go through. Each lecture follows explicitly from the last one so they keep building on each other right until the last lecture. So just by looking at her handouts, you learn how to set out your work and she writes it in her speaking voice so you remember it better - I found it great for revision! No other lecturer managed that in their handouts - some just give you a long list of quotes (I have the original text, I don't need you to write it out again for me) or they write too much, too little or too simplistically so most of the content is missing. As for Price, he just comes in, delivers his lecture like he's presenting a paper, takes questions at the end and expects you to come up to his level, not that he should dumb down to yours 👍. Whereas Susan James keeps checking that everyone is keeping up and understanding and will repeat, explain, clarify, define whatever is necessary. 🙂 

I guess if I was a lecturer, my teaching style would be somewhere in between them - like Price I'd expect students to come up to my level otherwise they are not learning enough and not stretching themselves which is what I think uni is about. But at the same time, like Susan James, I'd make sure everyone is keeping up and understanding what I am saying although I'd be less patient than her! I'm keen on giving out handouts so I always provide them - it's a great way to sum up your argument that later will jog people's memory when they look back on it. 🤔💭🗯💥🙂💪

* Why is it funny? Because it is so absurd and preposterous. He knew he didn't have a leg to stand on: it was a direct quote which I'd carefully referenced, as I always do - nobody questions things like that. And I had the book safely at home, it was mine so I could produce it anytime if it was ever necessary to do so but it wasn't and it couldn't be. Quite rightly, he didn't bring it up again. He was just plain wrong and on a losing wicket! 🏏