Back in the saddle

Tuesday, February 24, 2009 at 11:30PM

I’m back in Melbourne. Z and I have been back for over a week – and I’ve been back at work since the middle of last week, slowly setting up while Z has been settling into school. C returns tomorrow, and the place will feel like home at last.

The philosophy blogosphere is all a-flutter with the release of the 2009 Leiter Report. We have known for some time that the troubles here at Melbourne would impact our rating and the result is there for all to see. We’re out of the top ranking in Australia, sinking below Monash in the report’s league tables. Still, it’s nice to recognise that in the discipline rankings we’re notable in Applied Ethics, Feminist Philosophy, Mathematical Logic, Philosophy of Mathematics and Philosophical Logic. For a very small core of a department, we do rather well. We have a very nice group from which to rebuild a decent department – the trick will be managing the rebuilding phase. Please wish us luck (or if you can, lend us your support).

The trip was wonderful. I needed the break, and I enjoyed visting Pitt, CMU and UConn (thanks Shawn, Anil, Bob, Nuel, Kevin, Steve, Kohei, Horacio, Jc, Katrina, Marcus, Aaron, Colin, Reed, Michael, Scott, and everyone else, for your hospitality), and we had much fun at each stop on the way.

But now, I’m back in the saddle, confronted with a heavy class load – comprising first-year logic, a new upper-level logic subject I affectionately call “Kurt Gödel’s Greatest Hits”, and four classes in a fourth-year seminar on Epistemology and Metaphysics, where I’ll talk about recent work on truthmaking, from Lowe and Rami’s handy new collection – as well as some new postgraduate students (hi, Simon, hi Aaron!), significant administrative repsonsibilities, and writing and editing tasks I’m trying to keep on the boil.

So, work is busy. If you’re waiting on an email from me, hold on. I’m getting to it. I’m knocking the pile down each day, and at the moment, the pile is getting smaller, rather than bigger, so you can expect that I’ll get to yours at some time in the finite future.