On Wednesday, February 26, philosophy department Ambassadors Zoe Simmons and Nathan Haynes had the chance to talk with UGA alumnus Gregory Moss (A.B. Philosophy '07; A.B. German '07; M.A. Philosophy '07; Ph.D. Philosophy '14), currently an assistant professor at the Chinese University at Hong Kong. In this interview, we had the chance to speak on his current philosophical work on Absolute Dialethism, his experiences with faculty at UGA, the state of philosophy, fast food metaphysics’ and upcoming projects.
Nathan Haynes: Can you briefly describe how you see yourself in relation to other thinkers who have written on dialetheism?
Gregory Moss: Grand Priest has this idea that there can be true contradictions that some contradictions are true. His view is not that all contradictions are true, but just some, and he thinks that we should only accept contradictions to be true if we have no other options in thinking. He, for example, thinks the liar paradox is a good example of a true contradiction. So, if you say, ‘this sentence is false’. If ‘this sentence is false’ is true, then it's false, but if ‘this sentence is false’ is false, then it’s true, so it's always contradictory. Absolute dialethism is just using this term dialethism that some contradictions are true, but it's applying it to the world, so it's saying that the existence of the world or the kind of totality of totalities is inconsistent, and also that knowledge of that inconsistency being is inconsistent.
And I think it's actually not a common view. Most people think contradictions cannot be true, because of the principle of non-contradiction, which is one of the most sacred principles in philosophy. It enables us our use of the reductio (reductio ad absurdum) and this kind of thing. I would say the absolute dialethism view is just a modification or it's just a kind of dialethism. [It just says] that there are some true contradictions and one of those is the world. It's a view that almost no one has adopted over the exception of some possible candidates, like maybe Heraclitus, Hegel, for sure. Maybe a few others in the Western tradition, I think it's somewhat very much an abnormal view.
Haynes: In relation to this absolute dialetheism, do you feel as if modern scholarship is gaining a more acceptant view of your kind of approach?
Moss: I think so, because Graham Priest has done a lot to normalize the view that there are true contradictions. In [respect to] analytic philosophy, I think they've included in the American Philosophical Association survey. One of the questions that was added in the last [year] was, are you a dialetheist? And there's a higher percentage than I thought, and the fact that they even asked tells a lot, right? I think there's been increasing acceptance. I can go around the world and give talks and people don’t laugh me out of the room. But it may think it privately, but it hasn't destroyed my career.
Haynes: It's been a while since the pitchforks?
Moss: It's been a while since the pitchforks and actually Plato beards grown long. People can do metaphysics again, history of philosophy, there's no one obvious dominant method. It's an amazing time to do philosophy because the flood gates are open. So, nothing really is off the table. That's the exciting thing about, I think, studying philosophy now. That’s a freedom that people didn't have in the past.
Haynes: Now it's time for the sappy part. Do you have a professor or a course that stood out to you at UGA? I know you worked under Dr. Winfield and Dr. Halper. Is there another professor besides those two or a specific course that you took with one of those two that really stood out to you in your undergraduate?
Moss: As an undergraduate the professors that were really influential for me were Edward Halper and Richard Winfield. and not just the two of them, but their students. Chad Wiener was one of Edward Halper’s students. He's a lecturer now in Virginia. But [my] ancient philosophy class was really influential for me, taught by Chad Wiener, a student of Ed Halper.
Richard [Winfield’s] influence was so overwhelming that I don't even remember which class exactly, but he would go up and systematically do philosophy in front the class and I was like blown away. I felt like it was just like the train that was running me over. I wanted to know what was going on here.
Ed Halper is just an amazing teacher. He would always befuddle you and you thought you knew what was going on and he always was one step ahead. I took a medieval philosophy class with Edward Halper, and it was pretty amazing. Once, I have a very distinct memory, someone brought their child into class. The kid is distracting, of course, because he's a kid, and I guess the guy couldn't find a babysitter. Ed found a way of teaching the class by asking the kid questions about Santa Claus, and he used the kid’s presence to teach us. So, what would normally be a huge distraction, he somehow was able to use it to teach everybody. So, I think Ed is just a master teacher.
My memories of graduate school are somehow stronger. But I mean, with the teachers here, Elizabeth Brient, Bradley Bassler, Rene Jagnow, are all very important for me in my education. So, without Rene Jagnow I wouldn't have published my first essay on Husserl, and Elizabeth in her interest in mysticism and Eckhart. I still study them as my interest in them grew. Bradley Basset was really influential for my interest in indeterminacy. One of his seminars was really important [to me]. So those are the people, those five people.
Zoe Simmons: Why should undergraduate students consider studying philosophy?
Moss: I’ll give you an idealistic and practical answer. It's through philosophy that one comes to learn about the nature of things. If you want to know the nature of things and your place in it, then you need philosophy. That's not to say that religion and art and this kind of thing are not important, but I don’t think that through those alone you can really understand the nature of the world and your place in it. I think that's like one answer, the other is philosophy is good for law school.
I think that all the prejudices of philosophers are poor, I think on average, they actually do just fine. Uh, but it helps you learn to reason and all that. There's too much ‘fast food metaphysics' in this world. You go to church, and you get everything all at once. You just get the truth in a package, you eat it and go. The nice thing about philosophy is that you get a kind of antidote to that fast food metaphysics, you know. Slow living, ‘slow food metaphysics’. I don't know what to call it.
Haynes: It's ‘home cooked [metaphysics]’
Moss: ‘Home cooked’, yeah, it's not ‘fast food metaphysics’. [Other sources are] fine and stuff but maybe mediated by deep reflection so that the experiences [are] deepened and it's healthier for you. So, no ‘fast food metaphysics’
Haynes: One final question: What are the things you're currently working or pursuing?
Moss: I just published an edited volume on the Kyoto school, which is a Japanese philosophical tradition in the 20th century, that looks at the legacy of German philosophy and German idealism in the Kyoto school. That came out with Cornell University Press a couple weeks ago. I'm writing a book now that's building on these ideas about absolute dialethism, and it's under contract with the Edinburgh University Press. They have this series “New Perspectives in Ontology” and it's about trying to bring together the rational form of absolute dialethism with the mystical form, saying that the world is contradictory, and this is both rational and mystical truth and I'm putting them together into one theory. I’m finishing it up now.
There's an edited volume I'm putting together on the history of contradictory theology. So, we're rethinking with some theologians the history of Western Christian theology with an eye to which theologians and thinkers have taken the idea that God is a true contradiction seriously including Eckhart, Cousa, Hegel, and others. Elizabeth Brient is contributing to it. I tried to include my teachers in stuff I do, because it's a way of continuing to learn from them and give back.
The next book I want to write on is a book on Freedom and Truth. I want to make a transition to writing on something related to practical philosophy and not just be stuck in obtuse theoretical questions for my whole life. But I just thought I should try to understand theory first before practice.
Asked about his experience at UGA and how it impacted him, Moss added:
I loved my professors; I did my MA here. and I loved coming here, but everyone again gave me advice [to leave], that [I] should go somewhere else. So, I listened to everyone's advice, except Richard [Winfield] told me to stay. And I'm glad I did in the end
And so, I did this…it was from a philosophical point of view, the best decision because I really internalized the methods and way of thinking of the teachers. There are hidden gems here.
Haynes: How did your UGA degrees prepare you for your career?
Moss: Of course, without a PhD I would not have qualified for a tenure track position as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Regarding the content of my education, my degree in German prepared me to read texts in Classical German philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel) in the original language. Studying abroad in Heidelberg (Undergraduate) and Bonn (as a PhD student and Fulbright Scholar) exposed me to opportunities outside the US.
My philosophy degrees prepared me for the job I have now by giving me a lot of teaching experience. Graduates from UGA usually have a lot of teaching experience upon graduation, and that makes them more competitive for teaching positions. I was taught to do close reading, argument reconstruction, and to think about classical issues in philosophy. UGA gave me a keen sense of the philosophical problems that would motivate my career as a philosopher.
The methodological pluralism of UGA was a very big advantage. I teach in a pluralistic department now (CUHK), and I feel at more at home in such a department because this was also the culture of UGA when I was a student there.
Image: Moss, left, with UGA Distinguished Research Professor Richard Winfield.