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STATEMENT OF PROVISIONAL
RESEARCH INTERESTS
D.M. Ruiters,
BA (Psychology; Philosophy) 2nd class; BA. Hons. (Philosophy) 2nd class,
UFS,
Bloemfontein, FS
It is a privilege and an honor to articulate to you, at this stage of my academic career,
my profound love for philosophical inquiry, and more specifically, my interest in
perusing further grad work in the subject of Philosophy at PhD. level. To be honest,
during my almamater period, I never had the freedom to radiate my analytic approach
to Philosophy, since my Department focused more on Continental Philosophy. In the
midst of all this, I am happy to say that I gained a lot of exposure to the continental
tradition and it gave me a solid foundation to build on. From Philosophy level one to
Philosophy level three, I never thought that I would go to postgraduate school in the
subject, since psychology was my first choice. However, a more fundamental
understanding of the mind intrigued me more and soon I caught up with my Philosophy
classes with the anticipation of working under late Mr. Stephen Pitchers (Ph.D. student
at the time).
To make a long story short, I became truly interested in Philosophical areas, what I
assume to be peculiar to my lecturers that ranged from Speculative Metaphysics to
Formal Logic, from Substance Dualism to Russellian Atomism, from Fregean
Philosophy to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, etc. Even though I enjoyed classes; the
workload and discussions, the urge to engage in my own paradigm increased. When
the time came to go do honors, I had to face advanced levels of the Frankfurt school
(critical theory) and I believe it played an important role in my decision to pursue a
focus on free will at Master’s level, while dragging some of my Ideology Theory (which
include[s] a lot Marx; Hegel; Heidegger; Hussrl; Kant, of undergrad along).
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2. However, embarking on a Master’s endeavor gave me sufficient time to upgrade my
rhetoric, research methodology and both supervisory and independent work. This time
allowed me to explore my analytic approach with more freedom and gave me time to
think about whether or not I should consider PhD. work.
Tentative PhD. Interests
In the last few months, I have been squandering around with different philosophical
ideas; reading a lot; looking up a bulk of biographies; jotting down fresh ideas; going
through old ones, etc. What I have discovered was that all my squandering always
lead back to one theme: Analytic Philosophy. I am no mathematician; physicist;
chemist; linguist or biologist, but after extensive independent research, I have
acquainted myself with these subjects. I could see my degree of understanding of
these scientific disciplines in my “absurd” (to use Albert Camus’ term) speculations in
the natural sciences, which includes themes ranging from binary algebra in computer
operations back to the first living cell, all the way back to a the quantum singularity
prior the “big bang”, and I even regressed further, looking for the possibility of Higgs
Fields in the absence of the laws of physics all the way back to God’s Aseity
(philosophy of religion). At this point I was forced to read up on Ravi Zacherias,
Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, et. al.
To be frank, my interest is very simple and particulates themes in the philosophy of
mind. I would love to investigate the hard problem of consciousness (John Searl) with
more detail and contribute to this area of philosophical inquiry using scientific
disciplines such as, Cognitive Psychology, Neuroscience and other neuro-
philosophical tool relevant to my study. I am also interested in creating new
developments in the field. With my philosophical stature, I know it is possible.
I will end this letter now and say goodbye. This letter mostly contains a subtle attempt
to convey the strong foundation I have in philosophy with regards to my interests and
how it can branch out to other areas.
Dino.