Personal statement feedback request
Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2016 7:57 pm
This is a first draft. I'd really love to hear anyone's thoughts on it. Thanks!
"Well, if Jones doesn't have knowledge, then kal v'chomer –”
"What?"
The professor was looking at me with a puzzled expression. I realized that half the class was now staring at me as well.
"Um, it means, like, ‘even more so’..." I stammered, sinking low in my seat. This was an analytic philosophy class, Theory of Knowledge, and I had just dropped a Talmudic term nobody there could possibly understand. I felt my cheeks growing red. Internally I berated myself. I wasn't in high school anymore, so why was I still using esoteric Aramaic terms that had no place among serious study?
Talmud should have been my favorite subject, as others had told me on more than one occasion, given its heavy emphasis on logic and argumentation. I had always found the subject frustrating, however. Conclusions never quite seemed to follow from their premises, and the subjects always seemed so trivial, arguing about how tall huts could be on Sukkot or what could be carried on the Sabbath. After a lifetime of yeshiva education, discovering analytic philosophy in college was a revelation. Here was the rigor I had been looking for, the thoughtful analysis of deep, difficult concepts. I was fascinated by the hard problems of ethics and jurisprudence. I fell in love with epistemology, delighting in delving into the concepts of knowledge, justification, and skepticism. I felt like I had finally come home.
At the same time as I began my dive into analytic philosophy, I also started studying the Chinese language, prompted by an interest in Chinese poetry and a desire to read the original works rather than translations. Philosophy felt as natural as breathing; Chinese was much more of a struggle. I battled against difficult pronunciation, tones I could barely hear, and a writing system requiring the memorization of thousands of characters. Persevering, I soon found my Chinese studies influencing my thinking just as much as analytic philosophy had. The writing system in particular intrigued me. I had taken phonetic alphabets for granted, but characters were an entirely different way of approaching writing, and even as I found them frustrating and archaic I also recognized their advantages in connecting signifier and signified, as well as their beauty of form.
As I progressed in my studies, I started reading Chinese philosophy, both in class and out of it. Analytic philosophy had seemed at first like the one true means of analyzing the world and gaining insights into the good life. But Confucianism and Daoism provided alternate viewpoints which I could not dismiss. They used methods entirely different from the conceptual analysis I had become accustomed to, and yet they had a logic and a sense of their own which seemed to me equally valuable. I began to incorporate this perspective into my other studies, writing papers connecting Chinese and analytic philosophy and leading philosophy club meetings on the intersection between the two. These two studies, seemingly so different, each influenced and enriched the other.
It was not until my senior year that I found myself revisiting the system of thought that I had been raised in and left behind. If Chinese philosophy had taught me so much, despite its divergence from analytic philosophy, perhaps there might be some value in Jewish philosophy as well. I returned to the Talmud and rabbinic literature with new eyes, and appreciated them for the first time. Maimonides sought to understand the world he inhabited just as Kant did. The metaphysics of Kabbalah proved equally worthy of study as that of Aristotle. I found myself incorporating into my work another perspective, one I had derided in the past.
I now find myself hoping to embark upon the study of yet another system, that of law, which has its own methods and perspectives. I will carry with me into this study not just training in formal logic and philosophy of law, but also an understanding of the legalistic teachings of Mohism and Confucianism, and of the intricacies of the complicated system of Jewish laws navigated by rabbis for millennia. I know that just as these subjects will enrich my studies in law school, so too will studying law enrich my understanding of all that I have studied so far. (Finish with why this makes X school a good fit.)
"Well, if Jones doesn't have knowledge, then kal v'chomer –”
"What?"
The professor was looking at me with a puzzled expression. I realized that half the class was now staring at me as well.
"Um, it means, like, ‘even more so’..." I stammered, sinking low in my seat. This was an analytic philosophy class, Theory of Knowledge, and I had just dropped a Talmudic term nobody there could possibly understand. I felt my cheeks growing red. Internally I berated myself. I wasn't in high school anymore, so why was I still using esoteric Aramaic terms that had no place among serious study?
Talmud should have been my favorite subject, as others had told me on more than one occasion, given its heavy emphasis on logic and argumentation. I had always found the subject frustrating, however. Conclusions never quite seemed to follow from their premises, and the subjects always seemed so trivial, arguing about how tall huts could be on Sukkot or what could be carried on the Sabbath. After a lifetime of yeshiva education, discovering analytic philosophy in college was a revelation. Here was the rigor I had been looking for, the thoughtful analysis of deep, difficult concepts. I was fascinated by the hard problems of ethics and jurisprudence. I fell in love with epistemology, delighting in delving into the concepts of knowledge, justification, and skepticism. I felt like I had finally come home.
At the same time as I began my dive into analytic philosophy, I also started studying the Chinese language, prompted by an interest in Chinese poetry and a desire to read the original works rather than translations. Philosophy felt as natural as breathing; Chinese was much more of a struggle. I battled against difficult pronunciation, tones I could barely hear, and a writing system requiring the memorization of thousands of characters. Persevering, I soon found my Chinese studies influencing my thinking just as much as analytic philosophy had. The writing system in particular intrigued me. I had taken phonetic alphabets for granted, but characters were an entirely different way of approaching writing, and even as I found them frustrating and archaic I also recognized their advantages in connecting signifier and signified, as well as their beauty of form.
As I progressed in my studies, I started reading Chinese philosophy, both in class and out of it. Analytic philosophy had seemed at first like the one true means of analyzing the world and gaining insights into the good life. But Confucianism and Daoism provided alternate viewpoints which I could not dismiss. They used methods entirely different from the conceptual analysis I had become accustomed to, and yet they had a logic and a sense of their own which seemed to me equally valuable. I began to incorporate this perspective into my other studies, writing papers connecting Chinese and analytic philosophy and leading philosophy club meetings on the intersection between the two. These two studies, seemingly so different, each influenced and enriched the other.
It was not until my senior year that I found myself revisiting the system of thought that I had been raised in and left behind. If Chinese philosophy had taught me so much, despite its divergence from analytic philosophy, perhaps there might be some value in Jewish philosophy as well. I returned to the Talmud and rabbinic literature with new eyes, and appreciated them for the first time. Maimonides sought to understand the world he inhabited just as Kant did. The metaphysics of Kabbalah proved equally worthy of study as that of Aristotle. I found myself incorporating into my work another perspective, one I had derided in the past.
I now find myself hoping to embark upon the study of yet another system, that of law, which has its own methods and perspectives. I will carry with me into this study not just training in formal logic and philosophy of law, but also an understanding of the legalistic teachings of Mohism and Confucianism, and of the intricacies of the complicated system of Jewish laws navigated by rabbis for millennia. I know that just as these subjects will enrich my studies in law school, so too will studying law enrich my understanding of all that I have studied so far. (Finish with why this makes X school a good fit.)