Tom Swann Who Am I

Four years old by academic age and already addled by professionalised philosophy, I now find myself heading out into a swamp of perspectives on perspectives and distinctions yet to be made that I can only hope will become my Honours thesis. This wiki is my work space where I’ll put up notes about what I’ve been doing, hopefully most of it productively constructive but probably most of it of the logical form “wtf is going on here?”

I’m at the ANU in Canberra—the undergrad Faculty, not the Research School, but I have been involved in events at both the whole way through. I’m doing a Bachelor of Philosophy in Arts (you can do it in anything almost) making mine one of two Ph Bs in Arts majored in philosophy. I’m from Sydney. I feel like I live in a hybrid city consisting of bits of both: the space and trees and trophy pieces and well funded University and generally congenial disposition of people from Canberra, and the parties and music and sublime harbour and not getting frostbite and old mates and family in Sydney.

My supervisor is Dr Jason Grossman: he’s so L33+ he hosts this wiki on his home server, using software he wrote. Snap! Substantially (as relevant to my interests - and his wiki software makes him free to correct me), he’s broadly pragmatist about lots of things, notably about scientific truth, and moreover talks about both the practice and product of science with attention and authority, which is unfortunately far too rare among philosophers. Plus he’s awesome. Plus he’s leaving me half way through the year. :(