Office: Sem II,E 4102, TESC, Olympia, WA, 98505
(360) 867-6158 [voice mail]

pailthor@evergreen.edu
cpailthorp@mac.com

I have taught at Evergreen since it first opened. My graduate work was in philosophy, emphasizing epistemology and the philosophy of mind. I learned from Wilfrid Sellars, who directed my dissertation, that philosophy is a systematic enterprise, that questions about knowing cannot be answered without addressing questions about being, so my philosophical interests are broad.

Because I came to philosophy after the “linguistic turn,” I approach whatever I study with an eye and ear on the concepts and the language through which our experience is shaped and expressed. In recent years, I have been teaching a full-time spring quarter program that begins with enough background in the history of philosophy for students to explore how venerable philosophical issues have taken shape in 20th century analytic philosophy. The program I am teaching this spring, "Perception, Language and Reality," is an instance of such a study.

I am also interested in how the arts - musical, fine, and literary - affect us in our daily lives, how the arts play a role not merely as mirrors of daily life but serve as instruments of cultural and social change. I study aesthetics, particularly the aesthetics of music, and I have found my way back to Nietzsche and his critique of modern culture. Another social thinker whose work I admire, less well known but no less astute, is Edgar Z. Friedenberg.

I am a musician, a classically trained singer, with repertoire and experience in opera, musical theater, and art song, and I have performed professionally in many venues.

What I will teach this Spring:

Res Publica: Examining the Body Politic (FWS, 2005-06) with Andrew Reece and Matt Smith

What I’m teaching now:

Individual contracts (Summer, 2005)

What I’ve taught in recent years:

Perception, Language and Reality (Spring, 2005)

Contemporary Social Issues: Analyzing Critically, Arguing Persuasively (FW, 2004-05) with Stephanie Coontz and Dan Leahy

Language and Mind: Classics in 20th-Century Philosophy (Spring, 2004)
Perception (FW) with Nancy Murray and Thad Curtz (FW 2003-04)

Political Problems and Controversies (Summer 2003) with José Gomez

"The Good Citizen: the social contract reconsidered" (Sp 2002-03) with Maya Parson

“What’s Love Got to Do With It?” (FW 2002-03) with Stephanie Coontz

Individual Contracts: Web-X posting site (Summer 2002)

Barking at the Moon (FW 2001-02) with Sara Huntington (aka Rideout)

Political Problems and Controversies (Summer 2001and 2002) with José Gomez

“How Can You Tell an American?” (FWS 2000-01) with José Gomez and Arun Chandra

Aesthetics of Music (Spring 2000) on my own

Individual Contracts (FW 1999-2000)

Fictional Sociology (FW 1998-99) with Sara Huntington (aka Rideout), Bill Arney

Romanticism, Modernism and After (FWS 1997-98) with Hiro Kawasaki

Science, Art and Ideology (FWS 1996-97) with Stephanie Coontz and Jan Ott

Thinking and Feeling (FW 1995-96) with Kirk Thompson