Kent P. Bach

This professor lectures like he has forgotten what it was like to learn this subject. He often read from the book which is a poor way to bring a subject to life. And he speaks in a monotone so it is very hard to concentrate on his meaning. The graduate student worked double time to explain what we were learning. I very much disliked taking the course because I seldom understood what was the connection between class readings and the lecture. The essays were the most interesting part of the work, and I'm glad my grades didn't come from Bach. Avoid him if you are able.

Very knowledgeable about the material but can be an insensitive grouch. I think its still worth taking the class because the material is so interesting and he knows so much about it. As with anything, if you formulate and present your criticisms intelligently, they will be heard. Homework assignments are thought provoking and therefore, helpful. Paper assignments are difficult to work through, but if you spend enough time thinking about the issues, you can come away from the class with a great deal of new knowledge. Keep up with the reading! He doesn't assign much, but, especially in Philo of Language, the reading can be very difficult. Set aside time to read through each article a few times, at least.

Kent Bach is connected to a rather narrow and limited tradition. It is the type of philosophy that feels that the knowledge that results from physical science is unquestionably the only knowledge to be truly valued. Therefore what you have to like is the clever, smug, sterile laboratory of hypermasculinity. All of the broad and rich living features of philosophy are eclipsed by a single-minded slavishness to science. If you like intellectual games that shed no insight on how humans should live, take this course. But if you think a teacher should have varied approaches to reaching the minds of diverse people instead of trying to force minds to fit a bureaucratic and scientistic mold, pick up your dreads and your scribble notes and get away from Bach as fast as sorry relativist arse will allow you to.

This professor is a gem. He has an amazing knowledge of the field of philosophy, and of philosophy of language in particular.(For those that care about these things: he has published widely, and I often run into citations of his work.) His lectures are interesting and substantive and are enlivened by his dry sense of humor. He does a great job of translating his expertise into a form that students can use, and he seems to work equally well with advanced and more beginning students. I was disappointed at first that the main text for the class is an anthology, but it has turned out to be a superb collection of the major articles in the field. Don't be deceived by the course description: Phil 830 is NOT a seminar. That's my only complaint; I would have loved to take a seminar with this guy.