Thomas Mulherin

Visiting Lecturer of Philosophy
Age: 35
Hometown: Marston Mills, Mass.
Degrees: B.A. University of Virginia, Music and philosophy; PhD. University of Notre Dame, Philosophy
Areas of Research: 19th and 20th century German Philosophy and Philosophy of Music
Time at Georgetown: 3 years

What is the greatest challenge in your field today?
Philosophy has a big problem with inclusiveness, for lack of better wording. It’s centrally white and male so I think the biggest challenge for philosophy is becoming more inclusive or more accepting to other perspectives and baby steps have been made, but we have a long way to go.

How did you narrow your field of study?
Well, I guess when I came to college as an undergraduate I wanted to do all of that. And I had already read a lot of fiction and kind of knew my way around as long I had to read. I felt like I understood how to approach it and where to go and how to find the writers and so forth, but there were all these authors that I’d heard of that I knew nothing about and had no idea how to start, and they were all in the philosophy department so I took philosophy courses and fell in love with it. As far as narrowing it to philosophy of music, I was a performing jazz musician for roughly 10 years including undergraduate. It just became very clear that I was never going to do either music or philosophy without doing both at the same time.

What would be your ideal course to teach?
My ideal class… well I’ve been lucky here. Even though I’m not here on a permanent basis, I get to teach pretty much what I want. In the fall I’m teaching a course on the idea of “false consciousness” which is a Marxist idea, according to which people act against their true interests without realizing it and why they do so, and they do so because of the structure of society. My ideal course that I haven’t taught is a class on the Philosophy of Music. And I’d like to do it in very deep dialogue with small groups with very specific pieces of music. Too often philosophy of art philosophy of music takes place in abstraction from actual art and actual music, and the challenge is to build a course that really lets the philosophy follows the music rather than the other way around.

What would you be doing if you weren’t in academia?
If I wasn’t in academia I think I would be a performing musician still. I still wish I were taking gigs.

What drew you to Georgetown?
Actually, I came here before I finished my Ph.D. as a researcher because my wife got a job with the government. In some ways the decision was made for me. But other factors why I came here instead of, say, trying to be a visitor at Maryland or Catholic, that came down to the departments. I think department here is the most interesting philosophy department in the D.C. area. They have several people, professor Pinkard, professor Blattner who work on German philosophy and do very interesting things. So it was kind of that I should at least try to attach myself to the department.

What’s something you wish more of your students would take away from your classes?
This is hard to instill in a class that is a requirement as intro is, but I would hope that students leave my class with a curiosity about at least one of the ideas that we discussed or one of the authors we discussed. So an interest in Nietzsche or read more about it. Whatever happens to be their interest. If that happens, then, then that would be good for me.

Who is your favorite philosopher?
Theodor Adorno, German philosopher, social critic who was a musicologist and composer. Though I wouldn’t like to write the exact type of music he wrote, but his ability to move between those fields is something I aspire to.

What’s your favorite recent book you’ve read?
“HHhH” by Laurent Binet, it’s a French book about the assassination of Heydrich, who was a high-ranking SS official. It’s an amazing combination of fiction, history and a memoir of the actual process of writing the book. So what does it mean to write historical fiction, what does it mean to write history, and in particular, how do I cope with this particular book? It’s astounding, amazingly well written and like absolutely nothing I’ve read before.

Interview by Michelle Xu