Derek Estes teaches philosophy and theology in Pepperdine University’s Religion and Philosophy Division. He is also in his final year at Saint Louis University where he is completing a joint PhD in the Department of Philosophy and the Albert Gnaegi Center for Health Care Ethics.

What is your earliest memory of philosophy?

I had basically no idea what academic philosophy was until I got to college, but I have a very distinct memory of the first time I considered the kind of question philosophers sometimes obsess over. One day when I was about 6-7 years old, I was sitting in the back seat of my grandma’s old, beige sedan as she drove me to her house when a question occurred to me: what if I am the only real person who exists in the world and everyone “else” is a projection of my own mind? I quickly rejected the idea (as of course everyone should), but simply formulating the question for myself seemed like I had discovered a secret code or something. Here was a question I had never heard asked, and yet the question seemed like such a fundamental question of the world that I couldn’t believe it wasn’t what everyone was talking about constantly. How could that be? Well, I would find out in college it in fact has been talked about. I was taking my very first philosophy class, which was enthralling, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I felt so drawn to it. When my philosophy professor finally gave me a name for solipsism, that thought I had those many years ago, my mind raced back to that day in the back seat with my grandma and I suddenly understood; I’ve been asking and contemplating philosophical questions for basically as long as I can remember.

What topic do you think is under-explored in philosophy?

What does it mean to live a life worth living? To my mind, this is the question of philosophy. Yet although this question fundamentally motivated nearly all of the philosophizing of the ancient Greeks like Socrates and Aristotle, it is largely absent from contemporary analytic philosophy where I do most of my reading and writing. Even in ethics, which most naturally lends itself to the question of what it is that’s essential to a life meaningfully lived, the most dominant question by far is instead the question of what makes an action right or wrong. Of course, living a life worth living requires mostly doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong, but that’s only a piece of it.

A desideratum of philosophy, as in any academic discipline, is the pursuit of truth. So of course questions in metaphysics, epistemology, the history of philosophy, logic, and ethics are valuable even apart from their relevance to questions about what is essential to a life well lived. But what makes our discipline distinctive is that philosophy is not interested merely in truth (in the academic sense), it is also interested in wisdom. If, as a discipline, our efforts were aimed at gaining wisdom at least as much as they are aimed at truth, we would be better for it.

What is your favorite thing that you’ve written?

I’m not good at picking favorites, but a paper I’m particularly proud of recently is a disability and philosophy of religion paper that is coming out soon. The paper began in an office meeting with Eleanore Stump, who I was taking for a graduate class. I went into the meeting to pitch an entirely different topic, which Dr. Stump listened patiently to but then kindly (but firmly) told me my time would be better spent elsewhere. Instead, I should write on disability, she told me. Even though I was unsure about it, I took her advice, and I’m glad I did. The paper I ended up writing for her class received encouraging comments, I presented it at conferences, and eventually, I was invited to contribute it to an exciting forthcoming edited volume.

In the paper, I consider whether disabilities are bad-differences or mere-differences. I explore this question through reflection on Christian conceptions of the resurrection, since in the resurrection, Christians believe we will have perfected bodies. So, if disabilities can exist in the resurrection, then disabilities can’t be bad-differences since then they would be incompatible with perfected, resurrected bodies. Thomas Aquinas is often considered to be a major figure in the Christian tradition whose metaphysics and theology demand disabilities are bad-differences and so cannot exist in the resurrection. However, I argue—in the spirit of Thomas himself—to the contrary; Aquinas is not a barrier to accepting the mere-difference view of disabilities, and in fact, Aquinas provides many resources for thinking there will be disabilities in the resurrection.

The feedback I’ve gotten on the paper has so far been very positive, and I’m excited for it to find a larger audience when it comes out soon.

What’s your most treasured memory?

COVID was terrible for many reasons that don’t need rehashing, but an unexpected benefit for me personally was that shutdowns happened when my oldest (and at the time, only) son was about 1.5 years old. When suddenly our lives were disrupted and we were forced to stay home, I got the chance to spend every minute of the day with him during the most formative moments of his life. I got to be there to see it all as he was learning new words constantly, showing his first signs of independence and autonomy, and discovering his own unique personality. To be sure, it wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine; toddlers have their moments of… what’s the word? Dreadfulness? Being a holy waking terror? But on the whole, I cherish those months in the spring and summer we had together with him, and I think back on them fondly.

What are your goals and aspirations outside work?

The main one I have right now is to be a loving and present father to my two kids. I try my best (though I fail regularly) not to take for granted that I will never get these days with them back; I know I only have a few years until they’re off on their own and I’m stuck watching old videos on my phone from their childhood, reminiscing about how things used to be, hoping they’ll take a break from college or work or whatever and call me so we can talk again. It would be the regret of a lifetime to get to that point and think to myself I wasted time on things that don’t matter in the end that I could have instead spent with them. So, on a good day, my goal outside of work is to be present and involved in their lives now, while I’m able.

What are you thankful for right now?

Well, it’s the end of the semester, and now that all the grades are in and the work of the semester is finished, it is hard not to be thankful that I get to teach philosophy for a living. The students I get to teach are bright, curious, and thoughtful, I feel I have a natural gift for teaching that I am thankful I get to exercise regularly, and I am at a university that values keeping class sizes (relatively) small, where the magic of teaching is able to really happen. It is especially gratifying when the students I have been teaching all semester say such kind things about their time in my classes. So, almost every time around this time of the year, I am filled with an enormous sense of gratitude for the life I have. I’m never tempted to think I’ve earned it all myself; I’ve gotten incredibly lucky multiple times over, and I try not to take it for granted. It’s made all the better by the fact that I get to do it all while teaching not only at the same university my wife teaches at, but even in the same department. I don’t think it gets much better.

This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form to nominate yourself or a friend.

The post APA Member Interview: Derek Estes first appeared on Blog of the APA.

Read the full article which is published on APA Online (external link)