PHIL 405: A Sense of Belonging

The comment I received from Dr. Mendoza on my essay!

I took PHIL 405 (Political Philosophy of Race) with Dr. Mendoza in Winter 2025. Leading up to this quarter, of course, I had already taken many other philosophy classes, including several other ones with Dr. Mendoza. The work for the class was relatively standard: I did all the readings, attended class, asked questions, and wrote 2 papers. And while I learned a great deal from the class about the political philosophy of race, the biggest thing I took away was not the learning itself, but instead the following comment that Dr. Mendoza left on my midterm essay:

This was excellent. It was the best essay I've gotten from an undergrad in the last two years. I wish I would have given you 5K words. You did a great job giving us an overview of the Mills/Shelby debate, but I think you also have an original contribution. Once you laid it out, I could finally see it. I liked this two part schema of ideal/non-ideal and liberty/equality. I think Mills often operates as though he is a non-deal egalitarian, but I think you are right, when it comes to reparations he suddenly becomes a non-ideal libertarian.

For me, the significance of this comment was that it validated that I belonged in the philosophy department. I had sometimes felt like a "fake philosophy student" because I wasn't interested in some of the topics typically associated with philosophy: I still haven't ready many of the foundational texts in Ancient Greek philosophy, metaphysics, philosophy of science, or twentieth-century analytic philosophy that many of my peers have. This comment from Dr. Mendoza, however, affirmed that despite these shortcomings, I could make valuable contributions to ongoing philosophical debates, especially in topics like racial justice that I care deeply about. I've realized that even if I haven't read everything in the "standard" philosophical canon, the time I spend elsewhere nonetheless provides me with valuable and unique perspectives.