Pang asked:

Forgive this question from a dummy but this dummy believes some guidance from an expert is far
better than none. I'm in the process of looking for a thesis title for my PhD. Could you give me some
suggestions? A thinker in the frontiers of a subject should know what should be looked into!

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It would help if I knew what your thesis was about, or even in what area it was in. Don't you think?

Ken Stern

This is one of the oddest questions... I assume you mean PhD in Philosophy? You've gone through
undergrad and grad school and still have no idea of what you're interested in?? Well, in order to do
philosophy, you have to be interested in philosophical topics and questions, thinkand writeabout
them. If at this point you can't think of anything you want to write about, my very strong and sincere
advice would be to go into another field. Some field where you make money, which is notphilosophy.
Because if you can't think of an idea now, how are you going to turn out 1—2 papers/year as a
professional philosopher? I'll tell you what, do your dissertation on the very uncertainty you're
experiencing... there's plenty of stuff written about that in the French literature.

Steven Ravett Brown

Pang is not expressing a personal difficulty (if he were, that would be sad) but issuing a challenge:
Which thesis titles (in your opinion) might best express the frontiers of philosophical inquiry at the
present time? Where has philosophy got to in 2003? What is the burning philosophical question of the
day?

It is a question that an academic philosopher would relish. Speaking for myself, however, I care less
for the 'state of the art' than I do for my own personal journey in philosophy. Today's burning question
is tomorrow's outmoded fashion. So Pang's question does not grip me. Chacun à son gout.

Geoffrey Klempner