Last week my period as a guest researcher at Utrecht University came to an end and from this week on I’ll be back at KULeuven. In the second semester in Leuven I’ll be giving a class on “Theory of Knowledge” for the first year of the international BA programme. Looking back, I can say that I’ve had a good time in Utrecht, I accomplished a significant part of what I set out to do, and profited from great support and mentoring. The process of preparing and submitting my VENI grant application (Philosophy as Science: The Project of the School of Brentano) challenged me to learn new ways of thinking and writing about my research. Learning to adapt my writing for a funding agency and for scholars outside my discipline wasn’t easy, there are a lot of tacit assumptions that need to be made explicit. I was forced to confront the (legitimate) questions that any funding agency of course asks: “Why should we fund this? Why is it important? Why should you specifically be doing this? How are you going to attain your goals? What will change when you have your results?” Due to the rigid deadline, I gave top priority to my grant application and didn’t manage to complete my book manuscript. This was also due to the decision to completely overhaul the structure of the book. Nevertheless, the semester in Utrecht allowed me to make more than enough progress to be able to complete it before other obligations distract me again.

Besides the VENI grant application and the book, one other important project was to blog about my research. I limited myself mostly to the grant and book projects, but I think I will broaden it to include other topics and projects. I’ll also add some more static pages about my teaching, presentations and publications.