November 6, 2009

Dear Members of the Search Committee:

I am writing to commend Patrick McCarty to your attention. Mr. McCarty had

informed me that he would be applying for several positions this coming term, and
requested a letter of recommendation on his behalf. I am happy to do so, and urge you to
consider his candidacy, for I am convinced that his excellence as a teacher and his intense
dedication to philosophical research would make him an asset to your department.
Patrick is unique in our program: he came to Loyola University with an advanced
degree in English, and several years’ worth of teaching experience in that field, but his
passion for philosophy drove him to undertake a second degree in philosophy. He has in
fact already published about philosophy and his dedication to difficult authors (among
them Hegel and Levinas) struck me as genuine and very promising. In the past two years,
Patrick has taken several seminars with me, in which he performed admirably and
showed himself to be one of the best graduate students I have taught at Loyola since
1991.
As a student in my classes, Patrick has addressed some of the most difficult
thinkers in philosophy, and he has done so with keen insight and a solid grasp of the
material at issue. His paper at the end of my seminar on Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
demonstrated firm comprehension of this extremely complicated body of thought, a
remarkable familiarity with secondary sources, and the ability to write with unusual
clarity in a graceful prose. I feel confident that Patrick will produce a significant
contribution to the best secondary literature on Hegel, and it was for this reason that I
recently agreed to direct his dissertation on one of the most difficult works in the history
of philosophy, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit.
In view of Patrick’s tempo and the intensity of his dedication, I think it not
unlikely that he will finish rather soon, perhaps by Christmas of 2010. Within two
months, he had already produced a 40-page reading of the crucial Introduction to the
Phenomenology, while taking his last two graduate courses at Loyola and teaching full-
time (four courses) at a local university. These first forty pages of close reading and
commentary, have amply repaid my expectations of his capacity for careful, decisive
research in Hegel studies, and should eventually help Patrick to shed new light on his
intended focus, the relationship of master and servant.
While Patrick is primarily interested in continental philosophy, he is also familiar
with important works in the Anglo-American tradition. This enables him to communicate
easily with the widest possible audience. I rarely have met students who are as
personally, passionately committed to philosophy as Patrick, and I have no doubt that his
passion and breadth of knowledge contribute to his success in a classroom setting.
 From what I know of Patrick, he is an outstanding teacher, with years of
successful teaching behind him. He was a professor of English for more than ten years,
and was recognized for his excellence as an educator when he received a federal grant for
the development of an innovative pedagogy for the instruction of introductory philosophy
courses. With this federal support, Patrick wrote textbooks for college classroom use and
sixty hours of documentary on the history of Western thought, and he did this as an
Assistant Professor of English.
Patrick today teaches philosophy full-time on a one-year contract at a local
Chicago university, a contract that has been renewed because of his success with his
students, largely graduates from the Chicago Public School System. He has distinguished
himself as a teacher in the community college classroom and here at Loyola, where he
has taught several courses. This is consistent with my experience of Patrick, whose
ability to express himself clearly, both orally and in writing, I have observed in my own
seminars.
In sum, Mr. McCarty combines proven excellence as an educator with the
prospect of making a significant contribution to philosophical scholarship, and I am of
the opinion that any department that acquires him will be very fortunate. I therefore urge
you once again to give his application to your department careful consideration.

Sincerely,

Adriaan Peperzak