I'd go with the shorter. Moran is an important and highly-respected figure in the field and knows what he is doing in selecting material for the abridgement. Also, I think it would be a shame 'only' to read the Investigations, and not approach Ideas, Cartesian Meditations or the Crisis. Important as that early work is, most of Husserl's thought was in front of him still.

I don't know of any society where parents can teach their children whatever they want without regard to laws and social norms. With respect to laws, for example, a parent could not teach a child that it was okay to act out sexually in a way that the law would regard as involving incestuous sexual abuse. And, similarly, with respect to social norms I think that most people would say that parents have no right to teach their children a virulent racism that promoted the children to treat schoolmates horribly.

Both of the examples I gave involved teaching extreme thought that led to unacceptable action, and these cases show that exist significant limitations to parents' rights to teach their children as they see fit. Are there cases where there are limits on what parents could teach their children to believe even when the children do not act on those beliefs? The incest case, I think, shows that there are strong social and perhaps legal limits on teaching "mere" thoughts -- the incest taboo is so strong that if others were to find out that parents were teaching their children that incest were okay would face social and perhaps legal sanction even if no incestuous behavior occurred.

So, the taboo case shows that even the most pluralistic and free societies place limits on what parents can teach their children. Of course, many societies reject pluralism or support limited freedoms (or both) and in those societies parents face many more limitations.

All that said, does there exist a philosophical theory according to which parents have a right to teach their children whatever they want? If so, perhaps the existence of the various limitations I've described should be understood as lamentable cases where existing societies fail to support rights to which parents are entitled. There are, of course, robust philosophical defenses of pluralism and autonomy that would support granting broad latitude to parents to teach their children unpopular or unpleasant things, and some societies embrace pluralism strongly enough that parents do in fact enjoy that sort of latitude (consider, for example, the way that the home schooling movement in the United States supports this). However, those philosophical theories and justifications are of course disputable and disputed and I think that even those who defend them would admit limitations of the sort I describe in the first paragraph, above.

I have struggled with similar dilemmas, as a non-believing member of a Jewish religious congregation. It looks like you have four options--(1) leave the church entirely, (2) teach in the normal fashion, (3) teach non-literally, and (4) remain in the church but don't teach.

You've made up your mind against (1), and you're struggling between (2) and (3). I think you're right to be worried about (2). It concerns me the way Sunday school teachers stand before children and present religious stories exactly as if they were history teachers or science teachers. This does exploit the credulousness of children in a way that is problematic.

It's been way too long since I read Austin, so I don't know what he says about the "backstage artiste," but I think it's fine for children to be taught that religious material is "meaningful to us" but not historically or scientifically true. The problem is that I doubt other congregants would think it's fine (unless your church is extremely liberal). So I can't imagine (3) is really a viable option.

Which leaves (4). What's wrong with continuing to be a congregant, but declining to be a Sunday school teacher? Perhaps you're thinking that it couldn't make sense to continue as a congregant if you weren't willing to participate in the church's educational programs. But much goes on in a religious organization. There's no reason why every congregant must support and be involved in every activity.

Maybe you're thinking you'd be a free rider if you didn't pitch in. "What if everybody did it?" you may be asking yourself. But in fact, it sounds to me like you'd be perfectly happy if everybody declined to be a literal Sunday school teacher (most likely the only kind you can really be). You believe it would be better if no one were exploiting the credulousness of children.

So (4) seems to me like a perfectly good option. If you do belong to an extremely liberal congregation and can get way with (3), I would rethink your doubts about it, if I were you. When I take my children to religious services, I don't think I'm going wrong in any way by telling them that the stories are meaningful to us, but not true.

Your plan sounds reasonable. I would suggest a few things. First, try to get your GPA as high as possible in your remaining semesters (don't let it slip below 3.0), perhaps doing a little less of your own study this year and focusing on your classes. Yes, try to get high GRE scores. But to get into MA programs you will also need a good writing sample and letters of recommendation from philosophers at UCLA (talk to them about all this). Your writing sample needs to be sharp (and less grammatically challenged than your question here) and include some philosophical argumentation (but keep it tightly focused--don't offer a new theory of something). Finally, if you can do all this, I'd suggest your goal #2 should be to get into as good an MA program as possible!

The short answer is: yes, you are right, a course on modal logic would be the one that probably will relate a little to a philosophy of religion course (it will help you understand e.g. modal ontological arguments).

But I think it is worth saying a bit more. I'd be a little worried if one of my first-year students said "I'm primarily interested in the philosophy of X" for any X. After all, philosophy is a subject where topics don't compartmentalize easily but connect up in deep and unexpected ways. Beginners should be exploring widely, and leaving themselves open to being gripped by all kinds of problems -- what I like at this stage is a student who says "the philosophy of Y is really exciting: that's what I want to do " one week, and then comes back three weeks later and says "wow, this philosophy of Z course is amazing".

And I'd be particularly worried if someone focussed too hard too early on a small area of applied philosophy like the philosophy of religion. This is a pretty narrow specialist area, which not all philosophy departments even think particularly worth teaching (e.g. mine doesn't offer a course apart from a few lectures on Hume's Dialogues). So, for the moment, do keep your interests wide! And then it is probably a good idea to do a fair amount more logic, as that will keep cropping up as useful background which is taken for granted in work across a range of areas of philosophy.

I believe you when you say you don't give a fig what educational agenda is being pushed on the cousin. I think your objection speaks to a long standing debate in the philosophy of education: just where is that line between indoctrination and education?

The purpose of an education is to help you to lead an autonomous life. Autonomy, simply put, is the ability to govern your own life: to make decisions about the kind of life you would like to have, and then implement the necessary steps to get there. (Note: autonomy is not about being a lone wolf!)

Good religious or spiritual education will produce people who make spiritual decisions genuinely and autonomously. We stray into indoctrination (or cultishness, or brain-washing) when we pervert the process of education to deliberately reduce autonomy. Cults, for example, reduce their members' autonomy by making them afraid of leaving (as in "If you leave us, you will have nothing!"). Good spiritual education, on the other hand, says, "If you leave us, we hope you find the peace you seek. The door is open if you wish to return."

If you can get a hold of just about anything written by the invaluable contemporary thinker Anthony Padovano (priest, activist, playwright, philosopher) it will likely be of great aid to all parties involved - yourself, cousin, and parents. I particularly like his book Dawn Without Darkness (1971).

I'd say: if you've done a maths course or two already, then you should have learnt some lessons about arguing rigorously and giving absolutely clear gap-free proofs. Doing further courses won't teach you any more about that. So if you are not going to specialize in the philosophy of mathematics, a little maths in addition to some logic is already enough.

If you want to work eventually in the philosophy of mind and language, then much better to do some courses on scientific psychology, neuro-biology, and linguistics.

My opinion is personal, but based on experience with trying to argue and publish arguments, with trying to teach students to argue and to write out arguments, and with conferring with other philosophers. Thinking and articulating go hand in hand. One must think very hard about philosophical questions. However, one does not understand what one cannot articulate. Initially, thinking will consist of wonder, inspiration, and brain-storming. But to arrive at a result of any value, the thinking must transition into attempts to articulate one's thinking to others. Then these attempts must be put to the test by trying to convince others, and then taking into account their incomprehensions and objections. That requires more thinking. This process of trying our thoughts out on others and learning from their responses is our only way to avoid philosophical insanity and illusion. Philosophical thinking is a corporate enterprise, not individual, and articulation is what binds it together.

"Real" philosophers argue for nearly every position articulable! But I think the kind of issue that is most likely to come up among philosophers and other academics about such programs is more likely to be about resources. Resources for higher education right now are extremely limited, so judgments about the money required for academic positions and operating budgets to sustain such programs must always be made in the context of competing needs and demands from other academic units. Administrators must always confront the very real problem of where the scarce resources will bring the best value to the institution.

Moreover, different institutions have very different identities and missions. For an institution mostly dedicated to providing the kinds of education that will advantage their students vocationally, for example, such programs arguably do not fit well into that institution's mission. Where liberal studies is the institutional mission, then such programs would seem to be more viable within that institutional context--but again, they also compete for resources with more traditional disciplines, which the institution obviously also has a stong interest in supporting. Different academics will disagree about how to "rank" different disciplines in terms of their importance to the institution, and in these debates some of the more thoughtful criticisms made by opponents to such programs deserve to be heard. But then, many academics will make very different criticisms of the two disciplines nearest to my heart: Philosophy and Classics. Do colleges and universities really need these disciplines? I think so...but everywhere I have taught, I have had colleagues who thought the resources required to sustain these disciplines would be better spent elsewhere. It is because of decisions like these that we pay the big bucks to administrators!

I suggest:

1. you talk to the philosophy professors at your school and ask them lots of questions. Hopefully, there is someone that who has a good sense of what it takes to get into grad school in philosophy, to succeed, and to get a job.

2. you explore websites at some PhD and MA programs. There is also some useful information at http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/

3. if you remain interested (as I hope you do!), you consider putting off graduation one semester and taking more philosophy courses. I fear that only one course in philosophy will take you off the radar at many programs (I suspect it would take a lot--e.g., very high GRE and GPA--to get some PhD programs to consider you, when they have so many applicants that are philosophy majors or even have MAs in philosophy).

4. you consider applying to MA programs in philosophy to strengthen your background (though it will still help to have more courses in philosophy to get in to MA programs).

5. you will need a polished writing sample with a philosophical argument in it and you will need at least three letters of recommendation (and I think at least 2 of them need to be from philosophers).

None of this is meant to dissuade you, and your outside reading will be helpful (it's just a bit hard to make it evident in an application).

I hope this helps. And good luck!