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articles
1. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Yolandi M. Coetser, Jacqueline Batchelor Teaching Philosophy during a Pandemic "in the Most Unequal Society in the World": Challenges Encountered and Lessons Learned in the South African Context
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According to the World Bank, South Africa is the most unequal society in the world. It follows that teaching philosophy takes on a unique character in this country. During the initial COVID-19 outbreak, all universities were compelled to move online, entailing that the teaching of philosophy also moved online. However, because of their socio-economic realities, students faced many barriers, and this served to further marginalise already marginalised students. The university campus provides structural support to many of these students that they do not have at home—computer labs, internet access, and residences. With campuses shutting down and learning to move online, many (if not most) of our students faced significant challenges. This paper explores the challenges encountered during this time through empirical research. Five interviews were conducted with philosophy lecturers, and the data was analysed using Atlas.ti. This article therefore provides empirical insight into the challenges faced by philosophy lecturers as they taught philosophy during a pandemic in the “most unequal society in the world.”
2. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Justin Horn “Not Up For Debate”: Reflections on an Ethical Challenge to Ethics Bowl
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Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl is a debate-style activity that aims to help students cultivate skills of moral deliberation. While a fair amount has been written about the pedagogical benefits of Ethics Bowl, relatively little attention has been given to potential ethical criticisms of the activity. In this paper I present some reflections on an ethical challenge to Ethics Bowl, namely that applying the characteristic approach of Ethics Bowl to some issues of contemporary ethical controversy can be immoral. The concern is that treating certain topics as “open to debate” conveys disrespect for certain individuals, and risks normalizing harmful viewpoints. I argue that we should take this challenge seriously; indeed, the guiding values behind Ethics Bowl require that we do so. I conclude that conducting Ethical Bowl in an ethical manner requires caution and skill.
3. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Jeff Mitchell The Logic of Actual Innocence: Controversial Criminal Cases for Critical Thinking
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The article features an analytic protocol for examining controversial criminal cases in critical thinking courses. The rubric has been designed to be useful to busy critical thinking teachers who wish to draw on student interest in true crime. Six guidelines are presented that are intended to provide the instructor with a convenient scheme for quickly and easily framing classroom discussions. Due to their generality, the guidelines can be readily applied to a wide-range of cases, giving educators a high degree of flexibility in the selection of criminal affairs.
4. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Elizabeth Scarbrough Examining Monuments: Digital Humanities in the Philosophy Classroom
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How can philosophers incorporate the Digital Humanities into their classrooms? And why should they? In this paper, I explore answers to these questions as I detail what I have dubbed “The Monuments Project'' and describe how this project engages with Digital Humanities and teaches students to connect theoretical philosophical concepts with their lives. Briefly, the Monuments Project asks students to apply concepts discussed in our philosophy class (in my case, a Global Aesthetics class) with a monument in their environment. Instead of a traditional paper, students upload MP3s of their observations, pictures and/or drawings of the monument, and text-based responses. The goal of the Monument Project is twofold: to get students to connect what they have learned to a sense of place - the place where they live, and to introduce them to the Digital Humanities.
5. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Cheng-chih Tsai Logic for the Field of Battle
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The truth table method, natural deduction, and the truth tree method, the three validity proving methods standardly taught in an introductory logic course, are too clumsy for the battlefield of real-life. The “short truth table” test is handy at times, but it stumbles at many other times. In this paper, we set up a general method that can beat all the methods mentioned above in a contest of speed. Furthermore, the procedure can be step-by-step paraphrased in a natural language, so that, unlike the other methods, a real-life logical problem can be analyzed and explained in a real-life language too.
6. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
S. K. Wertz Mixing and Matching Deductive and Non-deductive Arguments: Lessons in Applied Logic
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This essay is basically divided into two parts. The first deals with the similarities between reductio ad absurdum arguments and slippery slope arguments. The chief example comes from Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, which advances an argument for the necessity of government for humane living. The second addresses some pedagogical concerns centered around another pair of arguments: the argument by complete enumeration and the argument by inductive generalization. The illustration for this pair comes from the arts. I finish with a suggestion that pairs like the above can be as effectively used in shorter, non-regular critical reasoning or introductory logic courses as those in mid-term or summer courses. Such pairing can demonstrate a good use of mixing and matching deductive and non-deductive arguments in teaching logic.
book reviews
7. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Erica Bigelow Practical Bioethics: Ethics for Patients and Providers, by J. K. Miles
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8. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Henri Cilliers, Kiasha Naidoo The Buddha’s Teachings as Philosophy, by Mark Siderits
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9. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Samuel Duncan Being Good in a World of Need, by Larry Temkin
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10. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Robert Earle Tenacious Beasts: Wildlife Recoveries That Change How We Think about Animals, by Christopher J. Preston
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11. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Jacob D. Hogan Modern Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to Kant, by Stephen Darwall
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12. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Jeremiah Joven Joaquin Logical Methods, by Greg Restall and Shawn Standefer
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13. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Isadora Monteiro Philosophy of Science and the Kyoto School: An Introduction to Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe Hajime and Tosaka Jun, by Dean Anthony Brink
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14. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Edward H. Spence Choosing Freedom: A Kantian Guide to Life, by Karen Stohr
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15. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Clint Tibbs How to Think Like a Philosopher: Twelve Key Principles for More Humane, Balanced, and Rational Thinking, by Julian Baggini
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16. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 47 > Issue: 1
Furkan Yazıcı Mind Design III: Philosophy, Psychology, and Artificial Intelligence, edited by John Haugeland, Carl F. Craver, and Colin Klein
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articles
17. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 46 > Issue: 4
Christopher S. King Teaching Justice as Fairness as a Theory of Distributive Justice
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Highlighting a progression of exercises, this paper develops a pedagogical model aimed at giving students tools to deliberate about justice from within the Original Position and to debate the broader goals and limitations of justice as fairness. The approach focuses on the idea of a “distribution” of primary goods without relying on caricatures or being intimidated by the more technical features of the presentation. The series of exercises shows students how to move from more intuitive to less intuitive deliberative situations—a move that depends on seeing a just distribution as a product of a pure procedure. In particular, the exercises show the importance of distinguishing carefully between a distribution and an allocation of goods. Finally, it suggests ways in which we may use the theory to engage with our own distributive practices in democratic societies by focusing on the moral significance of persons as equals.
18. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 46 > Issue: 4
James Lee Teaching Component Skills in Philosophy
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This paper will argue for the teaching of component skills in philosophy. We can distinguish between complex and component skills. Component skills bear a kind of constitutive relation to complex skills. We observe this distinction at use in standard pedagogies related to activities like sports, music performance, and mathematics. The central thesis is that devoting pedagogical resources to the development of component skills, especially at introductory levels, promotes better learning outcomes with respect to complex philosophical skills. Aside from defending this thesis, I will also provide a number of examples of activities that can be used to develop component skills.
19. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 46 > Issue: 4
Jana McAuliffe Teaching Public Philosophy as Course Texts: Strategies for Improving Student Communication
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In this essay I advocate for the pedagogical value of public philosophy. In public essays, philosophers craft short arguments in clear prose that avoids disciplinary specific technical terms. Such texts are pedagogically valuable both because they teach students philosophical ideas and also because they offer students a template for philosophical argumentation upon which to model their own writing. Here I report on some of the pedagogical practices I have used for teaching public texts to advanced and introductory level undergraduates in order to demonstrate how public philosophy serves as a valuable resource for the teaching of philosophy that can help students develop their capacity for engaged philosophical thinking and the effective communication of philosophical ideas.
20. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 46 > Issue: 4
Andrew P. Mills Making Philosophy Personal: Reflective Journals in the Philosophy Classroom
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Reflective journals are characterized by their expressive freedom and their intent that students explicitly connect course material to their own life experiences, emotions, beliefs, and feelings. Drawing on research on the use of reflective journals and on the reflections of students in my philosophy courses, I demonstrate how philosophy professors can use reflective journals as a tool to help their students achieve important learning outcomes. By making philosophy personal for students, reflective journals allow students to practice philosophy as a way of life, achieve important metacognitive outcomes, and (drawing on constructivism in learning theory) increase their knowledge and understanding of course content.