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1. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Priscilla K. Sakezles Bringing Ancient Philosophy to Life: Teaching Aristotelian and Stoic Theories of Responsibility
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This paper describes a strategy for getting students interested in ancient, especially Hellenistic, philosophy. While the works of Aristotle, the Stoics, the Skeptics, and the Epicureans may strike students as impossibly distant in time and thus far removed from their own personal concerns, students are always interested in the topics of free will and moral responsibility. Teaching the transition from Hellenic to Hellenistic philosophy through an emphasis on treatments of these topics engages students and makes feasible the teaching of an understudied, extremely important period in Western philosophy. The author advocates focusing specifically on the debate between Aristotle and the Stoics on whether “being able to do otherwise” is a necessary condition for freedom. After presenting a detailed overview of the arguments that comprise this debate, the author offers suggestions on how this strategy might be augmented and on how to apply this strategy to courses which do not focus exclusively on ancient philosophy.
2. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Mike W. Martin Advocating Values: Professionalism in Teaching Ethics
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With reference to the “Campus Wars” debates, this paper argues that within the classroom, professional responsibilities justify professors advocating for personal commitments which are pertinent to their discipline. In fact, given a professor’s commitment to pursuing truth in the classroom, this advocacy is both inevitable and desirable. The question to ask, then, is what separates appropriate from inappropriate forms of influence on students. The author draws on the American Association of University Professors’ (AAUP’s) Statement of Professional Ethics to explore ethical tensions that professors face in the classroom and to motivate further discussion about these tensions as they pertain specifically to ethics teachers. After arguing that the chief tension an ethics professor must navigate is that which arises between the pursuit of truth and respect for student autonomy, the author moves to a consideration of various pedagogical strategies (drawn from the AAUP and from the author’s own experience) for negotiating this tension. Though each strategy discussed holds advantages and disadvantages, the author maintains that the question of appropriate advocacy is important and complex, and that it calls for further study.
3. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Kerry Walters The Case of the Slain President: Teaching Critical Thinking in Context
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There are two necessary conditions for effective learning. First, learning must occur within a context. Second, a learner must be genuinely interested in the subject matter (that is, motivated to learn it). In the case of critical thinking, studying problems in a textbook fails to meet both of these conditions. This paper presents a strategy for supplying context and motivation to critical thinking students: a semester-long investigation of the Kennedy assassination. After reviewing the perils of traditional, non-contextual teaching methods, the author argues that this strategy captures students’ attention as an engaging “whodunit” of great historical importance. Moreover, the prodigious amount of evidence associated with the assassination provides students with ample opportunity to learn and practice critical thinking skills. Sifting through forensic reports, eye- and earwitness testimony, expert opinions, autopsy findings, and the Zapruder film teaches students the basics of informal and formal logic (e.g. evaluating appeals to authority, finding inconsistencies and contradictions, identifying false cause fallacies, and recognizing good and bad inductive and deductive arguments). After reviewing the course materials and requirements, the author concludes by offering several alternate themes for a critical thinking class which are capable of accomplishing the same pedagogical goals.
4. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Thomas J. McKay Analogy and Argument
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This paper critiques the standard presentation of arguments from analogy in logic textbooks and offers an alternative way of understanding them which renders them both more plausible and more easily evaluated for their strength. The typical presentation presents analogies as inductive arguments in which a set of properties, known to be shared by two logical domains, supports an inference about a further property, known to belong to one domain and inferred to belong to the target domain. But framed in these terms, the strength of the argument depends entirely on the relevance of the known shared properties to the inferred shared property, meaning the argument rests on an unstated assumption. Against this view, the author maintains that arguments from analogy are figurative ways of addressing properties of the target logical domain. By comparing or contrasting two logical domains, analogies articulate a general principle which illustrates something difficult to imagine or to describe literally about the target domain. Analogies can be reformulated and evaluated as deductive arguments on this view, with their chief logical import being the inquiry they incite in students as to whether the general principle is true and sufficiently general to apply to the target domain.
5. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Robert E. Chiles The Philosophy They Bring To Class: Companion Student Papers in Phl 101
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How does one teach an Intro to Philosophy course without a text? Having discovered that textbooks would not arrive until the third week of the semester, the author designed a course which strove to emphasize writing skills while still capturing students’ attention. Students wrote a short “Personal Philosophy” paper in which they shared their commitments regarding rationality, freedom, ethics, science, the existence of God, the value of life, and aesthetics, and then explained the sources of their beliefs. This paper was supplemented and completed later in the course with a second “Critique” paper. Students used the philosophical tools acquired through lectures and readings to address if and how their beliefs on the content of the first paper had changed, focusing especially on inconsistencies in those beliefs, unfounded assumptions, new insight into the sources of their beliefs, and the most surprising change in their beliefs. After reviewing the instructions for the papers and detailing other structural features of the course, the author concludes by noting that the class was so successful that its design became standard for the author’s Intro to Philosophy course at College of Staten Island.
reviews
6. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Frank B. Dilley Philosophy of Religion: An Anthology of Contemporary Views
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7. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Laurence D. Houlgate Ethics in Thought and Action: Social and Professional Perspectives
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8. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
David F. Gruber Philosophy of Law, 5th Edition
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9. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
David H. Carey Phaedrus
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10. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Claudia Mills Rousseau
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11. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Harvey Siegel Philosophy of Education
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12. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Elsebet Jegstrup Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity
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13. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Anne M. Edwards The Perfect Baby: A Pragmatic Approach to Genetics
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14. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Eric Snider Aristotle: Selections
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15. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 1
Books Received: 27 June 1996 - 6 November 1996
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