Many students find themselves caught in an antinomy between “Rationalism”, a view of the world as open to objective, complete, and intellectual comprehension, and “Anti-realism”, the view that the Rationalist vision is façade since there is no objective perspective and any “truth” is relative to the individual. This paper offers a description of an introductory course that provides conceptual resources (through the use of Descartes, Hume, and Kant) for resolving the Rationalism-Antirealism debate. Such conceptual resources include: the representation/reality distinction, the fact/evidence disparity, the nature of skepticism, Kant’s distinction between Transcendental Idealism and Transcendental Realism, and the subject/object dichotomy.

This paper inquires into the nature and causes of credulous belief and proposes a way of making negative evidence more salient to believers so that they are less likely to fall into the habit of credulous believing. Contrasting the work of Richard Swinburne with recent work in cognitive psychology, the author argues that for the “strong credulity hypothesis”, namely that our comprehension of testimony is closely linked to an initial (albeit temporary) acceptance of what speakers claim. That is, we are literally “set up” to believe irrespective of whether the belief in question is reasonable. In order to “neutralize” the effect of initial credulity, the author describes a pro/con procedure (suitable for a number of classes, e.g. critical thinking) that allows for the systematic analysis of beliefs and testimony.

This paper offers a number of tips for teaching small philosophy classes (under twenty-five students). Some of these include using a horseshoe seating arrangement, replacing hand-raising with name cards, engaging in “real” Socratic dialogues, having students create a philosophical “Question of the Day”, and assigning students “Critical Response” papers.

Drawing on the work of Linda Farmer, this article describes a detailed grading grid coupled with a rubric designed for the purpose of assessing argumentative papers. The rubric consists of two main parts: Content and Style. Relying upon Bloom’s taxonomy of learning, the “Content” part of the rubric assesses a student’s understanding of the material, the argument of their paper, and various abilities concerning analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and creation. The “Style” part of the rubric is split into two parts: Clarity and Organization. Coupling this rubric with a grading grid, the author provides an example of a method for the effective grading of argumentative essays.

The author reports on an effort to transform traditional top-down, instructor-centered philosophy courses into courses that are open, learning-centered, and work toward a cooperative goal. After providing the underlying rationale for cooperative philosophy courses, the author describes a cooperative philosophy course where students were assigned with individually (and cooperatively) answering the question “What is Philosophy?” by creating introductory philosophy textbooks. The author provides details on how to guide students to the creation of such introductory textbooks with a variety of practical classroom exercises and suggestions for assessment. Finally, potential future applications for cooperative learning courses are discussed.

The author describes a peripatetic course aiming at undermining ethnocentric biases that are at the root of certain failures of miscommunication. The course involves a description of two semiotic models (the Saussarian and Peircean) and their application to cases of communication involving radical cultural difference, specifically the interpretive efforts of both conquering Spaniards and conquered Native Americans. Since the Peircean semiotic model requires a contextual-understanding of the Other in order for successful communication, the author contends that it is necessary for philosophy courses to be both historically oriented and provide greater global awareness. To this end, the author gives an account of a philosophy course involving ten American liberal arts students who retrace the route of Spanish conquistadors form Veracruz to Mexico City and that of Dominican missionaries from Oaxaca to Chiapas.

A guiding thread in Western thought is that the world has a mathematical structure. This essay articulates this thread by making use of a cardboard teaching aid that illustrates the Pythagorean Theorem and uses this teaching aid as a starting point for discussion about a variety of philosophical and historical topics. To name just a few, the aid can be used to segue into a discussion of the Pythagorean association of shapes with numbers, the nature of deductive argumentation, the demonstration of part of the Theorem in the Meno, the possible origin of the Theorem in Egypt, the influence of Pythagoreans upon Plato, or even the relation of the Pythagorean Theorem to Fermat’s Last Theorem.

Many undergraduates, philosophy majors included, read philosophical texts similar to the way they read stories. One method for teaching students how to discern the argumentative structure of a philosophy text is through argument diagrams (text boxes used to represent claims with arrows and lines used to represent connections between these claims). This paper provides criteria for an ideal argument diagramming software and then reviews the strengths and weaknesses of such software currently available, e.g. Araucaria, Argutect, Athena Standard, Inspiration, and Reason!Able.

In contrast to traditional content management systems (CMS), TikiWiki (or Tiki for short) is a CMS that not only includes discussion forums, messaging, webmail, chat, file and image galleries, blogs, etc. but also Wikis (an online user-created encyclopedia). Two benefits of using Tiki are that it provides an integrated place where course content like syllabi and handouts can be accessed but also chat and discussion forum functionalities allow for better instructor-student or student-student collaboration. Whereas the former saves departments money with respect to printing, the latter is a practical use of technology in distance learning courses. The author outlines his use of Tiki to teach a distance learning logic course at three to six Kent State campuses as well as offers suggestions (and some cautionary remarks) for how to use Tiki in upper-level seminars in the philosophy. Finally, technical, legal, and pedagogical issues in the use of Tiki like information security and student privacy are discussed.

Biological scientists are increasingly encountering work-related ethical problems. For most, their training leaves them quite unprepared. Rather than merely providing additional bolt-on courses in ethics, a way of introducing critical thinking skills seamlessly into the curriculum is proposed. A method is described whereby students become engaged in self-generated discussion about the scientifically recognized, but philosophically complex, terms ‘disease’ and ‘health.’ Addressing these words, students are confrontedwith the need to develop critical thinking skills without realizing that they are entering into overt philosophical argument—the like of which many often prejudge to be abstract and worthless.

Given the inexperience, misconceptions and misgivings students often bring to a first course in philosophy, we present an activity that acquaints students with the main areas of philosophical inquiry and the tools philosophers use. Students engage in philosophical thinking by reflecting on and answering questions, defending and discussing their answers, and modifying or rejecting views in light of this discussion. The activity introduces students to conceptual analysis, argument, thought-experiment, and the use of counterexampleswhile simultaneously emphasizing and illuminating students’ natural tendency to think philosophically.

For whatever reasons, students seem more resistant than ever before to reading. Educators have catered to this trend, introducing learning activities other than reading. I argue that, in philosophy at least, nothing can substitute for reading and discussion. I further argue that the best readings are famous, intellectually challenging, and substantial enough to reward the student with a memorable philosophical experience. I have noticed that students appreciate meaty, classical, philosophical works that challenge them, but are bored by dumbed-down textbooks or summaries. After considering some obvious objections, I relate two successful techniques I have used to raise the level of student engagement in class.

Judith Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion” is one of the most widely taught papers in undergraduate philosophy, yet it is notoriously difficult to teach. Thomson uses simple terminology and imaginative thought experiments, but her philosophical moves are complex and sometimes difficult to explain to a class still mystified by the prospect of being kidnapped to save a critically ill violinist. My aim here is to identify four sources of difficulty that tend to arise when teaching this paper. In my experience, these four sources of difficulty create significant problems for undergraduate students, yet each one is easy for instructors to underestimate. My objective is therefore to identify the problems, explain why they tend to occur and warn other instructors about their potential impact in the classroom.

There are many branches of philosophy called “the philosophy of X,” where X = disciplines ranging from history to physics. The philosophy of artificial intelligence has a long history, and there are many courses and texts with that title. Surprisingly, the philosophy of computer science is not nearly as well-developed. This article proposes topics that might constitute the philosophy of computer science and describes a course covering those topics, along with suggested readings and assignments.

This pedagogical study analyzes and attempts to solve some difficulties of teaching Immanuel Kant’s Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Even though there are obstacles to teaching Kant’s ethics, I argue that active learning techniques can overcome such obstacles. The active learning approach holds that students learn better by doing (in hands-on exercises) than just by listening (to a professor’s lectures). Twelve lesson plans are outlined in this article. The lesson plans are activities to explore and learn, then evaluate, and finally reflect and review Kant’s ethics.

This paper describes my return to community college to get a hands-on education in music and art; the experience resulted in unanticipated improvements in my own teaching. Specifically, I learned the benefits of letting students have more access to each other’s written work—as in a ceramics class, where one cannot hide the pot one is working on, or a counterpoint class, where one of the regular activities involves students writing out their own fugues on the board for class discussion. I discovered that an analogousapproach in a course driven by reading and writing is an efficient way to address common writing problems, helps students take their writing more seriously, and results in an atmosphere that is at once earnest and playful.

The aim of this paper is to explain how to design and teach a course that meets the special requirements of Freshman Seminar programs by using feature films to examine philosophical themes. Two such courses are discussed. By organizing each course around a theme, the teacher can use the films to illustrate and, sometimes, critique philosophical positions that she elaborates. Discussing the films, the students develop analytical and interpretive skills important for more rigorous philosophy courses as well as for work in other disciplines.

Though the Internet has been around since the 1960s, the World Wide Web is now only ten years old. In that time, it has seen unprecedented growth. This review examines two tools that are part of this revolution, Google Scholar and Google News, and assesses their utility for teaching philosophy. While Google Scholar might at this time have limited classroom use, Google News is immediately useful for a variety of philosophy courses. This is due, in part, to the rich customization that the service provides and the global scope of the resources it documents.

Autobiographical writing in philosophy class encourages beginning students to use their own philosophical questions, emotions, and difficult experiences to unlock the meaning of a philosophical text, and encourages advanced students to engage in original philosophical writing. Philosophical justification for the approach can be found in the concepts of metaphorical thinking, historicity, multicultural voices, textual hermeneutics, the metaphysics of experience, the logic of discovery, and intersubjectivity. Examples of student assignments and student writing illustrate the approach. Learning resources for teachers and suggested solutions to practical problems offer a helpful starting point.

In this paper, we describe Blackboard’s Online Journal program and explain how we use the online journal in a variety of philosophy courses. We outline our pedagogical motivation for using online journals and analyze how online journals help to improve our students’ ability to read, write and think philosophically. We analyze the strengths and weaknesses of online journals in comparison to online discussion boards. Finally, we address several concerns that philosophy teachers may have about using online journals.