In the December 2004 issue of Teaching Philosophy, readers were challenged to respond to Richard Schmitt’s essay, “Is the Unexamined Life Not Worth Living?” Here is one response.

For many students, success or failure hinges on their ability to locate logic within the context of everyday thought. One way of accomplishing this task is to emphasize the connections between natural and symbolic language. Many students, however, find that symbolic logic occasionally deviates from their expectations. In particular, they commonly have difficulty understanding the rationale behind the false antecedent conditional and the inclusive disjunction. In this article, I outline a teaching strategy that employs promise keeping as an analogy for these standard interpretations of the propositional operators.

A philosophical argument in ordinary language is made the basis for a series of deductive logic exercises. Problems of translating the reasoning and alternative symbolizations are discussed to help guide students toward accurate charitable formalizations. Finally, the inference is critically evaluated in light of its deductive validity.

This paper explains how to use a new software tool for argument diagramming available free on the Internet, showing especially how it can be used in the classroom to enhance critical thinking in philosophy. The user loads a text file containing an argument into a box on the computer interface, and then creates an argument diagram by dragging lines (representing inferences) from one node (proposition) to another. A key feature is the support for argumentation schemes, common patterns of defeasible reasoning historically know as topics (topoi). Several examples are presented, as well as the results of an experiment in using the system with students in a university classroom.

This paper investigates some implications of moral development theory for teaching ethics. A summary of moral development theory, focusing on the work of James Rest, provides the basis for our investigation. We conclude that students in a philosophical ethics course experience greater gains in moral reasoning than a control group. However, the large range of students’ moral development results in discrepancies between their developmental level and the more sophisticated level of reasoning around which philosophy curricula are designed. We explore the implications of this for teaching philosophical ethics and discuss teaching strategies that facilitate growth in moral reasoning.

The Law School Admission Test is a half-day standardized exam designed primarily to test the logical reasoning skills of potential law school students. A traditional course in introductory logic does not adequately prepare students for the LSAT. Here I describe the sections of the test, identifying the relevant logic skills students must develop in order to complete them successfully in the time allotted. Then, drawing on my experience teaching a three-week “Logic for the LSAT” course in May 2005, I discuss the main issues you will need to address should you decide to offer such a course.

Following the argument wherever it leads is a piece of well-known and time-honored advice we give to students in philosophy. Using three instances drawn from the history of philosophy, we look at reasons for both adhering to this principle and for sometimes putting it aside in favor of other considerations. We find that the requirement of following the argument where it leads is not a simple demand of logic, but rather a complex norm that is sensitive to various considerations. Some of these have to do with the fact that consistency may be restored to one’s system of beliefs only at a price that one may judge, on cognitive or moral grounds, as too high. Following the argument wherever it leads is thus a norm about the place of reason in our intellectual and practical lives and is therefore a norm that must be evaluated in the context of various extra-logical considerations.

Surveys of faculty in various disciplines, as well as my own discussions with colleagues, suggest that teachers of philosophy believe service learning is not relevant to their discipline. In this paper I argue that service learning is a valuable pedagogical tool even (and perhaps especially) in abstract disciplines like philosophy. After a short review of the literature on service learning’s effectiveness, I discuss four of the most common objections to its use in philosophy classes, addressing the objections at both theoretical and practical levels. Finally, I describe service-learning components I have used successfully in two introductory philosophy courses.

This article argues that introductory ethics classes can unwittingly create or confirm skeptical views toward morality. Introductory courses frequently include critical discussion of skeptical positions such as moral relativism and psychological egoism as a way to head off this unintended outcome. But this method of forestalling skepticism can have a residual (and unintended) skeptical effect. The problem calls for deeper pedagogical-cum-philosophical engagement with the underlying sources of skepticism. The paper provides examples of how to do this and explains the additional benefits of teaching moral skepticism.

Many students are overwhelmed when encountering a primary work of philosophy. Since their previous studies have not prepared them for the demands of reading a philosophic work, the philosophy instructor must be responsible for instilling in them the necessary skills to approach the subject matter. This article details the use and benefits of reading groups as a means of cultivating analytical reading skills. Students who participate in reading groups are reported to be more confident when engaging with primary texts and, consequently, more likely to participate in seminar discussions.

Traditional critical thinking courses introduce students to tools for analyzing and evaluating arguments and reasoning. There are, however, good reasons to think that those courses fail to motivate students to make full use of those tools. It is this motivational problem that is the focus of the present paper. In what follows, I present several proposals for overcoming student resistance to the discipline of critical thinking. I offer a three-step strategy for challenging students’ presumption of competency regarding critical thinking, thereby motivating them to embrace the tools we offer. I also sketch how this strategy can be applied in sections of a critical thinking course.

Logic and Proofs, developed at Carnegie Mellon, is the only instructional program that can support a computer-taught course (not justa computer-assisted course) in modern symbolic logic. First I provide a description and an assessment of the program. Then, drawing on my twenty years of experience, initially with Patrick Suppes’ Valid (no longer available), recently with Logic and Proofs, I discuss the very substantial benefits, as well as the challenges to be addressed, when offering symbolic logic via a computer-taught course.

How can we cultivate intellectual virtues in our students? I provide an overview of virtue epistemology, explaining two types of intellectual virtues: reliabilist virtues and responsibilist virtues. I suggest that both types are acquired via some combination of practice on the part of the student and explanation on the part of the instructor. I describe strategies for teaching these two types of virtues in the classroom, including an activity for teaching the skill of using the square of opposition, and several activities that encourage students to practice open-minded acts, intellectually courageous acts, and the motivation for truth.

The argument presented here explores homosexuality within the context of applied Christian ethics. The argument works by asking students to grapple with and define the common characteristics of all eros relationships. Once the students analytically break down eros relationships, and wrestle with defining concepts such as “love,” “sex,” and “desires,” basic biblical moral precepts are applied. After this biblical application it can be shown that there is latitude enough in Christian morality to openly permit homosexuality that iscompatible with biblically stated ethical dictums. The argument is pedagogical in nature, and is a challenging, engaging, and accessible argument that avoids the educational pitfalls that entangle other arguments of this nature.

This paper draws on the social psychology of John Dewey to illustrate the importance of aporia, or confusion, to pragmatic pedagogywithin an ethics classroom. The strategic use of aporia solicits an appropriate expression of emotion within students. This emotional response involves dissatisfaction with the present; these dissatisfactions function as pragmatic ideals. Such ideals are not a refuge from the present, but enable students to critically and progressively reconstruct present experiences. Aporia is thus critically important for pedagogical success from a pragmatist perspective.

Most philosophy professors want to help their students improve their writing, but determining a good way to do so is not easy. Requiring students to write rough drafts is a good start, but the extra work these require can overload already busy professors. In this article I describe and defend the use of peer-review assignments as a way of improving undergraduate writing. The largest benefit of such assignments is that they allow the students to take a more objective view of their own writing. I also provide sample questionsto use in such assignments.

Generating group interaction is a necessary part of teaching philosophy, but there are many obstacles to creating it in a traditional classroom. We propose that philosophy courses can be improved by turning to hybrid models that integrate classroom discussion with online message boards, or forums. Using anecdotes and a comprehensive survey, we argue that using forums helps instructors overcome time constraints in the classroom, helps some students overcome anxiety over contributing, improves discussion, reduces the need to review, and gives instructors a better view of how their students encounter philosophy. We also provide examples of how to use forums and forum assignments.

This exercise requires students—particularly in Introduction to Philosophy courses—to use Internet chatrooms in an “agonistic” fashion,actively seeking out others with whom to argue. Generally using topics in applied ethics, students develop skills in articulating their positions, providing evidence to support those positions, and presenting arguments. These Internet exchanges have resulted in improvement in students’ critical thinking skills, writing, and classroom discussion, and have revealed the value of defending a position with a dispassionate, well-reasoned argument.

I suggest that in teaching about God we remind students of the following four essential points: (1) belief in the existence of God is not a necessary condition for religious commitment; (2) belief in the existence of God is not a sufficient condition for religious commitment; (3) the existence of God is not the only supernatural hypothesis that merits serious discussion; and (4) a successful defense of traditional theism requires not only that it be more plausible than atheism or agnosticism but also that it be more plausible than all other supernatural alternatives.

The achievement of intentional learning is a powerful paradigm for the objectives and methods of the teaching of philosophy. This paradigm sees the objectives and methods of such teaching as based not simply on the mastery of content, but as rooted in attempts to shape the various affective and cognitive factors that influence students’ learning efforts. The goals of such pedagogy is to foster an intentional learning orientation, one characterized by self-awareness, active monitoring of the learning process, and a desire for publicly certified expertise. I provide a number of examples of philosophy-specific teaching strategies that follow this paradigm.