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81. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 30 > Issue: 4
Adam Cureton Respecting Disability
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The goal of this paper is to offer some remarks about how teachers, especially teachers of moral theories and arguments, should respond to insulting messages about disability that may be expressed in their courses. While there is a strong prima facie presumption for instructors to convey the truth as they see it, this is not an absolute requirement when the views they teach have a tendency to be insulting. I investigate some circumstances in which a moral view embeds and expresses an insulting message about disability and I argue that affording due respect to their students requires ethics instructors to be alert to disparaging messages about disability and to send counter-messages when the views they teach give such messages.
82. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 30 > Issue: 4
Teresa Blankmeyer Burke Seeing Philosophy: Deaf Students and Deaf Philosophers
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The discussion note examines communication needs of deaf students and deaf philosophers in the classroom, with particular attention to working with qualified signed language interpreters in the classroom and creating an inclusive classroom environment for deaf students. It additionally considers the question of whether signed languages, such as American Sign Language (ASL), can convey abstract philosophical concepts used in spoken languages, and concludes that this is possible, suggesting that the small number of deaf philosophers using ASL has affected the development of a philosophical lexicon in ASL.
83. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 30 > Issue: 4
Anita Silvers Teaching To/By/About People with Disabilities: Introduction
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To some students with disabilities who take philosophy classes, and even to some professors with disabilities who teach philosophy, the discipline is not welcoming. Philosophical theory traditionally recognizes so-called normal people and common modes of functioning but seems to ignore or disparage biologically anomalous individuals. The adequacy of our epistemological and ethical philosophies is a pressing reason for us to acknowledge disability in philosophical theorizing. And there are equally pressing reasons to acknowledge that students with various kinds of disabilities are members of our classes. In this special issue of Teaching Philosophy the authors reflect on how disability is engaged with in their philosophy classrooms for and by their students, and in the philosophy they teach.
84. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 30 > Issue: 4
Jeffrey P. Whitman The View from a Wheelchair
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Drawing upon almost twenty years of teaching philosophy as a physically disabled person in a wheelchair, I explore the “learning moments” afforded to me in the classroom as a disabled teacher. Focusing primarily on the teaching of ethics, and how my experience and the experiences of other disabled students in a class can enhance the education of everybody, I attempt to demonstrate to other philosophy teachers that disability in the classroom can and should be viewed not as a burden but more as an opportunity for teaching enrichment.
85. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Thomas Nadelhoffer, Eddy Nahmias Polling as Pedagogy: Experimental Philosophy as a Valuable Tool for Teaching Philosophy
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First, we briefly familiarize the reader with the emerging field of “experimental philosophy,” in which philosophers use empirical methods, rather than armchair speculation, to ascertain laypersons’ intuitions about philosophical issues. Second, we discuss how the surveys used by experimental philosophers can serve as valuable pedagogical tools for teaching philosophy—independently of whether one believes surveying laypersons is an illuminating approach to doing philosophy. Giving students surveys that contain questions and thought experiments from philosophical debates gets them to actively engage with the material and paves the way for more fruitful and impassioned classroom discussion. We offer some suggestions for how to use surveys in the classroom and provide an appendix that contains some examples of scenarios teachers could use in their courses.
86. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Brian Ribeiro How Often Do We (Philosophy Professors) Commit the Straw Man Fallacy?
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In a recent paper (in Argumentation, 2006) Robert Talisse and Scott Aikin suggest that we ought to recognize two distinct forms of the straw man fallacy. In addition to misrepresenting the strength of an opponent’s specific argument (= the representation form), one can also misrepresent the strength of one’s opposition in general, or the overall state of a debate, by selecting a (relatively) weak opponent for critical consideration (= the selection form). Here I consider whether we as philosophy professors could be seen as sometimes committing the selection form of the straw man through the performance of our regular teaching duties.
87. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Derek Malone-France Composition Pedagogy and the Philosophy Curriculum
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This essay extends the recent trend toward greater emphasis on writing-related pedagogical practices in introductory philosophy courses to upper-division courses, providing a holistic model for course design that centers on certain techniques and practices that have been developed in the context of the new wave of multidisciplinary writing programs in the United States. I argue that instructors can more effectively teach philosophy and encourage philosophical thinking by incorporating the methods of writing instruction into their courses in systematic ways and offer practical guidance on how to do so.
88. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 1
Robert H. Ennis Nationwide Testing of Critical Thinking for Higher Education: Vigilance Required
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The Spellings Commission recommends widespread critical-thinking testing to help determine the “value added” by higher education institutions—with the data banked and made available (“transparent”) in order to enable parents, students, and policy makers to compare institutions and hold them accountable. Because of the likely and desirable promotion of critical thinking that would result from the Commission’s program, I recommend cooperation by critical-thinking faculty and administrators, but only if there is much less comparability and considerably deeper transparency of the tests and their justification than the Commission recommends, and only if vigilance in handling the many problems and dangers elaborated herein is successful.
89. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
Todd M. Furman Making Sense of the Truth Table for Conditional Statements
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This essay provides an intuitive technique that illustrates why a conditional must be true when the antecedent is false and the consequent is either true or false. Other techniques for explaining the conditional’s truth table are unsatisfactory.
90. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
Sarah K. Donovan Teaching Philosophy Outside of the Classroom: One Alternative to Service Learning
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In this article I describe my experience teaching a moral problems course to first-year students within a Learning Community model. I begin with the learning goals and the mechanics of both my Learning Community and my moral problems course. I then focus on the experiential learning requirement of my Learning Community which is based on a field trip model instead of a service learning model. I describe how two field trips in particular—one to an Arab American community in Brooklyn, New York, and the other to a Black American community in West Harlem, New York—primed my students to more effectively engage in philosophical discussions about terrorism, war, and affirmative action. I conclude that experiential learning on a field trip model helped my students to have more sophisticated conversations about complex and emotionally charged moral issues.
91. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
Sally J. Scholz, Orcid-ID Eric Riviello March Madness: A Case in Applied Ethics
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What is at stake when students sell the highly sought-after basketball tickets they receive for free through a university’s lottery system? This article discusses a case in applied ethics taken from the experience of college students and extrapolates from that to the distribution of other scarce resources using lotteries. By examining an event relevant to the actual experience of students, we challenge them to see how normative moral theory may be used and what values are central to moral decision-making. The case includes four analyses from different perspectives and a teaching note.
92. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
Priscilla Sakezles What Sort of Skeptic Is Socrates?
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It is frequently, but incorrectly, claimed that Socrates said “All I know is that I know nothing.” The source of this misquote is Plato’s dialogue the Apology, where there are five Socratic claims that may appear to justify it. I review these five claims in their context to prove that they are not equivalent to, nor do they imply, the infamous quote. What Socrates does say is that he does not think that he knows anything that he does not in fact really know. He is skeptical in a certain sense; but he is not the dogmatic and self-contradicting skeptic that he is often made out to be.
93. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
Carrie-Ann Biondi Socratic Teaching: Beyond The Paper Chase
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Socratic teaching is popularly understood as aggressively questioning randomly called-on students, but this is a model that many educators have moved away from. The focus has shifted to eliciting and facilitating critical dialogue among willing participants. I would argue that this helpful shift still misses an essential element of Socratic teaching that can be gleaned from some of Plato’s early dialogues. The most crucial dimension of Socrates’ pedagogy is the function of the educator as an exemplar. I develop an account of what being an exemplar amounts to, discuss how examples of this activity are present in early Platonic dialogues, and then explain how the insights gleaned from such an examination can animate Socratic pedagogy in the classroom.
94. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 2
J. Harvey Bridging the Gap: The Intellectual and Perceptual Skills for Better Academic Writing
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Philosophical clarity is not simply a matter of style; it affects the quality of the thinking and writing and so the level of intellectual rigor. Achieving maximum clarity requires both intellectual and perceptual skills. The intellectual grasp of what philosophical clarity involves motivates writing with greater clarity. The perceptual skill of seeing exactly what we have written enables such improvement to occur. This paper explains a technique used in graduate-level courses to move both sets of skills, which in turn typically changes the students’ approach to writing and moves their written presentation skills quite dramatically.
95. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 3
Brian Domino Ethics Tour 2007: Another Way to Team Teach
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I present my experience using a model of team-teaching where a philosophy class “tours” the campus, participating in other classes for ethical discussions throughout the semester. Although prompted by low enrollment in my ethics class, this technique allows for an engaging interdisciplinary experience for the students while offering a low- or no-cost alternative to traditional team teaching where two faculty members teach one class. I describe the experience my students and I had during the inaugural tour, and make several suggestions for improvement.
96. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 3
Kalynne Hackney Pudner Leading Them to Lady Wisdom: Putting Applied Ethics Courses in Broader Philosophical Context
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Many postsecondary institutions now require an ethics course for graduation, typically one in applied ethics. This paper considers the justification for such a requirement from the institution’s perspective, on the one hand, and what might be a justification from a philosophical perspective, on the other; it then argues that teaching applied ethics courses in accordance with the philosophical justification satisfies the institutional justification as well. Moreover, the philosophical perspective, which aims to introduce compulsory ethics students to an understanding, appreciation and even love of philosophy as a holistic discipline, contributes to the purpose of perpetuating the profession. In illustration, the paper describes an actual required course in business ethics put in broader philosophical context, one that has shown some success in fostering philosophical interest beyond the final exam.
97. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 3
Mehul Shah The Socratic Teaching Method: A Therapeutic Approach to Learning
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This paper will show how the three principles of the Socratic teaching method—midwifery, recollection, and cross-examination—are utilized in the treatment of learning diseases, that is, attitudes that interfere with effective learning. The Socratic teaching method differs from the traditional lecture model of teaching, but it does not sacrifice the therapeutic for the informative task of teaching. Rather, by indirectly imparting content and uncovering implicit content through careful questioning, it provides a careful balance between the informative and therapeutic aspects of teaching. Insights from client-centered and cognitive therapy can enhance the effectiveness of the Socratic teaching method.
98. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 3
Kevin Possin A Field Guide to Critical-Thinking Assessment
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A non-technical guide to some of the popular methods and tests for assessing how well students are acquiring critical thinking skills in their courses, programs, or college careers.
99. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 3
Alexandra Bradner Teaching Modernity in Appalachia
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Despite our interests in conceptual schemes, paradigms, styles of reasoning, levels of explanation, and populationist modes of theorizing, many philosophers ignore the fact that instruction occurs in situ. This paper highlights the importance of cultural location by reflecting upon the author’s experience as an instructor of modernity at Marshall University, a regional state institution in Huntington, West Virginia. For many Appalachian students, issues barely tolerated by others (as part of their required history sequence) are uniquely resonant. At the same time, existing power structures—and the very real limits established by those structures—discourage Appalachian students from embracing or even entertaining the canonical themes of modernity. Immersing oneself in the regional culture, instead of bemoaning it, enables a philosophy instructor to examine modernity from both the pre- and postmodern perspectives, while also conveying to students that their education matters a great deal to the fate of the region.
100. Teaching Philosophy: Volume > 31 > Issue: 4
Maralee Harrell No Computer Program Required: Even Pencil-and-Paper Argument Mapping Improves Critical-Thinking Skills
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Argument-mapping software abounds, and one of the reasons is that using the software has been shown to teach/promote/improve critical-thinking skills. These positive results are very encouraging, but they also raise the question of whether the computer tutorial environment is producing these results, or whether learning argument mapping, even with just paper and pencil, is sufficient. Based on the results of two empirical studies, I argue that the basic skill of being able to represent an argument diagrammatically plays an important role in the improvement of critical-thinking skills. While these studies do not offer a direct comparison between the two methods, it is important for anyone wishing to employ argument mapping in the classroom to know that significant results can be obtained even with the most rudimentary of tools.