Teaching Philosophy

Acknowledgments Preface PART I: THE STATUS OF MORALITY 1. The Nature of the Problem 2. The Philosophical Terrain PART II: AGAINST MORAL SKEPTICISM 3. Moral Error 4. Moral Equivalence 5. Moral Progress and Moral Comparison 6. Dogmatism 7. Tolerance 8. Arbitrariness 9. Contradiction and Disagreement 10. Relativism and Contradiction 11. Is Moral Skepticism Self-Refuting? PART III: MORAL OBJECTIVITY DEFENDED 12. How Ethical Objectivism Solves the Problem of Moral Skepticism 13. Universality, Objectivity, Absolutism 14. The (Un)Importance of Moral Disagreement 15. Does Ethical Objectivity Require God? 16. Where Do Moral Standards Come From? 17. Values in a Scientific World 18. Moral Knowledge I: Four Skeptical Arguments 19. Moral Knowledge II: The Regress Argument 20. Why Be Moral? Conclusion Synopsis of the Major Arguments Glossary

Course Description: A continuation of the Classical Mind, the Modern Mind is an introduction to modern philosophy focusing on texts from selected early modern and modern thinkers. The class builds upon the history, thought concepts, and themes developed in the Classical Mind and traces the development of Western philosophical thought from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. In particular, this course deals with philosophers that consider the nature of thinking and reasoning, the idea of metaphysics and the foundations of human knowledge, the idea of a universal moral law, the nature of political society and the concept of right, and the idea and value of historical thinking. This course utilizes canonical philosophic texts situated in the history of philosophy to establish the structure and methodology of philosophical thinking. As the second course of the introductory sequence of philosophy classes, this class culminates not only in the identification of philosophic issues, concepts, and questions, but also the practical examination and analysis of fundamental human questions as preparation for students' continuing engagement with their liberal arts education. — Prerequisite for PHIL 202: successful completion of PHIL 201.

Queer approaches to teaching and learning call for a consistent commitment to disruption. I have adopted strategies for disruptive education at both the macro and micro levels. My classes are designed around engaging dominant theories and texts—interrogating them in order to understand what forms of life become normalized through them and in order to develop approaches to challenging the discourses they reflect and reproduce.

In most fields of study, people set out to acquire knowledge about the world. But in philosophy, we take a step back and probe into knowledge itself – by asking questions about the sources of knowledge, its nature and limitations, and what methods we have for arriving at true knowledge. Philosophers have thought hard about these questions, with the hope of thereby gaining a more reflective understanding of the nature of reality and the capacities of the knowing self. To illustrate the virtues of philosophical inquiry, and how it differs from both science and religion, we will first look at a range of influential theories and arguments proposed by Plato, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, and Hume. In the second half of the course, we turn to the emerging area of consciousness studies, in which philosophers collaborate with psychologists and brain scientists to examine puzzling topics such as how subjective experiences can arise from objective brain processes, the nature of free will, the unity of the self, dreams and meditation, and the possibility of machine consciousness.

Este artículo presenta los resultados de la investigación “Actitud filosófica e infancia: formación y transformación de maestros” desarrollada en el Jardín Infantil de la Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia (UPTC), como estrategia para desarrollar la actitud filosófica a través de la Comunidad de Indagación. Está dividido en tres momentos descriptivos, el primero, consideraciones previas, contiene: la filosofía como herramienta para pensar, la actitud filosófica como estilo de vida, y filosofía para niños como perspectiva teórica y metodológica. El segundo, perspectiva metodológica. El tercer momento, la experiencia como transformación, abarca: comunidad de indagación y lúdica; comunidad de indagación con niños; formación y transformación del maestro; descubriendo la infancia; pensamiento crítico, creativo y ético en la infancia; y,
de la comunidad de indagación a una forma de vida.

In this article, I outline a teaching demonstration that lasts approximately twenty-two minutes, which a candidate can employ when interviewing for a position in ethics. Since job openings in ethics, and especially applied ethics, are becoming increasingly common, I think that this outline will be helpful to many candidates deliberating about the topic and structure of their future teaching demonstrations. This demonstration is also especially well-suited to a search at a teaching institution, whether a community college, state college, or state university, where faculty and administration place more emphasis on success in pedagogy than success in research and publication. In the conclusion, I offer some suggestions for ways to adapt this outline for a longer teaching demo.

The importance of enchancing metacognition and encouraging active learning in philosophy teaching has been increasingly recognised in recent years. Yet traditional teaching methods have not always centralised helping students to become  reflectively and critically aware of the quality and consistency of their own thinking. This is particularly relevant when teaching moral philosophy, where apparently inconsistent intuitions and responses are common. In this paper I discuss the theoretical basis of the relevance of metacognition and active learning for teaching moral philosophy. Applying recent discussions of metacognition, intuition conflicts and survey-based teaching techniques, I then outline a strategy for encouraging metacognitive awareness of tensions in students’ pretheoretical beliefs, and developing a critical self-awareness of their development as moral thinkers.

Estamos habituados a ver, en la historia de la filosofía, un conjunto de ideas, doctrinas y posiciones teóricas sobre determinados asuntos o problemas.
Es la visión más habitual, casi normal. Sin embargo, la historia de la filosofía puede ser otra cosa distinta. Por ejemplo, para Michel Foucault es más bien la historia de la vida como un problema filosófico, el de cómo vivir una vida que valga la pena de ser vivida y cómo situar la propia vida en una tradición de pensamiento que dé sentido y razón al propio estilo de vida. La vida de Sócrates es para Foucault el inicio de esa tradición. La vida de los cínicos la continúa y profundiza. La vida cínica es la filosofía confundida con la vida.
Este libro es un modo de viajar a través de algunas compañías históricas y contemporáneas, como el mismo Foucault, el Sócrates de Atenas y el de Caracas, Simón Rodríguez, los cínicos, y algunas otras vidas que nos ayudan a pensarla filosóficamente. Es también un libro sobre el nomadismo y la errancia y sobre el vivir viajando y el viajar para vivir. La vida como ensayo y escuela de viaje. La vida confundida con un viaje. Un viaje transformado en libro. Un libro convertido en viaje.

A concise open-access teaching resource featuring essential selections from Gandhi on the philosophy of nonviolence. The book includes: a preface, brief explanatory notes, supplementary boxes containing related philosophical material, images and videos, an appendix on post-Gandhian nonviolence, questions for reflection/discussion, and suggestions for further study.

The philosophy for children curriculum was specially written by Matthew
Lipman and colleagues for the teaching of philosophy by non-philosophically educated
teachers from foundation phase to further education colleges. In this article I argue that
such a curriculum is neither a necessary, not a sufficient condition for the teaching of
philosophical thinking. The philosophical knowledge and pedagogical tact of the teacher
remains salient, in that the open-ended and unpredictable nature of philosophical enquiry
demands of teachers to think in the moment and draw on their own knowledge and
experience of academic philosophy. Providing specialist training or induction in the P4C
curriculum cannot and should not replace undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in
academic philosophy at universities. However, although for academic philosophers the use
of the P4C curriculum could be beneficial, I will argue that its use poses the risk of wanting
to form children into the ideal ‘abnormal’ child, the thinking child—the adult philosopher’s
child positioned as such by the Lipman novels. The notion of narrativity is central in
my argument. With the help of two picturebooks—The Three Pigs (2001) by David
Weisner and Voices in the Park (1998) by Anthony Browne—I illustrate my claim that
philosophy as ‘side-shadowing’ or meta-thinking can only be generated in the space ‘in
between’ text, child and educator, thereby foregrounding a ‘pedagogy of exposure’ (Biesta
2011) rather than ‘teacher proof’ texts.

يتحدث القرآن عن الكائن البشري (وإليه) مستخدما مفردات عدة من قبيل: الإنسان، الناس، بنو آدم، النفس.. والتي يمكن أن نجد لها، بسهولة، مقابلات في اللغات الأجنبية. بيد أنه يستخدم أيضاً لفظاً آخر يكاد يكون غير قابل للترجمة، ولم ينل بعدُ حقه من الدراسة، هو ”المرء“. وتأتي الدراسة الحالية لتبحث في الاستعمال القرآني لهذا اللفظ الأخير بغية التدليل على أنه اللفظ الأقرب إلى تأدية المعنى الحديث لـ ”الشخص“ بما هو ذات أخلاقية‫.‬
The  Qur ʾān  speaks  about  the  human  being  (and  to  him)  using  several  terms  such  as  insān (human), nās (people), banū Ādam (children of Adam), nafs (soul), expressions for  which  we  can  easily  find  counterparts  in  other  languages.  However,  it  also  uses  another word that is almost untranslatable, and has not yet been sufficiently studied, namely marʾ.  This  study  focuses  on  the  Qur ʾānic  use  of  the  latter  word,  in  order  to  demonstrate that it is the word that comes closest to the modern meaning of “person” in terms of an ethical being

Abortion involves the intentional killing of a fetus to end a pregnancy. These fetuses are human, biologically.1 It seems that fetuses are beings, albeit completely dependent beings: what else would they be? So, abortion involves the intentional killing of a human being. Killing human beings is often deeply wrong, so is abortion wrong? If so, when? And why? In this essay, we’ll look at some influential answers to these questions.

In the next, I expose two different philosophical problems largely as examples for high school students interested in philosophical research. The objective is to give the student a good example of how to formulate a philosophical problem in order of make him or her capable of develop his own problem for the research developed.

The two problems exposed are: the political status of the atheist in the political philosophy of John Locke and a response against the theory of mind-brain identity.

In the APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy, Lauren Freeman (2014) advocates that faculty turn their classrooms into “safe spaces” as a method for increasing the diversity of philosophy majors. The creation of safe spaces is meant to make women and minority students “feel sufficiently comfortable” and thereby increase the likelihood that they pursue philosophy as a major or career. Although I agree with Freeman’s goal, I argue that philosophers, and faculty in general, should reject the call for turning classrooms into “safe spaces.” I begin by distinguishing extra-curricular safe spaces from the classroom as a safe space. I then argue that although faculty should not object to extra-curricular safe spaces, they should reject curricular ones. I argue that the classroom as a safe space is currently an impractical and inappropriate goal given the nature of academic philosophy, and that encouraging students to think of classrooms as safe/unsafe does not facilitate learning. Nonetheless, I agree with Freeman that faculty should take steps to ensure that students from all backgrounds have the tools they need to be successful in the classroom. I further argue that faculty calls for safe spaces creates confusion concerning the educative environment one should expect to find at the majority of America universities

It is not easy to decide which I like better – being a student or being a teacher. Perhaps it is for that reason that I so strongly believe in Freire's assertion that the teacher-student contradiction is a false one. I try to model my own love of learning to students. Culturally relevant and project-based activities, service-learning, accountability, and collaboration are central to my philosophy and practice of teaching and learning. As an educator, I embrace a culturally responsive pedagogy with data-driven instruction that values and incorporates the principles of service-learning and project-based learning. I believe such engaged learning prepares students for both active civic participation and for successful careers. My 10+ years of teaching and mentoring experience has given me opportunities to learn first-hand the benefits of this engaged approach for all students, especially for at-risk students and students with disabilities. Because teaching and learning are woven together for me I am committed to a teaching praxis that continuously challenges the teacher-student contradiction.

UNESCO is a 'philosophical' organization which defends the teaching of philosophy as 'a school of freedom '. This text explains what that means before an audience of professors at an international Esperanto congress in Belgium in 2015.
This text exists also in French and Esperanto

This nomination package by Dean Prof. Amy Mullin contains the following sections:
Letter of Endorsement
Nomination Letter
Nomination Brief
Short Biography of Candidate
Nominee's Statement of Teaching Philosophy
List of Courses Taught
Evidence of Teaching Excellence and Leadership in Teaching
a) Course Design/Proposals and Related Materials
b) Summary Data of Annual Student Evaluations
c) Teaching Awards
d) Curriculum Development
e) Development of Educational Materials
f) Seminars Workshops or Conferences for University Colleagues on Teaching/Learning
g) Evidence of Work with Teaching/Learning Centers/ Associations or Organizations
h) Efforts to Improve Teaching Skills/Course Design
i) Publications on University Teaching
j) Research on University Teaching
k) Letters of Support from Students and Colleagues
l) Other Evidence