Teaching

Teaching philosophy well means resisting the temptation to simply lecture. My classes are built around discussion: I often introduce a topic through a vivid scenario or thought experiment — Theseus’s ship, Jackson’s Mary, Nagel’s bat, Thomson’s violinist, or Singer’s drowning child — and let a seemingly obvious answer start to come apart under questioning. My job is less to hand down conclusions than to ask questions, raise doubts, and occasionally argue the other side, so that students arrive at their own considered positions rather than borrowed ones.

I back that discussion with structure: short weekly writing exercises with individual feedback, in-class exams, and — yes, still, despite the rise of AI — take-home essays. Nothing should ever fully replace the long, strenuous, and infinitely rewarding journey of pondering a philosophical question for weeks or months at home in the armchair. This is what philosophy ultimately aims at, and we as teachers should not give up on that. I grade quickly and transparently, and try to take grade anxiety seriously rather than dismiss it, because I think every student is capable of thinking philosophically if given the room to try. So far I’ve mostly taught broad introductory courses; I’m looking forward to teaching something narrower and more advanced.