By David Paul

This book is intended for use by both students and instructors. Most of the content is aimed for students enrolled in introductory-level philosophy courses and their instructors; much of the content in the main chapters could also be used in courses dedicated to their topics (logic and critical thinking, epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics).

Skill-Building with Philosophy

Asking Questions

As philosophy is a discipline discovered by most students after they’ve already completed high school and begun college, and given the lack of clarity in the general public about what philosophy is and how it might be valuable, it’s not surprising that students might react with surprise when an advisor, parent or friend recommends a philosophy course. Questions like “What is philosophy good for?” and “What can you do with philosophy?” should be met with answers that incentivize people to take the field seriously and make them curious to know more. When I introduce the parts of philosophy to students I present each area with some of the hallmark questions asked in that field (epistemology: “What can we really know?”, metaphysics: “I think space is real, but I’m not sure what it is. Do you?”, ethics: “What should I do when I think the law or my religion is wrong about something?”). This leads me to suggest that one useful way of understanding philosophy is that it is the art of asking good questions, and, one of the skills that philosophy helps people develop is the ability to ask better questions. I point out that sometimes an organization or department is having a meeting and the members are discussing some important matter and the group seems to be stuck until someone asks a really good question that gets people thinking in a new way or looking at alternatives that hadn’t previously been considered. Sometimes, what is needed is for someone to ask a really good question. So, if philosophy can help people get better at asking good questions, that’s a skill that can be useful to anyone, in any area of life.

Coming to Terms with Ignorance

As my students get to know me and as they learn whatever topic we’re studying, many of them are at first surprised by my zeal for increasing my own ignorance. I sometimes playfully boast that I’m pretty sure I’m more ignorant than they are; some of them smirk because the know I’m playing. After all, they see me as an older, well-educated professor: surely, I must be joking, I can’t be more ignorant than people fresh out of high school! But, of course I’m not joking. I begin to reveal all the many subjects that I’ve dabbled in and how vast is my ignorance in each of those fields. I point out that science, as an enterprise, has always included some willingness to explore into the unknown and that this exploration frequently raises new questions, often challenges previously-held beliefs, and almost always increases human ignorance. I remind them that, in the history of academic pursuits, philosophy is a sort of parent of the sciences as its children. In this way, I suggest, philosophy is always looking for new unanswered questions and, I say, this is valuable.

Coping with Uncertainty

They are also often struggling with both their own uncertainty and with the realization that many of the fields they’re studying are revealing levels of uncertainty they were unprepared to face. Most of my students have wanted courses with questions that have clear correct answers, and most of them have also wanted clear, unambiguous assignments. “How many words should my paper have?” is a common question I hear when I provide my students with a writing assignment that doesn’t have a page-length or word-count requirement. “Only as many as you need to use to respond to the prompt,” is a common reply I give. Many of them are frustrated. I sometimes follow with “You might reply to the prompt in three pages and another student might reply in two, and another might reply in one, and you might all get the same grade. You might all respond to the prompt really well, in your own ways, and all honestly and fairly deserve an A. Wouldn’t it be unfair, then, for me to say that the three-page response was too long or that the one-page response was too short?” Many of them see my point, but are still alarmed because they’re used to having prescribed goals about how long a paper should be. I try to let them know that, in their lives after college, they will often be met with assignments that lack clarity and that practicing operating in that environment will help them later.

Note for Instructors

I don’t abandon my students with their uncertainty. It’s important to help them gain resilience so that they will have the skills to operate in uncertain environments, and, because that can be frightening for people, I aim to ameliorate this for them. “Would you feel more comfortable with a page-length or word-count requirement? I’m happy to give you some boundaries, and to give you suggestions. For instance, let’s say I think that 900 words is about right, I might ask you for a response between 750 and 1000 words, and then, since you aren’t familiar with my feedback yet, how about you send me a rough draft of your ideas and I’ll offer you some suggestions about lengthening, shortening, changing or otherwise improving your paper before you turn it in for a grade. Would that help?” Something like that almost always helps relieve some frustration or worry that students may have, shows that I’m not going to be setting them up for failure, and, with any luck, helps create a relationship where they feel I’m doing what I can to earn their trust.

Critical Reading

Most of my students haven’t been taught how to read critically. I will often spend some time in many class sessions providing a thorough analysis of an essay (or even just a paragraph) to show many of the layers involved. Sometimes I’ll show how an author is code switching or giving clear hints to members of the readership about the author’s perspectives that the students usually don’t catch. I will sometimes give more examples of where else this shows up in philosophy (from Plato’s Republic to Descartes’ Meditations and others). I let them know that it’s okay for them not to spot all of these when they read, and that I don’t expect them to include anything like this in their writing. But I also point out that sometimes a very close examination of a text reveals details that are easy to miss (and that sometimes articles are written with this sort of layer of meaning intentionally obfuscated from surface readers). I talk about how sometimes people find that it doesn’t feel good to be misled or lied to, and that one of the values of philosophy is that it can help us get to the bottom of things and that this skill is transferrable to many areas in life.

Technology and Teaching

In the 1990s I believed that my responsibility to my students was to provide engaging lectures so that they would be inspired to learn the material and that they’d be rewarded if they’d done the reading in advance because they’d get more out of my lectures than if they hadn’t completed the reading. I often taught courses of nearly 100 students in small auditoriums and I believed that facilitating discussions wasn’t practical. For the first 15 years or so of my teaching career, more of my students began using the internet, in part because more of them had access to the computers and wireless connections that permitted them to do so. In the beginning, many of my students didn’t have computers and only were able to access a computer at a site on campus and most of my students didn’t have internet access at home, and no one had smart phones. As all of this changed, so did my role. Almost all of my students have phones that are handheld computers, most of them also have laptops, and almost all of them have access to the internet as readily as they have access to electricity. Most of my students don’t remember life without the internet or without smartphones. In 15 more years, most of my students won’t remember life with AI. One of my responses to this has been to shift all of my classes, regardless of the number of students, the length of the class session, or the content, to a discussion-based format. I typically present about 10 minutes worth of content at the beginning of the class, using projected slides, and quickly move to a slide that offers two or three discussion prompts. I have students get into groups (usually of three or four people) and they have the opportunity to discuss any or all of the prompts in their group. When that discussion is complete, I ask for comments, questions or feedback from the groups, respond if there is a reason to respond, and then repeat that process. Before each new discussion, I have one or two people from each group move to another group, so that the next discussion includes at least one new member for everyone. After that, I ask someone “who hasn’t yet moved” to move to another group, and I repeat this throughout the semester so that, usually after a couple of weeks, everyone has had multiple conversations with everyone else in class, and usually with permutations of others such that each student has not only had a chance to discuss material with each other student, but also with that other student and at least one additional, different, other student. My students are still rewarded for completing the reading—the discussions are simply better when more of the people in each discussion have done the reading, though no one is punished for not having done the reading. I summarize sections of the readings in the slides between discussion slides so that anyone who didn’t have time to complete the reading gets enough content to be able to form reasonable opinions about the content without fear of “looking stupid” in front of their peers. I let everyone know in advance that I understand that most of my students are taking several courses, working at least 20 hours per week, and are often also living in complex arrangements, sometimes to include taking care of children, siblings, parents or others. After a few days, everyone is gracious with everyone else—sometimes we just can’t get everything done before class, and since this can happen for anyone, they all quickly realize the benefit of this practice. Admittedly it’s harder to do with a class of 100 students than it is with a class of 20 (though not impossible), and it’s easier to do in a classroom with chairs and tables that are easy to move, but it remains viable even in spaces where the tables and chairs don’t move and there are more than 50 people in the space.

In addition, every student is given an index card at the beginning of class (or, if they’re late, whenever they join). Throughout the class period, often just after a discussion, I ask for students to write something on the card, usually something specific, some kind of response to the topic. Often also, at the end of class, I ask students to write a question or two about the day’s material. I often remind them that if they encountered something in the reading that didn’t get covered in the discussions, I will reply to them by email after I read their card. I then also use the cards to track attendance. Many of the students quickly realize that I do, in fact, read their cards, reply to them via email afterward, and so recognize that I’m aiming to create a rapport with them. Depending on the class, I also use the cards to assess student learning. I will sometimes have them respond to some point about an objective for that day, or, more directly, I will sometimes ask specific questions about the content. For instance, if I’ve covered two philosophers on the same topic, I might ask for them to tell me a difference between those thinkers’ views. Or, if I’m teaching logic, I might ask for the students to complete a problem. I can then use this to not only assess the individual student, but also to quickly compare the students in attendance that day and to get aggregated data. When I teach entirely online courses, I use the online tool my university uses to create “quizzes” that capture what I do with index cards. That is, like the in-class index card, everyone is given an opportunity to complete one of these per day, and I can provide specific topics or prompts for the students to respond to. I can create a limited period of time that the students can access the “quiz” and I can aggregate the data afterward. Other technological tools could serve the same purpose (forms, polls, etc.) and the use of whatever tool fits the instructor is encouraged.

About the Authors

David Paul

Dave received his MA at Western Michigan University in 1992. He was a full-time instructor at WMU from 2016 until 2019. He has been the philosophy department chair there since 2019.

Levi Smith

Levi is a PhD student at The University of Colorado, Boulder. He completed his MA at Western Michigan University in 2024.

Daniel Kosacz

Daniel completed his MA at Western Michigan University in 2019.

Daniel Gaines

Daniel is a PhD student at Indiana University. He completed his MA at Western Michigan University in 2024.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

The content of this book was produced almost entirely without the use of AI. In some cases, AI applications were used as research tools, not dissimilarly to how someone might use an internet browser as a research tool. In some cases, AI-generated material has been included intentionally. In all such cases, the tool that was used (for instance, Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT) is identified and the AI-generated content is provided in an alternative font.

We expect that instructors teaching and students learning philosophy will be using artificial intelligence resources and we provide suggestions for how this can be best done at the end of the text.