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TEACHING

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF SOME COURSES I HAVE TAUGHT OR HOPE TO TEACH

(SYLLABI AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST)

Introduction to Philosophy

This course provides an introduction to philosophy through the discussion of a variety of philosophical problems from both a historical and a contemporary perspective. Topics will include:

  • Personal identity

  • Objectivity and knowledge

  • Free will and responsibility

  • Race and racism

  • Law and Legal Obligation

  • Global Political and economic justice

Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking

This course is designed to improve the critical thinking skills associated with various forms of reasoning.   The process of reasoning involves identifying, analyzing, evaluating, and constructing arguments. The following will be topics covered in this course: 

 

  • Logic and its relation to language

  • Basic inductive and deductive processes

  • Common formal and informal fallacies of language and thought

  • How to distinguish matters of fact from issues of judgment or opinion

  • How to analyze, criticize and advocate ideas

  • How to reason inductively and deductively

  • How to reach well-supported factual, moral, and political conclusions

  • How to employ critical thinking in writing, speech, and action.

Metaphysics

This course is a broad introduction to a variety of topics in metaphysics, through engagement with a number of historical and contemporary texts touching on such issues as: 

 

  • Personal identity and the self

  • Free will and determinism

  • Realism, anti-realism, and nominalism

  • Possibility and necessity

  • The nature of space and time

  • Social categories and social ontology

Social and Political Philosophy

This course is a broad introduction to a variety of topics in social and political philosophy, through engagement with a number of historical and contemporary texts touching on such issues as: 

 

  • Justice, self-interest, and the nature of society

  • The nature and justification of democracy

  • Socialism, democracy, and capitalism

  • Ideal vs. non-ideal approaches to social theory
  • Feminist social critique
  • Decolonial social critique and critical race theory
  • Politics and ecology

Philosophy of Law

This course will address fundamental questions about the nature, function, application, and normative character of laws and legal systems. Through engagement with philosophical texts and legal texts, such as case law and legislative or policy texts. Topics will include:

  • What is the law and what is its purpose?

  • What is the relationship between law and morality?

  • What are our legal obligations?

  • What is the appropriate response to lawbreaking?

  • What is legal reasoning?

  • Who or what do laws protect?

  • Can law be a medium through which to realize social justice?

Marx and Marxism

This course will introduce the philosophical, political, and social scientific ideas theories of Karl Marx through engagement with Marx's writings and texts by his interlocutors, critics, and political activists who have engaged with his ideas. Topics will include:

  • Marx's engagement with Aristotle, Hegel, Feuerbach, and others.

  • The theory of alienation.
  • Historical Materialism.
  • Ideology and social revolution.
  • The critique of capitalism
  • The nature of socialism and its relationship to capitalism and democracy.
  • Marxism in a global context.
  • Violence and revoluation.
  • Feminist and decolonial engagement with Marxism.

Epistemology

This course is a broad introduction to a variety of topics in epistemology, through engagement with a number of historical and contemporary texts touching on such issues as: 

 

  • The problem of skepticism

  • Objectivity and subjectivity

  • Perception and perspective

  • Testimony, ideology, and social sources of knowledge

  • Scientific epistemology

  • Feminist and decolonial epistemology

Philosophy of Social Science

This course is a broad introduction to a variety of topics in the philosophy of the social sciences, through engagement with a number of historical and contemporary texts touching on such issues as: 

​

  • Social science vs. 'hard' science
  • The relationship between the various social sciences

  • Holism and individualism.

  • Social scientific explanation

  • The concept of value-laden science
  • Cultural relativism
  • The political/social uses or abuses of social science
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