A Teaching Philosophy For Teaching Philosophy

Philosophy can be dry and abstract for some students, while others naturally find it exciting and invigorating. Not all students are naturally inclined towards or interested in philosophy, so the goal is to make sure that even those students who don’t find it engaging can still be brought in, can learn critical reasoning skills and basic principles and ideas in moral and political philosophy. Sometimes this means using real world issues or pop culture to illustrate cases of philosophical important. Pop culture is an especially useful tool right now, as shows touch on philosophical issues in ethics, society, technology. Severance can teach us about personal identity and labor and the ethical treatment of others; The Good Place explicitly walks people through basic moral theory using comedy and its characters to humanize those issues.

Philosophy can be abstract and obscure and difficult; it can also be clean and beautiful and provocative and engaging. Neither is right or wrong, but what matters is ensuring the context is appropriate for the audience and that the audience is going to get something out of the presentation of the material; the audience is most likely to get more out of the material when we meet them on their own terms, give them something that they think is interesting, and some substance to chew on for a while. Recognizing that publication is appropriate for the venue, that mainstream publications are for mainstream audiences while technical publications are generally not, is important to the process and an increasingly important part of how I approach these issues.