TEACHING

As a teacher, I aim to not only share knowledge of philosophical subjects, but to build skills that allows students to engage with and contribute to these subjects on their own. First, I aim to inculcate the skill of engaging with another's views carefully and charitably. Second, I aim to teach students how to present their ideas as a unified argument that engages with the most powerful objections from an opposing side.

Scroll down to find my teaching experience, a brief description of some of my favourite recent teaching activities, some sample syllabi, as well as teaching evaluations and endorsements. There's also a section with resources for students and teachers.

Teaching Experience

GRADUATE TEACHING

Practical Representation, Georgia State University, Spring 2024 (expected).

Knowledge and Its Limits, Georgia State University, Spring 2023. [cross-listed with undergrad]

Epistemology and Partiality, Georgia State University, Spring 2022.

Skill and Know-How, Georgia State University, Fall 2020.

UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING

Knowledge and Its Limits, Georgia State University (cross-listed with grad), Spring 2023.

Human Nature, Georgia State University, Spring 2023.

Aristotle's Psychology, University of Toronto-Mississauga, Fall 2019

Introduction to Philosophy of Law, Yale University, Summer 2019.

Emotion and Cognition: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives (with David Charles), Yale University, Spring 2019.

MA THESIS COMMITTEES (*=thesis director)

**Armand Babakhanian: Essentially Intentional Actions and Naïve Action Theory. [in progress]

*Victoria Isett: Narrative and Testimony. [in progress]

*Hayes Phillips: Luminosity and the Phenomenal. [in progress]

Yun Cheng Wang: [Topic: Evidentialism from an Aristotelian framework]. [in progress]

Frankie Wotton: Self-Prediction Error and Self-Reflection: A Causal Theory. [in progress]

*Marlon Rivas Tinoco: project on the relation between internalism about rationality and Rinard's pragmatism [2023]

*Ben Hu: project on practical influences on credence. [2023]

*Nikolaus Kennelly: A Practical Conception of the Kantian Bifurcation. [2022]

Kerong Gao: Aristotle on the Role of Practical Intellect in Supplying the Ends. [2021]

Theodore J. Craig: Hegel’s Account of the Universal Animal Organism [2022]

INDEPENDENT STUDY SUPERVISION

-Content and Self-Knowledge by Mathew A. Turyn, Georgia State University, Fall 2020.

-A project applying Aristotelian virtue ethics to modern politics by senior philosophy major William Nienhuis, University of Toronto, 2019-20.

Teaching Activities

Here are some of my favourite teaching activities and assignments:

Scavenger Hunt: A game-structured assignment for my intro courses, where students hunt for argument-analysis concepts taught in class (e.g. look for premise-conclusion structure in the readings). Here are the instructions from the '21 version of the class. And here are the instructions for the '22 version of the class (which integrated Perusall).

Working through samples with a critical eye: In all of my courses I break down complex tasks (like writing a philosophy paper) into smaller sub-tasks (like writing an introduction, or identifying a thesis in a paragraph). More recently, I use exercises that place students in the role of a critic/instructor with respect to these sub-tasks. For instance, to teach students how to make appropriate use of quotation and paraphrase, I gave students a page with three samples that exhibit exaggerated forms of problems I often find in students's papers: (1) an overuse of direct quotation with little discussion in the students's own words; (2) summaries that fail to support a reading with textual references; and (3) lack of exegesis so as to present quick criticisms. We discussed the strengths and weakness of all the samples together as a class, enabling students to strengthen their writing by themselves identifying problems and good features in these samples.

Designing a poster: The aim of a poster is to condense a complex philosophical idea into a single picture. Although posters have become very common in philosophical conferences, they are also great tools for teaching and reward students that think in pictorial terms in ways in which other traditional philosophical exercises don't.

Posting and discussing an interpretation of current events in light of a theory: The students were tasked with finding an event that had a straightforward interpretation and a non-straightforward one in light of a theory studied in the course (e.g. Arendt's theory of propaganda). The results were posted in a drive document, and we discussed them in class.

Sample Syllabi

Human Nature (third-year course taught Spring 23)

Knowledge and Its Limits (cross-listed course taught Spring 23)

Epistemology and Partiality (MA seminar taught Spring 22)

Introduction to Philosophy (22 version)

Skill and Know-How (MA seminar taught Fall 20)

Aristotle's Psychology (300-level course taught Fall 19)

Philsoophy of Law (introductory course taught Summer 19)

Emotion and Cognition (intermediate course co-taught with David Charles in Spring 19)