Our books






Become a Fan

« Relationships with non-philosophers? | Main | Grappling with a partner's career "reset" (after moving to a new academic job)? »

01/21/2025

Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

Michael

Here's a bad answer, in that it is tangential to the main query, but relevant regardless.

Harry Brighouse of UW-Madison has a whole collection of blog posts and articles on teaching philosophy that is largely focused on the fact that teaching undergraduate philosophy means teaching non-philosophy majors (and often teaching students who will only take a single philosophy course). He has a lot to say about how to make a philosophy course useful in these contexts including what and how much reading to assign.

Many of these are excellent resources imo, and it's worth seeking them out.

I wish I could find one of his most relevant articles, but here is one that should contain some info of interest:

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Becoming-a-Better-College-Teacher-(If-You're-Lucky)-Brighouse/f5f9f1f12a0fb563466a64676e95c33b6e7b96ae

I also won't be surprised if he sees this thread and can provide better more direct insight.

Norton

The Norton Introduction to Philosophy is a good middle ground between primary sources and a textbook, since it contains readings—often the classics in a field—that have been rewritten for a simpler audience (often by the original authors, but not always). It also has original articles written for the Introduction itself, which is nice.

I regularly use it to supplement a syllabus of articles.

Madeline

I have always taught mostly non-majors and always use primary texts. Partly this is laziness (I don't want to vet a bunch of textbooks) and partly my own preferences (I want to learn more about the primary sources myself). But also, I have a quasi-romantic idea that I owe it to non-majors to give them the primary sources, and from a range of traditions. That this is the only philosophy class they'll take is, for me, a reason to teach primary sources.

Trevor Hedberg

Venues like Aeon magazine and op eds in places like the New York Times are often accessible to general audiences but sufficiently rigorous to use in undergrad courses. (Or so I think anyway.) It may be worth searching those places for essays on topics you're teaching.

Chris

A lot depends on what areas of philosophy you're teaching. I use a mix of primary sources and more accessible contemporary philosophy: e.g., Chalmers' book, Reality + is great for phil-mind topics (and some epistemology). Interesting and accessible. Excepts from Sean Carroll, The Big Picture, also good to supplement with more traditional readings. Thi Nguyen's work in social epistemology and games, etc.

some thoughts

1000 word philosophy, SEP, and IEP can be good resources. There is quite a bit of historical philosophy that is accessible and a good introduction. For example, some students really seem to like reading Descartes.

Grad

Topically specific, but I have taught Reason Better by Manley a bunch to largely non-philosophy audiences. It does a really good job at selecting philosophical topics (from e.g. logic, epistemology etc) and communicating them in a way that students outside our discipline find engaging and exciting. I highly recommend it.

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been saved. Comments are moderated and will not appear until approved by the author. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment

Comments are moderated, and will not appear until the author has approved them.

Your Information

(Name and email address are required. Email address will not be displayed with the comment.)

Job-market reporting thread

Current Job-Market Discussion Thread

Philosophers in Industry Directory

Categories

Subscribe to the Cocoon