My Philosophy Courses

This course invites students into the philosophical world of ancient Greek philosophy. Through a careful study of Plato's Gorgias, Meno, and Theaetetus and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, students develop an appreciation for the questions pursued in these texts and their continuing relevance for epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical inquiry  today. I teach this course once a year at FGCU. Explore my syllabus here.

My upper-level Major Figures in Philosophy courses allow students to study the work of one important philosopher (or one of their philosophical works) in depth. These in-depth studies allow students to trace the gradual development of a philosopher's thought over time or to understand the argument of a major philosophical work in detail. In my time at FGCU, I have taught Major Figures courses on Plato, Judith Butler, and, most recently, Hans-Georg Gadamer. I sometimes teach a special version of the Major Figures course as the Capstone Seminar in Philosophy. Explore the syllabus for my Gadamer course here.

This course examines the important role that language and communication play in our lives -- in our ability to understand and to find meaning in things. We explore phenomenological and hermeneutic accounts of the linguistic, interpretive, and dialogical dimensions of human experience. We then move on to examine the conditions in which language can become "unready-to-hand" for people. We use this concept as an analytical tool for understanding situations that lead people to withdraw from language (e.g., trauma and depression) or to become otherwise estranged from certain linguistic practices (e.g., from medical diagnosis, doctor-patient communication, or interpersonal communication where there is a significant imbalance in affective or hermeneutic labor). I teach this course once a year at Florida Gulf Coast University. Explore my syllabus here.

Self-reflection and self-awareness have long resided at the very heart of philosophical practice. Socrates encouraged the people of Athens to scrutinize their beliefs and habits and not to act on those beliefs that they had not yet been able to successfully defend to others. What epistemic virtues are required for leading such an "examined life"? And what features of our social environment today hinder the development of these virtues? This class explores these questions through a reading of several works in the history of philosophy and contemporary philosophy. In addition to being introduced to a variety of authors and traditions within the philosophical discipline, students begin to learn about the art of reading in a way that encourages understanding and self-reflection. I teach this course once or twice a year at FGCU. Explore my syllabus for a recent section of this course here.

My Contemporary Moral Issues course is designed to introduce students to the art of ethical reasoning and the ethical theories that have long sought to guide ethical reasoning. My aim in this course is to empower students to engage in public discourse about ethical issues in an informed, thoughtful, and self-aware fashion. This requires that we unlearn the habit of treating disagreements about ethical issues as impossible to adjudicate. As part of their exams for the course, students must demonstrate the ability to make an ethical argument to their peers and field challenges to this argument in a thoughtful and non-defensive way. I teach two sections of Contemporary Moral Issues every other year. Explore my Contemporary Moral Issues syllabus here.

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Feminist philosophy involves philosophical interpretation of and critical reflection upon
the guiding principles of the feminist movement. Studying feminist philosophy thus allows us to scrutinize the reasons for the existence of the movement and to think deeply
and critically about how it ought to proceed. Feminist philosophy thus emerges naturally as the movement encounters challenges and as it is forced to become more self-reflective over time. In this class, students learn about the philosophical foundations of the feminist movement and about the philosophical debates (many which are ongoing) that have shaped the movement over the past 150 years. Students write a scholarly paper for the course and present a version of their argument while it is in progress to receive feedback from peers that they can incorporate into their final paper. I teach this course about every other year at FGCU. Explore my syllabus for the course here.

This class explores the important but largely unacknowledged role that character play in ethical life. Students study how the importance of character for ethics was articulated by Aristotle and how it continues to be fleshed out in the virtue ethics tradition to which Aristotle’s ethics gave rise. Our main reading for the class, Julia Annas’ Intelligent Virtues, takes us through the central theories of Aristotle’s theory of virtue. In addition, we read contemporary articles in environmental virtue ethics, medical virtue ethics, and virtue epistemology (the theory of knowledge that focuses on intellectual virtues and vices), as well as articles that challenge virtue theory’s claim that the character of a person is distinguishable from the situation in which they find themselves. These readings afford an exploration of a number of interesting philosophical questions, including: how virtues of character differ from rote, mindless habits; what kind of learning experiences enable a person to develop virtues of character; whether it makes sense to speak of a person’s character as something independent from the effects of the situation that they are in; what role intellectual virtues should play in education; and how the development of virtues of character relates to happiness. Explore my syllabus for the course here.