Teaching materials for a philosophy course (online or textbooks)
Posted: Fri May 05, 2017 6:32 am
Hello everyone!
I made a terrible mistake recently when I agreed or rather offered to teach a class of very simple philosophy to some non-native students of English. However, having confidently stated that I would give some classes on a) the history of Western philosophy, b) logical fallacies and critical thinking, c) free will, d) consciousness, e) theoretical ethical problems such as the trolley problem, f) practical ethics - vegetarianism, charity, etc... and g) artificial intelligence, I suddenly realized how difficult it would be to come up with materials that lay out the problems in a straightforward way.
Of course, this was stupid of me, and I really, really, really ought to have known better, but would anyone like to throw down a rope ladder into this massive hole I have dug for myself and point me towards any teaching materials I can use.
As an example, I was thinking of teaching a little bit about the question of how we can know anything exists. I thought I might start with questions about what we think we know for certain exists. Maybe students can have a worksheet asking them to place various objects such as my desk, unicorns, the number 2, my best friend, into boxes such as "Exists", "Doesn't exist", "Don't know" and asking how we can be sure about it (hoping to elicit the senses), and then, perhaps bring in Descartes, maybe a scene from the Matrix, some skeptical hypotheses and the simulation argument. I think I will use some video in class, discussion questions and worksheets. Can anyone let me know of any go-to sources I should check out?
I made a terrible mistake recently when I agreed or rather offered to teach a class of very simple philosophy to some non-native students of English. However, having confidently stated that I would give some classes on a) the history of Western philosophy, b) logical fallacies and critical thinking, c) free will, d) consciousness, e) theoretical ethical problems such as the trolley problem, f) practical ethics - vegetarianism, charity, etc... and g) artificial intelligence, I suddenly realized how difficult it would be to come up with materials that lay out the problems in a straightforward way.
Of course, this was stupid of me, and I really, really, really ought to have known better, but would anyone like to throw down a rope ladder into this massive hole I have dug for myself and point me towards any teaching materials I can use.
As an example, I was thinking of teaching a little bit about the question of how we can know anything exists. I thought I might start with questions about what we think we know for certain exists. Maybe students can have a worksheet asking them to place various objects such as my desk, unicorns, the number 2, my best friend, into boxes such as "Exists", "Doesn't exist", "Don't know" and asking how we can be sure about it (hoping to elicit the senses), and then, perhaps bring in Descartes, maybe a scene from the Matrix, some skeptical hypotheses and the simulation argument. I think I will use some video in class, discussion questions and worksheets. Can anyone let me know of any go-to sources I should check out?
