Philosophy of Science Syllabus (Fall '17)

Zenodo, 2023

This course explores the concepts of philosophy, science, and reality by analysing some of the most important philosophical and scientific texts in history. Students will develop adequate critical and analytical skills by focusing on the essence and tasks of philosophy and science, and the possible dialogue between the two. Furthermore, students will learn to orient themselves in thinking by addressing the following questions: What does it mean to think? What does the job of the scientist entail? Students will explore these and other questions by focusing on philosophers and scientists such as Plato, Aristotle, René Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Martin Heidegger, Thomas Kuhn, Bruno Latour, Karen Barad, Stephen Hawking, and Slavoj Žižek.

Teaching Philosophy, 2021

Points-based grading, though now traditional, faces powerful critiques: Such grading creates a low road to passing, it undermines motivation, it wastes time, and it causes stress. It creates an illusion of mathematical precision. It is unfriendly to necessary conditions for satisfactory performance. This paper defends the alternative of specifications grading. Specifications grading grades only on whether work meets a set of expectations for satisfactory performance, with the expectations set at a high but reachable level. With a high bar also comes opportunities to revise unsatisfactory work. I summarize arguments from the literature in support of the system, but I also give account of my two-year experiment in philosophy courses with specifications grading. Compared with points-based grading, specifications grading appears to motivate students better and helps them learn more. I consider objections from both traditionalists and so-called ‘ungraders’. The former hope to secure the benefits of specifications grading while still keeping points. The latter favor eliminating grading altogether.