Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence [syllabus]
This is a 3000-level course I taught at Columbia in Spring 2022, as a Teaching Scholar. It covers the relationship of AI to the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of science, and ethics. The main goal of the course is to offer students a great deal of latitude in the work they'll do in the course, while also ensuring that whatever work they do is well-scaffolded by earlier work.
Metaphysics [syllabus]
This is a 2000-level course I taught at Columbia in Summer 2020. It introduces metaphysics through some traditional topics, and moves on half-way through to broader questions about realism and the goal of metaphysics, naturalistic metaphysics and the legitimate sources of evidence for metaphysical claims, and, more generally, the place of metaphysics in inquiry.
Ethics [syllabus]
This is a 2000-level course I taught at Columbia in Summer 2022. It takes a broad, and broadly pragmatic, approach to ethical questions, and tries to introduce traditional ethical theories in the context of pressing ethical questions. The course's other distinguishing feature is that it is ungraded — an experiment that went extremely well.
Philosophical Monsters [syllabus in progress]
This is a 2000- or 3000-level course I plan to teach. It introduces a range of philosophical topics through the monsters they have created (the philosophy of mind through P-zombies and swampmen, ethics through the utility monster, and so on). The first half of the course tours this bestiary and delves into the questions the monsters are supposed to solve. The second half of the course investigates monsters themselves, and the "monster method" and thought experiments more generally, considering their epistemic status and asking what they might teach us about philosophical methodology.
Other
I have drafts of syllabi on the philosophy of cognitive science, the philosophy and psychology of humor, the epistemology of conspiracy theories, and some other subjects, which I can provide on request.
This is a 3000-level course I taught at Columbia in Spring 2022, as a Teaching Scholar. It covers the relationship of AI to the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of science, and ethics. The main goal of the course is to offer students a great deal of latitude in the work they'll do in the course, while also ensuring that whatever work they do is well-scaffolded by earlier work.
Metaphysics [syllabus]
This is a 2000-level course I taught at Columbia in Summer 2020. It introduces metaphysics through some traditional topics, and moves on half-way through to broader questions about realism and the goal of metaphysics, naturalistic metaphysics and the legitimate sources of evidence for metaphysical claims, and, more generally, the place of metaphysics in inquiry.
Ethics [syllabus]
This is a 2000-level course I taught at Columbia in Summer 2022. It takes a broad, and broadly pragmatic, approach to ethical questions, and tries to introduce traditional ethical theories in the context of pressing ethical questions. The course's other distinguishing feature is that it is ungraded — an experiment that went extremely well.
Philosophical Monsters [syllabus in progress]
This is a 2000- or 3000-level course I plan to teach. It introduces a range of philosophical topics through the monsters they have created (the philosophy of mind through P-zombies and swampmen, ethics through the utility monster, and so on). The first half of the course tours this bestiary and delves into the questions the monsters are supposed to solve. The second half of the course investigates monsters themselves, and the "monster method" and thought experiments more generally, considering their epistemic status and asking what they might teach us about philosophical methodology.
Other
I have drafts of syllabi on the philosophy of cognitive science, the philosophy and psychology of humor, the epistemology of conspiracy theories, and some other subjects, which I can provide on request.
