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Courses Taught

Student Resources

Philosophical Writing. In my philosophy courses, we are going to learn philosophical writing bit by bit. But even as we learn each component, it's helpful to have the big picture in view. The following are helpful guides that I recommend reading before you write your first assignment (since it's often helpful to hear someone else explain writing):

  • The Harvard Writing Lab has a useful introduction called A Brief Guide to Writing the Philosophy Paper. This PDF gives you an idea of what a philosophy essay aims to do, what makes for a good philosophy thesis statement, as well as what the most common argumentative strategies are.
  • Jim Pryor (a philosopher at NYU) has an excellent online entry called Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper. This post provides more specific details on how to improve your philosophical prose. It also gives you a sense of philosophical style nowadays.
  • For generally solid advice on writing, Strunk and White's Elements of Style provides recommendations that are almost always applicable to the straightforward style typical of Anglophone philosophy. Here is my summary of their major recommendations, with examples.
  • A classic essay on how to write concrete English prose is George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language." It is a short and immensely helpful read, and Orwell's advice is highly applicable to philosophical writing.
  • To truly excel in a philosophy course, you will need to understand the basics of logical argumentation. Luckily, you don't need to know much about logic itself to get started: Jonathan Weisberg has a very short overview of logical principles that will immediately improve your analytical skills.
  • Stuck? Try writing a four-sentence essay to begin your essay writing. You can read about this method here. This is an excellent form of brain-storming that has a simple four-sentence template:
    • (1) They say __.
    • (2) I say __, because __.
    • (3) One might object that __.
    • (4) I reply that __.
  • Here is a document I made with common problems from student philosophy papers.
  • Here are abbreviations/symbols that I use in grading papers.

Online Philosophy Resources. There are some resources that every philosopher takes for granted. Here they are:

  • The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ("SEP") is one of the greatest philosophical resources in the history of humanity. Seriously. Browsing through its table of contents, you can see the names of thorough and up-to-date articles written by subfield experts on just about any topic in philosophy. Whether a philosopher needs to "cram" for a given subject or is looking to start a new research project, they will inevitably read the relevant SEP article.
  • The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is also a very useful runner-up to the SEP. It is smaller and slightly less consistent, but there are gems here too.
  • The database PhilPapers is an invaluable resource for compiling a bibliography for a research paper. Particularly helpful are the literature summaries, which you can find by clicking on one of the areas in the "Browse by Topic" column. For instance, if you click on "Metaphysics," you will arrive at a page with a description of the field/subfield in question, as well as foundational literature to help orient yourself. (E.g., if you click on "Objects," a subtopic of metaphysics, you will see another literature overview.)
  • If encyclopedia entries are too long for your taste, then give some of the posts on 1000-Word Philosophy a shot. It is what it sounds like: short introductory posts on a broad range of philosophical topics.
  • If you are a philosophy major and are considering graduate work in philosophy, consider making a PhilPeople profile! PhilPeople is the Facebook of philosophy. You can elicit feedback on a paper from your friends, post any work you have done in philosophy, and network with other philosophers. Even if you don't go into philosophy after undergrad, it can't hurt to showcase your interest in philosophy to a future employer (you can link to your profile from LinkedIn).
  • Speaking of showcasing your interest in philosophy, both Russell Marcus' list of upcoming undergraduate conferences as well as PhilEvents list calls for papers for conferences. I'd be happy to talk through a presentation idea if you are interested!

Philosophy Podcasts. Can't get enough? There are many excellent philosophy podcasts, and here are some:

  • One of my favorites is Very Bad Wizards, where "a philosopher and a psychologist ponder human morality." They discuss everything from virtue signaling to the philosophy of neuroscience to free will to call-out culture.
  • Another shorter-form podcast is Philosophy Bites. I recommend digging into their archive for episodes introducing complicated topics in about 15 minutes, usually with a very prominent philosopher.
  • I find New Books in Philosophy particularly helpful. Each episode is an interview with an author of a recently published book in philosophy, lasting about an hour. The episodes give you a good idea of what philosophers do, how they came to do it, and what goes into a book-length project.
  • Hi-Phi Nation combines production-value with a reasonably close look at trending philosophical topics. The episodes have more of a "journalistic" style typical of big-time podcasts like Serial.