Teaching
I am, first and foremost, a teacher in the liberal arts tradition. I see the highest goal of education as intellectual liberation: helping students develop the critical tools to reason freely and fairly about the world, and to develop the creativity required for genuine truth-seeking. On this page, you can find a list of my current courses, as well as resources for students looking to improve their abilities to research, read, and write philosophy.
Resources for Students
Current Courses
- Modern Philosophy
- In the 16th-18th centuries, a scientific revolution shattered medieval certainties and philosophers worked to rebuild human knowledge from the ground up. While Descartes tried to find firm foundations for knowledge, scientists and mathematicians like Galileo and Newton revolutionized scientific methods. Meanwhile, thinkers like Locke, Hume, and Kant wrestled with mind-bending questions: How do we know anything at all? What is the relationship between our minds and the external world? Can reason alone deliver truth, or must we rely on experience? This course will examine the ideas and thinkers that laid the foundations for our world, with a special focus on learning how to understand the worldviews of others through deep engagement with their texts and ideas.
- Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence
- Artificial Intelligence has been described as everything from the key to a prosperous human future, to an existential threat to our very survival. This course examines the nature of Artificial Intelligence, exploring what work in the field can tell us about the human mind. Topics include the analogy between the human mind and a computer, philosophical challenges to developing a genuinely artificial intelligence, and the nature and prospects of generative AI technologies (such as ChatGPT) to qualify as intelligent. The course will conclude with an examination of the ethical implications of AI technology, including on misinformation and when implemented in technologies such as self-driving cars.