Tarleton State University’s Introduction to Philosophy course is part of the Language, Philosophy, and Culture category of our core curriculum. All sections of the course feature classic texts from the history of philosophy. My section is distinctive—and thus, I hope, of interest to readers of the APA Blog—in two ways.
First, I supplement some of the usual classic texts with some aimed at engaging students in the majors that tend to take the course most frequently (e.g. psychology, nursing) and from the state of Texas. Since we do not have a philosophy major and most of our students only take a single course in the discipline, my pedagogical goal is to help students cultivate philosophical skills and habits of mind throughout our semester together.
Second, thanks to a grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, I have recently redesigned the course to exclusively use texts that are Open Educational Resources (OER)—either in the public domain or Creative Commons licensed. This means the textbook cost for students is $0 and that all course materials are available online.
We start by having students write a summary of Thomas Aquinas’s argument from motion from Summa Theologica [I, Q. 2, Art. 3]. Some may be surprised that the course begins with a text more frequently read in the philosophy of religion. But one reason for this text is that it gives students a complete and concise argument that is likely outside of their comfort zones.
As I learned in an American Association of Philosophy Teachers seminar, giving students an experience of controlled failure can be an effective teaching strategy. To that end, students read and summarize the text twice. After their first attempt, they read a handout on how to read philosophy and choose a reading practice from that handout to inform their second attempt, which is often more successful. David Concepción’s Reading Philosophy with Background Knowledge and Metacognition has prompted many instructors to use resources of this sort; I usually assign Zara Bain’s version. Besides giving students a chance to recognize philosophical reading as a distinct skill and to practice it, this assignment helps us explore the connections between philosophy, science, and religion—connections that we continue to explore while reading some of Plato’s dialogues.
We begin the first main unit of the course with Republic I, which introduces us to Socrates’s search for definitions for key philosophical concepts like justice. One of the most memorable early-semester classes is where (following Marianna Richey) we attempt to define simple concepts like “a sandwich” in order to better understand the difficulties Socrates and his interlocutors face. We then put Socrates on trial ourselves while reading the Apology. Some classes find him guilty of uses his philosophical skills to makes his interlocutors look foolish. However, this spring’s class described Socrates as ‘using trolling for good,’ which is a provocative concept for those who are very online. We then read Nicomachean Ethics I and II to see Aristotle’s more observation-based approach to philosophy (which reading Aquinas earlier anachronistically foreshadowed) and his understanding of the moral virtues.
Our second unit considers two approaches to philosophy that contrast with the Greek eudaimonists’ idea that virtue is essential for human flourishing. First, we read Sebastian Purcell’s articles contrasting the Greeks with the Aztec moral philosophers and reflecting on the Day of the Dead. My students appreciate these articles for several reasons. The Aztecs address the philosophical significance of the body in ways that my kinesiology and nursing students appreciate. They seem more realistic to some students about the way the world is not always a place where we can flourish. And the Aztecs feel closer to our own Texas context than the Greeks.
We then read excerpts from Machiavelli, who like the Aztecs thinks the world is full of bad Fortune. However, Machiavelli’s advice to The Prince is not to encourage virtuous character formation like the Greeks and the Aztecs, but to pursue power using both virtue and vice.
Besides serving as a foil for earlier virtue-driven approaches, Machiavelli also introduces the idea that philosophy can be used in specific contexts (like politics) in addition to being a way of life as it was for the Aztecs and Greeks. The final unit of the course explores further specific applications to philosophy. First, we continue applying philosophy to politics by studying Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan as a representative example of social contract theory.
Next, we read excerpts from Mary Astell’s A Serious Proposal to the Ladies to show how our self-understanding of our psychology have important implications for the ways we think about education and self-improvement or self-care.
Finally, each student reads a chapter from David Boursema’s What Can I Do With a Degree in Philosophy? While none of my students are philosophy majors, reading from this anthology of philosophy graduates relating their studies to their current careers helps students to reflect on what they have learned throughout the semester and how they might apply it themselves.
My hope is that this course serves as a proof of concept of a 100% OER Intro to Philosophy course. With the inclusion of materials that licensed for educational use (and thus still zero-cost for students), such as Jonathan Bennett’s Early Modern Texts or journal articles available through institutional subscriptions, we can break down the cost-barriers that may keep students from studying philosophy.
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Karl Aho
Karl Aho teaches courses in the history of philosophy, logic, and professional ethics. He is an at-large member of the American Association of Philosophy Teachers board of directors and co-chairs its communications committee. Aho serves on the Texas A&M System Council for Academic Technology and Innovative Education OER Project Group, and has presented on OER at the TAMUS Chancellor’s Summit on Academic Technology and the American Association of Philosophy Teachers biennial conference. He uses OER textbooks and programs in 100% of the courses he currently teaches.
