Eric de Araujo is an instructional designer in Teaching and Learning Technologies at Purdue University, where he works with faculty to develop online courses and helps support the faculty development program IMPACT. Additionally, he teaches for the Department of Philosophy there. He received his PhD from Ohio State and his research is in metaphysics, particularly identity and ontological pluralism.
What are you working on right now?
I want to see if my students in a large, online section of an introduction to philosophy course can write a philosophy paper. Or rather (because I think they can!), I want to see if I can design a way so that my students in a large, online class write a philosophy paper.
Several constraints make this difficult. The class has 100 students and I do not have grading support for it. Also, the course is in addition to my full-time job as an instructional designer. I simply could not incorporate an essay as an assessment like I did in the past.
A more rational person would have eliminated the essay, but I have always thought writing a philosophy essay is an important outcome for an introductory philosophy course. It is not because I think there is a good chance any of the essays will articulate a novel or interesting philosophical argument (see below). But I think the process is worthwhile. Writing philosophy is a different kind of writing, and I think doing it is beneficial, even if someone never takes a philosophy course again.
To keep the essay, I am turning my students into their own graders. I am using a peer-review platform developed at Purdue called Circuit to facilitate this. First, I record myself walking through an example before they work on their own. Then on the platform, after students submit their work, they see 3 examples I’ve already graded according to a rubric. They grade those examples until they get fairly close to my own grade. Then they use that rubric to evaluate 3 peers the system assigns them and their own work as well. I have broken up the essay into parts so that they build up to writing the essay at the end of the course.
The course is finishing up now, so I am anxious to see if it works and what I can do to improve the process for the next time I teach it.
What is your favorite thing that you’ve written?
Probably my forthcoming article in Erkenntnis, “Transitivity when the same are distinct.” A version of this paper has been with me since my dissertation prospectus, so it is gratifying to see something I have been working on for a while get to publication. I like it because I try to make an unpopular view a bit more plausible. In an earlier version of it, I proposed, on André Gallois’ behalf, that instantiation is a 5-place relation (and that’s just for monadic properties!). While I enjoy entertaining, and attempting to make plausible, strange metaphysical views, I think most people put “instantiation is 5-place” on the cost side of the cost-benefit analysis for metaphysical theories. Fortunately, a reviewer showed me how I did not need this to make my overall point.
What excites you about philosophy?
Probably the fact that you get to interact with and disagree with very smart people, many of whom aren’t even around now. I remember realizing in one of my first philosophy classes that all these philosophers and their arguments were basically “fair game” for an essay. My essay most likely failed in many ways, but essentially, the professor was asking us to engage in an intellectual discussion with professional philosophers. That is both terrifying and exciting. I try to instill that excitement in my students. Whether the terror follows is probably out of my hands.
Name a trait, skill or characteristic that you have that others may not know about.
Possessing technical skills is probably not that unique among philosophers. Plenty of philosophers do computer programming or write in LaTeX, for example. However, in addition to things like that, I really enjoy graphic and video design. In high school, our home computer had a copy of Photoshop installed on it, and I taught myself how to manipulate images with that. I picked up Illustrator, InDesign, and Dreamweaver in college. Now I’m trying to learn video editing, color grading, motion graphics, and a bit of audio editing.
What time of day are you most productive and creative?
I am a night owl. I work best right after dinner until a little after midnight. This worked fine in graduate school, before I had children. This worked terribly when I became a parent, especially in graduate school. Now I force myself to be productive in the morning and most of the time I am too exhausted to do anything after they go to bed.
If you were a brick in the wall which brick would you be?
I would be the time-travelling brick that is numerically identical to each brick in the wall. Has anyone made this joke yet?
What is your favorite sound in the world?
My children’s laughter.
What’s your poison? (Favorite drink.)
A Brooklyn that uses Amaro Nonino. I don’t know how common that version (or, for that matter, drink!) is, because I have a hard time finding Amaro Nonino, but I had it at The Avenue in Columbus, OH.
What advice do you wish someone had given you?
It is not that no one told me this, but I wish I had heeded this advice: write more. Maybe I wish someone had given me this advice more often or with a more forceful tone. My ever-patient advisor, Ben Caplan, said he had two kinds of advisees: those who wrote too much and those who wrote too little. I was firmly in the latter camp. I was too worried that my thoughts were underdeveloped, and this kept me from producing stuff to get feedback and criticism on. I imagine this advice applies to PhD students. Perhaps others might benefit from writing more, but they should not do so because I say so.
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form here to nominate yourself or a friend.
Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall is an editor at the Blog of the APA who currently teaches philosophy, religion, and education courses solely online for Montclair State University, Three Rivers Community College, and St. John’s University.
