The Philosophy Teaching Library is a new teaching resource created by Wes Siscoe and Paul Blaschko. The Library is a collection of introductory primary texts, excerpted texts that include commentary, illustrative examples, and detailed argument breakdowns that help boost student comprehension and situate the work in its historical and philosophical context. Here, we ask Wes and Paul about what inspired their work on the Library, as well as how they see this resource growing in the future.
Q: Why The Philosophy Teaching Library? What was the motivation for creating it?
Wes and Paul: It began with observing a common experience. When picking readings for classes, many philosophy professors (us included) struggle to find readings that are pitched at the right level. On the one hand, it would be nice for students to read some of the seminal texts in philosophy; in an introduction to ethics course, for instance, it would be ideal to read a bit of Aristotle, a bit of Kant, and a bit of John Stuart Mill. But once you start digging into what exactly to read, things get a bit tricky. If you just assign full passages of the Nicomachean Ethics or the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, it is going to be very difficult for students to get a lot out of that on their own, especially if this is their first philosophy class. So even though it might be best in a certain sense for students to read the primary text, very few will even make it through the assigned reading, and those who do might not have retained or understood very much.
The Philosophy Teaching Library allows students to read portions of the primary text itself with plenty of guidance along the way, making it a resource that professors can assign to first-year students with the confidence that those who read will be well-prepared for a class discussion the next day.
Q: Tell us more about the readings that make up the Library. You call them “introductory primary texts.” What exactly does that mean?
Wes and Paul: We landed on the “introductory primary text” name in a roundabout way. At first, we were thinking of just calling them primary texts with commentaries, but that is a little bit misleading. The primary texts that students will read in the Library not only have commentary, but are also excerpted, including the most crucial passages and quotations. So the primary texts are more introductory in that sense. We provide links to the full text of the various works, but the readings themselves only contain parts of it. To see how this interplay between excerpted primary text and commentary works, you can check out some of the following pieces:
- The Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, and Book II
- W.K. Clifford’s The Ethics of Belief
- Aquinas on Faith and Reason and the Five Ways
- Descartes’ Meditation I and Meditation II
- Plato’s Apology and the Allegory of the Cave
Q: How confident are you that the Library will serve as a valuable resource for philosophy instructors? There is a lot of start-up work to create a website like this without knowing how it will be received.
Wes and Paul: The inspiration for the Library comes not just from what we mentioned before—how challenging it is to select readings for first-year students—but also from work that was being done by Paul and the team working on God and the Good Life course at the University of Notre Dame. It was this class, and its course website, that served as an incubator for the introductory primary text format.
God and the Good Life originally started experimenting with the combination of commentary and excerpts of primary text. And even though the readings on the God and the Good Life course site were targeted at Notre Dame students, instructors at a number of other institutions started using them as well. This collection of pieces currently receives over 5,000 visitors per month during the academic year and provided the proof of concept that something like the Library could be widely used by philosophy teachers.
At the same time, despite the fact that other instructors are already using the God and the Good Life website in their own syllabi, the fact that all these readings are embedded within different places on the course site has made it difficult for a broader audience to find and access these articles. Because of their popularity with instructors, we want to have a single digital platform, with the ultimate aim of building up an extensive library of readings that are easily searchable by philosophical tradition, time period, and topic so that they can be found by instructors, students, and the general public.
Q: I see you have around fifteen readings currently in the Library. What is your plan for adding more in the future?
Wes and Paul: Moving forward, we will have an open submission system much like an academic journal. Authors will submit pieces that will then be evaluated through peer review, with reviewers recommending that pieces be rejected, accepted, or revised.
Because the Library is a unique resource, though, there are a couple more steps as well. Those who are interested in contributing should first email us at philosophylibrary@nd.edu to see if the primary text they would like to write on is available. We might have a piece in the works behind the scenes, so we wouldn’t want an author to spend a lot of time on something we ultimately already have. And after confirming that a primary text is available and submitting a piece, authors will also go through an editorial review step to make sure their piece fits our unique format.
For those who would like to write for the Library, you can read more about the submission process on our website here and review our formatting guide.
Q: Is there a point where you plan on charging individuals and institutions for using the Library to support the website and the editorial work that goes into creating it?
Wes and Paul: The Philosophy Teaching Library is an open educational resource, and all of our agreements with our authors make this clear, so no, we do not plan on charging for access. That of course leaves open the question of how the financial side of things will work out, and we are currently seeking funding through a number of different avenues that will help us continue to build the library in perpetuity. At this stage, we received a grant from the American Philosophical Association to support our web design and the creation of a logo, and we look forward to identifying future sources of funding.
Q: I see a couple of pieces that I might want to use in my classes right away, but I also want to hear about future readings that are posted on your website. How do I stay connected?
Wes and Paul: There are a few options for following the Library. If you want to get new releases straight to your inbox, you can sign up for our twice-yearly newsletter on our Subscribe page. You can also follow us at a variety of places on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and Bluesky.
Wes Siscoe
Wes Siscoe is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University. He is also Editor-in-Chief and a Founder of the Philosophy Teaching Library. His research has appeared in Mind, Noûs, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Philosophical Studies, Philosophers’ Imprint, and the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, amongst other venues, and his work has been supported by a number of fellowships, grants, and awards, totaling over $100,000 in external funding. His work on public philosophy has been featured at the Prindle Post, and he is also a pedagogy contributor at the Blog of the APA, the Daily Nous, PEA Soup, the Philosopher’s Cocoon. His research revolves around several themes – rationality, language, and virtue – and their importance for accounts of human excellence and achievement.
Paul Blaschko
Paul Blaschko is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, where he teaches courses he’s designed on big questions and the philosophy of work. He recently co-authored a book published by Penguin Press about how philosophy can help us live better lives, and his new book on work and the good life will be published by Princeton University Press in 2025. Blaschko directs a program in Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters devoted to exploring how the humanities can help us find meaning in work, and regularly consults with professors across the country about how to create better, more innovative philosophy courses. Embarrassingly, perhaps, he also does quite a bit of philosophy of TikTok.
