Within the Spring of 2022, I had the honour of educating a capstone course for senior philosophy majors on the College of Alabama at Birmingham. What distinguishes a capstone course from a traditional course? Is determined by this system and who you ask, in fact. However I feel it’s uncontroversial to say this: capstone course ought to comprise content material that’s at a complicated degree and a considerable task the place college students show the talents they’ve acquired and developed in (often a number of) earlier philosophy programs—resembling a analysis paper.
As I considered how you can design my first capstone, I stored fascinated about that phrase “superior degree.” What ought to advanced-level course be, notably for philosophy majors? It shouldn’t solely be about assigning more durable readings or having them be taught extra subtle ideas, though it ought to contain a few of that. Ideally, I assumed, a capstone will really feel like a payoff of doing the foremost within the first place. Then I ended fixating on the phrase and remembered one thing vital: “Wait, I’ve been educated to do philosophy at a complicated degree! What experiences shaped my idea of what that appears like?” My first reply was fast: grad college. May I create a course that resembled my greatest graduate seminars however is appropriately tailor-made for undergraduates? If I may, then my capstone can be an advanced-level studying expertise, such that skilled philosophers may have a look at the course and certain affirm, “Yep, that’s the way you be taught to begin doing philosophy at a complicated degree.” In order that’s what I endeavored to do.
I selected “Loss of life and Immortality” as my course subject for a number of causes. One, I had slightly expertise within the space. I don’t imply that I’ve died earlier than, and I’m not really immortal; sorry to disappoint! The expertise was working as a analysis assistant for a Templeton grant on these matters some years in the past. (It was referred to as The Immortality Venture, and it was led by John Martin Fischer (UC-Riverside). You may be taught extra about it at this website.) Two, the philosophy of dying and immortality is an enchanting space of philosophy in that it offers with debates that straddle three of the foremost areas of philosophy usually: metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Consequently, it may accommodate a spread of scholars with completely different philosophy backgrounds and doubtlessly fill in gaps of their studying: college students who had extra M&E from earlier programs may get extra publicity to worth principle, and vice versa.
To recreate the seminar expertise, I needed to be very deliberate in my course design. I additionally wanted slightly luck, and I bought fortunate on a number of counts. One was that I used to be assigned a state-of-the-art classroom that had wheeled tables as an alternative of desks. The tables may very well be simply moved—so a number of college students and I’d arrive to class early and rearrange the tables within the form of an extended “convention room” desk, like so many people had in grad college. One other fortuity was that the category dimension was small, solely 15 college students. Our class conferences have been like most grad seminars: collaborative but rigorous, a wealthy and energetic group dialogue (more often than not) the place the scholars are growing good questions and insights and really feel like they’re doing philosophy with the professor and their friends, moderately than the professor speaking at a gaggle of scholars from an elevated place. Even when a professor is humble and personable, we should not overlook that we’re elevated by default if we’re standing whereas college students are sitting. That notion of elevation could get amplified when the one standing has letters (Ph.D.) that signify authority. To not point out college students’ notion of the professor as an authority determine! Generally professors should stand due to class dimension, room design, and to maintain a lecture energized, however in my expertise, all these constructions have an effect on the educational expertise, typically for in poor health. We want to concentrate on them to assist college students get probably the most out of philosophy programs.
My college students liked the seminar format. Some college students stated it made them really feel like they have been doing extra “genuine” philosophy. Two features of the curriculum facilitated this consequence, I feel:
- The knowledgeable displays. Though it’s price solely 10% of the course grade, this task calls for that college students hone their philosophical expertise. All through the semester, I assign college students a paper or e book chapter for which they are going to be our “resident knowledgeable.” Then there’ll be one assembly the place they’re scheduled to herald a handout summarizing their studying in about 600-700 phrases—the writer’s foremost query, thesis, argument, and likewise a number of questions for dialogue. The scholars don’t give a proper presentation; they sit on the seminar desk and do many of the speaking. The expectation is that they’ll get our dialog going for the assembly they’re scheduled, and since they’re a resident knowledgeable on the piece, we could name on their experience afterward if their writer/subject comes up in dialog once more. This retains the preparation and participation degree excessive. A number of of my grad professors—Robin Jeshion (USC), Erich Reck, and Carl Cranor (UC-Riverside)—used a way like this. It was instrumental to me studying how you can distill complicated, summary writing, and likewise what immersive mental exercise calls for.
I did two issues to assist college students prepare for the knowledgeable displays. First, I gave them a template, which I’ve included with my syllabus. (I’ve additionally included a schedule so you possibly can see how you can manage the task.) Second, for sophistication conferences the place no knowledgeable displays have been scheduled, I’d make a 1-2-page handout on the week’s studying to guide the dialogue. We did this for 3-4 weeks earlier than the primary knowledgeable presentation. This offers college students sufficient time to acclimate to the seminar format, and to grasp the expectations. By the way, I’ve discovered that bodily handouts allow high quality dialogue in that they scale back the “technoference” of laptops and make college students concentrate on the fabric throughout class!
- Narrative-oriented pedagogy / much less is extra. To turn out to be good important thinkers, I feel it’s vital that college students perceive relationships between concepts—that fairly often, what you consider in a single space has implications for what you consider in one other space. Let’s say you settle for the deprivationist thesis that dying is dangerous as a result of it deprives an individual of future items. It might be a peculiar factor, then, if you happen to stated you additionally settle for Bernard Williams’s well-known argument that human immortality is undesirable as a result of it’d be essentially boring. For Williams, dying isn’t a nasty factor as a result of it offers our lives which means and a definitive ending to our life story, one thing we’d lose if we lived for indefinitely a few years. It’s fantastic to have the ability to defend a single thesis, however arguments don’t stay in a vacuum. Consistency issues. Furthermore, if you happen to can clarify how philosophical tensions could be reconciled, it’s possible you’ll properly have the beginnings of an authentic view. I fear that transient “2-weeks-and-done” items on particular person points, whereas maybe fascinating in their very own proper, discourage deeper understanding.
I do three issues to assist college students discover ways to acknowledge relationships between concepts. First, I plan my studying schedule in order that the transition between matters will really feel pure and seamless. I additionally assign fewer readings that we develop over a number of conferences to make it simpler for college kids to acknowledge the connections between one writer and/or subject and one other. (I’ve taken to doing this in my lower-level programs as properly.) Second, I embody a diagram on the course syllabus for conserving monitor of the course narrative. I name it “world-building” (the thought is modeled on the Jesuit thought of schooling as “world-affirming”). The fundamental thought of “world-building” is to view the course as a narrative of concepts about some subject(s). The story unfolds as we meet, and our class conferences are like chapters within the story. College students preserve monitor of the story by summarizing the principle takeaways of our conferences in every block. We fill in blocks regularly, each few conferences, by doing a fast recap of what we’ve realized. This promotes course engagement and retention, and once more, it helps college students acknowledge the connections between matters and authors. I’ve included clean and filled-in variations of the diagram to provide you an thought of how you can use it. Lastly, I encourage the narrative. I don’t begin by saying, “Hey, right here’s what philosophers have considered dying for a very long time.” As a substitute, I begin by exhibiting that we’ve an empirical foundation for pondering that folks consider that dying is a nasty factor (Terror Administration Idea), then I get into Epicurus’s “dying is nothing to us” argument. The extra the scholar can join the philosophy to one thing actual from the primary, the extra seemingly they’ll stick with the narrative venture.
After all, the category dimension is vital. I’m skeptical {that a} seminar could be achieved successfully with greater than 15 as a result of, earlier than lengthy, the intimacy and pleasure of doing philosophy on the desk with others can be hindered by feeling cramped and having inadequate workspace.
In a future providing of the course, I plan to include extra materials on the position of tradition in our judgments about dying, along with the fabric I already do on Jap views on immortality (emphasizing Hinduism and Buddhism). One limitation of the philosophical literature on dying and immortality is that it’s very Western-centric. Lastly, a extra basic, sensible level: I strongly advocate writing a longish, detailed breakdown of every grade element in your syllabus. These days I obtain only a few scholar emails asking about assignments (as a result of it’s all on the syllabus), which saves me numerous time. However extra importantly, an in depth curriculum helps college students really feel protected, as a result of it exhibits you’re ready.
NOTE: For the whole model of the world-building diagram, in some blocks I’ve used textual content that comes instantly from the assigned readings. As a lot as potential, I’ve tried to incorporate the authors’ names the place I’ve achieved this. Sadly, the blocks are too small to record full reference information. The place I’ve unintentionally omitted an writer’s title, please contemplate it an occasion of truthful use for classroom functions. For full citations, please see the studying schedule on pages 6 and seven of the syllabus.
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Heinrik Hellwig
Heinrik Hellwig is Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Seton Corridor College, the place he teaches programs in utilized ethics and pre-law.
