September 1, 2007

Fifteen to Go

This week it began in earnest. I'm teaching six classes between three institutions, and so far can't quite keep my head straight. I'm plagued with questions like,"How am I going to remember all their names?" and "What did I tell them I would do for the next class?" and "Where am I? What day is it?" I'm expecting things to settle into a rhythm, which will be good. There seem to be a lot of lists around the internets about what everyone is reading. Here's what I'm teaching:

For Intro to Philosophy (3 courses): Ruth Sample, et als, Philosophy: the Big Questions (Blackwell, 2003). This book is a collection of primary sources which I have enjoyed using so far. It's well organized, and covers a lot of ground so I'm looking forward to using it again next semester.

For Language, Logic & Persuasion (1 course): Patrick Hurley's A Concise Introduction to Logic, which isn't all that concise. But it's a good text with a lot of resources for students and instructors. I don't teach a full-on logic course - this is more of a critical thinking/critical reasoning class, so NO PROOFS.

For Ethics (2 courses): I'm back to the trusty old standbys of James Rachels' Elements of Moral Philosophy and Lawrence Hinman's Contemporary Moral Issues: Diversity and Consensus. My students are also reading primary source materials (excerpts only) in metaethics and normative theory.

Fortunately, my Ethics and LLP courses are not new preps - I have the notes already, but the new intro course is proving to be time consuming, although very interesting. It's worthwhile to teach the primary sources (since the students can get it "from the horse's mouth," as it were), and it's a good exercise for me because I have to explain Descartes' ontological argument. There's a whole post somewhere - which I've tentatively titled "Sympathy for the Devil" - about my finally "getting" Descartes. He deserves more credit than I have ever given him, but it's still too bad he was just sitting by the oven and not in the oven.

The downside of this carnage is that I had to drop the course I was taking on movies and history, but I was able to (sort of) replace it with a one-credit internship at the Starz Film Center. I'm doing research (which means I get to watch some films) and writing program notes. It may be that I get to introduce a film or two down the line, but for now I'm content to see all of what the programming end of a film studies degree is like.

This weekend I'm planning to spend cozied up with David Hume, which may prove to make my outlook on life less-than-stellar. There's a reason he played a lot of backgammon and drank his fair share of pints - it's the Enquiry. When there are no metaphysical certainties, the best thing you can do is have a Guinness (or the 18th century Scottish equivalent).

2 comments:

Ted M. Gossard said...

Interesting you mention David Hume as N.T. Wright in his recent book on Scripture, "the Last Word' i think it's entitled, mentions Hume. His glide through philosophers related to the subject at hand was interesting. You get to dwell on that. I don't altogeter envy you, though it must be nice to be able to read and talk about what you're reading for a living.

Becky Vartabedian said...

Hi Ted - I'm finding that dealing with these primary source materials is far more time consuming than I ever imagined. It's nice to be able to talk about the ideas, but not after entire days of attention to them. Right now, it's fairly exhausting, but it is rewarding.