Teaching

I have extensive experience teaching philosophy at undergraduate and graduate levels.

At Washington University in St. Louis, I taught Biomedical Ethics in the Fall Semester.  I am currently teaching Minds and Morals, which examines issues at the intersection of ethics and cognitive science.

While I was at Cambridge, my role as a Teaching and Research Associate involved supervising research essays–including final-year undergraduate dissertations and MPhil coursework.  I also have experience examining both graduate and undergraduate work.

I taught the following undergraduate courses at Cambridge:

  • History and Philosophy of Science, Part 1B (second-year undergraduate):
    • Philosophy of Science (supervising): This course provides an introduction to philosophy of science for second-year undergraduates completing degrees in the natural sciences.  It covers a wide range of topics–e.g., general philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of the social sciences, philosophy of physics, and science in society.  Because many of the students have little familiarity with philosophical thinking, supervising this course also involves teaching writing and reading skills.
  • History and Philosophy of Science, Part II (final-year undergraduate): 
    • The Science and Ethics of Empathy (4-week module, as sole instructor): A course for third-year (final-year) undergraduates that considers questions about interdisciplinarity, integration of evidence, and philosophy of science in practice through consideration of the empathy case.
    • Philosophy of Psychiatry (4-week module, as sole instructor):  This course asks how the study of psychopathology in psychiatry interacts with the study of mind and brain in cognitive science.  What are mental disorders?  How are conceptualisations of mental disorder influenced by culture?  How are they influenced by developments in neuroscience?
    • Theory, Evidence, and Explanation (8-week module, co-taught with Matt Farr): This course (for third-year undergraduates) addresses core questions in philosophy of science, with a focus on metaphysics and epistemology.  What is an explanation?  What is a cause?  What role do models and experiments play in the scientific process?
    • Philosophy of Biomedical Sciences (8-week module, co-taught with Stephen John): A course for third-year (final-year) undergraduates on the epistemological underpinnings of medical science.
    • Confirmation, Observation, and the Nature of Evidence (supervising): A course for third-year (final-year) undergraduates on issues in epistemology and general philosophy of science.
    • Philosophy of Cognitive Science (supervising): A course for third-year (final-year) undergraduates on philosophy of the cognitive sciences, including some material on traditional issues in philosophy of mind and some material on investigative and explanatory strategies in the cognitive sciences.
    • Values, Well-Being, and Policy (supervising): A course for third-year (final-year) undergraduates on questions of value freedom in the sciences, especially as relates to the sciences of well-being.