Preface for Instructors

Learning from Arguments is a novel approach to teaching Introduction to Philosophy. It advances accessible versions of key philosophical arguments, in a form that students can emulate in their own writing, and with the primary aim of cultivating an understanding of the dynamics of philosophical argumentation.

The book contains ten core chapters, covering the problem of evil, Pascal’s wager, personal identity, the irrationality of fearing death, free will and determinism, Cartesian skepticism, the problem of induction, the problem of political authority, the violinist argument, the future-like-ours argument, the ethics of eating meat, utilitarianism (both act and rule), and the trolley problem. Additionally, there is an introductory chapter explaining what arguments are and surveying some common argumentative strategies, an appendix on logic explaining the mechanics and varieties of valid arguments, and an appendix providing detailed advice for writing philosophy papers.

Each of the ten core chapters offers a sustained argument for some controversial thesis, specifically written for an audience of beginners. The aim is to introduce newcomers to the dynamics of philosophical argumentation, using some of the arguments standardly covered in an introductory philosophy course, but without the additional hurdles one encounters when reading the primary sources of the arguments: challenging writing, specialized jargon, and references to unfamiliar books, philosophers, or schools of thought.

Since the book is aimed at absolute beginners, I often address objections that would only ever occur to a beginner and ignore objections and nuances that would only ever occur to someone already well-versed in these issues. Theses defended in the chapters often are not ones that I myself accept. Instead, decisions about which position to defend in each chapter were made with an eye to pedagogical effectiveness.

Instructors will find the book easy to teach from. The chapters are selfstanding with no cross-referencing, and may be taught in any order. The central arguments of each chapter are already extracted in valid, premise/conclusion form, ready to be put up on the board or screen and debated. The chapters also contain plenty of arguments that haven’t been extracted in this way, but that are self-contained in a single paragraph, making for moderately challenging—but not too challenging—argument reconstruction exercises. The reflection questions at the end of each chapter can easily be incorporated into class discussion.

The book can be used in different ways in the classroom. Instructors may decide to take on the persona of the author of the chapter, leaving it to the students to find a way of resisting the arguments—which I have found to be an enjoyable and effective way of teaching the material. Or they may use the arguments in the chapter as a jumping-off point for presenting the standard positions and responses. They may wish to supplement the chapters with the original sources of the arguments or with readings representing competing philosophical positions, possibly drawn from the list of further readings at the end of each chapter.

Don’t worry about Learning from Arguments being too “one-sided.” It’s true that whichever view is being defended in the chapter always gets the last word. But along the way, students are exposed to clear and charitable presentations of the standard objections to the views and arguments advanced in the chapter, and can decide for themselves whether the chapter’s responses to those objections are convincing. Students who need help finding the flaws in the reasoning (or ideas for paper topics) can look to the reflection questions at the end of each chapter for clues about the most promising places to resist the arguments.

Additionally, I think instructors will find there to be significant pedagogical advantages to a “one-sided” approach. When beginners are presented with a full menu of available views, surveying the pros and cons of each, this can sometimes give the wrong impression: that, in philosophy, all views are equally defensible, that it’s all a matter of opinion, and that one can simply pick and choose whichever view one likes best. What the approach in Learning from Arguments emphasizes is that it’s not that easy. If you want to say that abortion is permissible or that people have free will, you have to work for it, identifying some flaw in the arguments for the opposite conclusion. In my experience, students find this sort of challenge exciting.