Most of the time, fuzzy and asbtract concepts of research philosophy become very challenging to teach to fresh MS and PhD students. Many students struggle with understanding, particularly in learning the theory of knowledge/epistemology. I would like to know the success stories from experienced colleagues about effective methods of teaching/pedagogy and books well suited for new students.
Thanks
I try to impress upon students that in order for person P to know datum X, then (1) P must believe X; (2) X must be true; (3) P must be either justified (externalism) or warranted (internalism) in believing X. Then it's just a matter of explaining justification and warrant. That seems to be a simple recipe.
A good textbook I've used is Louis Pojman and Lewis Vaughn, Philosophy: The Quest for Truth, 10th ed. (Oxford University Press, 2016). It is a primary source reader.
Yes, Kirk MacGregor's "simple" recipe gives a good overall structure, but the devil is in the details, which rapidly become far from simple, as a glance at the table of contents in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) entry for epistemology will show: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/
(SEP is actually a good resource, with its many associated links and topics.)
My own best experiences teaching epistemology involved these two texts:
1. A. J. Ayer, The Problem of Knowledge. Rather dated now, and a bit dry, but very clearly written, easy to understand, and still a decent introduction. And the various topics covered therein can be further pursued or supplemented with current material using SEP.
2. Chapt. 7, The Problem of Skepticism and Knowledge, in Theodore Schick Jr. & Lewis Vaughn, Doing Philosophy: An Introduction Through Thought Experiments. I think that thought-experiments are a particularly good way of getting a grip on some of the more abstruse aspects of epistemology. (Chapter 1 provides a general explanation of the methodology of thought experiments in philosophy.)
Hello,
The most important thing in teaching the theories of knowledge is to make students aware of the fact that theories of knowledge are influenced and shaped by meta systems and systems dominating the individual scientist. As such, theories of knowledge are subjective and they should not be regarded as absolute truths. Consequently, the methodology inspiring the teaching of theories of knowledge should encompass what Popper calls inter-subjective testability- exposing theories to various tests to see how they stand.In point of fact, a method of teaching theories of knowledge should focus on the credibility and utility of a given theory using falsifiability principle.
Best regards,
R. Biria
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