Courses
Teaching Philosophy:
My courses focus on texts and the philosophers who wrote them. I teach ancient and early-modern philosophy, which are closely linked in many important ways. For example, the early-modern philosophers such as Bacon and Descartes held up Aristotle as the straw man to be demolished by a new philosophy of nature. In the Enlightenment political philosophers such as Montesquieu and Rousseau turned toward ancient models, especially Sparta and republican Rome.
All my courses have some historical content, and I provide students with context for the readings. I believe that a text-based approach is important as it allows students to experience the integrity of a philosopher's thought, which may be a new experience for many of them. Furthermore, the texts we study have their own history, and a number of them have a played a formative role in historic events, e.g. Locke's Second Treatise (in the American Revolution), Rousseau's Social Contract (in the French Revolution) and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (environmentalism).
I also seek to link the works of past philosophers with the world today. For example Aristotle's Athens bears some striking resemblances to Hong Kong and both cities face one common issue: what is the good life and if citizens wish to attain it, how would they go about doing so? Both are ports and city-states; both live in large part from overseas trade. These similar circumstances make Aristotle's observations about the good life particularly provocative - should a city be concerned only with amassing wealth, or should it cultivate other values?
Courses taught:
Aristotle
Text: The Politics and Constitution of Athens
Early-Modern Philosophy
Key texts: Shapin, The Scientific Revolution, Bacon, The New Atlantis, Descartes, Discourse on Method, Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Pascal, Pensées
Rousseau's Philosophy
Key texts: Confessions, Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, On the Social Contract
Philosophy of Nature
Key texts: Genesis, chs. 1-2, Descartes, Discourse, pt. 5, Singer, Animal Rights, Carson, Silent Spring, Des Jardins, Environmental Philosophy, Ferry, The New Ecological Order
Philosophy of the Enlightenment
Key texts: Mandeville, Fable of the Bees, Diderot, "Definition of an Encyclopedia," d'Alembert, "Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot," La Mettrie, Machine Man
New course:
Theories of the Social Contract
Key texts: Hobbes, Leviathan, Locke, Second Treatise on Government, Rousseau, On the Social Contract, Rawls, A Theory of Justice
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