It is highly likely that I'll be teaching an upper-division philosophy of western religion class in the Spring semester of 2007. Since I've never taught the class before, I am trying to work out how I would approach the course. (I am getting started very early!)
First, should it be a class driven by lecture or discussion? I believe that a course of lectures will help give focus to the class. We will be able to cover specific issues in the philosophy of religion in as much time as I allow. Students comments may be more pointed because they will have had a chance to read it outside of class and hear it in class. The lectures will sacrifice the student's interests for my own.
Discussions will permit the students' interests to drive the course's content. I will be able to outline what I would like to cover in the course, but the discussion will regulate how much time I will allot to each topic. Discussion will sacrifice focus.
Second, how should I cover the topics in the philosophy of western religion? Since it is a western religion class, I will only cover the topics that come up in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I could approach the class in one of two ways. On the one hand, I could cover it by topic, and, on the other hand, I could cover it historically. (There are probably other ways of teaching the class, but I've not thought about them.)
If I choose to do a topics-oriented class, then I think it is natural to cover the topics in the following order: the nature of God, Arguments for God's existence, the Problem of Evil, and Immortality. I have always been interested in each of these topics, and I think that students would be very interested in them as well.
If I do a historically-oriented class, then I think I would focus on medieval Christian, Jewish, and Islamic thinkers. For example, I might have students read Augustine, Aquinas, Maimonides, Avicenna, Averroes, and (possibly - if I'm feeling a bit fruity) Meister Eckhart.
The possibilities are endless for this class, and I'd like to hear what others have to say about teaching the class.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Finding Religion
Posted by Joe at 6/08/2006 05:56:00 AM
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9 comments:
It all depends upon what you want. Do you want a broad but superficial coverage or some more narrow but detailed studies? I prefer a few representative figures you study carefully but in class you go on tangents to how they relate to their eras.
Say pick a particular text of Augustine, of Anselm, and then Eckhart. Then say do a lecture on Monday and assign students to raise question on the reading and lecture. Then go through their answers on Wednesday and have other students critique it. (Not all classes can function that Socratically, but I really like it when they do) Then you can use Friday to resolve these issue and tie them up.
I'd go topical over historical. To do the historical approach any justice would take a lot of work on your part. It's just too easy to do injustice to medieval thinkers when you're not a specialist. Most competently trained analytic philosophers could teach undergraduates contemporary philosophy of religion with a little extra reading. I also think the topical approach is good because it lets you introduce the work of more contemporary thinkers to the students. This helps show that we are part of a living discipline with active research programs. If you want a mix of classical and contemporary readings you might try Peterson, Hasker, et al's anthology Philosophy of Religion, but I think Pojman's anthology has a better selection of contemporary readings.
I go for lectures with some discussion. You'll have to lecture some because there is going to be a lot of nuance that the students just aren't going to pickup on. I like room for discussion, but in a course like this the discussion can go on forever. I think one of the difficulties of teaching such a course is managing a discussion where issues run so deep for the students. Your topical selection looks good, but I might add issues like pluralism, miracles, and faith vs. reason. When I took this course the instructor started out doing a number of topics. Towards the last couple of weeks he selected a single book on the argument from evil for us to read and examine more closely. This gave the class an bit of depth that is sometimes lacking in survey courses.
I'd also be interested to hear how this class goes. I know that you live in a very religious area. When I talked to one of your colleagues he reported that some traditional problems in philosophy of religion can be hard to motivate for the dominate religion in your area.
I think it depends in part on whether your school offers a philosophy major and how likely it is that any of them will every take any more philosophy.
To the extent that it is likely that there will be many philosophy majors then to that extent I think you need to expose them to more contemporary stuff. To the extent that they're not, then to that extent I suggest sticking to the classics.
Personally, I have grown to despise broad, shallow surveys. You never really end up knowing anything about anything. I think it is far better to pick just a handful of topics--two to three--and dig a little deeper. This is really the only way they get to practice the skills of analysis, critical thinking, etc. by actually applying them to something rather than basically just memorizing bullet points which are bound to be superficial. Do we really need more people who are mislead by broad sweeping generalizations?
W.r.t. topics, I think what the average students needs more than anything else is a section of Faith and Reason. The fideistic hegemony must be challenged (and the few rationalist students could stand to read a bit of Pascal).
Next to that I think the problem of Evil is the issue that can get people motivated.
I think the best text *by far* is Pojman's. He's got the most extensive section on faith and reason and he did a great job excerpting and introducing actual historical sources.
If you want to use something besides readings, I really like _Reason and Religious Belief_ by Peterson, Hasker, Reichenbach and Bassigner. I think they've got an anthology to go with it now which would make a *really* sweet combo (and their paperback, so not insanely expensive).
I personally use almost exclusively Socratic method, but I've been doing it for years and was born to do it. It depends on your comfort level, but I'd recommend reading up on it to try to use it as much as possible (just reading Plato doesn't count! :-)~
Mortimer Adler has written some good stuff on it. I've found that requiring 75 word reading responses--just capturing their thoughts which the reading "brings up" really helps, because you can just ask random people to read theres or even ask them to hand them in anon (as long as they have the maturity to handle this) and then read them and discuss them.
Good luck!
Hey Clark,
Thanks for the comment!
Hmmm... WRT your first question, I think an argument could be made either way.
The upper-division course is the only one of its kind in the department. A philosophy of western religion class should survey the issues in the area. A survey sacrifices depth for breadth. So, the course should be taught in a way that surveys the topics in the area.
We could also argue to a different conclusion. Given that it's the only course of its kind in the department, the course should focus on a few issues. It should focus on a few issues so that students get an in-depth knowledge of specific areas in the philosophy of religion. So, the course should sacrifice breadth for depth.
(I think the university's curriculum course description permits both of my interpretations.)
Per your suggestion, I am very keen on picking a few particular texts. I would be very interested in teaching a course which devotes some time to Anselm's _Proslogion_ or Augustine's _Confessions_.
(One of the things I have to keep in mind is that the focus is "western religion," construed broadly, and I will have to accommodate other religions than just Christianity. If I remember correctly, there's a decent abridged version of Maimonides's _Guide for the Perplexed_ from Hackett and the works of Avicenna (or Averroes?).)
I also like your idea of maneuvering a Socratic move into the classroom, particularly in the way you suggested! It seems very beneficial for the instructor and students.
Right on!
I'd go topical over historical. To do the historical approach any justice would take a lot of work on your part. It's just too easy to do injustice to medieval thinkers when you're not a specialist. Most competently trained analytic philosophers could teach undergraduates contemporary philosophy of religion with a little extra reading. I also think the topical approach is good because it lets you introduce the work of more contemporary thinkers to the students. This helps show that we are part of a living discipline with active research programs. If you want a mix of classical and contemporary readings you might try Peterson, Hasker, et al's anthology Philosophy of Religion, but I think Pojman's anthology has a better selection of contemporary readings.
I go for lectures with some discussion. You'll have to lecture some because there is going to be a lot of nuance that the students just aren't going to pickup on. I like room for discussion, but in a course like this the discussion can go on forever. I think one of the difficulties of teaching such a course is managing a discussion where issues run so deep for the students. Your topical selection looks good, but I might add issues like pluralism, miracles, and faith vs. reason. When I took this course the instructor started out doing a number of topics. Towards the last couple of weeks he selected a single book on the argument from evil for us to read and examine more closely. This gave the class an bit of depth that is sometimes lacking in survey courses.
I'd also be interested to hear how this class goes. I know that you live in a very religious area. When I talked to one of your colleagues he reported that some traditional problems in philosophy of religion can be hard to motivate for the dominate religion in your area.
Since this is the only course of its kind, my inclination is that a broad survey, even if it sacrifices some depth, might be more appropriate. While I assume that most of the students who will be taking the course will have had some exposure to the "basics" (i.e. things like the ontological argument and the problem of evil) in introductory courses, they probably aren't as aware that philosophers also discuss issues such as the various divine attributes, the espistemological issues surrounding religious belief, questions about religious toleration, etc.
My thought is that by covering a good number of these areas, students who find any particular one especially fascinating can pursue it further, perhaps as an independent study or in the context of other related philosophical issues for which more in-depth courses might be offered.
In my own experience, it was a single lecture on divine eternity in my first phil of religion course as an undergrad that got me interested in that area, and even though I didn't have the chance to go especially deep into that topic in that particular course, it led me to explore general issues in the philosophy of time, which fed back into divine-eternity questions, and so on.
So, my thought is that since it is the only course of its kind being offered, the best thing to do is to make the course as broad as possible (while still maintaining an adequate level of depth, of course). Of course, this will permit the use of a good deal of historical texts (continuing my personal example, my interest in divine eternity was sparked by reading Boethius) although I gather this is in a different sense than you had in your post.
Personally I would do arguments for the existence of God and the Argument from Evil first, then discuss the nature of God.
The questions about the nature of God often arise for the students from these first two areas, so it makes pedagogical sense for this area to follow the others.
I'd definitely consider adding a section (maybe 1/3 of the course) on contemporary religious epistemology. I suspect that many of the students in the class will be theists (and those that aren't will probably be avowed atheists), so religious epistemology would seem appropriate (i.e. are you rational when you believe that God exists). It also seems like an easier question to answer than some of the ontological questions concerning God's existence/non-existence (not to say it's easy).
Thanks one and all,
You've provided me with plenty to think about for the course. Your expertise is greatly appreciated.
There were a few things that stuck out among the comments:
Matthew has suggested I add a further topic like religious pluralism, miracles, or faith v. reason. All of these would be tremendous additions, and I think I'd be most comfortable adding faith v. reason, given my background.
Matthew and Trent seem to concur that Pojman's anthology is one of the best introductions to contemporary issues in phil. religion. I've received a review copy of the book, and I'm looking into it now. If I had to teach the class starting tomorrow, I'd probably use Peterson et al (b/c I'm more familiar with it). But since I don't have to start teaching it now, I can take my time on making my decision.
I concur with Mike S. that the content of the course has to broad enough not to lose the students' interest.
David's suggestion for the order of topics seems very appropriate, though I have seen a text - Rowe? or Cahn? - that does a fine job using questions of the nature of God to motivate arguments for the existence of God and (subsequently) the problem of evil.
Finally, Justin's suggestion to include topics in religious epistemology *would* be very interesting indeed since I'll be teaching the course in an area of the country dominated by particular theistic views. (I grew up in Boston, so I'm familiar with growing up in a homogenous religious culture.)
Thank you everyone for commenting. I will periodically blog on the progress I'm making in developing the course. And, in the Spring of '07 (if I'm not pulling the hair out of my head from completing my dissertation), I'll be blogging quite a bit on the course itself.
I'll check in at Prosblogion too! I see there have been many fine comments there too!
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