Evan Rodriguez, Ph.D.

TEACHING

Plato was right when he showed how epistemic humility can lead to ethical and intellectual growth. Students in my classroom use philosophical texts to develop the necessary skills for understanding an argument’s strengths and limitations, communicating them effectively, and engaging in open-minded inquiry. I include diverse perspectives and focus on engaging content that highlights how philosophy is both practically useful and independently interesting. Students learn to ask important questions, to seek out answers for themselves, and to recognize when the question is not yet settled.

You can find the courses I have taught along with syllabi below. Please see my page on universal design for further reflections on making courses accessible and engaging for all students.

Introduction to Philosophy

This course was developed over multiple iterations at Quinnipiac and ISU. Students learn from a variety of philosophical texts, historical and contemporary, east and west, to gain a broad sense of what philosophical inquiry looks like and why it has consistently mattered across centuries and continents.

Students gain the basic tools of argumentation step by step. I first give students practice in identifying the main conclusion of an argument, we then learn how to locate the premises and reconstruct the reasoning that leads to the conclusion. Only after students have mastered these skills do we proceed to critiquing the argument and offering our own alternatives.

We end with a unit on the relevance of philosophy today. Through this unit and extra credit assignments I encourage students to identify arguments being made by their peers, by other faculty and administrators, and in the news so they can apply their philosophical skills outside of the classroom as well.

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Seeing the Better but Doing the Worse:

Ancient and Modern Accounts of Moral Weakness

I designed this intermediate course to:

(a) give students an in-depth familiarity with a compelling topic in ethics,

(b) highlight connections with other topics in philosophy (action, freedom, rationality) and across other disciplines (psychology, political science, economics), and

David Charles and I co-taught this course through Yale's Associates in Teaching Program. Nine out of twelve students rated the course 'very good' or 'excellent' in an anonymous end-of-semester survey. Four added that it was among the best courses they have taken at Yale.

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Life and Death

ISU philosophy students expressed interest in a course that explores the meaning of life and the significance of death; I developed and taught this experimental course in response. In it we address some of the big questions head-on: How should we live in light of the fact that each of us will die? Is death really the end? Is there anything special about human existence, and is there one best way to live as a result? If we could achieve immortality, would it be worth it? Students come away with their own take on Socrates' dictum about the unexamined life and philosophy's role in living well.

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Theory of Knowledge

This is an intermediate-level survey of epistemology focused on questions about what we know and how we know it. Towards the beginning of the semester we cover contemporary attempts to analyze knowledge, a project that is often thought to have failed. We then take a step back to reflect on the very methods being used to see if they can explain its lack of success. The course is framed by readings on some of the earliest discussions of epistemology both east and west to lend further perspective on where we are today.

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Introduction to Early Modern Philosophy

This course familiarizes students with the themes and methods of contemporary philosophy through the lens of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. We cover canonical figures such as Descartes and Hume as they grapple with the scientific and religious perspectives of their day. We also cover less familiar but equally important figures such as Anne Conway and Baruch Spinoza. The course ends with Kant's bold claim that he has engendered a Copernican revolution in philosophy and a reflection on whether and to what extent we have moved beyond the basic outlook of this period.

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Introduction to Philosophy in Ancient Greece and Rome

Aristotle says that philosophy begins with wonder; this course puts front and center some of the ethical and epistemological problems that inspired the birth of western philosophy. I include readings informed by my own research on Plato's confrontation with the Sophists, the later reception of his method, and the basic lessons they teach us about philosophical inquiry.

A balance of ancient texts and modern commentaries helps students see the ways in which the Greek and Roman world is surprisingly foreign as well as why we keep returning and rereading to better understand our world today.

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Additional Courses Taught

Introduction to Asian Philosophies (Idaho State University)

Philosophical Issues in Religion (Idaho State University)

First-Order Logic (as a Yale Teaching Fellow)

The Elements of Greek Grammar (as a Yale Teaching Fellow)

Happiness, Virtue, and the Good Life (as a Haverford College teaching assistant)

Art and Articulation: Meaning and Intention in the Nuances of Artistic Expression (taught through the Hurford Humanities Center Student Seminar Program)