Teaching and Learning > DISCOURSE

On Teaching Political Philosophy through Original Texts

Author: Jerry Spring

Journal Title: Discourse

ISSN: 1741-4164

ISSN-L:

Volume: 5

Number: 1

Start page: 83

End page: 106

Return to vol. 5 no. 1 index page

In this paper I report on a project that is successfully introducing second-year university students to political philosophy through reading, discussing and writing about classic texts. Three features make this project worth discussing: first, the students involved are non-native speakers of English, studying at an English-medium university in Turkey, and so the context is challenging; second, the teaching is carried out through two paired courses (one for English and one for philosophy)—i.e. the project design is somewhat unusual; third it presents a case of text-based philosophy teaching which, as Crome and Garfield (2003: 4) note, has hardly been touched by the literature on teaching and learning philosophy.

After explaining the origins and design of the project, I will consider its implications from two perspectives: as a way to teach philosophy (or to teach students to philosophise) in a particular context; and as a way to encourage curriculum and instructor development through interdisciplinary collaboration. My overall conclusions are that this project supports arguments made elsewhere for text-based teaching of philosophy and that it shows how a transdisciplinary curricular innovation can benefit students and instructors.

1. Origins and design of the project

The project originated when the Rector of Bilkent University asked instructors from the School of English and the Department of Political Science to design a new course in political philosophy for students in the departments of Political Science and International Relations. His two main stipulations were that the students should be exposed to unabridged classic philosophy texts in small discussion-focused classes, and that the course should lead to further development of students' academic skills, including English. At this time, the first question to be asked was whether the idea was feasible, given the context and the student profile.

1.1 An unpromising site for text-based Philosophy teaching?

For several reasons this project appears to be challenging. First, most of the students are emerging from an authoritarian education system1 that tends to develop students expecting to learn 'right answers' to everything, that provides insufficient encouragement to any other forms of learning except memorisation, and that encourages a strongly hierarchical relationship between instructor and student. This state of affairs is further reinforced in higher education by the role of YÖK, the Higher Education Council2. This context matters—both generally, and specifically in relation to Philosophy. Regarding teaching and learning generally, the context in Turkey is one that Freire (1970) characterised as a 'banking' or transmission form of education. If however education should help an individual develop autonomy through the ability to think in critical and principled ways then a transmission mode is likely to be harmful because of the kind of instructors and teaching it creates and consequently the kind of learners and learning it creates.

Ramsden (1992) provides a useful framework for considering these issues. Regarding instructors and teaching (ibid, chapter 7), banking education encourages a 'theory one' view of teaching: the instructor knows the truth and can unproblematically transmit this into 'ignorant' students' minds in one standard way. This in turn encourages a 'surface approach' rather than a 'deep approach' (ibid, chapter 4) in students in which they tend to rely on unreflective, unengaged, unintegrative strategies of memorisation (Trigwell et al, 1999). Ramsden stresses that these two approaches do not reflect personality traits, but are rather responses to educational experiences. We frequently see these responses in Turkish university students, who tend to be most comfortable (and very capable) when rote learning and regurgitating straightforward information or procedures and least comfortable when asked to deal with ambiguous problems or evaluate. Students regularly report experiences of teaching and assessment that suggest that a theory one view of education is strong in Turkish higher education.

Now even if it might remain possible to defend a transmission mode of education for some topics in some subjects in some contexts, philosophy teaching and learning surely ought to be its antithesis. Various definitions of the aims of philosophy courses stress the importance of developing both higher level reading, thinking and communication skills and also a questioning and sceptical disposition or attitude (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, 2000; Cowley, 2001; Sellars, 2002: 126; Taylor, 2003: 47-51; Carusi, 2003: 111-117, Kezar, 2004). It appears that a philosophy course must involve doing philosophy, rather than just hearing about it. In Ramsden's terms, this calls for a deep approach to the subject from students and therefore a thoroughly constructivist3 'theory three' approach to teaching (see also Suddaby et al, 2002), in which:

teaching, students, and the subject content to be learned are linked together by an overarching framework or system. Teaching is comprehended as a process of working cooperatively with students to help them change their understanding. ... Teaching involves finding out about students' misunderstandings, intervening to change them, and creating a context of learning which encourages students actively to engage with the subject matter. (Ramsden, 1992: 114)

Although there is already teaching and learning that follows these approaches in my institution, to establish a new course on this basis, given the Turkish educational context, still represents a significant challenge for both students and instructors.

The second apparent challenge is that at English-medium universities in Turkey, many students unsurprisingly have difficulty studying high level content in a second language. If, further, this content is presented through long texts in antiquated English, we can expect particular problems with reading (Mann, 2000; Francis and Hallam, 2000)4. The third possible challenge is getting students whose major is not philosophy to see the interest and relevance of intensively studying difficult philosophical texts and issues.

Two final challenges are general ones of establishing successful curricular renewal in any higher education context. First, as Terenzini (1999) points out, although research on student learning and effective teaching can provide valuable suggestions about how we can improve higher education, what actually happens in practice often fails to take note of this advice. Second, because this project involves inter-disciplinary collaboration there is the potential for various kinds of misunderstandings and clashes of interest between the groups involved. These include not just the English and philosophy instructors, but also the students, the departments being served by these courses and the university administration.

However, the challenges faced by this project are at the same time urgent justifications for making it happen. First, the university involved explicitly aims to undo some of the unfortunate effects of students' previous educational experience and to develop more autonomous critical thinkers who are less in thrall to authority and are potentially more intrinsically motivated lifelong learners. Second, as explained above, the effects of the educational system not only impinge on students—they influence instructors too. The project described here seeks to challenge this situation and set an example for Turkish education. Finally, the project represents an opportunity to develop second-year students' academic skills beyond that enabled by the academic English courses provided to all first-year students at the university.

1.2 Design of the project

The project (which has been running now for over five years) has the following features. First, students read unabridged versions (or English translations) of classic works related to political philosophy. In both semesters there are two required books, and a choice of three from six others5. Depending on the focus of the philosophy course, students may be required to read all or parts of each book. Second, students are expected to do philosophy with these texts (rather than merely hear about them from a lecturer) through small discussioncentred classes (originally about 15 students, but now as many as 25). Third, the project challenges students' thinking, speaking and writing skills through its approach to teaching (including tutorials) and assessment (primarily extended drafted essays, presentations, participation in class discussion and open-book exams). Fourth, the project is built around two paired courses where students receive three fifty-minute lessons each of academic English and philosophy with the same students placed in each pair of classes. The academic English and philosophy instructors are then expected to closely coordinate, with the intention that students develop relevant skills and knowledge through experiencing the texts first in their English class, before going on to work further on them with their philosophy lecturer.

For the English instructors, this design creates the opportunity to work again with students on their language and academic skills in a way that, because of the raised linguistic and cognitive challenges, has credibility (rather than seeming to be just more of the same English language teaching they experienced previously). For the philosophy instructors, it creates a more rigorous and effective scaffolding system to support students' struggles to deal with difficult ideas in difficult English, thereby leaving more time for philosophical discussion. The instructors involved have reached broad agreements on parameters such as the aims of each course, which texts must or may be used and which forms of assessment should be used (e.g. a minimum of two drafted essays with tutorial support), and have then developed their courses and collaboration between courses within these limits.6

2. Evaluating the experiences of the project so far

I base my comments in the following sections on information gathered from various sources: formal and informal interviews with English and philosophy instructors; informal interviews with students; quantitative course evaluation data provided routinely by students for the university; qualitative evaluation data provided by students comparing their experience of having different instructors in the two semesters; observation of philosophy classes by two instructors; course documents, web pages, teaching and assessment materials requested from instructors; and my own experiences as a instructor and coordinator of the English course. For this paper, I will focus more on the philosophy than the English course, but this is not to imply that one has been more or less problematic or successful than the other.

2.1 Course designs, teaching and assessment practice

On both sides, instructors have varied in how they have implemented the project. On the philosophy side this variation has followed seven main dimensions: first, the extent to which a instructor-centred lecture approach has been abandoned in favour of the intended discussionfocused seminar approach; second, the extent to which class activity is structured around pre-determined forms and content versus the extent to which it emerges out of discussion in a particular lesson, or with a particular philosopher; third, whether the instructor's view tends to dominate discussion or whether students' views are given more chance to emerge and be critiqued; fourth, how much of each text and how many different texts each instructor attempts to cover; fifth, how much the instructor believes the students need to know about the historical context of the text in order to interpret it (see e.g. Thomas, 2005 on this issue); sixth, the extent to which assessment discourages a surface approach to learning (e.g. as is risked with reading or lecture comprehension quizzes) and instead encourages a deep approach through more open-ended, integrative and evaluative tasks (primarily essays); seventh, the extent to which instructors have adopted a process approach to supporting essay writing through drafting, feedback and tutorials.

On the English side this variation has followed four main dimensions: first, the extent to which the instructor has been able to gain students' trust in dealing with the philosophy texts; second, the extent to which instructors have managed to avoid providing 'warmup' philosophy lessons through reading and discussing the texts and instead have managed to provide opportunities for students to develop knowledge and skills—both general and specific—for dealing with each philosopher's style of writing; third, whether the students' views are allowed to emerge and be critiqued rather than the instructor's reading dominating; fourth, the extent to which assessment tasks have developed higher level reading, thinking and communication skills rather than low level comprehension of texts.

One difference between the two sides is the extent to which the ideas in the texts are applied to current affairs in Turkey. In some implementations of the English course, the class activities and assessment tasks quite regularly refer to Turkish politics and social life. The philosophy instructors tend to be more suspicious of this approach as being potentially distracting from working on the texts philosophically in themselves.

2.2 Approaches to collaboration

The success of the teaching partnerships has also varied greatly. At one extreme, the partners have merely exchanged syllabi at the start of the semester, met perhaps once, and then communicated if at all by email or (unfortunately) using students as messengers and couriers. At the other extreme, the partners have become team instructors with each appearing in the other's classes as often as possible, with constant communication, and with an agreement to deal with different parts of the texts in the two classes so as to maximise coverage. Between these two points are various degrees of collaboration and communication to ensure the two courses cover the necessary parts of the texts in tandem and that problems with teaching and student progress are dealt with quickly. The partnerships have varied a lot in how closely the English instructor is expected to cover the same (parts of) texts as the philosophy instructor. Several partnerships have made use of mutual observations of each other's classes. For a time, several partnerships had students write essays to receive feedback and course marks first from the English instructor and, after further revision, from the philosophy instructor. However, as an assessment practice, this created problems due to the differing interpretations of the essays by the partners, and because of the problems caused by tending to artificially separate linguistic and organisational feedback from content and argument feedback.

From informants on both sides, a repeated and unsurprising comment is that the success of the collaboration depends on both the interpersonal skills of the partners (in particular their abilities to respect, trust, listen, negotiate and compromise with each other), and their skills as instructors. If one side of the teaching is not successful it tends to harm students' attitudes towards the other side. Conversely, successful English lessons appear able to prime students for intense text-based philosophical discussions both linguistically and, perhaps more critically, in their motivation to engage deeply.

The main point of conflict has been trying to define where (if anywhere) the boundary can be drawn between dealing with texts from an English language and academic skills perspective versus a philosophical perspective. For the philosophy instructors it is naturally problematic if the English instructor behaves as a wannabe philosophy lecturer; for the English instructors, versed in the Content Based Instruction approach (see e.g. Brinton et al, 1989; Brinton and Master, 1997), it is problematic to expect high level language and academic skills to develop except through serious engagement with academic content (i.e. the ideas in the philosophy texts).

2.3 Effects on students and student learning

Students generally have a positive attitude towards the courses and claim to be learning from them. To the extent that they are valid and reliable data, mean student grades suggest successful learning in both courses. Instructors themselves report that students improve in both English and philosophy courses, particularly in writing. Official student evaluation ratings are generally at least as high as for other required first and second-year courses, which is heartening considering the relative difficulty and intensity of both courses. Where a particular group of students have given low ratings, this has consistently been due to problems with an instructor that the group has found uncaring, unfriendly or aggressive. On the other hand, the data also reveal that a minority of the students do not enjoy the courses and/or do not learn from them. Our initial fear that most students might find the overall teaching and assessment approach hard to deal with has not been confirmed. Rather, many students have particularly enjoyed the chance to discuss ideas in small classes, to feel that their ideas are taken seriously by the instructor, and to receive extensive feedback, both written and oral, while working on their essays in both courses. In other words, evidence of a theory three approach to teaching seems to be reciprocated in a deep approach to learning—at least with some students. It is possible too that this project has been fortunate enough to have started in an era in Turkey's development in which existing authoritarian social norms, including educational, are for various reasons facing rejection from a significant proportion of a young and increasingly aware student population (see e.g. Kinzer, 2001, especially chapters 6, 7 and 8).

From the perspective of the English and philosophy instructors, we can identify three main groups of students. One small group shows significant, sometimes dramatic, development both in skills and in adopting a philosophical stance. In their writing and speaking they begin to appropriate, not just mimic, the discourse of philosophy (Bartholomae, 1985). A larger group makes gains too, to the extent that these students cope successfully with the demands of the course, and hopefully (because this has not been formally measured) take away certain skills and attitudes that will help them in later courses. For both these groups, the philosophy instructors comment that it is when they retain the same students for two semesters that they see, towards the end of the year, the clearest shifts in students—most notably improvements in the philosophical quality of their writing. In terms of thinking, we see some of the changes described by Perry (1970, 1981), including a move from dogmatic certainty through relativism towards a constructivist principled approach to ideas. A final group fails to cope, sometimes for reasons unconnected with the demands of the particular courses. For some of these students, however, it is the design and teaching of the courses themselves that are the problem: we are currently unable to help them deal with the challenge (especially of reading), whether it be a skill related or a motivational issue. This might reflect a theory two approach, in Ramsden's terms. Instructors recognise the need to design activities for learning, but have not taken the next step of recognising (or being able to act on a recognition) that subject, activities and students interact in complex ways requiring varied, flexible and individualised strategies from the instructor.

Overall, however, we find that at least the first two groups of students are able to deal with the texts, the discussions and the assessment tasks. One reason for this is the level of support they receive through the two courses, in particular the process of reading and discussing texts in class in response to guiding prompts (e.g. comprehension questions, application, synthesis and evaluation questions, or tasks to identify premises and conclusions). They are able to reach coherent understandings and develop informed critical views of the ideas and arguments. Another reason is the collaborative atmosphere, the sense of community of the classes fostered over the paired courses through group work, and the instructors' own struggles sometimes to make sense of the texts. That is, the reading process is difficult but not so face-threatening—an important factor in student motivation (Francis and Hallam, 2000: 312-313; Seifert, 2004). This is not to say that students do not adopt strategies to ease the difficulty— some turn to simplified or summarised versions on the Internet, or to Turkish translations. Interestingly, in the latter case they often realise that the problem was not language per se but the difficulty of (the expression of) the ideas, whatever the language.

2.4 Effects on instructors and teaching

Whilst part of the variance in student response to the courses can be attributed to differences that students bring with them to the course, another part can be attributed to the extent to which different instructors successfully adopt, in practice, the theory three educational philosophy encouraged by the project. My impression is that this has challenged some of the philosophy instructors due to their relative lack of pedagogical training compared to the English instructors. The project rejects the view that the instructor can enter the classroom, present a prepared lecture or implement a prepared activity, and then leave with the assumption that students should have learned. Once classes are organised around collaborative reading, interpretation and evaluation of texts then it becomes almost impossible for the instructor not to realise that each class is a unique educational experiment of the instructor's design, and that learning is a complex constructive rather than additive process. Certainty disappears, and we are forced in class into 'thinking on our feet', with a responsibility to reflect before, during and after action (Schön, 1983).

However, this carries significant potential costs to the instructor. Martin and Luekenhausen (2005) for example discuss the anxiety that comes when a instructor radically deepens his conception of teaching and the subject matter he teaches. As Argyris and Schön (1974) have argued, we tend to behave in ways that maintain certain 'governing variables' (e.g. anxiety, self-esteem, workload) within some acceptable range. In a process of 'single-loop learning' we adopt 'action strategies' that maintain our internal balance. For an instructor to move from a theory one to a theory three view of education requires 'double-loop learning' in which certain governing variables are allowed to change—which can be costly, particularly in a context where the philosophy instructors are required both to teach excellently and carry out publishable research.

One factor that appears to have triggered this kind of learning in this project is its inter-disciplinary nature. Specifically, the philosophy instructors have collaborated over a sustained period with English instructors who have significantly greater formal pedagogical training. The organisational culture of the English group includes norms of more regularly reflecting on, and publicly discussing, aims and objectives, course design, teaching and learning activities, assessment tasks and criteria in great detail. Of these, it appears that assessment criteria in particular have acted on some philosophy instructors as a 'threshold concept'; that is, a concept that has transformative, integrative, probably irreversible effects on a learner, whilst at the same time being 'troublesome' (Meyer and Land, 2005). When an instructor first comes across the notion of explicit assessment criteria (or more simply explicit pedagogical reflection generally) and then tries to set down what he requires from students, in an essay for example, it opens (for a theory one instructor at least) a Pandora's box of issues. It tends to mean the instructor has to reflect on the objectives, course design and teaching and learning activities that supposedly justify demanding a certain level of performance specified in the assessment criteria. It implies a need to problematise all aspects of teaching, to develop an 'explicit professionalism' (Harvey and Knight, 1996: 72), and to recognise a responsibility for student learning—hence it may well be troublesome7.

This is certainly not to imply however that the philosophy instructors in this project have been heroically rescued by English instructors from some pedagogical cave of ignorance. Rather, I have presented my interpretation of how instructors have developed in somewhat crude terms for the sake of clarity and brevity. In their attitudes, almost none of the instructors fit Ramsden's theory one description—my interpretation is that the inter-disciplinary nature of the project has provided a mechanism to link those attitudes to developing practice. This seems to confirm well Cranton's suggestion (1994: 742) that we think of the professional development of higher education instructors as a case of self-directed and transformative adult learning: 'a process of faculty becoming aware of their assumptions about teaching and revising these assumptions based on critical self-reflection'. And the English instructors too have undergone analogous experiences. In their case it has been experiencing the rigour of reasoning that philosophical education can provide. In particular, this group of instructors has developed a much greater awareness of argument in essay writing compared to other English instructors in the institution. In particular, their approach to teaching, giving feedback on and evaluating student essay writing has moved away from a focus on rhetorical templates (e.g. the 'comparecontrast essay') towards what, for example, Martinich (1996), Erion (2000) and Cowley (2001: 47-48) suggest. The collaboration then has been useful in both directions.

2.5 Organisational effects

While the preceding sections have focused on effects on individual instructors, they already hint at the cultural effect on instructors at a group level, in particular the fostering of norms of greater communication, collaboration and judicious pedagogical standardisation within and between the two groups. In rejecting managerialism, Harvey and Knight (1996: 70-72) distinguish two forms of collegiate culture in higher education: 'cloisterism' and 'new collegialism'. The former they criticise as secretive, isolationist, individual, defensive, traditional and wary of change, producer oriented, clinging to power, elitist, using implicit quality criteria, and seeing the instructor as an information provider. The latter they praise as open, networking, team working, responsive, innovative, oriented towards students and participants, empowering, welcoming change, accessible, using explicit quality criteria, with the instructor as a facilitator of active student learning. From my previous discussion, the parallels between these cultures and teaching theory one and teaching theory three respectively are, I hope, clear. Whilst we might see these categories as too crudely drawn, through my work with instructors across my institution, I have seen many of the features of the former and, unfortunately, fewer signs of the latter8. The current project however has encouraged many of the instructors involved to adopt or maintain features of the second culture.

As with the effects on individual instructors, I believe this is in large part due to the project setting two rather distinct teaching cultures to work together. However, it is also the way that this project has developed that has allowed this tension to be productive. In particular, it has operated more as an 'academic' collaborative research project than as an instance of 'managerialist' (Harvey and Knight, 1996: 68-70; Taylor, 2003) organisational change. Creamer (2004), for example, has analysed collaborative research projects and concludes (p.569) that five factors increase the likelihood of success: first, the members should have 'comparable levels of expertise in overlapping, but distinct areas' without large status differences; second, interpersonal relations and dynamics are important for allowing constructive negotiation; third, differences of opinion should be expected, valued and openly discussed; fourth, project members are responsible for asking for and giving feedback; fifth, there needs to be both enough time and suitable settings for quality conversations and exchange of opinions.

As I hope I have already illustrated, these have largely been realised in this project. For example, I have already stressed how the two sides usefully brought different (though overlapping) knowledge and skills to the project, and how extensive communication between instructors is encouraged by the paired course design. Additionally, regarding the first factor, an early decision was made that the two sides must consider each other as equals (although institutionally and in academic requirements, the philosophy instructors have a higher status). This has proved to be an important norm in terms of valuing the opinions of both sides in discussions. Although not all collaboration has been successful, the project has achieved a climate somewhat like Harvey and Knight's new collegialism, and largely avoided the 'contrived collegiality' that Hargreaves (1994: 81) warns against as being not only 'controlling and manipulative' but also 'superficial and wasteful' of instructors' energies.

My understanding from talking to other instructors is that the project has crucially avoided being seen as stemming from some alien (and alienating) academic management fad, whose fates are well documented by Birnbaum (2000)9. It seems to have encouraged curriculum and instructor development in a way that 'official' development initiatives tend not to be able to do (Welsh and Metcalf, 2003; Allen, 2003), partly I believe because the leadership approach on both sides has generally been congruent with what the instructors would prefer. Kekäle (1999), building on Becher's (1989) categorisation of 'academic tribes', presents evidence that certain disciplinary perspectives coincide with preferences for different styles of leadership. Although it would require further investigation, it seems reasonable to suggest that in this project there is a preference for a soft, democratic and emancipatory approach rather than a hard, efficient, result-oriented style of leadership. And this has generally been the style adopted throughout the course of the project with concomitant benefits for the organisational climate and instructors' willingness to take on professional development.

3. Support for a text-based approach to philosophy teaching?

Finally, I would like to turn to two important questions for this project: the first is whether it makes the case for a philosophy course that is solely seminar-based. I tend to agree with Cowley (2001: 45) that lectures are particularly inappropriate for a subject 'which by its nature is an intimate and interactive discipline which cannot be easily conveyed through space'. Some other possible roles (see e.g. Hawley, 2002: 90) for a lecture of helping to organise the week's study, give an overview or raise questions in students' minds seem to me to be equally achievable now through course websites or handouts. For every hour spent in a lecture, the students lose one hour in the more intense context of a discussion-based seminar. Given what the authors I cited earlier in 1.1 consider as being essential philosophical skills and attitudes, it seems we should maximise the time spent in small group classes. More generally the students I teach spend a lot of time in other courses that are predominantly lecture based, so the philosophy and English classes may be the only time in the week that students have any chance to discuss at length and in great depth. Thus, we have also this reason to promote the (hopefully transferable) skills and attitudes that can result from these kinds of classes. Finally, I would claim that although lectures can be extremely well done they are more likely than seminars to promote a transmission approach to teaching. In our context, even where the instructor attempts to make the lecture interactive there is the risk that students will be intimidated from participating in a large lecture group. I should note however that not all the philosophy instructors I spoke to agree with these views; some saw a valuable role for lectures (if done well).

Turning to the second question, we need to ask whether, to the extent that the philosophy course is benefiting students, it is doing so because it is text-based (rather than, for example, issue-based). Is there something particular about a text-based approach to Philosophy teaching that encourages a theory three approach to philosophy teaching and a deep approach to philosophical learning? This matters because if there is no advantage in making students sweat through pages of abstruse English prose then we are wasting their time. Carusi (2003: 113) argues that 'pedagogically, the most important thing a lecturer can do for her students is to get them to do philosophy' [italics in original]. The question is whether or not doing philosophy needs to be based around texts.

Among the philosophy instructors, views differ. Some think the text-based approach is critical; others think an issues or concept based approach could also work. In fact, from class observations I learned that instructors naturally slip between text-based and issue or concept-based foci, and varied quite widely in the balance between time spent on textual analysis and time spent on ideas abstracted from the text. From the students' perspective, some appear to enjoy the reading challenge—and creating challenge (coupled with appropriate support) is an important factor in encouraging a deep approach to learning; other students simply seek to avoid what they find to be the excessive, meaningless and alienating reading demands of the courses.

Despite this somewhat mixed reality, I would still like to suggest that there are good reasons to prefer a primarily text-based approach for the students I teach, and perhaps more widely. In this I draw on some of the ideas of Ross, Garfield, Crome, Saunders and other participants from a 2003 workshop entitled 'Teaching the reading of primary texts', part of the Future Discourse Conference organised by the Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies (July 1-2, 2005). Further discussion can be found in Crome and Garfield (2003, 2004).

Common to all the descriptions of the aims of philosophical education I cited earlier are those of teaching students to analyse other people's arguments carefully and themselves argue well partly through self-reflection about the soundness of their own arguments. In order to analyse we first need to read others' arguments well (whether spoken or written). As MacDonald Ross (2003) emphasises, close philosophical reading is a difficult discipline-specific skill that the instructor needs to model in class and to support and guide as students attempt to read. In my context at least I believe it is an important educational moment when the instructor publicly becomes another (sometimes uncertain) interpreter of text. Of course verbal discussion (e.g. issues based) is also a text to be read. But I agree with Garfield (2003) that there is something particularly effective about the presence of authentic written philosophical texts in class. What students often find as they struggle together in class with a text is that philosophical writers are themselves struggling to make meanings clear. Regarding the writing process, it's another important moment as students see that even famous philosophers have to set down their ideas on paper when they are still not fully formed. As Carusi argues (2003: 106), this struggle with representation is central to philosophy and it is when students get this that they are learning 'to recognise a philosophical problem' [italics in original]. I believe text-based teaching is a key trigger.

The value of having some classic text as the focus of discussion is further seen as the instructor helps students to analyse and find weaknesses in the argument. The problem sometimes with a philosophical discussion based on students' arguments about an issue is getting them to take each other seriously enough or to be sufficiently adversarial. By contrast, from classroom observations I see students can be particularly motivated as they see the arguments of some famous philosopher start to come apart at the seams. And where preserving face is important, it is useful that while students may well be disagreeing with each other and the instructor in their interpretations, at base the target is something else—the text.

Garfield (2003) offers three (not necessarily competing) theses of text-based philosophy teaching: the 'very weak thesis' is that it is part of a general aim of getting students to read primary rather than secondary texts; the 'weak thesis' is that the text is 'contingently useful' as a starting point or focus for philosophical discussion; the 'strong thesis' is that there is a 'fundamental relation' between reading primary philosophy texts and doing philosophy. In the Turkish context too, all three are good reasons for using primary texts, and it is certainly encouraging to imagine that this approach can have such multi-level effects. Indeed I would like to add two further perspectives. First, as an English instructor, long, difficult primary philosophy texts provide excellent material for building a course to advance students' linguistic and academic skills. This dovetails with Cowley's point (2001: 42-43) about using philosophy courses to develop what he terms students' 'secondary' (i.e. general academic) as well as 'primary' (i.e. philosophical) skills.

Second, as someone involved with professional development, I find that text-based teaching can encourage an intensely reflective approach to teaching and learning. From close analysis of interviews enquiring into whether and how the experience of teaching changed instructors' conceptions of both teaching and the subject they teach, Martin and Lueckenhausen (2005) develop five metaphors of teaching which they label courier, builder, navigator, expedition leader, and pioneer. The latter metaphors are associated with the greatest reflection on teaching, learning and the subject itself. Regarding our courses, the question this study raises is whether certain designs of teaching encourage particular ways of thinking about teaching. I would suggest that whilst an issues-based course can undoubtedly lead to an exploratory, flexible approach to teaching, the simple material classroom presence of the words of primary texts that have to be confronted in all their complexity appears particularly able to produce a catalytic effect towards deeper ways of thinking about philosophy (and academic English) teaching.

4. Final comments

So where does this leave us? I hope I have demonstrated that it is not only feasible, but also advantageous to apply a text-based approach to philosophy teaching to the Turkish higher education context. Admittedly this is achieved through the support of the paired English course—but I hope I have also shown that the pairing of the courses is a valuable mechanism for further raising students' general linguistic and academic skills. Finally, I hope I have shown that important benefits have accrued to the instructors involved in this project, particularly through its inter-disciplinary nature.

There are however many questions still to answer. I recognise that my case for text-based teaching is not based on particularly strong evidence—it is certainly not based on any controlled educational experiment. Given that there is some variability in the way different instructors structure their courses and individual classes, it would be useful to investigate more thoroughly possible relationships between this variability and student outcomes.

Organisationally we need to reach some greater measure of agreement on assessment criteria and standards. As I have already argued this will have the benefit of drawing out fundamental issues about philosophy and philosophy teaching. As Sellars (2002, 118) points out, 'metaphilosophical questions should always be in the background of any pedagogical research. For how can one determine how best to teach philosophy if one does not first decide what philosophy is?' This process may either lead to descriptions that are sufficiently thin for all philosophy instructors to subscribe to, or an acceptance that there have to be differing but thicker descriptions for different instructors. There is a need to establish a system of classroom observation, particularly peer observation. On the English side the unit manager routinely observes each instructor once a semester, and occasionally peers also observe each other, and this could usefully be expanded. To my knowledge, on the philosophy side there is no peer observation, which seems a missed opportunity for instructors to learn from each other.

As instructors, there are various issues to investigate. To give some examples, we need to work on making the essay drafting process more effective for students while not overloading instructors. The suggestions in McDonough (2000) and Werne (1993) seem particularly useful in this regard. Although we know that the more enthusiastic students already choose to discuss philosophy and the texts themselves in their own time, we should also investigate other mechanisms for widening out-of-class discussion (see Hawley, 2002; Carusi, 2003). We need to look more closely at the reading process to identify more precisely what kinds of interventions and activities can best support different students, by combining the insights of both linguistic and philosophical perspectives. Finally, we make no comparisons of our student outcomes with other universities inside or outside Turkey. Given the difficulties some colleagues report getting native speakers of English to deal with primary philosophy texts and write philosophy essays, it would be valuable to compare our students' products with theirs.

References

Endnotes

  1. See for example, Article 42 of the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey: 'Training and education shall be conducted along the lines of the principles and reforms of Atatürk, on the basis of contemporary science and educational methods, under the supervision and control of the state. Institutions of training and education contravening these provisions shall not be established. ... No language other than Turkish shall be taught as a mother tongue to Turkish citizens at any institutions of training or education. Foreign languages to be taught in institutions of training and education and the rules to be followed by schools conducting training and education in a foreign language shall be determined by law.' See http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/anayasa/constitution.htm.
  2. See for example, the following articles from The Law of Higher Education. Article 4: 'The aims of higher education: a) To educate students so that they: 1. will be loyal to Atatürk nationalism and to Atatürk's reforms and principles, 2. will be in accord with the national, ethical, human, spiritual and cultural values of the Turkish Nation and conscious of the privilege of being a Turk, 3. will put the common good above their own personal interests and have full devotion to family, country and nation, 4. will be fully conscious of their duties and responsibilities towards their country and will act accordingly, 5. will be objective, broad-minded, and respectful of human rights, 6. will develop in a balanced way, physically, mentally, psychologically, morally, and emotionally, 7. will prove to be good citizens contributing to the country's development and welfare and at the same time acquire the necessary knowledge and skills for their future vocations.' Article 54: 'To those students whose behavior on the premises or otherwise is incompatible with the character and dignity of higher education students; who directly or indirectly restrict the freedom of learning and teaching; who violate the peace and order of institutions; who participate in actions such as boycotts, occupations and obstructions; who encourage and provoke such actions; who assault the person, the honor and the dignity of the personnel of higher education institutions; who behave disrespectfully; and who participate in anarchic or ideological actions or encourage and provoke such actions, penalties will be given including warning, reprimand, suspension for a period between one week and one month, or for one or two semesters or expulsion from higher education institutions, even though such conduct involves another offence.' Amendment 3: 'Foundations are not permitted to establish educational institutions or units involved with military or security (police) matters.' See http://www.yok.gov.tr/english/law/content.html. I should note however that reforms are under way at all levels of education in terms of curriculum and instructor training.
  3. See Carusi (2003: 96-110) for a useful brief description of constructivist principles in relation to Philosophy learning, and Dabbagh (2005) for a useful comparison of constructivist to other approaches.
  4. I should note however that from presentations and discussions at the Future Discourse conference organised by the Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies (July 1-2, 2005), it appears that some colleagues teaching native speakers of English face more difficulty in getting their students to read classic philosophy texts (see also Fishman, 1989: 362, Garfield, 2003). One possible explanation is that a native speaker of English might be more frustrated by antiquated English than a non-native speaker of English, who might simply see it as just one more difficult foreign language text.
  5. Fall Semester: Plato, Republic and one of Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics and Politics, plus any three from Plato, Five Dialogues, Thucydides, On Justice, Power and Human Nature, Cicero, On Duties, Aquinas, (CUP edition of) Political Writings, Augustine, City of God, and Machiavelli, (Hackett edition of) Selected Political Writings. Spring Semester: Hobbes, Leviathan and Bentham and J.S. Mill, (Hackett edition of) The Classical Utilitarians, plus any three from Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Rousseau, (Norton edition of) Political Writings, Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of the Morals, Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, Marx, (Viking's edition of) The Portable Karl Marx.
  6. The following course websites currently provide further information on course objectives, and examples of teaching and assessment materials: for English, http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~spring; for philosophy, http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~wigley.
  7. I am using the idea of a threshold concept to discuss instructor learning, but it has more usually been used to consider student learning (see for example Davies (2003) on identifying threshold concepts in Economics). As far as I know, no research has yet been done for philosophy. One instructor I asked suggested it might involve recognising a commitment to truth-seeking, epistemic norms.
  8. Wright (2005) provides an interesting study of differing degrees of communication and shared views about teaching in various departments at a US research university.
  9. For example, Briggs et al's (2003) search for cases of 'continuous planning' in higher education departments draws extensively on imported management terms like TQM (or its academic equivalent CQI), when it seems to me they could equally describe the processes involved through the language of research, familiar to academics.

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This page was originally on the website of The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies. It was transfered here following the closure of the Subject Centre at the end of 2011.

 

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