James

I have a PhD in philosophy, specialising in the philosophy of psychology. Besides this, I have extensive teaching experience in areas of philosophy such as ethics, critical thinking, and philosophy of mind.

Tutoring Experience

• Teaching Assistant: ‘Introduction to Metaphysics and Epistemology’ - 1st Year course, semester 2, 2022.
Course involved running seminars and marking essays and exams on basic introductions to classic issues such as acquiring knowledge, and implications of causation.
• Teaching Assistant: ‘Ethics’ – 2nd year course, semester 2, 2022.
Course involved running seminars and marking essays on key ethical terms that people ordinarily use, like goodness, wrongness, dignity, promises, etc.
• Teaching Assistant: ‘Introduction to Ethics’ – 1st year course, semester 1, 2021-2022.
Course involved running seminars and marking essays and exams on a general introduction to ethics, but also including some general work on how to study philosophy at university.
• Teaching Assistant: ‘Critical Thinking’ – 1st year course, semester 1, 2021-2022.
Course involved running seminars and marking essays and exams on general principles of critical thinking, plus introduction to propositional and predicate logic.
• Teaching Assistant: ‘Philosophy of Mind’ – 2nd year course, semester 1, 2020-2021.
Course involved running seminars and marking essays on theoretical and practical issues in the philosophy of mind, including basic introductions to some non-Western philosophy of mind, such as one’s sense of self and the nature of personhood. The course was taught fully online.
• Teaching Assistant: ‘Ethics’ – 2nd year course, semester 1, 2019-2020.
Course involved running seminars and marking essays on both the practical application of ethics and the theoretical philosophy involving it (e.g. material on normative, practical and metaethics).
• Teaching Assistant: ‘Critical Thinking’ – 1st year course, semester 1, 2018-2019.
Course involved running seminars and marking essays and exams on general principles of critical thinking (including preparing students for general university academic practice), plus introduction to propositional and predicate logic.

Tutoring Approach

I like to focus on improving my students' skills at reading and understanding philosophical texts. Philosophy is about thinking and analysing, not just learning information, so I like to provide my students with the tools to extract the most out of what they read: the goal is such that they can form their own opinions on the matters at hand.