Teaching

University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

PHIL 5209: Mathematical Methods for Philosophy (Fall 2021)

Mathematical methods are increasingly used not just in logic and the philosophy of mathematics, but also in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and even in moral and political philosophy and the philosophy of religion. This course introduces some of these methods, such as sets, graphs, automata, and probability and decision theory, explicitly and through example applications.

PHIL 8670: Replication and Reproducibility (Fall 2021)

This seminar will be on reproducibility and replication in science. Drawing from sources in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science, we will investigate questions such as: Why, or under what circumstances, is the replication of an experiment or the reproducibility of its result important in science? What scientific role do these concepts play? How are they defined? Then we will turn to a contemporary malaise, sometimes called the “replication” or “reproducibility crisis,” afflicting especially parts of the psychological and biomedical sciences (and perhaps beyond) over the past decade. We will discuss, for instance: What, exactly, is this crisis? Is it a real problem for science? How can we measure its extent? Are its causes to be found among the statistical methods commonly used? Or in the incentives within science towards fraud, questionable research practices, and publication and other biases? And, how might we intervene on these causes or otherwise act to resolve the crisis? This part will also draw on scholarship by scientists working in the fields affected by the crisis and the community self-identifying as “meta-scientists,” who apply tools from statistics and the social sciences to study scientific institutions. [syllabus] [UMN website]

PHIL 1001: Introduction to Logic (Spring 2021)

This is an introductory course in formal logic, covering syntax, semantics, and natural deduction for sentential and predicate logic.

PHIL 4605/5605: Space and Time (Fall 2020)

This cross-listed undergraduate/graduate seminar explores a geometric perspective on how ideas about the structure of space and time have developed in the course of Western natural philosophy.

PHIL 3601W: Scientific Thought (Fall 2019)

This course is a writing-intensive survey of 20th-century philosophy of science.

PHIL 5202: Symbolic Logic II (Spring 2019)

This second graduate course in first-order logic concerns metatheoretic results about the limitations of that system, and the profoundly influential theory of computability that made them possible.

PHIL 8670: Physical Perspectives on Computation, Computational Perspectives on Physics (Spring 2019)

This graduate seminar surveys some of the many philosophical, historical, and scientific connections between theories of computation and theories in physics. It’s based on the book of the same title that Mike Cuffaro and I edited. Check out the syllabus or, for those with a UMN account, the class website on Canvas.

PHIL 8670: Philosophy of Statistics (Fall 2015)

This graduate seminar surveys a number of central philosophical and conceptual issues in statistics. Check out the syllabus or, for those with a UMN account, the class website on Moodle.

University of California, Irvine

PHIL/LPS 29: Critical Reasoning (Summer I, 2013)

This is a 6-week intensive introduction to some of the informal and formal tools of logical analysis. Check out the syllabus or the class website on EEE for the lecture slides, homework assignments, worksheets, and answer keys.