I love philosophy. Studying it, doing it, and teaching it, those are my passions. I also love mathematics, science, literature, history, and many other things. But I love philosophy more. Bring almost any topic, I will find it interesting.  However, as a teacher, I find it crucial to acknowledge that philosophy, with its reliance on abstract thought processes, is an acquired taste. I take it to be my primary responsibility in class to capture the attention of my students, to engage them, and to inspire them; in short, to make them want to do philosophy. This approach is based on a rather obvious truth about human relations. In the words of Carnegie:

There is only one way under the high heaven to get anybody to do anything. Did you ever stop to think of that?
Yes, just one way. And that is by making the other person want to do it.

There's nothing groundbreaking in this approach, but I have found this basic truth to be the most useful as a teacher. Sure, a good conceptual course preparation is important, but I think the human factor is even more important. We're all in a given classroom at the same time (or maybe we decided to play hooky), and we all have different reasons and motivations for being there, and we all have different backgrounds. Yes, we're all unique little snowflakes, and this is the biggest challenge in teaching. When that is properly assessed, then it's possible to get a great learning experience for everybody!

My teaching interests include (but are not limited to) philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, classical and non-classical logic, decision and game theory, epistemology (esp. formal), and early analytic philosophy. I have taught many other subjects, and I really enjoy it too, to a total of 988 students. You'll find some information on classes I'm teaching below.