Michael Beaty

The problem-oriented approach to teaching first-time philosophy students makes course design simple and makes the course content quickly recognizable to students, yet it fails to challenge them as readers and fails to convey the complex historical and social contexts out of which philosophical inquiry emerges. Presenting philosophical problems without context makes it harder for students to relate course material to their own lives and risks alienating students. In contrast, the authors argue, an interrogative and narrative approach to teaching philosophy facilitates students’ ability to relate personally to philosophical texts and problems. This paper details a course designed by the authors which begins by studying the concept of narrative and subsequently frames the history of philosophy as a story with a setting (the intellectual conversation produced by canonical figures), characters (the philosophers themselves), theme (e.g. the question “How ought I to live?”), and plot (e.g. answers to the question “What is wisdom?”). Simultaneously, in addition to class structures which encourage questions, reading questions are assigned in order to make question-asking central to how students and teachers approach a text. Included are examples of the reading questions, as well as the authors’ method for using these questions and suggestions for how to motivate students to use them.