Читать книгу This Is Metaphysics - Kris McDaniel - Страница 11

0.36 As the section title indicates, I’ll briefly say some things to instructors who are considering whether and how to use this book in their classes. Given how I’ve pitched the book, I believe that it can be used in introductory philosophy classes, either as the sole text or as a text that you use along with others. It would also be useful as a text in an upper‐division metaphysics class, especially if it is coupled with contemporary articles that go into more depth or present contrasting points of view.

0.37 The latter is particularly important. I have written this book to be an engaging introduction to a variety of metaphysical issues rather than as a treatise advocating the positions that I think are definitely correct. This book succeeds as a textbook to the extent that it provokes students into thinking about metaphysics in a productive way. In my own teaching, I have found that it is easiest for me to use a text that is interesting and provocative but often mistaken (from my point of view) in the positions it defends. I have tried to give you a book that your students can enjoy wrestling with, and that maybe you can enjoy correcting as well. For this reason, I have opted for a conversational writing style rather than presenting the material with excruciating rigor.

0.38 I have also chosen to throw a large number of arguments and ideas at the reader rather than selecting a smaller subset and engaging more rigorously with those. In my experience with teaching undergraduate classes, no topic resonates with—or captures the interest of—every student in the class. But, unless I am extremely unlucky, every student finds at least one topic fascinating. More topics covered equals more opportunities to grab a student’s attention. You as the instructor can then elect which of the topics covered you want to discuss in more depth, perhaps based on your students’ reactions to the readings.

0.39 Instructors will also notice that this book is not as modular as some other introductory philosophy books. I have chosen a less modular approach largely because I believe that, in general, metaphysical claims connect in intricate and important ways with other metaphysical claims, and that it benefits a reader to see this. Metaphysical questions are very hard to answer conclusively, but this isn’t because there are no answers to them. Rather, one reason they are hard to answer is that while attempting to answer one metaphysical question, you almost always end up having to answer many others in the process. Probably we will never run out of metaphysical questions to answer.

0.40 At the end of each chapter is a section titled Doing Metaphysics that contains further questions that the student might be wish to ponder or the instructor might wish to discuss in class. This section also contains recommendations for further reading.