Teaching
Teaching is a passion of mine. As an undergraduate, I fell in love with philosophy, and I instill this same passion for philosophy into my students. My simple, twofold goal for my students is to make philosophy interesting and clear. I simulate student interest by creating interfaces between the philosophical arguments and what students already care about, such as social, political, and pop cultural issues. I promote clarity by emphasizing simple deductive arguments in classroom discussions and assignments. As a teacher of philosophy, I continually self-assess and strive to improve my pedagogical methods.
Current Courses
- Critical Thinking: Ryerson University, Spring 2021 (100-level, 2 sections)
Have you ever wished you were a better debater? (Who doesn’t like winning arguments, after all?) Or have you ever wondered how to be more rational in your beliefs and reasoning? If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, this class is for you! This course is mostly about two things: arguments and rationality. We’ll cover what an argument is, what makes an argument a good one, and how to determine what argument someone else is making. We’ll also talk about rationality, including what makes a belief rational, some common errors in human reasoning, and how to avoid making them. This class will have three parts. Here are examples of the questions we will cover. (Unit 1: Introduction to Critical Thinking) What is an argument? What’s the relationship between language and truth? What makes a belief rational? (Unit 2: Argument Evaluation) What are the different ways we evaluate an argument? What makes an argument a good one? (Unit 3: Argument Identification and Reconstruction) How do we determine when an argument is being made, and what argument is being made?
- Syllabus
- Link to playlist of lectures
Future Courses:
- Knowledge, Truth, and Belief: Ryerson University, Fall 2021 (500-level)
- Graduate Seminar in Epistemology: Ryerson University, Fall 2021 (700-level)
- Critical Thinking: Ryerson University, Spring 2022 (100-level, 2 sections)
Past Courses
- Knowledge, Truth, and Belief: Ryerson University, Fall 2020 (500-level)
Epistemology is the study of knowledge. Belief and truth are parts of knowledge. But what are the other components of knowledge? How much can we know? Could someone know that God exists? How do other people affect what we can (and can’t) know? This class will have four parts. Here are examples of the questions we will cover. (Unit 1: Knowledge) What is knowledge? What is truth? When is a belief justified? Are there other components of knowledge? Should we even analyze knowledge at all? (Unit 2: Skepticism) Can we know anything? If so, what can we know? Is our knowledge non-existent, very limited, or widespread? (Unit 3: Social Epistemology) When should we believe someone else’s testimony? How does social media affect what we can know? Is it ever okay to believe beyond—or even against—the evidence? (Unit 4: Religious Epistemology) Could someone know God exists? Is it possible to know that God exists without having a good argument for God’s existence? What is faith? Can faith be rational?
- Syllabus
- Link to playlist of lectures
- Permissivism and Disagreement: Australian National University, Spring 2020 (Graduate Foundations Seminar)
- Social Philosophy: Notre Dame, Fall 2017 (200-level)
Humans are social creatures. Social phenomena, such as gender, race, sports teams, music groups, faith, testimony, charity, refugees, pornography are all around us and are a large part of how we understand the world and each other. Social philosophy is the systematic study of philosophical questions that bear on social phenomena, such as the above. While these social phenomena are a significant part of our lives and the world around us, philosophers have devoted less attention to them than to other domains that describe the world. But we cannot know what the world is like without also diving into questions about what the social world is like. The aim of this class is to help students do just that.
- Syllabus
- Introduction to Philosophy: Notre Dame, Fall 2016 (100-level; TA for Jeff Speaks)
Prospective Courses
Service
Ryerson hosts a philosophy of religion works-in-progress group. For more information about the group, see here.
- We are hosting an online workshop on the Axiology of Theism on June 28-30, 2021. ~500 word abstracts should be sent to kraay@ryerson.ca, due May 15, 2021. For more information about the workshop, see here.
- We hosted an online philosophy of religion workshop December 8-9, 2020. See here for more info and a schedule.
Together with other philosophers, I organize the Junior Workshop in Philosophy of Religion.
- We hosted our second annual meeting in March 2020, after the Central APA. The program is available here.
I wrote a list of some tips for succeeding in grad school in philosophy. You can download it as a PDF here, and see it as a webpage here, and view it on Philosopher’s Cocoon here. For related advice on how to do philosophical research, see here.