Teaching Philosophy, 27:3, September 2004 251

How Important Is Student Participation in

Teaching Philosophy?

BROOK J. SADLER
University of South Florida

A traditional form of university pedagogy is familiar to us all: the pro-

fessor, behind a lectern, or pacing in front of a chalkboard, dispenses
knowledge—sometimes with passion and keenness of intellect, some-
times dryly and utterly without interest—to essentially passive students,
who may or may not be furiously taking notes, eager to get it all down,
to preserve the information and insights they have been provided, if
only in fear of the impending exam. This style of pedagogy can serve
(at least) one purpose well: It offers students a clear line of reasoning,
an ordered perspective on the material, and a unified, uninterrupted
narrative, which may display a kind of structural integrity or intellec-
tual cohesiveness, in addition to being straightforwardly informative.
Students often enjoy this pedagogical style. Whether they find the lec-
ture tedious or fascinating and whether they find the professor boring
or thought-provoking, they enjoy the comfort of remaining passive, of
digesting the lecture and their own reactions to it quietly, privately.
I have long rejected this style of pedagogy—the traditional, unidi-
rectional, authoritative lecture—believing that student participation is
important, even vital to effective teaching, especially in the discipline of
philosophy in which discussion with students can be seen as a continu-
ation of a dialogue that traverses the centuries and necessarily extends
beyond the pages of any given text to invite the reader’s response.
Accordingly, dialogue with and among students is at the heart of the
activity of philosophy. However, I have begun to see things somewhat
differently. It is the purpose of this essay to relate why I have come to
embrace the idea that lectures (even at the expense of student partici-
pation) can be more valuable to teaching philosophy effectively than
I had hitherto been willing to grant. I will begin by saying something
about why I have viewed student participation as important and valu-
able, helping to achieve the aims of teaching philosophy in a way that
the traditional lecture seems to neglect. I will devote more space to the
© Teaching Philosophy, 2004. All rights reserved. 0145-5788 pp. 251–267
252 BROOK J. SADLER

argument for student participation, since in so doing I will be laying

out some of the criteria that I believe are central to effective teaching
of philosophy, which will also be used to assess the value of the lec-
ture approach. After making the case for student participation, I will
suggest why I now think that those same aims can often be met, and
perhaps exceeded, by the traditional lecture. In the end, I will advance
the rather unsurprising conclusion that striking a balance between
lectures and student participation is ideal. However unsurprising this
conclusion may be, I believe that the reasons for it are not obvious.
Or perhaps another way to put it is that just because the conclusion is
so obvious, the reasons for it are seldom articulated or considered by
teachers of philosophy.1 Although I won’t make any novel claim about
pedagogy generally—about how theories of teaching regard the value
of both lectures and student participation—I hope that my reflections
here will serve to illuminate what many teachers of philosophy have
experienced. Moreover, I hope to provide a few specific suggestions
that may alter one’s view of the point and purpose both of lecturing
and of facilitating student discussion.
One qualification must be stated right away: My discussion of the
value, point, or purpose of lectures and of student participation is
intended to apply only to undergraduate classes. For reasons I will
not discuss here, I believe graduate classes and graduate instruction
require somewhat different views of the value and utility of lectures
and of student participation.2
I have already intimated one of the reasons that student participa-
tion can seem so essential to effective teaching in philosophy: The
discipline itself may be understood as largely constituted by dialogue
and discussion. A prima facie supporting case for this is easy to gener-
ate. One might begin by observing that Socrates’ philosophizing was
not written, but rather consisted in discussion, and that although Plato
wrote down his own philosophical insights, he did so, with profound
symbolism, in dialogue form. One might go on in this way, depicting
the whole of the history of philosophy in the West as a continuing
dialogue. Though largely abandoning the dialogue as a textual genre,
philosophers since Plato have, often quite self-consciously or explicitly,
seen their writings as contributing to an ongoing dialogue with their
predecessors or their peers. There are notable epistolary discussions
throughout the history of philosophy (e.g., Leibniz and Arnauld) and
notable philosophic friendships (e.g., Sartre and de Beauvoir). Contem-
porary philosophers convene at conferences and carry on philosophic
discussion through correspondence and publications. One might argue
that the design of philosophic writing and argument is to provide and
call forth a response or a rejoinder. Though the image of the philoso-
pher as solitary genius, locked alone in a room with only his thoughts
 STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 253

to rely on, penning masterpieces from the sheer exercise of his own
reason, is a prevalent one, it is also mythic and unrepresentative. 3
Philosophy is essentially dialogue and discussion, even if it is also
(single-authored) text.4 Suffice it to say, prima facie, it is not hard to
see how one may readily view philosophy as centering on dialogue
and thus see a central part of the pedagogy of philosophy as engaging
students in dialogue.
I want to focus, however, on a rather different set of considerations
that may motivate teachers of philosophy to view student participation
in the classroom as important. The first such consideration arises from
the recognition that if students take an active part in the classroom,
they are likely to learn more than if they remain passive before a lec-
turer. As instructors, we are familiar with the challenges of discerning
and summarizing difficult arguments, of precisely articulating elusive
philosophical questions, of accurately conveying the subtleties of texts,
of generating relevant examples and counterexamples, of presenting
and making workable sophisticated and apparently intractable distinc-
tions, of extending or applying an analysis to new domains, of relat-
ing seemingly disparate ideas, of making meaningful and accessible
abstract and recondite texts and arguments. All of these challenging
features of teaching philosophy are the challenges of doing philoso-
phy well, and we recognize that it is through the practice of prepar-
ing our remarks and presenting them to students that we ourselves
master and exhibit the skills at hand. So we know that if students are
likewise forced to articulate a question, develop an argument, imagine
an example of their own, they will also be developing and using the
skills of philosophy—indeed, they will be doing philosophy. Perhaps
an analogy will help: The idea is that practicing philosophic thinking
out loud in the classroom is like learning a foreign language by being
required to speak it in class; there just is no substitute for the actual
exercise of the skill.
The value of students’ exercising their philosophic skills by par-
ticipating in class discussion is a rather general consideration in favor
of student participation, but there are more specific considerations,
tied to the aims of the philosophy instructor. In teaching philosophy
to undergraduates, I have three prominent and interrelated goals, all
of which can be fostered by student participation. First, I hope to get
students to see that philosophic questions and problems have a long
history, which is worth studying and becoming acquainted with (even
when the course is not narrowly understood as one in the history of
philosophy). I believe that when students are made aware of the history
of a philosophic problem, they are more likely to appreciate the depth,
difficulty, and intrigue of the problem. An appreciation of the staying-
power of a philosophic concern through historical time—the way it has
254 BROOK J. SADLER

been transformed through the ages—seems to help prevent students

from foundering on an obstacle quite common to undergraduates: a
casual and dismissive attitude, which crops up when a cursory look at
a philosophic question or argument is thought sufficient to reveal an
obvious answer or rejoinder. When students display this attitude, they
are turned off from philosophy because the subject appears to be a lot
of fuss about problems and questions that are easily answered or argu-
ments that are obviously wrong. When students are required to provide
aloud, in class, counter-arguments to the ones they may so quickly and
silently reject, they are forced to confront the difficulty of generat-
ing successful philosophic arguments and insights of their own. The
comfortable passivity of students listening to a lecture without being
called upon to speak allows them to indulge silently this dismissive
attitude and hence to reject the philosophic enterprise. Getting students
to speak in class, then, can help to invigorate not only their interest in
the history of philosophy but in philosophy generally.
A second of my teaching goals is to help students to develop the
more particular skills of good philosophic thought and writing. Even
when (or perhaps just when) the attitude of dismissiveness is dispelled,
students can easily succumb to a second obstacle to enjoying and en-
gaging with philosophy: frustration. If they start to take the problems,
questions, and texts of philosophy seriously, they may soon begin to
feel helpless in the face of the very formidable history of philosophy
and the very sophisticated arguments and richly informed texts of
contemporary writers; they may feel that it is impossible for them to
participate well or intelligently in the dialogue that they have come to
recognize is constitutive of philosophy. Of course, one way to develop
skill in philosophy is through writing. But the other way, obviously,
is through discussion, by thinking on one’s feet. When students voice
their thoughts and questions in class, they have the opportunity to be
corrected—and I mean not only shown wherein they are mistaken, but
also steered toward new channels, as in “correcting course”—to make
attempts, and to explore possibilities. Naturally, student writing can
similarly be corrected, and it can similarly represent a student’s at-
tempt to wrestle with a philosophic issue and to explore various ways
of engaging it, but in class discussion these things happen in a way
that is so much more immediate and dynamic that it is a palpably dif-
ferent experience. Ideas expressed orally are often more tentative and
malleable. When students voice their thoughts in class, they are often
more amenable to revision or to rethinking what they’ve expressed.
Moreover, class discussion is a communal experience. When stu-
dents express their ideas in writing, typically they interact only with
the professor and this in a very asymmetrical and limited fashion;
whereas, when students must voice their ideas in the classroom, they
 STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 255

are challenged to articulate and to bring into sharper focus ideas that
may have been no more than gut reactions or vague attitudes. In so do-
ing, what was perhaps indeterminate or merely felt (consider how often
students begin by saying, “I just feel like . . .”) becomes more solid,
more specific or workable. Voicing their ideas in class, students are
also immediately challenged to reach beyond what they have privately
considered to encompass the unanticipated responses of the profes-
sor or of other students. Ideas and views that seemed unassailable or
self-evident are often revealed to be hasty, inconclusive, unrefined, or
controversial. And although students do sometimes resent having their
ideas thus revealed, or sometimes feel threatened by this prospect, they
often are excited and delighted to have their ideas taken seriously and
to watch them undergo change as discussion proceeds. Frustration or
inadequacy can be transformed into excitement and intellectual momen-
tum. Once a discussion is begun, if students have an active part in it,
they are more likely to continue that discussion when class is over—in
their conversations with their classmates and in their term papers. There
may be an additional benefit to fostering student participation: Student
writing may be improved since papers may reflect what has preceded
them in class discussion and hence advance further in their arguments
and insights than they otherwise would. Student participation in class
can help prevent students from becoming unduly frustrated and can
inspire them to contribute to philosophic dialogue in writing and in
discussions outside of class with their friends, families, and coworkers.
Speaking in class can carry over into other contexts where students may
be inspired to strike up or partake in philosophic discussion. More than
merely making for better and more skilled philosophy students, class
participation can—and in my experience often does—lead students to
become philosophically engaged in other parts of their lives. Since
so few undergraduate philosophy students will continue with formal
study or practice of philosophy, surely one important goal of teaching
philosophy must be to lead students to engage philosophically outside
the limited context of the university classroom. If student participation
advances this end, its value would seem unquestionable. Thus, not
only does student participation offer students an especially dynamic
means of developing their philosophical skills, it may be the impetus
for continuing to develop these skills outside of class.
My third prominent goal in teaching undergraduate philosophy is
to make the ideas, questions, and positions of philosophy relevant to
students. Students who appreciate the history of philosophy may regard
it only as a curiosity if they do not see how that history pertains to
their current social world or personal experience. And students who
develop philosophic skills in argument, exegesis, or insight, but do
not see philosophic problems as relevant to contemporary, live issues
256 BROOK J. SADLER

and concerns may see their skills as nothing more than an advantage
in playing an odd, elitist, ivory-tower game, a game with which they
may soon become disenchanted and one which they will desert when
they graduate.5
Just how does student participation promote this goal of making
philosophy relevant? When an instructor makes an effort to tie abstract
philosophical ideas and arguments to questions of direct personal, po-
litical, or practical concern, students are often more eager to engage.
Even if they love abstract thought and argument for its own sake
(and what philosopher doesn’t?), when they see such abstraction as
pertinent and meaningful, they are more likely to invest themselves
in their study of philosophy. But no matter how much an instructor
presses the relevance of the philosophical topic at hand, she or he may
fail to impress students. Students tend to view professors as more or
less remote, authoritative, and odd. After all, who becomes a profes-
sor of philosophy? Who talks like that? Who comes up with this stuff?
(These are among the questions I have heard interested undergraduate
philosophy students ask. The questions reveal both students’ curiosity
and fascination with the subject and their tentativeness about being
associated with it.) Philosophy professors usually (always?) seem a
little strange. So, although an impassioned and committed professor
can certainly be inspiring, she may not inspire students to believe that
what she cares about is worth their caring about.
However, when students see that their peers care about the philo-
sophic questions at hand, then—at the risk of sounding sentimental—
philosophy really starts to come alive. The relevance of philosophy
is created or established insofar as other students in the room are
engaged and interested. It is one thing for students to discuss an is-
sue or argue a point with their professor or to be told that something
is important; it is an entirely different thing for students to disagree,
discuss, or argue with their peers, and to generate the importance of
a philosophical disagreement. When students hear each other speak in
class and discover that their classmates, roommates, friends, and drink-
ing buddies differ in their ideas and perspectives, they may begin to
care in a whole new way. Philosophical disagreement, no matter how
sharp, with a professor with whom students have little if any personal
contact or connection, and before whom students may feel inadequate,
may always remain abstract, unreal, or uncompelling. (Perhaps it goes
without saying that philosophical disagreement with a mere text puts
things at an even greater remove for many students.) But the possibility
of sustaining respectful disagreement with one’s friends and peers is
more challenging and more pressing. Student participation, by bring-
ing students into conversation with each other, can serve to bring them
more completely into philosophy, into the topic at hand. The act of
 STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 257

students voicing their ideas publicly and of being seen to be publicly

committed to certain views goes a long way toward making philosophy
relevant, valuable, and important.
The three prominent pedagogical goals I have discussed above are
interrelated. Classes that fail to promote them may fail to engage stu-
dents at all or in the right way. Without an appreciation of their history,
philosophic problems can be too readily dismissed as superficial or
irrelevant; without the appropriate skills to participate in philosophy,
the discipline can seem impenetrable and its problems insuperable;
without a sense of the relevance of philosophic puzzles and positions,
the enterprise can appear as a pointless, even if amusing or challeng-
ing, exercise or clever game. Class discussion with students is a good
way to promote these three goals of philosophy instruction. Students
are not allowed to indulge dismissive attitudes, because they are forced
to articulate precisely their complaints against a historical position or
to advance their own arguments, and in this confrontation, they must
develop the skills that will engage, rather than frustrate, them. Finally,
the act of working through a philosophic problem orally, in discussion
with others, makes the problems of philosophy seem live and immedi-
ate; it helps to establish their relevance, as is demonstrated by the fact
that students often continue their discussions outside of class, if they
have had the opportunity to participate, to get a feel for such discus-
sion and to take an interest in it, in class.
In addition to advancing these pedagogic goals, promoting student
participation can be seen as a way of promoting a certain view of the
professor-student relationship. To give students time to speak in class is
not only to give them an opportunity to learn through the active exercise
of their growing philosophic skills, it is, ideally, a way of respecting
them as people and as interlocutors. Even today, professors too often
maintain that (especially undergraduate) students are to be seen and
not heard. They see their role as professor as primarily authoritative:
Their job is to pass on what they know because they have the authority
to do so, an authority derived both from superior knowledge and skill
and from their having earned their position through various degrees,
titles, and publications. Professors are professors, and students are in
attendance in order to hear what they, vested with the authority to do
so, profess.
Quite apart from the more specific pedagogical considerations in
favor of student participation outlined above, another reason to promote
student participation is to challenge this traditional notion of the in-
contestable authority of the professor and of the requisite passivity and
silence of the student. Some professors seem to have this view of the
appropriate role of students and professors simply because they have
not reflected on it; they merely mimic the same teaching style they
258 BROOK J. SADLER

witnessed as students. But others maintain the view on the grounds that
it is a waste of time for professors to listen to students in class: Much
more can be covered in a lecture, and attentive students can learn more
from listening to lectures. And since students are unquestionably less
qualified, less skilled, and less knowledgeable, their in-class comments
simply take valuable time away from other students who could benefit
more from the professor’s lecture.
There are many things to object to about this authoritarian and dra-
matically asymmetrical view of the relationship between professor and
students. Among them are some fundamental assumptions about how
authority is granted and sustained, what the point of teaching a subject
like philosophy is, and why students choose to enroll in college courses
generally and in philosophy courses in particular. I cannot address all of
these issues here. I want to focus only on a few observations about the
importance of respecting students as philosophical interlocutors, despite
their admittedly inferior skills and lesser familiarity with philosophy.
Certainly, sometimes students’ ideas may be confused or inchoate,
but by giving students the chance to express their ideas, the instructor
is tacitly acknowledging that the effort to articulate one’s ideas and
arguments is worthwhile. Such acknowledgement is deeply important.
If philosophy is to mean anything to students, if it is to inspire them
to address their lives, to confront their social worlds, and to engage in
their work or studies in a reflective and intellectually honest way, they
must see that undertaking the risky and difficult work of expressing
and articulating ideas is something that often begins with vagueness,
uncertainty, ambivalence, and confusion, but can be transformed by
a process of clarification and refinement that is rewarding, and is re-
spected. It is not only too much to ask of students to expect them to
express only ideas and arguments that are crystalline and cogent, it is
the wrong thing to ask of them. It is important that students see that
they can become clearer and more cogent, better informed, more skilled,
and more perceptive, and that this is regarded as worthwhile. To take
students seriously as interlocutors is, in part, to recognize that they
may believe that important ideas and values are at stake in philosophi-
cal discussion, even as they fail to do them justice when they speak.
Indeed, there are stupid questions and stupid comments,6 but unless they
are risked by students and treated respectfully by professors, students
will remain, well, stupid about the matter at hand.
Moreover, though students may lack familiarity with philosophic
terminology or techniques, they nonetheless often have convictions,
serious ideas, creative insights, and well-formed arguments that should
be granted a respectful audience in the classroom. By allowing or even
requiring students to participate in class discussion, instructors rein-
force the idea that what one thinks matters, and this in turn reinforces
 STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 259

the idea that people are responsible for the views they hold. Admit-
tedly, silent, passive students do not always disengage or founder on
the attitude of dismissiveness or the feeling of frustration mentioned
above; sometimes, passive students are quietly enthralled. But when
they do not speak in class, they miss an opportunity to lay claim to their
own thoughts or views. I think it is a fairly common observation that
(sometimes) one doesn’t really know what one thinks about something
until one is forced to try to express it to someone else. Our silence
can be deceptive: We can fail to notice or realize just how inchoate or
incomplete our ideas are if we do not have to work at expressing them
publicly. Such silence also makes it easy to conform to the views and
positions fabricated by others, rather than take responsibility for adopt-
ing an intelligent view of one’s own. I am optimistic that this sense
of responsibility, when fostered in the classroom, carries outward to
other contexts and may even contribute to students’ ethical character.
Recognizing and being sensitive to the fact that when students speak
in class they are attempting to express, often for the first time, ideas
they find important and challenging may help instructors not only to
bring students into discussion but also to encourage intellectual re-
sponsibility. Alas, there are far too few public forums in which such
intellectual responsibility is promoted and practiced.
By taking the risk of speaking publicly about their ideas, students
can begin to see what it feels like to be committed to an idea. Held
only privately, in the safety and comfort of one’s own reflection,
ideas—even when found to be genuinely intriguing—are less power-
ful. When brought into public discussion, especially discussion with
peers, it suddenly becomes more obvious how what one thinks is tied
to how one is perceived socially, how one conducts one’s life, and
what one is committed to in both thought and action. I have already
suggested that although instructors can and do do a lot of valuable
work in guiding and structuring classroom discussions, often the most
powerful and exciting moments arise when students begin to respond to
each other, for that is when they really begin to care about the topic at
hand, when they see that it is not just the remote, erudite, or quixotic
professor who cares about this issue. It is their peers who have the
capacity to surprise them with opposing views and outlooks. It is the
act of speaking in front of their classmates that really gets students
to care and, in caring, to see their own responsibility for what they
think. Once this sense of responsibility is in place, another cardinal
intellectual (and moral) virtue becomes visible—courage; for it takes
courage to express openly and publicly both what one is uncertain
about and what one is committed to. Being able to do this is surely
an intellectual virtue, but also a moral virtue; for, it is a crucial form
of honesty. Far from responding to students’ incomplete or unclear
260 BROOK J. SADLER

remarks with disparagement, ridicule, dismissiveness, or impatience,

professors ought to respond helpfully and constructively, encouraging
students to seize an opportunity to display these intellectual and moral
virtues. To view student participation in this manner is fundamentally
at odds with maintaining the view, sketched above, that it is professo-
rial authority alone that licenses the neglect of student comment and
participation; for, professorial authority is not sufficient to override
or fail to acknowledge the fact that students are rational interlocutors
and agents.
To summarize, this is the case as I see it for encouraging or requir-
ing student participation in class: 1) Arguably, dialogue and discussion
are constitutive of philosophical activity, and so philosophy classes
that do not include such discussion fail to convey something centrally
important about what philosophy is. 2) Like practicing speaking a for-
eign language (as opposed to merely reading it) or playing a musical
instrument (as opposed to merely listening to it or studying musical
theory), exercising philosophic skill in discussion is an essential part
of understanding and doing philosophy. 3) Student participation can
advance at least three pedagogical goals: imparting an appreciation
of the history of philosophy, developing students’ argumentative and
reasoning skills, and conveying the relevance or value of philosophic
thinking. 4) Taking an interest in student remarks and views is a way
of respecting them as rational interlocutors and agents that is consistent
with acknowledging their lesser skill and lesser familiarity with phi-
losophy. 5) Respectfully facilitating student participation can promote
virtues that may be seen as both intellectual and moral, including a
sense of responsibility for ideas, and a commitment to intellectual
honesty and courage.
Having made the case for student participation with some zeal,
it may seem odd to return to the thesis I began with—that the tradi-
tional lecture style may meet or even exceed many of the pedagogical
considerations that seem to weigh in favor of student participation.
Indeed, when I first found myself reconsidering the comparative value
of student participation and of lectures, I was surprised by my own
changing view. Once again, ultimately I will conclude with the unsur-
prising claim that a balance between lecturing and student participation
is best in teaching philosophy. But first I will say something about
the value of lectures in meeting the same pedagogical goals sketched
above. Having already identified these goals in my discussion of the
value of student participation, my account here will be briefer, as I
need only to demonstrate how these goals or ideals may be met by
the traditional lecture style of pedagogy in which students remain es-
sentially passive, or at least silent.
 STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 261

First, it may seem that if dialogue is central to philosophy, then

lectures, by excluding students from this dialogue, necessarily put
students at a remove from this aspect of philosophy. However, if a
lecture is designed and presented as more than a rehearsal of well-
trodden arguments and positions, it may demonstrate how the lecturer
is her- or himself participating in a philosophic discussion. Seemingly
passive students, on this view, can be seen as silent participants in
a discussion, similar to the way in which one may be an essential
participant in a conversation with a friend by listening well. I think
only certain kinds of lectures will succeed in conveying this attitude:
lectures that make clear that the lecturer is engaging directly with the
work of other philosophers—not merely recounting the work of other
philosophers—and that leave students with a set of alternative views
or with interesting questions that will invite them to take part in the
dialogue when they leave class. It can be very exciting and edifying
for students to witness a skilled lecturer directly enter the historically
unfolding philosophical discussion. For some, this may be even more
engaging than having an opportunity to participate in the discussion
themselves, since they have the opportunity to observe the depth of
engagement required to make an intelligent contribution to, or con-
nection with, a philosophical question or problem.
Seeing that the lecturer is participating in a dialogue with other,
absent philosophers—historical or contemporary—invites students to
imagine themselves also taking up the same activity. By listening well,
students may become aware of their own, emerging philosophic voice
and see that they can aspire to contribute to a philosophical discus-
sion that extends beyond the limited context of the classroom and the
limited response of fellow students to a wider and deeper historical
channel. The silent student may be more intellectually active and feel
more connected to philosophic dialogue in response to a keen lecture
than in response to desultory conversation with her or his peers.
Second, it may seem that there is no substitute for students actively
practicing their philosophic skills in class discussions, and therefore
that the traditional lecture format cannot advance the goal of honing
students’ argumentative or reasoning skills in the same way. It is true
that lectures cannot advance this goal in the same way; however, I think
lecturers may advance this goal by providing, in their own presenta-
tions, an example of the exercise of philosophic skill, which students
can then emulate. Among the familiar difficulties that attend in-class
student discussions are the tendency for discussion to ramble or digress
and the prevalence of imprecise claims, tangential remarks, irrelevant
examples, and the like. Limited class time can magnify these difficul-
ties or make it impossible to overcome them. Sometimes, students’
comments can simply be confusing to other students. And professors
262 BROOK J. SADLER

may expend so much time and energy correcting students and fending
off inappropriate or tangential remarks that students may be unclear
about how one would begin to construct a productive discussion of the
topic at hand. They may be left with that all too familiar sense that the
conversation just didn’t go anywhere. Well-crafted lectures, on the other
hand, can clearly demonstrate the necessary philosophic skills, pro-
viding the needed example for students to follow. In a sense, students
will exercise their own skills simply by attempting to understand the
arguments presented by the lecturer. Once again, on this view, listening
well is an important philosophic skill in its own right.
In addition to the usual difficulties of running a smooth and produc-
tive class discussion (mentioned above), there is a further problem that
often attends even well managed class discussions: They can have the
unfortunate result of convincing students of a facile relativism, which
many are already inclined to embrace. When a professor treats all
student remarks respectfully, the unintended result can be that students
are left shrugging their shoulders, thinking one argument is as good
as another. Since there is not enough time to plumb the depths, or
thoroughly trace the implications, of any one student’s comment, the
professor who expresses patience, tolerance, and respect for a variety
of student viewpoints runs the risk of inculcating the idea that the
philosophic problem at hand does not run very deep, that the tensions
between diverging views are ultimately superficial, or that in the final
analysis we can do no more than tolerate our philosophic differences.
But in a well-crafted lecture, it is possible to show by example how
much philosophic skill is needed to provide and defend an engaging
philosophic position. Observing a sustained argument or discussion
given in a lecture can enhance students’ philosophic skills and ward
off the facile relativism that may be the consequence of even a lively
and focused group discussion.
Third, lectures can meet the three pedagogical goals of teaching
philosophy I outlined earlier: they can help students to appreciate the
history of philosophy, which may ward off an attitude of dismissive-
ness; to develop the skills that will keep frustration at bay; and to see
the relevance or value of philosophic ideas. An appreciation of the
history of philosophy and the sense that philosophic problems have
weight can be straightforwardly conveyed by the content of a lecture:
One can include references to the historical interest of an idea and
compare competing views with sensitivity to the idea that reasonable
people have, at some time or other, held all of them. I have already
addressed in the last two paragraphs how lectures can foster the de-
velopment of students’ own philosophical skills. The third of these
pedagogical goals may seem the hardest to accommodate by lectures,
if one accepts what I said earlier—that when students themselves
 STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 263

participate and show an interest in a philosophic topic, it really starts

to seem relevant and worth caring about. Yet, I think there is, even
here, something that lectures can accomplish which may be lost in
student discussions. Although professors may seem, as I said earlier,
inimitably erudite or excessively remote, they can nonetheless speak
in a more sophisticated way about the possible implications of holding
certain views and about the intellectual trends that define our sense of
the philosophic possibilities. In this way, professors can put ideas into
a broader perspective that may help students to see where the ideas
they study fit into the grand scheme of things. Moreover, professors
may be able to draw upon certain life experiences or observations with
(perhaps) less vulnerability than students and thereby be able to con-
nect philosophical topics to the everyday experiences or political, civic,
and personal concerns that establish their relevance. Students may be
uniquely inspired by having the opportunity to observe someone who
is able not only to demonstrate expertise in a given subject or field
but who also is able to convey a sense of why she or he came to have
this expertise and how it matters to her or him. However, in order for
lectures to meet this goal of making philosophy relevant, they must
include such remarks and observations, which I believe are often ne-
glected by even some of the most seasoned lecturers.
The fourth and fifth points in favor of student participation were
that allowing student discussion demonstrates respect for students qua
rational interlocutors and promotes the associated intellectual and moral
virtues of taking responsibility for ideas, and striving for intellectual
honesty and courage. Obviously, the fourth point seems the hardest
to accommodate when student participation is discouraged or disal-
lowed. It is hard to see how students can be respected as interlocutors
if they do not have the opportunity to voice their thoughts. One might
attempt to argue that lectures can demonstrate this form of respect
for students indirectly, for example by claiming that lectures depend
implicitly upon the assumption that students have the intelligence and
interest to engage in the topic at hand, and thus are regarded as rational
interlocutors worthy of respect just by showing up to class and lending
an ear. However, such an argument is more than attenuated; it simply
misses the point. To respect students as interlocutors is to give them
the opportunity to speak, to bring them directly into conversation and
to hear their individual voices. There is no substitute, with respect to
this point, for students speaking in class. Note that this is not to say
that there are not other ways of respecting students and treating them
as rational, intelligent people, but only that they cannot properly be
respected as interlocutors if they are not given the opportunity to par-
ticipate. Thus, if respecting students as interlocutors is good pedagogy
264 BROOK J. SADLER

or is important to advancing a philosophy education, student participa-

tion must be promoted to some extent.
But the fifth point, which I presented as related to the fourth when
I made the case for student participation, can be met, and met well,
by the lecture approach. Here, the example set by the lecturer can be
especially vivid and forceful. More than merely organizing information,
conveying knowledge, or clarifying texts, a lecturer can show what it
is like to be someone who is passionate about ideas, who is unembar-
rassed by his or her own intelligence, who is resolutely open-minded,
who is actively seeking a deeper or broader understanding, and who
is in the process of reflecting and of refining her or his own thoughts.
Although students may still see them as odd or remote characters, when
professors are keen, honest, and engaged, they may exemplify the in-
tellectual and moral virtues I discussed earlier and thereby make them
real and accessible to students. In short, even though highly skilled
and knowledgeable lecturers can sometimes intimidate students, if their
skill is matched by passionate interest, they can also inspire students
in a way that may simply be otherwise unavailable.7
Although the lecture style fails to meet the fourth consideration,
respecting students as rational interlocutors, the lecture style of teaching
philosophy seems to be able to advance many of the same consider-
ations that also may be advanced by student participation. From my
above remarks it should be clear that lectures may succeed in meet-
ing these pedagogical considerations primarily because the professor
presents a vivid, live example of a skilled philosopher and (if it is
indeed a distinct characteristic) of a person of intellectual and some
moral virtue.8 The recognition that an important part of philosophy
education is dependent upon the live example set by the professor leads
to a further observation: Because the professorial example can be so
compelling, and because students often identify more strongly with
role-models who resemble them in race, gender, ethnicity, or sexual
orientation, recognizing the power of the example a professor sets is
one strong argument in favor of diversifying philosophy faculty. If
women and minority students are to believe that the example set by
their professor is one that they can follow, having professors who are
women and/or minorities will be conducive to that belief.9
I have argued that the lecture style of teaching philosophy can be
particularly effective in advancing the goals of teaching philosophy
because the professor may provide a compelling example of an honest,
engaged, expert, and skilled philosopher, an example which does more
than inform students, but inspires them in a way that seems especially
important to the discipline of philosophy. I believe that philosophy
is essentially a creative discipline and that teaching philosophy is
a creative enterprise. To see the subject in this way and to see the
 STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 265

value of lecturing as consisting as much in the power of the example

the professor him- or herself sets as in its informational value is to
reject the authoritarian view of lecturing sketched earlier. Although
professors do possess various forms of educational, institutional, and
cultural authority, to present oneself as a lecturer on the basis of this
authority alone is to fail to do justice to or to appropriately enact
the creative spirit of philosophy. It is a common observation among
professors of philosophy that they believe they really learn something
by teaching it. I would suggest that the reason this seems true is that
philosophy is a creative discipline. It would be hard to treat such
an observation as anything but a signal of gross incompetence if it
were uttered by an instructor teaching lower-level mathematics, for
instance. In preparing a lecture, especially, a professor of philosophy
does more than rehearse well-known and understood ideas and argu-
ments, but attempts to assimilate information, interpret ideas, draw
connections, wrestle with ambiguities, uncover new questions, and to
direct inquiry anew. If this is right, then the traditional authoritarian
style of teaching philosophy through lectures is wrong—not because
it consists in lecturing, but because the justification of the lecturing
misrepresents the activity of philosophy as one in which the professor
merely passes on authoritative views, rather than presents herself as a
responsible intellectual agent engaged in the process of contributing
to philosophic knowledge and discussion. Recognizing this will likely
change the content of one’s lectures—for the dividing line between the
personal and philosophic, between the creative and the didactic, will
become less distinct. Moreover, it may change how students respond
to lectures or perceive the value of what goes on in a lecture. When
students witness professorial lectures of this kind, even if they remain
passive, they see what they must reach for. They see the difficulty and
complexity involved in the creation of knowledge and the expression of
ideas. They see that their own passivity must give way at some point
if they, too, are ever to become epistemically sanctioned, authorita-
tive dispensers of knowledge (whether in academia or in any other
context). The conception of professorial authority shifts from that in
which a professor is entitled by dint of degree or status to announce
the truth to that in which degree and status signify that a professor
is someone who has successfully made the transition from passive to
active, who has begun to participate in creating truth. But how does
this transition occur? How do students move from passive to active?
Finally, the answer must be that in the classroom they must have the
opportunity both to learn from the example of the professor, whose
lectures are more than informative, but are also creative and inspir-
ing, and to struggle to emulate the relevant skills and virtues by being
respected as participants in discussion.
266 BROOK J. SADLER

Notes
Thank you to Bruce Silver for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay and to
Steven Geisz for many edifying conversations about teaching philosophy.
1. In his recent essay, “Teaching Writing-Intensive Philosophy Courses” (Teaching
Philosophy 25:3 [September 2002]: 195–211), Rodney Roberts explains why he devotes a
large part of class time to discussion: “The aim of classroom discussion is to help students
attain the greatest possible understanding of the assigned texts. Since I do not think that
the likelihood of accomplishing this by way of lecturing is very high, most of the class
time is devoted to discussion of the course material” (200). Here, Roberts expresses the
two related assumptions I seek to explore further in the present essay: first, that the value
or purpose of class discussion is evident and second, that the limitations of lectures are
undeniable.
2. I will mention only one such reason here: Because graduate instruction in philoso-
phy typically aims to prepare students to participate in professional, academic philosophy,
it must promote somewhat different skills than undergraduate instruction in philosophy,
which rarely has any particular form of professional development as its goal.
3. The masculine pronoun is deliberate here: It is part of this mythic image that the
philosopher is male.
4. Actually, I believe that reflection on the point and value of philosophy reveals
profound (philosophic) questions about just what the practice of philosophy consists
in, or should consist in, and what the value of writing philosophic texts is, or ought to
be (a question made more pressing by the publish-or-perish demands of contemporary
academic philosophy), and even the value of discussing philosophic questions. But that
is a discussion (!) for another time or another text (!).
5. I have often heard it remarked by instructors of philosophy that demonstrating
relevance is appropriate, even necessary, when teaching philosophical ethics, but that it
is of questionable value, even impossible, when teaching metaphysics or epistemology,
even philosophy of science or philosophy of language. This is not the place to argue
for the claim that the relevance of philosophy (to issues of personal, civic, political, or
practical concern and to everyday experience) is demonstrable in all of its sub-fields, but
I genuinely believe that the claim is true. I will not argue for the truth of this claim, but
rather assume it, for my concern here is with the idea that student participation can help
to meet this pedagogical goal of making philosophy relevant or applicable. That said, it
is worth noting briefly that attention to work in feminist philosophy may alleviate the
perceived irrelevance or inapplicability of the claims and arguments of epistemology and
philosophy of science, especially. Recalling the commonplace moments of philosophical
awe that inspire interest in metaphysical problems and attention to language can help to
reveal how these subjects are relevant in everyday contexts.
6. That is, there are ignorant, misinformed, ill-informed, tangential, irrelevant, in-
coherent, ill-considered, and utterly confused questions and comments.
7. I should note that the ability of a professor to serve as an inspiring example to
students is limited by more than the content of the lecture, his or her acumen, dedication,
or passion. Another important factor is class size. I think that students are far more likely
to identify with, and benefit from, the instructor’s enthusiasm and expertise, and to as-
pire to emulate the instructor, if the class is not too large. In large classes, no matter how
much an instructor attempts to reach students in lectures, there is an inescapable sense of
distance and alienation produced by the real physical distance between the professor and
students in a large lecture hall, the limited ability to make eye-contact with all students, the
 STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN TEACHING PHILOSOPHY 267
absence of face- or name-recognition, and the general feeling that the collective enterprise
is a commodity for mass-consumption, which by its very nature fails to move students as
individuals. I have in mind classes with 100 or more students, though such difficulties may
arise even with smaller groups. One might contend that philosophy instruction in large
lecture halls presents dramatic and theatrical possibilities that can be equally compelling
and inspiring. Although it seems plausible to me that the drama of such lectures may be
effective in sustaining student interest, I can’t help but think that something of value is
lost when philosophical engagement becomes essentially theatrical. I suspect that the loss
I perceive is connected to the sense that the lecturer’s commitment to the ideas he or she
discusses is not substantial, but is merely a part of the performance, part of playing the
role of lecturer; perhaps what is lost is the assurance that the lecturer expresses his or her
ideas with genuine conviction.
8. Obviously, since the forms of honesty and courage I have mentioned as related to
both intellectual and moral virtue do not comprise the whole of moral virtue, the lecturer
may possess or exhibit only some moral virtue.
9. I do not say that it is necessary, nor sufficient, only that it is conducive. I might
add that this argument can be extended: If good teaching involves setting an example of
philosophic practice that students can be inspired to follow, and if students are more likely
to be inspired to follow the example of professors who resemble them in race, gender, or
sexual orientation, and if it is important to create an educational setting which offers to
all students an equal opportunity to be so inspired, then finding the “best” philosopher
for a faculty position requires attention to the race, gender, and sexual orientation of both
the candidates and the existing faculty.

Brook J. Sadler, Philosophy, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33620;

bsadler@chumal.cas.usf.edu.