1. Teaching Statement
Santiago Ramos
The way I teach philosophy is deeply informed by my study of Plato. This means, first and foremost,
that I believe the best environment for philosophical education to be one which fosters open, yet
ordered and methodical, conversation. Beyond this conviction, I count three guiding principles,
which I attempt to implement through various pedagogical strategies. These principles are: Students
best learn philosophy by doing it; Primary texts are indispensable; Philosophy is relevant for life.
The first of these principles – “Learning by doing” – means that I invite students to act like
philosophers, that is, to ask philosophical questions and to critique any possible answers in a
dialectical manner. In order to do this in an introductory course, I provide my students with a model
of philosophical thinking. I assign a brief Platonic dialogue (usually the Euthyphro) in which Socrates
quickly and straightforwardly poses a question. I ask the students to spot the differences between
Socrates’s distinctly philosophical approach to answering that question, and his opponent’s non-
philosophical approach to the same. As the class discussion unfolds, I introduce my students to
those dialectical methods which Socrates uses: rigorous distinctions, counterexamples, the Elenchus,
etc. I invite them to continue Socrates and Euthyphro’s discussion: “So, what is piety?” and thus
give them the opportunity to take their first philosophical steps. This principle would also be at play
in an upper-level course. Whether the course is about Heidegger or a survey of existentialism, my
goal would be to lead a conversation in which everyone in the course can think with the philosopher
we are studying. This means engaging in the same questions that the philosopher has asked, and
attempting to rehearse the dialectical path that the philosopher has taken in approaching those
questions, while at the same time keeping an eye out for problems or pitfalls along that path.
The above already makes clear that primary texts play a central role in my approach to teaching. I
believe that primary texts provide indispensable access to the mind of great thinkers, and I think that
one of my tasks as an educator is to help a student develop the skills required to make sense of the
various types of texts in the philosophical canon. In keeping with my primary conviction, I believe
that these skills are best learned in a conversational context. Therefore, I spend class time parsing
dense or otherwise difficult philosophical passages with my students, in an effort to jointly come to a
deeper understanding of it. I also use different techniques to make the text come alive. I ask my
students to perform certain scenes in Plato’s dialogues, trying to tease out nuances of meaning and
emotion. I ask them to read different sides of a debate (e.g., Anselm’s ontological argument and
Gaunilo’s rebuttal, or articles for and against Searle’s Chinese Room argument) and to take sides in
class. I have the students move their chairs to different sides of the room, corresponding to different
sides of the argument. Then I invite them to engage in a (usually lively) debate, which I moderate by
taking notes on the chalkboard, sometimes also raising my own objections to arguments made by
the students. For more difficult texts (e.g., the Critique of Pure Reason), I use PowerPoint to outline
arguments, giving my students a visual aid of an argument’s development. If a text appears to be too
abstract or otherwise alien to my students, I teach about the cultural scene in which a certain text
was written. For example, in teaching the Critique of Pure Reason, I often show my students a letter

2. from Hölderlin, in which the poet expresses his enthusiasm for Kant. I play bits of Wagner and
Bizet during our discussion of Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals. For Descartes’s Meditations, I provide
resources to my students which detail the scientific discoveries and political developments which
marked Descartes’s intellectual life. I also like to use films. While teaching Pascal, I always show a
clip from Roberto Rossellini’s biopic, which imagines a confrontation between the young Pascal and
a haughty Descartes. The purpose of all of these strategies is to help the students arrive at a deeper
grasp of the meaning and importance of the text, by learning more about its context and the
motivations behind it. My students are always happier when they see a text as the product of a life,
and not just as a collection of difficult thoughts.
Far from being a truism, to say “Philosophy is relevant for life” means, for me, to say that the
questions, dialectical method, and existential attitude of philosophy can all have a direct relationship
with the way I understand my life and my decisions. In teaching introductory courses, where often
the students are majoring in fields (apparently) distant from philosophical discourse (at Boston
College, most of my students were either in Business or Nursing), I have had to make an effort to
demonstrate to my students that philosophy can actually illuminate at least part of their lives.
Keeping with my conviction that open conversation is the best environment for philosophy, I invite
my students to talk about aspects of their culture and lives which might be illuminated by the
philosophical idea we are studying. For example, a student once opened up a discussion about the
ways in which Aristotle’s account of the different kinds of friendship helped her to understand the
different types of relationships that a college student develops over the course of four years. One
strategy that I use to stimulate class discussion is to break up the students into groups of four. In a
small group setting, students often feel more comfortable, and therefore more willing, to share their
opinion. After allowing for at least ten minutes of small group discussion, I ask each group to share
the content of their discussions with the rest of the class. But more often, personal connections are
made on paper. I ask my students to write short papers (one to three pages) once a week. Some
weeks, I will give them an analytical task – e.g., explain and evaluate Gaunilo’s refutation of Anselm.
Other weeks, I will ask the students to make a more personal reflection of a thinker. “Has Aristotle
prompted you to consider the reasons behind your choice of major?” “Does Kierkegaard’s account
of anxiety sound compelling to you?” For this type of reflection, a writing assignment is often more
suitable than a class discussion. I have often found that many students prefer to express certain
thoughts on paper.
To conclude, I would like to return to my bedrock conviction, that philosophy is best learned in
conversation. The principles and pedagogical strategies enumerated above, as well as the
technologies that I employ in class (video, music, PowerPoint), all exist for the sake of the
philosophical conversation which is the soul of the classroom. But all of these elements, while
necessary for a good classroom conversation, are not sufficient for a truly deep one, one in which
philosophy truly comes alive. For that, we need a sense of community among the students and
teacher. So let me close by saying that the goal of my teaching is to help create, for the brief duration
of a semester together, a true community of philosophers.