Data
For bonus marks on the final, I asked students to state a) their favourite topic/reading of the course and b) their least favourite topic of the course. The results aren’t what I thought they would be.
a. FAVOURITE TOPIC: READING (VOTES)
1. Bullshit: Frankfurt, “On Bullshit” and Elgin, “True Enough” (16)
2. Expertise: Goldman, “Experts: Which Ones Should You Trust?” (8)
3. Pyrrhonian Skepticism: Sextus Empiricus (6)
4. Rationality: James, “The Will to Believe” (5)
4. Contextualism: Dretske, “The Pragmatic Dimension of Knowledge” (5)
6. Academic Skepticism: Descartes, Meditations I and II (4)
7. Virtue Epistemology: Zagzebski, Virtues of the Mind (3)
b. LEAST FAVOURITE TOPIC: READING (VOTES)
1. Standard Analysis: Plato, _Meno_ & _Theaetetus (9)
2. Expertise: Goldman, “Experts: Which Ones Should You Trust?” (7)
3. Foundationalism: Sosa, “The Raft and the Pyramid” (4)
4. Rationality: James, “The Will to Believe” (3)
4. Coherentism: Sosa, “The Raft and the Pyramid” (3)
4. Bullshit: Frankfurt, “On Bullshit” (3)
4. Academic Skepticism: Descartes, Meditations I and II (3)
NOTES:
i. Those who disliked Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit” REALLY disliked it.
ii. Those who liked Pyrrhonian Skepticism REALLY liked it.
iii. Most students who disliked Plato thought it was boring.
iv. One student wanted to hear me geek out on James’s neurology again.
v. I’m floored that expertise was such a divisive topic.
vi. I’ve excluded all topics that received fewer than three votes.
vii. Most of the topics on list (a) are from the second half of the course; most of the topics on list (b) are from the first half of the course.