Philosophy 40

Coat of Arms of the Royal Society: Nullius in Verba

Course Description

This is a course in practical reasoning. How to distinguish between reasons that are rational and those that are not. Methods of evaluating arguments that will lead to truth. How to distinguish between magical thinking and data/argument based thinking.

Instructor: Stephan Johnson

Office: 658 Batmale Hall

sjohnson@ccsf.edu

A.B., University of California, Berkeley

M.A., San Francisco State University

Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison

I have been a member of the CCSF faculty since 2002.

I've been very fortunate in my career at CCSF to have had many students who have gone on from Philosophy classes here to not only transfer to top institutions in the US and around the world (Stanford, Columbia, Amherst, Berkeley, UCLA...) but to have many of those go on to get graduate degrees (in both Philosophy and other fields) at those kinds of institutions (MIT, Harvard, U Chicago, Carnegie-Mellon, Berkeley...) as well.

The truly special thing is that from CCSF, you can go anywhere in the world and we've got scores of students who have done just that.

I am the faculty advisor to the Philosophy Club--home to, in my opinion, the most consistently well informed and interesting conversations that I ever witness on campus.

I have published/presented papers on various topics in philosophy: The Philosophy of Race; the Philosophy of Mind; The Philosophy of Biology; Comparative Ethics (particularly Confucian Ethics); Free Will; Epistemology. My book, A Change of Mind (used as a text for my Phil 40 class) is available online at Apple Books and other online retailers (A Change of Mind (Links to an external site.) ).

One of my extracurricular activities is spending an inordinate amount of time on grandiose theories about completely unimportant phenomena: e.g., why do some foods tend to group together in the way they do and why does it seem there are only about 10 or 12 types of faces in the world. Other than that, I waste way too much time on the internets.

Please contact me through the Canvas Inbox (Links to an external site.). I'll respond to your messages within 24 hours.

Office Hours: M/W/F Noon in my office: 658 Batmale Hall; and by appointment