Teaching

Picture: Kris Phillips

My Teaching Mission

I have extensive international teaching and supervision experience from eight years at Tampere University, University of Iowa and University of Oulu, both at bachelor’s and master’s level courses in philosophy, and a proven track record as a successful, passionate, and well-liked teacher.

As a teacher, I aim at not just making my students memorize terms, philosophical theories and years, but to make them understand the underlying issues and concepts in a deeper and more meaningful way, creating narratives and helping in the learning process. I believe that learning occurs easiest by doing and reflecting, not by memorizing certain terms, philosophers, and doctrines for an exam. Accordingly, I emphasize classroom discussions and dialogical approach to teaching and learning. I likewise prefer essay and creative writing as a test for understanding of the material over traditional exams, as it requires the students to ruminate further, do comparisons, and practice creative thinking. I want to hear the opinions and views my students have and why they have those views, making them also defend their views by argumentation and discussion. I also think it is important from very early on in undergraduate studies to start reading and reflecting on original texts and their historical context.

I aim to create an inclusive, relaxed, and supportive learning environment for the students to increase their knowledge, giving them room to express their views and thoughts and become better both as academics and as human beings.

Some of the ways I do this is by having clear definition of the classroom as a safer space in the syllabus, encouraging participation and taking part in the discussion, and by allowing room for everyone’s views (as long as they are not against the notion of a safer space). I also enjoy presenting examples from both everyday life and popular culture to make the material more accessible and engaging. My passion and enthusiasm likewise play a role here, and I rarely stand still while I am teaching.

For teaching statement, course evaluations, and sample syllabi, see my Teaching Portfolio.

2026 Early Modern Summer Program, Center for Canon Expansion and Change, University of Minnesota. I am in the back row, middle.

Program Development

I am passionate about program development and have taken courses in university pedagogy on the subject, aiming to raise undergraduate enrolment by creative and engaging course design. I am always working to make my teaching as inclusive as possible and include non-canonical, marginalized figures into the curriculum wherever I can. I find it important not to have them there just as a representation of marginalized groups but as intriguing and thought-provoking philosophers in their own right. Here, I consider, lies also one of the clearest examples of combining my research with my teaching.

In the Summer of 2026, I took part in the Center for Canon Expansion and Change Early Modern Summer Program at the University of Minnesota, organized by Jessica Gordon-Roth, Dwight K. Lewis, Nada Mohamed, and Aleks Zarnitsyn. Syllabus (Early Modern Philosophy: On the Borders of Canonicity) designed as part of the program here.

I have likewise designed a course for the Philosophy of Dinosaurs. Syllabus here.

Teaching Experience

Fall 2026 FIL.FIA.001 Introduction to the History of Philosophy, primary instructor, Tampere University, Finland.

Fall 2025 700635P Problem of Knowledge and Ways of Knowing, primary instructor, University of Oulu, Finland.

Introductory. Introducing epistemology and the problem of knowledge. Topics include what is knowledge and can anything be known with certainty, how truth can be known and what its relationship is to knowing, what are different methods of acquiring knowledge and reasoning, does knowledge have a foundation, can we objectively know what is good and what is evil?

Fall 2025 FIL.FIA.001 Introduction to the History of Philosophy, primary instructor, Tampere University, Finland.

Fall 2024 FIL.FIA.001 Introduction to the History of Philosophy, primary instructor, Tampere University, Finland.

Introductory. Introducing history of philosophy from ancient Greece to Immanuel Kant, through Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, classic Islamic, Latin middle ages, renaissance and early modern periods.

Spring 2024 PHIL:2214:0001 Seventeenth Century Philosophy, primary instructor, University of Iowa.

Intermeditate. Examining central components of the philosophical systems of Rene Descartes, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, Baruch Spinoza, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, G.W. Leibniz. Topics include discussion of free will and human responsibility in the context of deterministic science, views and arguments surrounding science vs. religion, the nature and existence of God, the nature and existence of the physical world, skepticism, the place of minds in a physical universe, the limits of human cognition, and the good life.

Fall 2023 PHIL:1861:0002 Introduction to Philosophy, primary instructor, University of Iowa.

Spring 2023 PHIL:1861:0005 Introduction to Philosophy, primary instructor, University of Iowa.

Introductory. Introducing philosophy as an academic subject by concentrating on the three major areas of study: Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Ethics. Topics include self-knowledge and personal identity, philosophical skepticism, mind-body problem, time travel, and the good life. These are discussed with the help of a textbook as well as original texts, films, and so on.

Spring 2022 FIL.FIA.160 Bachelor Thesis Seminar, teacher in charge (with adjunct professor Inkeri Koskinen, University Lecturer), supervising 6 Bachelor’s Theses, Tampere University, Finland.

Intermediate. Supervising 6 Bachelor Thesis works.

Fall 2021 FIL.FIA.160 Bachelor Thesis Seminar, teacher in charge (with adjunct professor Markku Keinänen, University Lecturer), Tampere University, Finland.

Intermediate. Seminar for students working on Bachelor’s Thesis.

Spring 2021 FILA02b History of Philosophy: Freedom of the Will (4 ECTS), teacher in charge (with adjunct professor Jani Hakkarainen, Senior Lecturer), Tampere University, Finland.

Intermediate. Seminar on early modern accounts of freedom of will, consisting of reading original and commentary texts, doing a presentation, and discussing the texts with the rest of the class.

Spring 2018 FILA6 History of Skepticism -seminar (5 ECTS), teacher in charge (with adjunct professor Jani Hakkarainen, Lecturer and Post-Doctoral Fellow), University of Tampere, Finland.

Intermediate. Seminar on philosophical skepticism from ancient Greece to contemporary epistemology, consisting of reading original and commentary texts, doing a presentation, and discussing the texts with the rest of the class.

Spring 2014 Introduction to Descartes’s view of mind and body -lecture (90min), part of FILA1 History of Philosophy -course (5 ECTS), University of Tampere, Finland.

Intermediate. A lecture on Descartes as part of a course on history of philosophy.

Supervision Experience

Spring 2022 FIL.FIA.160 Bachelor Thesis Seminar, Tampere University, Finland.

Supervising 6 Bachelor’s Theses.

Student Feedback

“He is a very passionate about what he teaches & chose to reach out to me when my grade was struggling & offered a way for me to get it up. Although philosophy isn’t my favorite subject he is a great teacher!”