In this paper Jerry Spring reports on a project that is successfully introducing second-year university students to political philosophy through reading discussing and writing about classic texts.
Three features make this project worth discussing: first the students involved are non-native speakers of English studying at an English-medium university in Turkey and so the context is challenging; second the teaching is carried out through two paired courses (one for English and one for philosophy)—i.e. the project design is somewhat unusual; third it presents a case of text-based philosophy teaching which as Crome and Garfield (2003: 4) note has hardly been touched by the literature on teaching and learning philosophy.
After explaining the origins and design of the project the author considers its implications from two perspectives: as a way to teach philosophy (or to teach students to philosophise) in a particular context; and as a way to encourage curriculum and instructor development through interdisciplinary collaboration. The overall conclusions are that this project supports arguments made elsewhere for text-based teaching of philosophy and that it shows how a transdisciplinary curricular innovation can benefit students and instructors.
