I teach logic, critical theory, aesthetics, social and political philosophy, 19th century European philosophy, and environmental ethics, alongside courses on philosophy and technology and on philosophy and AI. Several of my courses run on the open web rather than behind a login, and the tools my students use are ones I build and give away. What follows is the current state of that work.
Courses
This term — Fall 2026
- PHIL 151B — Introductory Logic
- PHIL 251 — Philosophy and Technology
- PHIL 330 — Environmental Ethics
- Independent study in epistemology
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PHIL 151B — Logic
The course that drives the open logic textbook project. Students work with the proof checker, truth table checker, Venn diagram checker, and argument reconstruction editor rather than a commercial text and its access code.
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Philosophy and AI
A semester on consciousness, politics, economics, and meaning under conditions of AI: Arendt on lying in politics, data center expansion and its costs, universal basic income, existential risk, philosophical zombies, and work and meaning. Students write publicly all term and finish with a portfolio rather than a term paper.
Visit the course site (opens in a new tab) -
Philosophy and Technology
Technologies of various kinds mediate nearly all our relationships. The course takes up the metaphysical, epistemological, aesthetic, ethical, and political questions raised by contemporary technology — and asks students to engage the technologies themselves, culminating in a self-directed critical project.
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IDIS 300 — Introduction to AI
An interdisciplinary introduction built around prompting and working with AI assistants, developed for students across the university rather than for philosophy majors.
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PHIL 330 — Environmental Ethics
Connected directly to my published work on Adorno and the concept of nature, and on the normative foundations of environmental thought.
About the course -
Critical Theory
The Frankfurt School and its inheritance, with particular attention to Adorno.
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Aesthetics
Art, judgment, and the question of what art is for — increasingly, what happens to these questions when machines make things.
Teaching in the Age of AI
My courses on technology and AI are built on a few commitments that are easier to show than to argue for.
Students write in public. Rather than submitting essays that only I read, students keep their own blogs across the semester. The course site aggregates their posts, so the class reads each other's thinking as it develops. Writing for an audience of peers changes what gets written.
Assessment is portfolio-based. The term ends with a portfolio and a presentation rather than a final exam — a table of contents linking out to a semester of work, plus a reflective essay on it. Students sign up to present to the class, and close with a self-evaluation.
Final projects can engage the technology directly. Alongside conventional essays on AI consciousness or responsibility, students may co-write fiction with an AI and write a reflection on the experience, use one as a research assistant and then audit the result for bias and error, or attempt to red-team a model's ethical safeguards and report what they find. Projects are assessed on philosophical relevance, the fit between medium and content, craft, and originality.
Course materials stay on the open web. Readings, schedules, and assignments live on public course sites rather than behind an institutional login, which means the syllabus outlives the semester and other instructors can use it.
Tools and Materials I Build
The logic textbook and its four companion applications are openly licensed — CC BY-SA for the book, MIT for the tools — and free for any instructor to adopt, remix, or self-host. The book has been drafted in full and piloted in a credit-bearing course.
Workshops and Faculty Development
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AI and the Job Search
A practical session on using AI tools in a job search, and on what employers are and are not likely to want to see.
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Business Acumen Series on AI
Sessions introducing AI capabilities and limitations to a business-oriented audience — translating questions about adoption, workflow, and risk out of the seminar register and into terms that are useful to people making decisions.
Curricular and Policy Work
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UMW AI Acceptable Use Policy
The policy governing acceptable use of AI tools at the university.
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AI and Society Minor
An interdisciplinary minor situating AI within the liberal arts rather than treating it as a technical elective.
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Curricular proposals
Regularizing Philosophy and AI as a standing course, and moving Philosophy and Technology to the 300 level.