On the topic of useful teaching material available online (following up on Roberta's post on material for logic courses), I recently came across the series ‘60-Second Adventures in Thought’ produced by the Open University. These are short (60 seconds!) animated videos explaining some of the most intriguing philosophical puzzles:
- Achilles and the Tortoise (Zeno’s paradox)
- The grandfather paradox
- The Chinese room
- Hilbert’s infinite hotel
- The twin paradox
- Schrödinger’s cat
(You can watch all 6 of them in a row here.)
It seems it has been around for 2 years, so it’s quite possible that (unlike me until now) many readers are well aware of its existence. But it is equally possible that (like me until now) many readers are not familiar with this gem, and they should be! I’ve now watched all 6 episodes (accompanied by my children, who enjoyed them greatly), and they are all wonderful resources to be used in class if you happen to be teaching on the topics they cover. They are philosophically accurate and funny at the same time -- so who could ask for more?
This Tuesday, I’ll be using the Chinese room episode in class at my philosophy of cognitive science course, and for my paradoxes course starting in February, I will also be showing quite a few of them. I’m curious as to what the results will be; has anyone used this series for teaching purposes before? Feedback from readers is welcome.
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