Russell Marcus, the Christian A. Johnson Excellence in Teaching Professor of Philosophy, recently gave several presentations at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University (CSB/SJU) in St. Cloud, Minn., and at Harper College in Chicago.
At CSB/SJU, he presented a talk on “Thin Intuition and Mathematics” in which he defended his account of our knowledge of mathematical claims and objects. Marcus said that “we typically believe that sense experience is our most trustworthy way of knowing anything.” Because we don’t see or otherwise sense mathematical objects, we should either revise our views about knowledge or revise our confidence in mathematics, he noted.
“To revise our views about knowledge, we might appeal to intuition, that ‘Aha!’ moment familiar to mathematicians, in addition to sense experience. But philosophers tend to be skeptical about appeals to intuition.” Marcus showed “how to invoke intuition in accounts of mathematical knowledge, and thus that we need not doubt our confidence in mathematics.”
In a talk at Harper College, he discussed “Free Speech and the Philosophy Classroom,” arguing that the importance of faculty free speech in the classroom is often mistakenly overstated. “I defend instead the paramount importance of developing trusting relationships between students and faculty in philosophy classes,” Marcus said.
“While philosophy instructors must model honest candor and epistemic vulnerability, we risk undermining our learning goals for students by sharing our personal views,” Marcus told his audience. “Principles of free speech, while essential in our scholarship, are not as helpful in the classroom as figuring out how to balance candor with trust-building,” he said.
While visiting Harper College, Marcus also presented two workshops on teaching philosophy. In “Learning Moments,” he used materials developed in his Hamilton courses to demonstrate strategies for aligning classroom activities and assignments with high-level learning goals through the development of lower-level discipline-specific goals.
In the second workshop, he drew from his forthcoming book, Teaching Philosophy with Team-Based Learning, to introduce the core elements of team-based learning, which he describes as “an evidence-based, student-centered classroom pedagogy that emphasizes collaborative applications of disciplinary concepts and that has been shown to improve students’ feelings of belongingness and perceived social support.” He and the workshop participants “worked on forming permanent teams, the readiness assurance process, 4S activities, and developing accountability through peer feedback.”
Before returning to New York, Marcus also conducted three interviews for his research podcast, Why Teach Philosophy. The podcast is expected to launch later this spring.
Posted March 25, 2026
