Asking the Big Questions: Donald Reese

This course engages with some of the biggest questions—if there is a God, why is there evil? What is the best way to live my life? What does it mean to know something? Does the moral arc of the universe bend toward justice?—and search for some big answers by writing in a variety of genres, doing projects, and reading some philosophy, some religion, and much literature. 

“I’ve always wanted to do it because students always respond really well when I give them what I call ‘philosophy quizzes,’ which are taken from a book called Philosophy For Kids,” Humanities Department Co-Chair Donald Reese said. “Raising the big questions always engage people into thinking, and I always surprised how positively students reacted to those quizzes and wanted to build a class. The goal is to give some sense of what philosophy as a discipline has and how it might be different than English or history.”