John Spackman

As a stem person and someone who can nail philosophical writing but its the struggle of the century, this class was extremely challenging, fast paced, and unnecessarily stressful. The final was 2 hours, we had to write 3 essays back to back and identify 3 passages and say how the passage connected to the overall themes of the work. We read at least 17 different works of philosophy ranging from 20 pages to almost 70 pages and these are very dense. I found this very challenging, but maybe that is just because writing and reading is daunting to me. I loved lecture and found it engaging and the actual class itself is fantastic and i LOVE Spackman, if I was majoring in philosophy I would make him my advisor. He is one of the best Professors I have had at Middlebury. That being said the feedback on tests and the paper are unhelpful and I found myself questioning whether or not he actually read the piece. I was looking for more helpful and constructive criticism. Maybe my pieces were so thorough that there just wasn't anything to genuinely critique but I doubt that is the case. The assignments are very fun and you will be feel very passionately, but there are a lot of assignments and it is hard work. This class wasn't easy, but I would take it again in a heartbeat and did enjoy it and feel like it helped me grow as a person. This was one of the greatest classes I have taken but it was so hard. If you put in the work you can do well, even as someone who isn't naturally good at philosophy or writing. That being said, if you sign up, get ready to take a deep dive! If you do, you wont regret it, but know it wont be easy!

As a stem person and someone who can nail philosophical writing but its the struggle of the century, this class was extremely challenging, fast paced, and unnecessarily stressful. The final was 2 hours, we had to write 3 essays back to back and identify 3 passages and say how the passage connected to the overall themes of the work. W …Read more

I am personally not a philosophy person, but I really enjoyed this class. Professor Spackman is so kind and helpful with everything, he is also extremely knowledgable and passionate about what he is teaching. Discussion sections for this class are very interesting and are always engaging and fun. The reading was pretty boring because it was very repetitive, but professor spackman lectures on the readings in class, so they are not totally needed- skimming and taking light notes on the reading before class is totally enough.

I am personally not a philosophy person, but I really enjoyed this class. Professor Spackman is so kind and helpful with everything, he is also extremely knowledgable and passionate about what he is teaching. Discussion sections for this class are very interesting and are always engaging and fun. The reading was pretty boring because …Read more

This course was enjoyable and not too difficult. The lectures were great for knowing the material and the discussion sections were interesting. The readings can be a little long but the lectures cover them all well.