In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
I'm increasingly teaching courses to non-philosophy majors. It's been a challenge to change my "academic dialect" to better teach these students, but so far its been successful and rewarding to find just the right way to communicate for somebody without a background (or even necessarily an interest) in our discipline. But one area I continue to struggle is finding good texts to assign. My students are baffled by academic or historical philosophy and I can't really justify it, as I would to majors, by saying that learning to read difficult philosophy is a skill they're developing.
So, here is my question: What are other teacher's go-to resources for finding philosophy readings that were written (from the ground up) to be read by the un-initiated?
Good question! For a long time, I had a policy of always assigning original sources, rather than textbooks. But, at least in general education courses, I'm no longer certain this is the best way to go, as my sense is that good textbooks may be more accessible to non-majors–though, of course, finding textbooks that one finds satisfactory can in my experience be a challenging endeavor, depending on the philosophical sub-field.
Anyway, what do readers think? Do you have any helpful tips for selecting readings for courses like these?
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