PHILOS C151B
History of Ethics: Modern
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Preparation: two philosophy courses. Intensive study of Kant's ethical theory. May be taken independently for credit. May be repeated for credit with consent of instructor. May be concurrently scheduled with course C245. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
1 of 1
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2025 - DeWitt is a fantastic professor. She's exactly what you would want out of a philosophy professor: engages with life stories, explains the material 10x over, and is completely available for questions. There are two formal papers (a midterm and a final), as well as a total of four/five weekly one page essays to submit based on your reaction to the material. The workload is manageable, and I found that in my experience, I did not find myself having to go to every single class... I would take this class again. I don't even like Kant!
Winter 2025 - DeWitt is a fantastic professor. She's exactly what you would want out of a philosophy professor: engages with life stories, explains the material 10x over, and is completely available for questions. There are two formal papers (a midterm and a final), as well as a total of four/five weekly one page essays to submit based on your reaction to the material. The workload is manageable, and I found that in my experience, I did not find myself having to go to every single class... I would take this class again. I don't even like Kant!
AD
Most Helpful Review
She is definitely the expert in Kant's moral theory. But I feel like she is not a good at explaining them clearly (compared to Burge's lectures on Kant's epistemology). Kant is hard, his invents new vocabularies for his philosophy, which makes it harder. Professor Herman's lectures are usually too dry and she keeps using those abstract terms without explaining them very clearly (might be my problem, but when the examples she gives are quite unintuitive sometimes, plus she doesn't really focus on using example to make things clearer to you, maybe she is counting on you to understand the terms or theories by yourself). Phil 151B is a great class about Kant's ethics, but IMHO there's still room for professor Herman to improve.
She is definitely the expert in Kant's moral theory. But I feel like she is not a good at explaining them clearly (compared to Burge's lectures on Kant's epistemology). Kant is hard, his invents new vocabularies for his philosophy, which makes it harder. Professor Herman's lectures are usually too dry and she keeps using those abstract terms without explaining them very clearly (might be my problem, but when the examples she gives are quite unintuitive sometimes, plus she doesn't really focus on using example to make things clearer to you, maybe she is counting on you to understand the terms or theories by yourself). Phil 151B is a great class about Kant's ethics, but IMHO there's still room for professor Herman to improve.
1 of 1
