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"J'ai commencé ma vie comme je la finirai sans doute: au mileau des livres" (Sartre)
After a brief time as a contract instructor at Haverford College, PA, I began teaching at the University of Alberta in the fall of 1983, and have been here ever since. Over the years I have at one time or another taught senior and graduate level courses on most of the major figures in the continental tradition, including Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Dilthey, Rosenzweig, Gadamer, Ricoeur, Arendt, Habermas, Levinas, Derrida, and Foucault. In recent years, however, my principal focus in graduate teaching has been on Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche. My usual practice in courses is to select a specific text to be engaged through a close critical reading, following the precept for such engagement set out by Hegel, to wit: that in the confrontation with a philosophical work, to pass judgement is the easiest thing of all; more difficult is a sympathetic, immanent understanding that comprehends the text on its own terms; most difficult of all is to combine both in a way that responds to the challenge that the work poses to one's fundamental philosophical outlook and basic convictions.
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