University of Kansas, Fall 2003
Honors Program 190: Freshman Honors Tutorial
Ben Eggleston—eggleston@ku.edu

Instructions for starting the discussion

As indicated on the syllabus, you’re responsible for starting the discussion in one of the meetings of our class, by presenting some questions that you think are worth discussing. What I have in mind is a set of just two or three questions that raise questions about the text. Several kinds of questions would be appropriate:

• questions about the meaning of the text—questions such as “What does Kitcher mean when he says such-and-such?” or “Doesn’t Kitcher contradict himself when he says such-and-such here after saying so-and-so a few pages earlier?”
• questions about the author’s motivation—questions such as "Why did Kitcher bother to write these three paragraphs about such-and-such, when the rest of the chapter is about so-and-so?" or “How is the example of such-and-such relevant to the concept of so-and-so, which it is apparently being used to illustrate?"
• questions of evaluation—questions such as "Has Kitcher provided good reasons for thinking that such-and-such is the case?” or “Isn’t Kitcher’s claim that so-and-so is the case vulnerable to such-and-such an objection?”

The questions can be ones you know the answers to, or ones that you are genuinely puzzled about. The point is for them to elicit comments from your peers that will be productive contributions to the discussion.