I roughly sort pedagogical issues into two broad categories: engagement and mastery. By “engagement” I mean roughly discussion and reflection on teaching methods that increase students’ motivation to learn the course material. By “mastery” I mean roughly discussion and reflection on teaching methods that improve students’ ability with respect to course objectives. Much has been written about engagement. For this post, I will try to say something useful about teaching philosophical mastery. Philosophical mastery is a rich topic, where sustained reflection can yield profitable insights for philosophy teachers. What I would like to propose here is that conceptual competence is one form of philosophical mastery, and students of philosophy would benefit greatly from acquiring conceptual competence.

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