Welcome

Welcome to my professional website. I maintain this website for a number of purposes. First, it is specifically intended to support the students enrolled in my classes here at CSUF. Second, it is more generally intended to help the other philosophy department students and instructors here at CSUF. Third, it is intended to be of use to any interested professors in other departments here at CSUF, as well as in philosophy departments at other universities. Finally, I intend it to be of use to readers of my books and articles, both scholarly and trade.

For my CSUF students:

The most important page is the Class Bulletins page. You should check it every day, to check for new assignments and handouts that you may have missed. I have your syllabi posted, which you can download at any time should you lose the printed copy handed out on the first day of class. I also have some generic bulletins about where to get help for your writing, how to use Turnitin.com, and how to do research. I will also post specific bulletins during the semester about Turnitin class IDs and passwords; homework assignments; course paper and other assignments; as well as study guides for tests.

Important note: for grades, I now use Titanium. You should check your grades at least twice a month, and email me immediately with any problems. On all emails, be sure to include your full name, class and student ID number.

Students will find the Online Research Tools page helpful–it gives you links to online research tools, including: (1) writing tool sites (such as an online dictionary and thesaurus); (2) search engines; (3) various online encyclopedias; (4) online databases of scholarly books and articles; (5) non-technical philosophical media sites; (6) open access (i.e., online) technical philosophy journals; and (7) numerous miscellaneous philosophy websites. Finally, if you find that you enjoy my teaching, and want to see what other courses I teach, the Vita & Courses Taught page briefly reviews them. And if you want to know more about my background, that page allows you to look at my professional resume.

Most importantly, I have a collection of Resource Centers, each of which is a collection of links to files (including of numerous audio and video files) that support my specific classes, as well as give the student broader information on how to write well at the college level. For my business ethics students, many of whom are business majors, and who I typically urge to start small businesses, I have a resource center specifically devoted to starting a small business.

For CSUF philosophy majors:

I certainly hope that you will find this site useful, even if you aren’t enrolled in any of my classes. The Online Research Tools I sketched above are useful to all philosophy students. But for the philosophy majors, I have another section: (8) links to sites discussing what sorts of non-academic jobs exist for philosophers, especially for those with just the B.A. degree. Also, again, the resource center I designed for my business ethics students on starting your own business can be useful to graduating philosophy majors as well. If you have the smarts and intellectual skills to get a Bachelor’s in philosophy, starting and running your own business should pose no insurmountable problems. (Of course, if you are a Marxist philosophically opposed to all private enterprise, well, skip that resource center and aim at work in government or organized crime!)

For other instructors:

Please feel free to look over my resource centers, and if any of them look useful in your own courses, please feel free to put a link to it/them on your own website.

For my readers:

The Academic Publications page and the Trade Publications page list my publications, with links to as many of them as I could establish.

By “trade” publications I mean my cultural articles, political writings, and my movie reviews.

I also have a page called (in a tawdry capitalistic way) Gary’s Books where my textbooks (and other books) can be easily ordered.