Taylor Carman

I thought this would be an interesting intro class to dip my feet into philosophy and instead he has only properly taught one unit and then his grading is so harsh. His grading is not reflective of an intro class. He also doesn't know our names. Even on the last day of class he was like 'remind me of your name again?'

Carman is probably my favorite professor I've taken in philosophy. Readings are far from easy but the volume is reasonable, and his grading is relatively tough but always fair. And you should talk to him after getting a paper back to actually go over your argument and his comments. Carman is also an incredibly understanding person if you have something going on and need an extension or anything like that. I'll acknowledge that his lectures can feel disorganized but I've found it's usually dependent on what types of questions are being asked. He goes on tangents but ones that he thinks people are interested in--so you can ask a question to steer the lecture toward what you wanted him to address. And office hours are great for when you're lost with some reading; he revisited a few concepts after (I assume) people brought it up outside of class. What I'm trying to get at is that he is a really great professor when students communicate and participate in class, but the lectures being disorganized can be very real sometimes, especially when people aren't asking questions (or the same person is asking questions on a tangent). Phenomenology is super interesting and you should definitely take this course if you have the bandwidth. The syllabus tends to change a lot from year to year so also keep that in mind when you register (I took the course in S'24 and we focused primarily on Sart…

Was shocked to read that he has such positive reviews on CULPA, as everyone I spoke to in the class found his lectures disorganized and repetitive while his grading was overly harsh. Carman will often start the lecture with a "quick" recap that turns into 30 minutes of repeating exactly what he said last class, meaning that he is always behind on the syllabus. It is clear that he comes to class totally unprepared and often goes on long irrelevant tangents. He will pose essay questions on topics not discussed in class and will grade extremely harshly if he feels you did not understand the text. However, even if you write on a topic discussed in class and quote directly from his lectures, he will often still mark things that he himself said as incorrect. If you love philosophy, feel free to take this class. Anyone else: it will decimate your GPA no matte r how hard you work.

Carman's a good professor. He knows his stuff and you can tell he loves what he teaches. His lectures can get a little boring/frustrating when you're not sure where he's going with them, because he does tend to go off on a lot of tangents, usually sparked by a student's question. This can be good if you want to debate the nuances of philosophy, but, like I said, it's frustrating if you just want to learn what he's supposed to teach you and what you're going to have to write about. He does enliven his teaching with lot's of subtle humor, though. He finds lots of philosophical things hilarious and talks about them in a strangely academic tone for jokes. As far as how tough of a grader he is and all of that, I think he is made out to be a lot harder than he really is. I will confess that I literally did about five percent of the reading and even fell asleep in class a few times (it was at 1030 in the morning and i took the class pass/fail, give me a break) and I still managed to pull Bs on my essays just by reading what I had to read in order to get something written. My essays were seriously pretty horrible, and he still gave me Bs. Furthermore, his comments on these bad essays were totally fair and accurate - he pointed out the flaws that I knew were in them. I think if I had really tried my best and written essays that I had been happy with myself, that he totally would have g…

Taylor Carman requires first drafts before final essays, a request that doesn't seem as big of a pain in the ass as it actually is. His concepts of first drafts and final drafts differ from those of the rest of the world in that he expects two entirely different theses, theories, papers etc. You would think that as the class continues you would be able to guess at your grade based on the amount of work you put in. Basically it's a grade out of a hat, and if you go and try to talk to him you'll receive cryptic, "I can't thoroughly reread everyone's papers beause of the sheer number of papers" answers that you leave you tempted to fling hamlet in his general direction. And after you worry and agonize over you grade, you find that the final grade is completely different that what you expected. I don't mean to sound like a jaded student, trying to get out of my frustration by bashing him on culpa. His lectures were really quite interesting, as he constantly questions whether or not we exist, and if you're into the whole "it's not 'why are we here?' but 'are we here?'" line of questioning you'll be thoroughly amused. Also he has no problem interrupting, but don't try and do it to him.

I don't normally write reviews, but I noticed that several of Professor Carman's previous reviewers seem to think that he is an unfair grader and a poor lecturer. I've studied philosophy at a few different institutions, and Professor Carman is easily one of the best I've had. He made sense of Foucault, which is no small task, and he was perfectly clear about what he expected from the students (excellent papers, not written the night before the due date). He is accessible, answers his emails, and responds to questions in a sincere manner. In response to the person who conducted the "experiment" with the term papers: I never once went to Professor Carman's office hours to discuss the paper topics, nor did I rehash his ideas, yet I still received A's. I think it is safe to say that Carman is well-read and experienced enough to know when someone has not done any research. Sorry for the snark, but really. I read the previous reviews before I took this class and was a little nervous about what to expect, so I just want others to know that I am happy I took it. (If you think Carman is difficult, try studying non-classical logic with Professor Gaifman).

This class is boring. I would almost fall asleep on a daily basis. Although it is a boring class I found it to be an easy one (and i'm no philosophy expert.) You don't ever have to do the reading (i rarely did) because Carmen gives very detailed lectures. The papers are not too bad (you have a lot of options on what to write about) and he gives you the questions that will be on the final. I never did the readings and was always sleepy in class but still managed an A.

Taylor Carman is a wonder-worker, one of the most captivating lecturers that I have encountered in my Columbia career. Essentially, he understands complex philosophical texts so well (we're talking Hegel, Kant, and Heidegger here - I'm pretty sure that he's fluent in German) and explains them so beautifully -- and comprehensibly -- that his courses almost negate the need to read the primary source being discussed. This man is, I repeat, a genious, and his cult following has been flourishing as of late. Also, a really nice and approachable guy at office hours.

Preliminary note: this review is written prior to the reception of a final grade, if this means anything to those of you reading this. Contrary to what another reviewer has more or less suggested (and I apologize if I'm interpreting incorrectly), Professor Carman is no philosophy fascist: there IS such a thing as right and wrong, over which there is such a thing as interpretive disagreement. If you're going to disagree--back it up. If you're going to disagree with Professor Carman on Heidegger--well, good luck and back it up real well. Professor Carman has an enormous amount of integrity and respect for the philosophers he studies; by the simple fact of his own attitude toward philosophy, he motivates students to respond in kind. His interpretations are highly textually based and draw on an incredible amount of knowledge and thought. He is friendly and receptive to open disagreement, but he will also correct a misunderstanding--which is an incredibly important thing that many reputedly "nice" professors fail to do. He deliberates carefully before responding to questions, and will do his best to understand the point of confusion, point of interpretive disagreement, or point of simple stupidity (if necessary). I would personally think two or three times before coming to the conclusion that a poor grade on a paper was due to the professor's personal dictatorial tendencies. In any…

I took this class because I was interested in philosophy and curious to explore the field. I had a brilliant teacher who had to leave after two weeks and was replaced by Carman. I was highly disappointed by Carman's teaching and how he executed the class. He completely changed the syllabus and the readings. He is not organized and usually just stands at the front of the classroom, ranting about the reading, with occasional messy notes. He did not ask any of us to participate or ask any questions. So we all just sat there in silence trying our best to make something out of his rambling. There were around fifteen students in the class, and he never once asked for our names. by the end of the semester, he didn't know any of our faces or names. His grading was very subjective and based on his personal opinion. You have to write exactly what he wants in the essays to get a good grade. Most students didn't receive great grades on the essays. He takes over three weeks to grade, AND he only ever graded ONE of our assignments; we never got our second essays back or the final exam or any of the quizzes. So we only ever received one graded assignment back. And the some of the comments on the essay were rude and not constructive, e.g. "NO!!!" He makes pop quizzes about the readings which sometimes were trick questions so difficult to complete even if you did the entire reading. His teachi…