Bradley Rettler is a philosophy professor at UW who specializes in Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, and Cryptocurrency.
He has taught over ten separate subjects during his time at the university and has also created intro-level courses like “the philosophy of science fiction” in order to draw more appeal to the humanities.
“There is a lot of value in philosophy and the humanities in general. There should be a lot more people in than there currently are,” Rettler said.
Ranging from metaphysics to critical thinking to religious studies (thanks to the department merger back in 2018), the classes under philosophy’s banner are quite diverse.
“Classes feel more like a book club where we go around and talk about what we read in-depth,” Rettler said.
To Rettler, the humanities are some of the fundamental courses taught on campus. It’s the foundation for people to rationalize the world around them, understand how other people think, and how to be introspective about their own beliefs.
Rettler has been pushing for critical thinking to become a required course for all majors.
“You don’t really see a math professor stay up all night thinking about whether or not they got an equation wrong. You do see almost always a philosophy professor question whether or not they got something wrong in their reasoning,” Rettler said.
Rettler gives his students as many resources as possible on how to write and read philosophy.
Rettler has also written two books about the philosophy of religion and the possible positive benefits of Bitcoin, as well as 14 scholarly articles.
He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame.
