Rate My Professor Ian Schnee

Ian Schnee is a Teaching Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Washington, a position he has held since 2023, following roles as Associate Teaching Professor (2020–2023), Senior Lecturer (2019–2020), and Lecturer (2015–2019). Prior to joining the University of Washington, he served as Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Western Kentucky University from 2011 to 2015 and as Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Puget Sound from 2010 to 2011. Schnee earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley in 2010, with a dissertation titled “Justification, Reasons and Truth,” supervised by Barry Stroud, Niko Kolodny, and A. A. Long. He holds a B.A./M.A. with First Class Honors from the University of Oxford's Harris Manchester College in Philosophy and Theology (2002) and a B.A. with high honors, magna cum laude, from Middlebury College in Philosophy and Economics (1999). His academic background also includes prestigious fellowships such as the Dean’s Fellowship and Ralph W. Church Fellowship at Berkeley.

Schnee's research specializations encompass the philosophy of video games, film, logic, pedagogy, mind, artificial intelligence, and epistemology. He co-edited the book Illuminating Errors: New Essays on Knowledge from Non-Knowledge (Routledge, 2023) and has published key articles including “There Is No Knowledge from Falsehood” in Episteme (2015), “Basic Factive Perceptual Reasons” in Philosophical Studies (2016), “On Alien and On Film” in Film and Philosophy (2019), “Bactrians and Dromedaries: Rethinking Assessment Materials in Logic Classes Using Bloom’s Taxonomy” in Teaching Philosophy (2017), and “Random Discussion Leader in the Philosophy Classroom” in Teaching Philosophy (2023). He developed innovative educational tools such as The Logic Course Adventure interactive textbook (2020), Proof Machine and Truth Machine software (2021), and PL Proof Machine (2022). Schnee has received the University of Washington Distinguished Teaching Award (2020), Dean’s Academy Futurists appointment (2023–2025), Mellon Collaborative Summer Fellowship (2020), Robinson Faculty Initiative Grant (2019), and Untenured Faculty Essay Prize from the North Carolina Philosophical Society (2013). He chairs the Executive Committee, Teaching Innovation and Technology Committee, and Curriculum Committee in his department, co-led the Evidence-Based Teaching Program at UW's Center for Teaching and Learning, and serves as a referee for journals including Episteme, Synthese, and Teaching Philosophy. His contributions extend to public philosophy with pieces such as “Minecraft and Philosophy: Kierkegaard Would Play Hardcore Mode” (2014) and “A Good Time to Try Additive Grading” in The Daily Nous (2020).