Will Heusser is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies and Department Chair at Cypress College. He has taught philosophy at Santa Monica College, Mount St. Mary's in Los Angeles and the University of Rochester in upstate New York. Will was born in the rainy but beautiful Northwest (Portland) and attended Pierce College before transferring to U.C.L.A. Here he obtained a degree in Philosophy, an anti-rationalist and anti-postmodernist bias, as well as strong views on subliminal messages. He did his graduate work on a Presidential Fellowship at the University of Rochester.

He has worked in the private sector for a Test Preparation Company, spent over a decade serving as a private tutor, and has taught secondary level mathematics at an urban Title I school in Los Angeles. Other interests of his include basketball (lives for weekend pick-up games), skiing, and chess (Took "Top Senior" Trophy in the Southern California High School Championship. Best win was beating the former Oregon State Champion for all ages in a 6 hour match). He also enjoys surfing but this more often than not involves altitudes of about 10 feet below sea level.

Will's current interest is in the early Modern period of Philosophy with a particular interest in historical epistemology and metaphysics. He is also interested in The History of Logic, Meta-Ethics, Eastern Religion, Political Philosophy, Critical Thinking as a discipline, and the possibilities of merging philosophy with programming technology (such as the internet).

Site Info:

This site is intended as a resource for students in his sections. It contains information about his courses as well as copies of most section handouts. Feel free to print out course documents for personal use. However, all rights are reserved on pages and content herein (sounds pretty legal, huh?).

Note from Instructor (especially for the first-time philosophy student):

I remember that the first philosophy course I took was difficult. The second course was even more so. After devoting many years of my life to philosophy, I still do not think the subject matter is "easy" in the conventional sense that one might look for an "easy class". But philosophy offered a whole new way of perceiving things that I eventually found irresistible. In short, it changed my life. Philosophy may not be for everyone, but if you stick with it you may find some themes that will transform the way you think and perceive this world we live in.

You must always be on your toes in philosophic inquiry since philosophy is often cross-disciplinary: we study and do history, physics, math, religion, ethics, art, language, law, and much, much more. There is a philosophy about all of these topics and more (including philosophy itself!). Thus, philosophy will often expose us to topics that we are familiar and comfortable with but it will also often expose us to topics we are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with. Most everything is fair game as long as the art and science of analysis is used as a starting point. If this gives you an unsettled feeling which you are attempting to reason out, then you are doing philosophy right at this moment! It is difficult to oppose philosophy (or reasoning techniques in particular) without using philosophy to do so!

Philosophy is more of a way of life for me rather than a mere academic discipline. Some of the topics we cover will be theoretical in nature but others will extend to more personal questions about our humanity and the nature of our very existence. If you take one or more of my courses, I hope I will be able to share some of my passion for the subject.

Feel free to look over the course material in the surrounding pages. If you have any questions, I can be emailed at wheu (at) charter.net