Instructor Spotlight: Dr. Khatchirian
Dr. Arpy Khatchirian, a philosophy instructor at Stanford OHS, recently began teaching a semester of Advanced Topics on the subject of Transformative Experience.
Dr. Apry Khatchirian, a philosophy instructor at Stanford OHS, always enjoyed doing philosophy even when she didn’t know it was philosophy. “I always asked questions that seemed to get in the way of efficiently doing one’s work—questions about the nature or point of the very activity I was partaking in—such as, ‘What is a proof?’ or ‘What is art? What is it for?’” But she wasn’t always set on pursuing a career in philosophy. Dr. Khatchirian has a strong interest in math as well, and she double-majored in math and philosophy in college. To her, math was “so rigorous, so beautiful, so tidy” and philosophy was “[frankly] less rigorous and quite a bit more confusing, open-ended, and troubling.” And so, she applied mostly to math programs for graduate school, but changed her mind in her last year of college. She realized that while she enjoyed math a great deal, she wasn’t “as excited—or rather, troubled—by mathematical questions” as she was by philosophical ones, so she decided to pursue a PhD in philosophy at Berkeley.
This spring semester, Dr. Khatchirian is teaching Advanced Topics of Philosophy at OHS for the first time, and she has chosen the topic of Transformative Experience, as it bears on both decision-making and our understanding of the lives of others. Advanced Topics courses are typically taught by one teacher in one section, and that teacher has the liberty to choose the subject and the readings. When it was her turn to teach Advanced Topics, Dr. Khatchirian initially thought, “Oh great! I’m a philosopher of language, I’m going to teach all those language topics I don’t get to talk about.” But as she thought about it more, she realized those topics were abstract and wanted to choose something that would resonate more with students.
Dr. Khatchirian began reading about the topic of transformative experience about five years ago, but her experiences during the pandemic led her to dig deeper into the topic. The last three years have been profoundly transformative for many people, so she thought this might be a topic that many could connect to their lives in concrete ways. She was also teaching Critical Reading and Argumentation, the senior-level Core class, beforehand, and saw that many seniors were stressed about college decisions. This made Dr. Khatchirian start thinking about rational decision-making and what makes some decisions harder to make than others, relevant questions in the topic of transformative experience.
So, what is a transformative experience? In her seminal book bearing the topic’s name, L.A. Paul defines a transformative experience as an experience such that: (1) you cannot know what it is like until you have it, and (2) the experience deeply changes you as a person, i.e., it changes your point of view. A transformative decision, on the other hand, is a decision to undergo such transformation. As Dr. Khatchirian explains, we all have to make decisions on a daily basis, but some affect us in deeper ways than others. Choosing a job or a college, or choosing to have a child are some examples of transformative decisions. These bigger decisions shape our personal beliefs, preferences, and perspective of the world. But these changes are also what make the choices difficult. How will our beliefs change, and do we want them to change? Will our preferences change for the better? How are we to approach these decisions rationally? These questions are all at the forefront of discussion in Dr. Khatchirian’s Advanced Topics course.
While the first part of the course is focused on transformative decision-making, “the second part concerns our understanding of the lives of others, especially those whose experiences seem importantly different from ours or whose perspective on the world seems at odds with ours.” In this part of the course, class discussions will involve questions such as can the idea of a transformative experience help explain the difficulties we may have in understanding others? What could we do to cultivate this understanding? And what are its limits?
Dr. Khatchirian first heard about Stanford OHS through a friend and former OHS instructor, Dr. Joshua Beattie, and applied to teach as soon as she saw an opening was available. “As soon as I saw the job posting, I drove to this cafe that I like to do work at. I sat there, and I just wrote my statement of purpose in one go.” Before joining OHS, she taught courses on the philosophy of the mind, language, and logic at Berkeley for many years; first as a teaching assistant, and then as a lecturer. She then became interested in teaching young kids, and first started doing so by hosting a philosophy workshop at her daughter’s elementary school. “It wasn’t that popular!” Dr. Khatchirian said with a laugh, but she was “super impressed” by the clarity in her students’ judgments and reasoning.
Dr. Khatchirian began teaching at OHS in the fall of 2019 with two sections of Methodology of Science - Biology (MSB) and two sections of History and Philosophy of Science (HSC). Now, she still teaches HSC and has also taught CRA as well. When she was making the transition to OHS, she wasn’t sure how it would be to teach high schoolers, but has found it to be a lot of fun, and believes that high school students are ready for thought-provoking discussions of philosophical topics.
Outside of the classroom, Dr. Khatchirian enjoys going on long relaxing walks. Dr. Khatchirian brings an incredible light and interest to each and every one of her classes. A class with her leaves students with a whole new outlook and newfound joy in tackling troublesome and wondrous questions about the world.