I have an AS-level in philosophy, and half of my politics A-level was the history of political theory, and both were exactly this. *But* I went to a weird school, and was lucky enough to have two quite brilliant (if often also somewhat batty) teachers who made them this.
And now, here in Belgium, Mini-Moog (9yr) is already in his 3rd year of ethics and philosophy classes at his (normal, neighbourhood) school.
It’s bonkers to think that while you can teach things as complex as geometry, algebra, science and language to children, critical thinking subjects like philosophy are too hard to teach or for them to grasp.
Children are the very people who spend their lives looking at or hearing things and asking how they work or why they happen, and they already have excellent bullshit detectors that haven’t yet been stamped down on by decades of being told that’s just the way things are & you have to just accept it.
I am amazed every day the stuff my 8 year old boy knows. I knew nothing beyond watching Nightmare and Fun House at that age.
Same for me!
I suspect it's less that children can't handle philosophy and more that their parents can't handle their children learning philosophy. Don't forget that Socrates was executed for "corrupting the youth".
Yes!
Philosophy, psychology, and politics, are core curriculum issues (or should be), and taught from the first days at school. It's not rocket surgery.
I think it was Timothy Leary who advocated teaching philosophy *before* mathematics and science.
Yes: but the real issue which is destabilising our political system is a voting block of people over 65 which could have left school at 15, only 12% remained in education after the age of 18 and described themselves as factory fodder.
I think that was true in e.g. 2016, but now there are large numbers of young adults and middle-aged people (mainly men) who are attracted to authoritarianism or at best tolerant of it.
Yep..situation changed. I monitor it closely given my huge extended family of working class bigots. But solid rump of right wing voters is still the old, uneducated. Appeal of sentiment focused on the past, rejection of the new always been the bedrock of fascist support. The young are more fickle.
All deontologists are Kant’s.
*gets your coat for you* 😂
And I'll order the taxi! Kants in deed!
Hungary introduced mandatory religious instruction in primary schools in 2013, which they had to extend to offer alternative "ethics" classes to nonreligious pupils. It's 1 hr a week discussing either the Bible, or just generally how to be a good person, and it's as good as the person facilitating.
Same here - you pick a religion or ethics and philosophy.
You can't teach people how to think instead of what to think. How will we maintain control over the sheeple?
While I don’t think, on the whole, there’ve been actual conspiracies to keep people from thinking, it is notable that few parties in power would have benefitted from more people doing so.
Quite
I dunno, the high cost of living + revenue / housing uncertainty that every single government refuses to actually address sounds like an excellent way to keep the peoples from having the headspace to actually think about what's really going on... add some casual xenophobia and ...
Never underestimate incompetence as a root cause.
Occam's shaving foam? 🤣
Don’t you think it’s weird that the popularity and prevalence of multi-blade razors itself disproves Occam’s Razor?
... I see you've been thinking about it. 🤔 I haven't used a shaving razor going on 10 years (next September 9th), so there's that. Also, I didn't mean Occam's, I actually meant Hanlon. Mental note to self: think critically before hitting send.
More commonly known as "Gillette's Quandry"
HA!
And circling back to schooling, there seems to be a massive push to make sure people know how to read (needed for user guides / danger signs) and basic maths, which is the only thing they need to be good worker bees who don't complain too much...
They also don't teach how to shag the nanny and play the victim, but that doesn't invalidate how true that quote still stands. 😬
I think they teach that in Public school
I started on an OU humanities degree (before it got too expensive to continue) and trying to reconcile critical thinking skills and logic with Rousseau’s Social Contract was a mind-bender
Rousseau does kind of flip-flop between being a genius and a lunatic, and sometimes even manages to combine the two 😆
My 16yo son is about to start a Philosophy & Ethics A Level. I think it'll serve him well in lots of aspects of his life. I took Philosophy as a minor in my first year at Uni, and took a couple of units while doing my Politics degree.
As an historian I can recommend history for teaching critical thinking among other things 👍🏻my youngest son went on a philosophy course as part of the gifted & talented thing at his state primary when he was 6 😬
That was a spot of luck for you!
I was incredibly lucky. I absolutely hated school when it was just remembering things and regurgitating them. The constant pressure to conform. The pettiness of the uniforms and rules and discipline. Those classes where we were suddenly taught to think about things were like an oasis to me.
You were obviously way too bright to cope with the sort of teaching that relied on exercising your memory but not your powers of reasoning. I sense a rebel in there too … !
Not sure about the bright thing, but I could never memorise things by rote or out of context. E.g. I was baffled by maths mainly just because nobody ever taught me what equations, sin and cos and all that were for or what they meant. We just had to learn to do them. I was also v lazy tbh 😂
I think you and I would have got on very well at school Steve. I was a lazy good for nothing too.😂
I believe there was an A Level Critical Thinking as a friend of mine taught it. I don’t think it exists any more.
Critical thinking? Is that when you think for a bit and criticise everyone around you? I'm excellent at that!
We should start a campaign for an international bac in snark.
It's still early(-ish), but you win best idea of the day.
Finland has had classes in media literacy for several years, IIRC.
