The Philosophy Club 26 Sep 201226 Sep 2012 There are an increasing number of initiatives to present philosophy and critical thinking to school students, and I am pleased to announce a new one in my home city of Melbourne: The Philosophy Club for ages 8 to 11. As I have argued in print, earlier conceptual acquisitions tend to greatly affect downstream beliefs, so teaching kids to question early will mean they are more inquisitive and less accepting of simple appeals to authority later, which means a critical populace. I therefore expect it to be legislated against shortly… Australian stuff Education Logic and philosophy Pop culture
Academe Rant: Old people 13 Mar 201413 Mar 2014 The Australian government is looking at extending the pension age to 70, so that older Australians, especially those in the Baby Boom demographic, will be free of the public purse for another 5 years over the present age of 65. Except that it is not the case that older Australians… Read More
Australian stuff Kinds of drivers 5 Mar 20246 Mar 2024 As a motorcyclist, I am acutely aware of other road users, and some patterns crop up which I am certain is unique to Melbourne, of models driven by those who have no concern for other road users, and especially not those of a two-wheeled kind. So, after some 40 years’ experience, and still being alive, if battered, here are the kinds of drivers to avoid. Read More
Australian stuff I’m so proud of Australia 15 Jun 2010 We’re best at car thefts. Beats those wussy Kiwis, who are only best at half shell mussels. [But, those who eat such things report, they are good.] The UK: CCTV. Germany, solar panels. France: Sugar beet[!] Guess what the US is best at… [Hat tip John Lynch, who is from… Read More
Lots of things are subversive, but being judged ‘subversive’ may lend philosophy a certain cachet that makes it more attractive. On the other hand there are so many different philosophical schools of thought that you can envisage the subversive forces shattering into internal conflict…
… being judged ‘subversive’ … All good teaching is subversive, though perhaps not always in a way that the authorities find threatening.
I used to figure that studying mathematics and science should be as much as most students needed of philosophy but seeing the incredibly low level ability of even real scientists to deal with ideas outside of their specialty, not to mention the abysmal level of thought among the blog sci-rangers, The Philosophy Club is urgently needed. It’s unfortunate that they started calling natural philosophy “science”. It seems to have led a lot of people to not understand that science depends on logic and that it is inextricably embedded in the vicissitudes of humans and our minds confronting the same universe that philosophy deals with in a more encompassing way.
Let me give a plug for Q Is for Question, a book written and illustrated by a former student of mine. http://www.qisforquestion.com/Welcome.html