What can university philosophy learn from primary philosophy?
Abstract
Peter Worley (BA MA FRSA) will clarify some key differences between approaches to
doing philosophy with children and briefly introduce his own work. He will also briefly
answer the question ‘can children do philosophy?’ but will then turn to the question of
whether philosophy at tertiary level can learn anything from philosophy at primary level.
He will look at the presentation of information, the role of dialogue, assessment and
teaching.
The Lecture
What can university philosophy learn from primary philosophy?1
To begin, I would like to give you a task to do. Which of the following two arguments A
and B do you think was said by a university undergraduate and which one was said by a
10 year old?
A
‘I’ve got an argument to prove there’s only one universe and nothing doesn’t exist:
I know the universe is infinite, but, say, half of this room is the universe and the other
half of the room another universe.
When they meet together, they must have a point where they meet.
And what is to define that the two universes are different? I mean they [both] have the
same description; they cover everything.
And if the universe was here [he points] and nothing was there [points elsewhere] the
universe must be touching the nothing, and if it is touching it, it must physically exist,
therefore…’
1
I would like to thank the following people for sharing their thoughts and experience
with me on the topic of this lecture: Mateusz Boniecki (KCL and The Philosophy Shop),
Lizzy Lewis (Sapere), Roger Sutcliffe (Sapere), Michael Lacewing (Heythrop), and
especial thanks to Robert Torrington (KCL and The Philosophy Shop).
B
‘They [atoms] might be the smallest physical thing, but surely energy must be made of
something.
There might be, like, matter that (because even gas and things are made of atoms, which
is physical) makes something which you can pass your hand through.
Maybe there’s, like, something smaller than the atom, which can’t be divided because it’s
actually not really physical…
…[But] how [can] something that doesn’t officially exist make something that does
exist?
You could say, when two monads collide they get much bigger and make an atom, but
how can things that don’t have any stuff hit anything?’2
What is philosophy with children?
Philosophy with children is something of a minefield. There are many different
approaches and - something I’m sure philosophy with children has in common with
university philosophy - they don’t all agree with each other about how this should be
done. What they do agree on is that it should be done3. So here’s a brief overview:
‘Philosophy For Children’, also known as P4C, was started in the late sixties by Matthew
Lipman4. Lipman’s was a rigorous and philosophically informed approach to doing
philosophy with children with a heavy emphasis on logic and logical thinking. Many
variations of the Lipman approach have since sprung up and, on the whole, I think it
would be fair to say that many of them share a Deweyan (John Dewey, 1859-1952) - and
therefore a pragmatist - philosophical underpinning.
2
In fact, both examples were said by children: ‘A’ was said by a 10 year old boy and ‘B’
was said by an 11 year old boy from state schools in Lewisham, South East London.
3
I shall not here be addressing the arguments for why philosophy with children should be
done, and I am not sure that any robust arguments have been offered. I am in the process
of trying to offer one. It will include the importance of the intrinsic motivation found in
the practice of doing philosophy and the special way in which philosophy is concerned
only with conceptual thinking, and the further observation (thanks Dr. Michael Hand!)
that philosophy’s problems and questions are to some extent inescapable.
4
See, among many others, Philosophy Goes to School by Matthew Lipman.
In contrast to this there is an approach developed by Catherine McCall called CoPI
(Community of Philosophical Inquiry)5 and she has challenged the pragmatist
philosophical underpinning that informs the P4C movement. She is committed to an
external realist position. Generally speaking, this means that she does not conflate
epistemological questions and concerns with metaphysical ones, which she claims is what
the pragmatist approach does:
‘In Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy, ‘truth’ is the product of ‘successful, active
manipulation’ of the world by people, and best encountered within a democratic
setting… there is no epistemological-metaphysical distinction.’6
The approach I represent is called the PhiE method7, which stands for ‘Philosophical
Enquiry’. Today, I would like to introduce you, briefly, to my own work.
The PhiE method is a method I have developed over the past 9 years working in primary
schools doing philosophy with both children and teachers. If I were to put my cards on
the table, I suppose I should admit to being influenced mainly by the Greeks (Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle in particular), in that the approach is less committed to a particular
philosophical underpinning - with all the philosophical problems that that brings - than to
the development of what might be called intellectual virtues. I am not suggesting that the
Greeks did not make metaphysical commitments - Plato’s theory of Forms is a
metaphysical commitment after all - but I emphasise the virtues of thinking. The PhiE
method could be said to be in a Socratic spirit in that Socrates seems to have been
committed to an external realist position of a sort but was less sure about his ability to
reach the truth, he was therefore much more interested in extolling and developing the
process of trying to reach it – this gives us the intellectual virtues.
Can children do philosophy?
I would like to start by saying not what I think university philosophy can learn from
primary philosophy, but what primary philosophy can learn from university philosophy. I
am afraid to say that the philosophy with children movement, though it has exponents
and practitioners of the very highest quality, also has, represented within its ranks, the
other end of the spectrum. In other words, the quality is very wide ranging and if you
were to ask philosophy-with-children practitioners what they think philosophy is you
would hear an incredible variety of answers, some uncontroversial and some much more
so.
One strategy to answering the question ‘Can children do philosophy?’ is to define
‘philosophy’ so that you are in a position to say ‘yes’. If you define ‘philosophy’ loosely
as, for instance, ‘a journey’ or as ‘asking questions and trying to answer them’ then it is
relatively easy to say that children can do philosophy as there are many ways in which a
5
Transforming Thinking by Catherine McCall.
Transforming Thinking by Catherine McCall p. 104.
7
The If Machine: Philosophical Enquiry in The Classroom by Peter Worley.
6
child can be said to have undergone ‘a journey’ and it is easy to get children asking
questions about something and then attempting to answer them. Another strategy is to
look for statements that children say that have a superficial resemblance to a
philosophical musing such as: ‘Are we in a dream?’ or ‘What does purple taste like?’ At
best, this is nothing more than pseudo-profundity, it’s certainly no proof that, what
Professor John White calls ‘philosophical intention’, is present8. However, many will be
dissatisfied with these approaches as it could be said to be moving the goalposts to suit a
particular view of doing philosophy with children. In particular, those that are familiar
with philosophy as an academic subject, or with the great canon of philosophy, will not
recognise these definitions as a good fit for the practice of philosophy.
Also, if I may venture a personal observation, ‘failure’ is seen as a dirty word in primary
education and the corollary of this is that ‘excellence’ is also seen with a dim view.
Although philosophy, I believe, can be made accessible, I don’t think it should be made
to be easy. Philosophy is not easy, and should not be easy. The standard that I think
philosophy offers education, that is so lacking, is that of understanding. One must
understand, or, at least understand what it is that is not understood, to be able to say that
one is engaging with philosophy. Unfortunately, this cannot be said for a great deal of
‘A’ level philosophy. I attended a talk given by David Leal of Oxford University entitled
‘Isn’t Three As Enough?’ in 2009 in which he said that Oxford would no longer be
recognising ‘A’ level philosophy as sufficient for identifying philosophical aptitude with
regard to their philosophy undergraduate intake. The reason being that questions such as
this
-
Explain and illustrate one strength of reliabilism. (15 marks)
Explain and illustrate two criticisms of idealism. (15 marks)
AQA Philosophy Paper 1 20089
can be answered satisfactorily by having memorised an answer – no understanding has to
be demonstrated to get a good mark here. In contrast, take a look at the questions that
Oxford ask in their entrance exam for French and Philosophy for example:
-
-
Is tragedy in the eye of the beholder?
If an action is illegal in one’s own country, should it also be made illegal to
leave one’s own country in order to perform the act in question somewhere
else?
Can anything be said in poetry that cannot be said in prose?
Philosophy and Modern Languages
Entrance Test 200810
No prior knowledge is necessary here but one has to engage the understanding in order
for a satisfactory answer to be given. I am pleased to say that the questions you find in
8
See The Philosophy in Philosophy in Schools by Peter Worley.
Examples taken from David Leal’s presentation slides.
10
Ibid.
9
the Oxford undergraduate entrance exams resemble the questions we ask the children in
primary school:
-
Is it possible to think of nothing?
Is the universe infinite?
Is the mind and brain the same thing? (Used with Year 1 upwards!)
Would a prisoner who has everything he wants and has no desire to leave the
prison be free? (Paraphrase)
If you and I swapped brains where would you be? (Paraphrase)
Is it better to be an unhappy boy or a happy pig?
Example Philosophy Shop Questions used
with primary age children
I have been implying that university philosophy is not subject to the same criticisms that
can be levelled against ‘A’ level philosophy, but I shall ask you whether you agree with
that suggestion. Although this is hardly scientific, I certainly only got firsts when I
regurgitated learned essays and not when I properly philosophised. Now, it may just be
that I wasn’t very good at the philosophising! But here’s a question worth thinking about:
to what extent is university philosophy about ‘what you know’ and to what extent is it
about ‘how you do it’? I’d be very interested to know what the audience think about this.
To return to my theme, what is lacking in the world of primary philosophy is a standard
of what constitutes philosophy. Now, I am fully aware that defining philosophy is a
mug’s game. So, I am not going to attempt an exhaustive definition, but I do want to try
to identify some kind of standard and I shall do so not in the Socratic spirit of ‘necessary
and sufficient conditions’ but in the Wittgensteinian spirit of ‘family resemblances’ as
this gives me a little more ‘wiggle room’.
What I would like to do is to set a standard drawn from the academic tradition (at its best)
and then show that children of primary age can meet the requirements of this standard. I
will then have demonstrated that children can do this kind of philosophy so that there is
no need to dumb it down for children in a significant sense. I like to say that the PhiE
method ‘brings the children up to the philosophy rather than bringing the philosophy
down to the children.’
So, here’s a list of the sort of constituent parts one might be looking for when trying to
say that philosophy is being done:
(I must emphasise that I am not claiming that these are necessary and sufficient
conditions, though there are some here that it may be claimed are at least necessary, and a
good candidate for a necessary condition of philosophy might be ‘second-order / metalevel thinking’.)



Formulation and analysis of arguments
Second-order / meta-level thinking
Generality











Understanding
Special subjects: metaphysics, ethics, epistemology
Abstract thinking
Dialogue/dialectic - internal and/or external
Hypothetical thinking
Conceptual analysis
Complex reasoning: justification, coherence and consistency etc.
Non-empirical (awareness of empirical / non-empirical distinction)
History of ideas
Revaluation / re-thinking
It’s difficult!
Now I would like to show you some examples of primary age children doing
philosophy.11
Let’s now return to the list to see if the children are able to reach the standard I’ve set:














Formulation and analysis of arguments (Keiron and Noah)
Second-order / meta-level thinking (Alice)
Generality (Noah)
Understanding (Keiron)
Special subjects: metaphysics, ethics, epistemology (all these examples are
metaphysical, dispelling the myth that children can only do ethics!)
Abstract thinking (All of them!)
Dialogue/dialectic - internal or external (Felix and Noah and Alice)
Hypothetical thinking (Keiron)
Conceptual analysis (Alice)
Complex reasoning: justification, coherence and consistency (Alice, Felix)
Non-empirical (aware of empirical / non-empirical distinction) (All of them were
a priori!)
History of ideas (Leibniz)
Revaluation / re-thinking (Felix)
It’s difficult (Keiron, Noah and Felix)
How does PhiE work?
Briefly, a PhiE session begins by the facilitator presenting the children with a
philosophically rich stimulus, for instance,
11
A version of The Ship of Theseus,
Mill’s question: ‘Is it better to be a happy pig or an unhappy person?’
For transcripts of more of the footage that this list makes reference to see my article
‘The Virtues of Thinking’ in the bibliography or see link:
http://prs.heacademy.ac.uk/view.html/PrsDiscourseArticles/115
-
A version of the Experience Machine
Or simply a question, such as ‘how many eyes does a Cyclops have?’
Excerpts from films such as Spiderman
Stories such as Mr. Good by Roger Hargreaves (check it out for its Platonic
similarities).
I personally like to use the medium of storytelling so I tell stories like King
Midas, stories from the Odyssey, and many other fairy tales and traditional
tales that I am able to draw philosophy from (often with a tweak or two).
Once the stimulus has been presented, the next stage is to ask the children what we call a
Task Question, such as
-
‘Should Mr. Good stay in Goodland and be happy or should he return to
Badland to teach the people of Badland how to be Good?’
‘Once the parts have been replaced is the ship of Theseus the same ship as
when it first set out on its journey?’
‘If you were King Midas, how might you say the wish so that it wouldn’t go
wrong?’
‘Would you choose situation A, and climb Mount Everest through the
experience machine, or would you choose B, and climb Mount Everest for
real?’
Once the task question has set the ‘philosophical arena’, we conduct a discussion or
Enquiry. This is child-led and very often questions emerge from the children themselves
and we pursue these, such as:
(Example Emergent Questions)
-
‘Is everything connected so that a small change to one thing means that
everything has changed?’
‘If you could choose, should you live in a place called Goodland, a place
called Badland or a land called Good/Badland?’
‘If you could wish for whatever you wanted would that be good.’
‘Aren’t all experiences real, even the ones that happen in the machine?’
The facilitator does not join in with the discussion but helps to allow a discussion
between the children to unfold. An observer should not be able to tell what the facilitator
thinks about the issue. What the facilitator does is to use a variety of techniques to help
generate a genuine dialogue following the principle of dialectic. For instance, one of the
foundational techniques we use is ‘iffing, anchoring and opening up’, which is really
three-techniques-in-one.
Anchoring is when the facilitator repeats the task question, with a neutral tone, to
encourage the child to show how what they have said supports the task question. This
encourages ‘premises and conclusion’ thinking and expression. So,
Task Question: Is CO2 the same as air?
Anchoring this question gently and persistently led to the following insight:
Olucien (Year 5, age 10):
‘If CO2 is the same as air we should be able to breathe it in (because w breathe in
air),
But if we breathe in only CO2 then we would die,
So, CO2 is not the same thing as air.’
Iffing is when you use a hypothetical question to allow deeper thinking on an issue, often
side-stepping empirical obstacles to the conceptual discussion. One example of this is
what I call either-or-the-if, where you encourage the child to think about the issue both
affirming what they said and denying what they said, thereby avoiding having to dismiss
or discourage them or for the discussion to become a ‘teacher-student confrontation’.
Task Question: Is the ship of Theseus the same ship after the parts have been
replaced?
Child: Yes, because the inside might be the same.
Fac: So, if the inside was the same, and only the outside of the ship was replaced,
then would it be the same ship?
Child: Yes, because if the inside is the same then there would be parts of the ship
that were on the old one.
Fac: And if the inside parts were replaced also, as well as the outside parts, then
would it be the same ship?
Child: No.
Fac: Why?
Child: Because it wouldn’t have any of the parts of the old ship, so it can’t be the
same ship.
This last example also contains an example of the final triptych technique, opening up.
This is where you ask the child to explain why they think what they think. The reason for
this is that the specificity and focus of the question-style that we require means that the
questions we ask are, on the whole, closed questions (e.g. ‘And if the inside parts were
replaced also, as well as the outside parts, then would it be the same ship?’) but we get
round the problems of closed questions with the simple technique of ‘opening it up
again’. In other words, by asking ‘why?’ or words to that effect.
So, take a closer look at the question I just mentioned. It is a good example of the full
questioning technique ‘iffing, anchoring and opening up’:
(iffing)
(anchoring)
Fac: ‘And if the inside parts were replaced also, as well as the outside parts, then would it
(opening up)
be the same ship?’
[Child: ‘No.’]
Fac: ‘Why?’ [Child: ‘Because…’]
Notice also that the content of the question is drawn from the child. The facilitator does
not have to create his or her own question. This minimises the facilitator bringing in his
or her own agenda and it keeps the discussion child-centred but philosophically focused.
There are many ways in which iffing can be used in questioning, but this should give you
something of an insight into how we use techniques to encourage thinking.
To mention just a couple of the other techniques I’ve developed, there’s ‘the imaginary
disagreer’ (sic), where you ask someone to think of what someone might say if they
disagreed with them, and then you ask them to come up with reasons that their imaginary
disagreer might use to support what they think. I really like how, on some occasions,
children actually change their mind in light of what their imaginary disagreer said!
There’s also ‘What’s Needed and What’s Enough?’ where the facilitator asks the class,
firstly, what is needed in order to have something (e.g. a ‘square’, and they may say
‘sides’ are needed) but then they ask them if that’s enough (e.g. ‘no, because you need
‘sides’ for a triangle too, so you need ‘four sides’.’) and you carry on in this fashion. If
the children can identify the features needed that would also be enough for whatever it is
they are considering, then they would have identified the necessary and sufficient
conditions of that thing.
So, what can university philosophy learn from primary philosophy?
I would like to address the following elements: the presentation of information, the role
of dialogue, assessment and teaching.
Presenting information: The Sibelius Model
As you may have guessed I have a concern that university philosophy may be weighted a
little too much towards ‘what you know’. Naturally, philosophy in primary school –
particularly the PhiE method - is much more weighted towards ‘how you do it’, not least
because children would struggle much more with philosophy if it were presented as
theories that they had to learn, understand and recall. However, at The Philosophy
Foundation (formerly The Philosophy Shop) we have a principle for the introduction of
information that I think may be of interest to anyone teaching philosophy: The Sibelius
Model.
On the Stage One course of our training for becoming a Specialist Philosophy Teacher
we play two pieces of music. First, we play them the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth
Symphony and then we play them the first movement of Sibelius’ Second Symphony.
The task is to listen to the two pieces of music as dialogues or conversations and to make
notes and to comment on identifiable characteristics of the two pieces apropos of their
being understood as dialogues.
It is easier to carry out this task with the Beethoven. The Sibelius is much more subtle
and elusive, not least because it is a continuous piece of music with very little direct
repetition. The key point is that, for my purposes, the Beethoven represents a more
traditional mode of philosophical discussion, where a paper is read at the beginning and
where there follows a focused and sustained discussion on the one or two themes raised
in the paper. ‘Dun-dun-dun-dahhh, dun-dun-dun-dahhh’ is the main theme, a theme never
absent from the musical passages that follow.
Sibelius is famous for having reinvented symphonic form, and key to his reinvention is
the way in which he inverted the traditional sonata form model. The Beethoven is a good
example of this form, a form that he mastered, so much so, that most composers
approaching symphonic form afterwards struggled to step out of his shadow. Most
composers that is, except a select few, Sibelius among them.
Comparison of treatments of sonata form in the Beethoven and the Sibelius:
Exposition
(repeated)
(Beethoven)
Main cell-like
theme: ‘dun-dundun-dahhh’ and
main musical
statement
(argument) resulting
from cell-like theme
(Sibelius)
Seemingly unrelated
fragments starting
and then stopping.
Meandering and
lacking in purpose
Development
Recapitulation
Coda
This is where the
ideas stated clearly
in the exposition are
played with and
explored but still
with clear adherence
to the main theme’s
opening agenda.
Interplay of
fragments and
statement of main
theme resulting
from interplay
Fairly faithful
restatement of the
main themes from
the exposition.
A new section that
concludes the
musical statements
(arguments) of the
piece.
A return to the
familiar themes of
the exposition but
notably changed and
containing aporetic
passages.
The piece ends
without a sense of
conclusiveness on
quiet chords.
The Beethoven is taut and focused. Sibelius, however, lets us into the compositional
process. The main ideas have clearly been worked out in advance in the Beethoven, but
in the Sibelius the main theme is ‘worked towards’ and doesn’t appear until about two
thirds of the way through. When it does, it is a long melodic theme, shared by the entire
orchestra but passed from one section to the other, and it is played only once. The
Beethoven, however, has a clear authority-figure that presents the arguments and sets the
agenda.
I hope you can begin to see the parallels in this analogy. The Beethoven lends itself - as a
model - to essays and tutorials, to reading papers and then writing about them. The
Sibelius lends itself to dialogue, and discussion, discovery and collaboration, with all the
confusion, aporia and dead-ends etc. that this can lead to. So, here’s how we like to
present information to students:
The Sibelius Model:
(Illustration by Tamar Levi)
A stimulus is
presented and a
discussion begins
that often has many
fragments, or
undeveloped ideas,
within it.
Interplay between
the fragments is
encouraged. Larger
themes start to
emerge from this
interplay.
If
philosophers/theories
are to be introduced
then they are
introduced at the
point that the
students begin to
have similar
thoughts and ideas.
In other words, into,
what we call a
‘thinking context’.
Conclusions are
sometimes reached,
but often the
discussion ends
inconclusively and
aporetically. This
we do not shy away
from. Aporia here is
understood as
‘motivating’.
So, I think that a lecture, particularly in a first semester of the first year, could look
something like this (especially given that many undergraduate students are coming to
philosophy for the first time):
A stimulus (such as
the sort found in
The If Machine,
albeit adapted for
the age of the
students) is
presented. A
discussion around
the theme (e.g.
identity) is then had,
naively.
Themes are
identified and
developed from the
fragments that start
the discussion.
When the students
begin to offer ideas
that resemble those
of the philosophers
(e.g. ‘people are
different from
objects because they
are conscious’) then
the corresponding
philosopher/theory
is introduced (e.g.
Locke and his
theory of personal
identity). Or, the
students themselves
introduce
philosophers they
may know about
already.
The discussion is
brought to a close
probably with a
sense of
inconclusiveness
and the relevant
paper(s) is set as
reading/research
material, but against
the backdrop of the
students already
engaged ideas.
Dialogue
The best philosophy, in my view, is done in dialogue form. There are some obvious
examples, like Plato, Hume and Berkeley and there are some less obvious examples such
as Descartes’ Meditations, which follows a ‘dialogue in one voice’ analysis. Using this
insight, it could be argued that all philosophy is a form of dialogue, either the writer with
him or herself, like with Descartes, or the writer with other writers, such as Spinoza and
Descartes, so that all philosophy is understood as a kind of dialogue with the previous
voices of the past12. I myself recall doing my best philosophy in the pub after lectures. It
12
I think there’s a case for saying that philosophy is a form of dialogue by developing
some of these themes.
was there, in discussion with my fellow students, that I would discover exactly what I had
understood and what I had not (even though I often thought I had!).13
It seems odd to me, given the importance of dialogue in the history and practice of
philosophy, that so little of it features either in the presentation of written work and/or in
the assessment of students.
My experience of being taught philosophy was very inconsistent and it seemed to depend
on the personality and the personal choices of the lecturers. Sometimes I found the
experience highly dialectic, that is: a collaborative, dialogue-based effort. Other times I
found it to be highly eristic, that is: a combative, confrontational dynamic, where the
lecturer ‘tore you to shreds’ and ‘reduced you to tears’. In the PhiE method (and this is
common to many – if not all – of the philosophy-with-children approaches), we work to a
‘stepping out’ principle, something more like facilitation than teaching, though, of
course, a good balance between the two would be the best approach at university level.
The ‘teacher’, in our model, does not join in the conversation so much but helps the
students to engage with each other and/or with (often dead) philosophers. A good
facilitator may, on occasion, role-play the ‘voice of the philosopher’ or ‘the voice of the
argument’, but would certainly not seek to reduce anyone to tears on a personal level.
We also use the principle of Socratic irony, and by this I mean ‘the adoption of a position
of defeasibility’ in the spirit of Socrates’ maxim ‘wisest is he who knows he knows
nothing’. So, rather than telling the student what’s true and what’s not, the teacher defers
to the possibility of being wrong in order to encourage thinking on the student’s part.
This is not done disingenuously (saying ‘I don’t know’ when really you do) but is done
by taking a tentative voice (‘this seems to me to be the case but I welcome anyone who
can show me otherwise.’)14
In discussion with me about this lecture, my colleague Robert Torrington described a
distinction between what he called ‘the experimental approach’ (thinking for oneself on
philosophical issues and trying things out) and ‘the didactic approach’ (learning the
canon and the standard arguments on the classic philosophical issues). He argued that
the experimental approach is ‘good for the student but not for the scholarship’ whereas
the didactic approach is ‘good for the scholarship but not for the student’. Torrington
suggested that one of the implications of this is that there is a place for the experimental
approach (or PhiE methods and strategies) in tutorial settings where the student needs to
13
This, it is worth noting, is a version of the Socratic principle of unrecognised
ignorance moving to recognised ignorance described in the Meno and attributed to the
slave boy, also memorably captured by Donald Rumsfeld when he said: ‘…because as we
know there are known knowns, there are things we know we know. We also know there
are known unknowns, that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But
there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.’
14
See my article Socratic Irony in the Classroom: Columbo or Clouseau?:
http://www.innovatemyschool.com/industry-expert-articles/item/52-socratic-irony-in-theclassroom-clouseau-or-columbo?.html
try out their creative and original thinking (however good or bad that may be) and that the
pedagogical skills needed to do this need to be properly learned and assimilated by the
Tutor. He further pointed out however, that though these recommendations would be
appropriate to tutorials and seminars they do not pertain to the traditional lecture – where
information needs to be disseminated. I found myself sympathetic to his suggestion and
yet there is one notable example that challenges the immunity of the traditional lecture.
I have recently come across Michael Sandel’s Justice material (see here:
http://www.justiceharvard.org/ ) and I was pleased to see something very similar to how
we work in primary schools happening at the very highest academic level. It is, of course,
not identical to how we work and I wouldn’t expect it to be; it is designed to meet a
different level of engagement in a very different context. Yet his general approach
mirrors aspects of the PhiE method in that he encourages dialogue between his audience
members; he makes use of a strategy we call tension play, where the facilitator identifies
opinions and views in the class/audience that don’t agree and then uses these tensions to
progress the discussion and engage the audience. He adopts the voice of ‘the argument’
(to use a Platonic expression) and enters into a dialogue with the audience members and
the ideas he wants to introduce them to. So maybe there is a sense in which even the
traditional lecture can begin to resemble philosophy sessions you would see if you were
to observe a PhiE session in primary school.
Michael Lacewing, of Heythrop College, used (and I believe still uses) the Community of
Enquiry method developed by Lipman with his undergraduate students. He then collected
their feedback on the experience. Among the many things said in the feedback a notable
recurrent theme was that the enquiry experience was ‘how they expected university to
be’, and there was a sense of ‘outrage’ that there was ‘no enquiry at the outset of their
course’.
If nothing else, I will be pleased if this lecture stimulates thought and dialogue on how
philosophy is best practised and taught at every level.
I’d like to leave you with an anonymous old English poem that captures a perennial
concern, both in philosophy and in education in general, that I will venture to say many
of us share:
Bookworm
A worm ate words. I thought that wonderfully
Strange – a miracle – when they told me a crawling
Insect had swallowed noble songs,
A night-time thief had stolen writing
So famous, so weighty. But the bug was foolish
Still, though its belly was full of thought.
[10th century] trans. by Michael Alexander
Bibliography
Hargreaves, R (2008) Mr. Good, Egmont Books Ltd.
Leal, D. (2010) ‘Isn’t Three As Enough? Assessment of potential for philosophical study
and the public examinations system’:
http://www.prs.heacademy.ac.uk/view.html/prsdocuments/460
Lipman, M. (1988) Philosophy Goes to School, Temple.
McCall, C. (2009) Transforming Thinking: Philosophical Inquiry in the Primary and
Secondary Classroom, Routledge.
Worley, P. (2011) The If Machine: Philosophical Enquiry in the Classroom, Continuum.
Worley, P. (2011) ‘Socratic Irony in the Classroom: Columbo or Clouseau?’:
http://www.innovatemyschool.com/industry-expert-articles/item/52-socratic-irony-in-theclassroom-clouseau-or-columbo?.html
Worley, P. (2009) ‘The Virtues of Thinking’, Discourse 9 (1):143-150
Worley, P. (2009) ‘The Philosophy in Philosophy in Schools’, Think 23, vol. 8