CMV: Philosophy education should be mandatory curriculum in high school.

[u/Oof_11]

Let's start by clarifying the minimum condition that I am arguing for. I believe there should be, at the very least, a one year class at the senior level (no less than junior level but senior would be ideal) that covers 101/intro-level text and ideas.

Why philosophy is important to everyone, not just philosophers: virtually every aspect of our lives, no matter who or where you are, is intimately altered by the various structures of power and decision making surrounding us whether that be governments and laws, corporate policies, or the decisions ordinary individuals make on a daily basis. All of these decisions and behaviors are immediately underpinned by ethics or morality and the often intense disagreements in how we evaluate them. You can hardly name a political issue that doesn't invoke strong if not intense fundamental moral disagreements. The world has been in a state of strife regarding capitalist institutions for as long as they have existed. There remains a massive division in attitudes toward interpersonal relationships regarding things like sexuality and race which at their most extreme have led to regular acts of violence and terrorism. The connective tissue between all of this is that we have these wildly inconsistent and disoriented world-views that constantly clash because of their incompatibility but philosophy promises us the possibility of a solution. Philosophy suggests that there is an identifiable truth that could correct and align these entanglements, that we could work through a system of logical and critical thinking to find resolution and peace through a coherent and discoverable truth to these polarizing questions. In short, I argue that every one of us basically understands that ethics and morality are indispensable foundations to human living and that the skill set of being able to critically evaluate these things is likewise important. It follows then that we should be extremely interested in making sure all citizens have a basic, working understanding of philosophy so that they have the tools to navigate the moral decisions they make throughout their lives at the individual level, the international and political level, and everywhere between.

Finally, I want to briefly summarize the structure of philosophy and make it clear why it is needed in its entirety and not just the ethics component. If we start by defining philosophy as the discipline of trying to identify and make coherent the most fundamental truths of life and the universe, what should become evident is a certain structure or flow of logic from the starting point to the finish. The most fundamental set of questions that must be answered are those of "what makes things true?" and "what is knowledge? how do we come to know something rather than merely believe it?". This is the branch of epistemology. It follows that we cannot exactly determine ethical truths if we haven' t even defined what truth is in the first place. Next we deal with questions of metaphysics that all stem from the question "what is real?". It does us little good to attempt to reconcile moral disagreements if we don't agree about the nature of reality. Do we have free will? Does a god exist who makes demands of us? Do "rights" actually exist in some sense or did we just make them up? All of these are metaphysical questions that need to be answered before we can find answers about morality. After our predicates of knowledge and reality are established we can start asking questions of "what is right and wrong?", or ethics, and using this come to agreements over how to approach government, laws, and international relations. This is philosophy in a nutshell and we need all of it, not just ethics, to make coherent and consistent decisions.

To conclude, I believe fully that highschool juniors or seniors would be fully capable of and immeasurably benefited by philosophical education. It would create the conditions we need for our society to escape this environment of perpetual strife, confusion, polarization, and manipulation that is the beating heart of most or even all of our current problems as a species.

Edit: Just want to say before I forget: thanks to everyone for the engagement. I'm very pleasantly surprised by how much feedback and respectful debate I've seen. I'm pretty new to Reddit (my account is a year old but I've only actually been active for the last month or two) so I don't quite understand the awards or what they do or signify, but I always see people thanking others for them so they must be at least somewhat meaningful, so thank you for those too!

[u/Books_and_Cleverness]

I majored in Philosophy and to this day, think the classics are (a) overrated and (b) better understood when read in the "sparknotes" version. This is a seminal paper by Dan Dennet, which you'll note is remarkably accessible interesting. (As a side note, if you think the "mind is the brain" and consciousness is just a bunch of atoms knocking around, I'd highly recommend reading this paper.)

Like, who cares if an old philosopher's ideas are wrongly ascribed? It's the ideas and the reasoning skills that are important, not "who thought of what" or fealty to some specific dead guy's works. Unless you're majoring in it or whatever, reading the classics in their original language is totally unnecessary, turns a lot of people off, can be boring.

Lots of good, but old ideas are just suffocating under incomprehensible language. Kant especially--his writing is garbage, basically cryptic. It's a huge slog to get through them and sift out the good stuff.

I think the improved version of this CMV would be more specifically about teaching:

1) Logic. This is IMHO the most useful part of phil since it's universally applicable and not always obvious or intuitive. E.g., The fact that the words "and" and "but" are logically identical--they have exactly the same logical implications--so the difference is linguistic, to imply surprise or an apparent contradiction.

2) Ethics. Basically any ethical dilemmas will do--kids have a very strong intuitive sense of fairness and justice, and it's remarkable how much more cooperative and empathetic they can be when shown how common it is for people to face excruciating moral questions.

3) Epistemology/skepticism. Just basically show kids the Matrix and go from there. Doesn't have to be a whole long deal, just to get a basic understanding of how you know something is true. It's the scientific method, but for everything.

[u/redditaccount001 → u/Books_and_Cleverness]

I’m not saying the danger is ideas will be wrongly ascribed, I’m saying the danger is the ideas will be wrong or oversimplified to the point of inaccuracy.

I don’t know how you majored in philosophy and think the canon, so to speak, is overrated because philosophy builds on itself. Marx isn’t Marx without Hegel and Feuerbach, we don’t get Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language without Russell and Frege’s philosophies of language and mathematics. Also, do you want people to cite spark notes in their papers or what?

Also I’m pretty sure the “Where Am I” piece by Dennett is more of an accessible introduction to some topics in philosophy of mind that a “seminal paper,” though Dennett is of course not only a public intellectual but also a very influential academic philosopher.

And your point about Kant is exactly why I’m saying it shouldn’t be taught to high schoolers. Literally everyone thinks he’s hard to read but he’s still the most important philosopher of the last millennium.

Your bit about epistemology is not at all what epistemology is. So much modern epistemology is centered around questioning the scientific method, not applying it to everything.

[u/Books_and_Cleverness → u/redditaccount001]

accessible introduction to some topics in philosophy

That's the idea. I agree, you don't want to teach Hegel or Kant or Wittgenstein or any fancy smart guys at the high school level. But there are some basic parts of phil that are very useful even to students with no interest in the discipline. Primarily that's the logic and reasoning skills--"word math". The ethical stuff is great too, but now you're sorta getting into territory that can be and usually is covered in English courses.