Among Straw Men

Reflections on a recent EEF research report into SAPERE P4C and primary SAT scores

The results are in. Some tweets have been tweeted; some stories written. But what is the EEF, what is SAPERE and what is all the fuss about?

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is “an independent charity dedicated to breaking the link between family income and educational achievement.”

SAPERE is a charitable organisation with the following aims in its articles of association:

 “The charity’s objects are specifically restricted to the advancement of education for the public benefit, in particular amongst those young persons up to the age of 16 years, by the promotion of the development of their skills in logical thinking and other philosophical techniques so that their personal and social lives are enriched.”

Over the course of two research projects funded by the EEF, SAPERE was able to work with thousands of children in over 50 schools to further its stated aims. The price: to put to the test some presumptive claims, based on available research, about enhancements to reading competencies brought about by regular p4c sessions. Why agree to a wager like that?

Trainers and other P4C enthusiasts were already making claims based on previous, less rigorous, quantitative research in order to get a hearing in schools. If primary schools fear that time given to p4c will detract from SATs scores, then the whole thing is a non-starter. And if an organisation like SAPERE turns down a challenge to test one of its presumptive claims with rigorous research methods, then there must be a question mark against its integrity. And isn’t it a good thing to have as much information as possible about an initiative being promoted to schools?

As it turned out, the conclusions of both research projects were remarkably similar. Giving over time in the school day for P4C, even during literacy lessons, does not depress reading scores. That conclusion will be useful to any individual or organisation trying do p4c with children in primary schools during the school day.

The first (smaller sized) project did not make grand claims that were dramatically undermined by the second (larger) one. The interpretive conclusion of the first project (p. 32) was clear.

"It is clear that P4C, whatever its other possible benefits in terms of wider outcomes, does not hinder children’s attainment at KS2 or their progress on CAT scores. In fact, in maths and reading there is a discernible but small benefit at KS2, equivalent to about two months of extra progress. All other indicators are positive but smaller (with the score for KS2 writing close to zero). Teachers and pupils generally report improved behaviour and relationships.”

No great claims there. The second report confirmed the highlighted section of the first but found there was no effect on reading scores rather than a small one.

Enter the straw men
Enter straw man 1: “It’s ludicrous to say the main reason for doing philosophy is to raise English and Maths scores.” Response: Nobody said it was.

Enter straw man 2: “SAPERE made false claims that are now proven to be wrong.” No. All the claims were honest ones based on available research. Now there is new research, the claims will change. SAPERE deserves some credit for putting some presumptive claims to the test.

What did the teachers think?
Given that funding from the EEF enabled thousands of primary pupils and their teachers to philosophise together, what did the professionals in schools think? These snippets are taken from the latest report:

“Teachers facilitating P4C sessions who responded to  a survey by researchers the survey highlighted areas they felt P4C was having the most positive impact:

• Respect for other pupils’ opinions (96 per cent, 204 of 213, agreed that P4C had positively impacted on this)

• Ability to question and reason (91 per cent, 196 of 213, agreed that P4C had positively impacted on this)

• Ability to express views clearly (93 per cent, 193 of 213, agreed that P4C had positively impacted on this)

• Listening skills (89 per cent, 188 of 213, agreed that P4C had positively impacted on this).”
  

The report continues: “By the end of the second year of delivery, the schools were reporting that these impacts were now being seen more widely across the curriculum. For example, interviewees in most schools reported that pupils were now applying their questioning and reasoning skills in other curriculum areas such as English and History. Interviewees also commonly noted that the turn taking modelled in P4C was now being seen to trickle through into other areas of the school, including the playground.”

Conclusion
SAPERE applied the funding from the EEF in line with its (ie, SAPERE's) stated purposes and in pursuit of a deeper understanding of the impact of P4C. 

In the two research reports, there is much information that supporters and opponents of p4c in schools can reflect on.

I’ve written some longer personal reflections about research used to justify p4c in a separate document here.  

Notes to self

1. Don’t be afraid to make presumptive claims about p4c based on reasonable arguments and previous research but keep them modest. To my mind it is the variety of probable benefits that is important but that claim is the hardest kind to test.

2. Always be clear about the values behind my advocacy of p4c. It’s a good thing for adults and children to talk together in a philosophical way about things they find interesting and important. Philosophising is part of what it means to be human. Or perhaps it would be better to say: It’s an important means by which humans find meaning.
   

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I was hired by SAPERE to manage training for the first project and most of the second. I am writing here in a personal capacity. I do not speak for SAPERE.

Philosophising and facts

Some people contend that philosophy is out of the picture once factual considerations come into play. Nicholas Rescher identifies the common view as: ‘Whenever questions require factual materials for their satisfactory resolution, then addressing them is “no longer doing philosophy (p.35).”’ He quotes Bertrand Russell:

‘… as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science (p.35).’

Yet big philosophical problems can, and often do, arise within subjects that are seemingly distinct from philosophy, such as science, psychology, politics, economics and history. An important role for philosophical dialogue is, using Rescher’s phase: ‘the philosophical elucidation of fact-laden issues (p.36).’

In philosophical enquiry with young people, a neglect of factual details could have some unfortunate consequences. Firstly, teachers might limit the agenda for enquiry to issues that don’t require additional research. They might avoid some of the most pressing questions of the day, with huge moral, political and epistemological implications, even when young people want to discuss them.
 
Secondly, young people may not have sufficient background knowledge available to them, even after pooling their own experiences and prior learnings, with which to exercise their best thinking about issues that matter to them.

Rescher considers two words in relation to agenda-setting that I use a lot when I work with young people: interest and importance.

He writes that the importance of a philosophical issue can be evaluated by considering ‘the difference its absence makes in the larger scheme of things'. What is lost by not discussing the issue? On the other hand, interest hinges on people’s personal – and potentially idiosyncratic – concerns.

Ideally, one wants young people to think their sessions of philosophical enquiry are both interesting and important. However, when factual input is avoided or sessions move too quickly from one topic to another, issues of importance are bound to be crowded out or treated in shallow ways. Then philosophy becomes the preserve of enthusiasts. If it doesn’t much interest you, why bother making an effort? If you’re not having fun, why give it your attention?

There is an argument that reasoning skills and dialogical virtues will transfer from context to context and subject to subject. According to this view, when adults inevitably encounter fact-laden controversies in life, they will be better prepared to navigate them and act wisely if, as young people, they have honed their skills and communicative virtues on abstract thought experiments or brief discussions in response to a single information source (otherwise known in p4c circles as ‘the stimulus’). That is plausible but not convincing. It might be better to deliberately help children recognise the importance of philosophising for ‘the elucidation of fact-laden issues.’ That means working with young people to welcome the world into the space of philosophical dialogue, seek relevant facts from more than one source, evaluate them and link them to the ‘big picture’ that lives and grows within groups and individuals.

Writing and philo-writing

Writing is the mind’s portable workbench of ideas, a means of holding your thoughts steady for a moment while you chip and chisel away to create meaning. You can choose to keep your words to yourself for a while or share them with others. You can discard them without anyone knowing they ever existed. And the wonder of it is that the writer’s workbench can accommodate a project of any size from a brief note to a long novel or a life journal.

What's good for the individual is also good for the collective. Writing holds people’s thoughts in place so others can reflect on them and respond.  

In writing, we have at our disposal one of the greatest cognitive tools ever known to humankind. In schools we have a potential haven for dialogue about things that matter and a population of individuals with experiences and abilities that are both common and diverse.

You would expect to see, if not a hotbed for developing inventiveness and judgement, then at least a place where those two essential capacities are encouraged through regular talk and writing. But the ecosystems of schools are often not conducive to reflection and dialogue.
Over the last twenty years, I have been involved in a movement to engage students of all ages in philosophical enquiry with their peers. I’ve been heartened by how willing and able they are to reflect, through talk, on what to believe, do and value.

Yet despite the rewards that philosophical talk alone can bring, I’ve come to the conclusion that philosophical writing (philo-writing) should be used more regularly to support, enhance and communicate philosophical thinking.

When to philo-write
Philo-writing is always in a close relationship with both oral dialogue and private reflection. There are many opportunities to use it. For example:

• To record ideas for future refinement or elaboration.
• As a vehicle for private reflection
• To gather questions or key themes leading to enquiry through oral dialogue.
• As a means of activating prior knowledge and listing ‘what one knows’ prior to oral dialogue, writing or reading.
• As a way of remembering one’s research about a topic under examination.
• As a way of remembering questions or claims to check later through research.
• As a ‘thinking break’ during an oral dialogue to gather and sort ideas.
• As an alternative means of having a dialogue with others.
  
• As a way of gathering thoughts immediately after an oral dialogue.
• As a means of reflecting on an oral dialogue or a sequence of dialogues.
• As a means of responding to reading in preparation for oral dialogue or further writing.
• As a means of preparing one’s ideas for an audience.
• As a means of communicating one’s ideas to multiple audiences.
  

This list suggests a culture of learning and teaching in which teachers and students value dialogue. Writing supports the dialogical process and dialogue supports the writing. Learning in all subject areas could benefit from episodes of philo-writing to support a dialogical culture.

Audience and dialogue
The term ‘writing for an audience,' in the sense that it is used in school literacy lessons, is not the same as writing in a context of dialogical learning and teaching as intended here. Writing for an audience doesn't necessarily assume a response, writing dialogically does. When we ask students to write for an audience, we often mean an imaginary audience who, in reality do not respond. However, when writing is thought of dialogically, there is always an intended response, even if the writing is for oneself.

The most accessible audience for students is other students, their teachers and their families. When students write dialogically, they can engage these audiences.

So, philo-writing can be long or short but it arises from dialogue and leads back into dialogue. That's not to say that we shouldn’t introduce students to the concept of different audiences and appropriate expression for those audiences but that ongoing dialogue through talk, reading and writing should be paramount.

Teaching bad writing

 Teachers are often told that children should use more ‘wow words’ and ‘modifiers’ so they can achieve better grades or levels. It’s called up-levelling. But in what senses has their writing improved? Is it more interesting or more powerful?    

A few years ago, I was visiting a local primary school. I had volunteered to do some philosophising with them. It was December and it had been snowing. I was early for my session, so I sat in on the final part of a literacy lesson for a class of 11-year-olds. The children were asked to write poems entitled 'Frost'. A girl sitting next to me called Maya wrote: "My heart is warmed by the song of the robin." That’s good, I thought. I was impressed by her nice contrast of the warmed heart to the cold frost and interested in her choice of the passive voice. When the teacher asked for volunteers to read out a line, I encouraged Maya to have a go. The teacher listened and said:

"Hmm, I like that line but I think we could improve it with a modifier. What kind of sound does a bird make?"
Silence.
"It makes a tweeting sound doesn't it?"
Silence.
"So let's change that line to: "My heart is warmed by the tweeting song of the robin. There, that's better isn't it?"
Silence.
What can one say? If only Shakespeare had been up-levelled when he was a boy:

‘Wilt thou be gone?
It is not yet near day:
It was the tweeting nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
Believe me, love, it was the tweeting nightingale.’
(Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 5)

‘Presence’: a significant concept for dialogue

Advocates of dialogue should give due weight to the concept of ‘presence’ – presence, for example, of difference points of view, different interpretations of information, different life experiences and perspectives and different notions of key concepts.

Chaïm Perelman and Lucy Olbrechts-Tyteca (1971) remind us that ‘presence is an essential factor in argumentation and one that is far too much neglected in rationalistic conceptions of rationality’ (p.118). They quote a Chinese folk story to emphasise their point that in all deliberative situations, much depends on what is seen and not seen, heard and not heard: 


‘A king sees an ox on its way to sacrifice. He is moved to pity for it and orders that a sheep be used in its place. He confesses he did so because he could see the ox, but not the sheep.’ (p.116)

How then could a broad range of perspectives be brought to a dialogue? One educational initiative that tackled this problem devised the term ‘rivalling’: the practice of ‘learning to seek alternative explanations and perspectives within and across competing discourses’ (Flower et al, 2000, p.5). Rivalling – or taking a rival hypothesis stance – was described as a practice of enquiry that was used mostly to ‘come to grips with culturally charged open questions’ (Flower et al, 2000, p.60). Linda Flower and her colleagues at Carnegie Melon University ran an ‘intercultural community literacy programme’ that encouraged students to suggest community problems and generate proposals. The process of getting to the proposals required students to seek ‘rival hypotheses’ gleaned from research, interviews with others in the community and self-reflection. Students presented proposals and supporting arguments at public meetings where further dialogue was encouraged. Flower writes: ‘… we attempted to ground our relationships on a shared problem and an agenda for action.’ In this project, she says her team was trying to respond, ‘to a bell hooks question: on what do blacks and whites build a relationship?’ (Flower et al, 2000, p. 25).

The ‘rivalling’ project demonstrates the feasibility and potential benefits of associations between philosophical reflection, community engagement, historical and sociological research and rhetorically competent exposition. Perhaps such associations suggest one way forward for philosophical dialogue with young people and in communities. There are some parallels with the idea of citizens’ assemblies but with reduced participation and scope.

The dark side of Plato’s cave

 Symbols can outlast the arguments they serve to illustrate.

The allegory of the cave presented by Plato in The Republic (514a-520a) is embedded in western culture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave). Works of fiction such as ‘The Matrix’ have built on Plato’s vision of a community of cave dwellers constrained by the orthodox, yet false, beliefs they have acquired by watching shadows on their cave walls and mistaking them for reality. One of their number escapes his shackles and glimpses an authentic reality outside the cave but his wisdoms are dismissed by the cave-entombed majority.

Plato likens the rejection of the enlightened escapee by the cave people to the likely rejection of a philosophical truth seeker in society. Plato’s truth seeker is capable of self-correction – not just once in response to a great revelation but as an ongoing labour. He is aware of his own ignorance and fallibility.

Nowadays, a host of zealous truth claimers and conspiracy theorists pronounce to the world as if they are the ones who have escaped a cave of ignorance. They look back at those who remain in the cave with pity and disdain, for surely they are brainwashed by mainstream media and prevailing expert opinion on matters such as climate change or Covid-19.

The humility of the genuine truth seeker is not the modus operandi of the self-aggrandising truth claimer. The virtue of modesty, the painstaking work of acquiring expertise and the patience to sift though evidence before before pronouncing, do not serve them well. And yet they appear to thrive.

This is the dark side of Plato’s allegory as it plays out in modern times.

Philosophical enquiry and rhetorical invention

 It is surprising that the arts of philosophical enquiry and rhetorical argument have not been conjoined by advocates of philosophy in schools. It is surely important for people to reflect on a question carefully, pay attention to different standpoints, assess reasons and admit fallibility. However, they are disempowered if they cannot defend their beliefs or promote their considered commitments effectively.

 Philosophers frequently define their practice against rhetoric. The one involves rigorous truth seeking, the other is no more than manipulation by clever use of language and persuasive techniques. This is a lazy, if convenient, generalisation. Rhetorical competence is an important life skill. Rhetorical invention in the moment often reveals new insights that contribute to further inquiry.

 

 Cicero in ‘The Orator’ complains about philosophers claiming the great topics of politics and ethics as their own preserve.

“All the academies and schools of philosophy will, I do believe, raise the cry that all these matters are their exclusive province, and in no way whatever the concern of the orator. But when I have allowed that they may debate these subjects in their holes and corners, to pass an idle hour, it is to the orator none the less that I shall entrust and assign the task of developing with complete charm and cogency the same themes which they discuss in a sort of thin and bloodless style.” (p.43).

Philosophy in schools doesn’t always have to be carried out with people sat in a circle taking turns to speak and listen, with little time to embellish their arguments or find the right words to express the meanings they want to convey. Teachers could help their students recognise and use rhetorical techniques. They could also allow for episodes of argumentative performance by students and adopt those performances as starting points for further enquiry. Often, when people respond to the challenge of rhetorical invention, their efforts can refresh and re-energise a dialogue that has reached a point of stasis. Minority viewpoints can be articulated without interuption. Philospophical enquiry and rhetorical invention can be friends.

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 * Cicero translated Sutton, E. W.  (1948), Cicero on the Orator Books 1–2, Harvard University Press.

Accusation in a mirror

Recently, I came across an article that I think is interesting and useful. It highlights a rhetorical device called "accusation in a mirror" (AiM). The article is mainly about genocide and the author notes that, very often, the preferred method of preparing for, and then igniting, a genocide is to claim that members of the target group are going to do what, in fact, you want your followers to do. “They plan to kill us!” is understood as a call for “them” to be massacred (hence the mirror metaphor). The author writes: “Before one's enemies accuse one truthfully, one accuses them falsely of the same misdeed." He makes a good case that this kind of rhetoric can be a dependable predictor of violence: “AiM has six interrelated functions: to shock, to silence, to threaten, to insulate, to legitimize, and, finally, to motivate or incite.”

When I think about it, the AiM is often used for a range of purposes. For example, Donald Trump seeks to propagate fake news so first he accuses his critics of producing fake news. When he intends to steal an election, he accuses the other side of stealing an election.

Elites seek to enhance their freedom, power and influence so they accuse people who stand in their way of constituting an elite. People want to produce a chilling effect on criticism of themselves so they accuse their critics of trying to silence them.

In education
In relation to education and critical thinking, I think the AiM is a phenomenon that teachers should draw students’ attention to. Teachers could, for example, suggest that for every sweeping accusation in civic discourse, students should not only check the veracity of the claim but also attend to the possibility of a mirror image in the behaviour of the accuser.

Sources
FREE ARTICLE: Kenneth L. Marcus, Accusation in a Mirror. https://lawecommons.luc.edu/luclj/vol43/iss2/5/

 

The importance of 'importance'

 A crucial question in philosophising with young people is: 'Should adults bring issues they regard as important to students for consideration?' I believe they should but refrain from manipulating the outcomes of enquiry or striving for a consensus they regard as desirable. This notion of importance is central and unavoidable when philosophising with children. The philosopher, Dorothy Emmet, explained the importance of 'importance' as follows:

Without some judgement of 'importance' we are presented with mere multiplicity of detail or, at best, a dead level of facts. A judgement of what is important brings form into a multiplicity, whether in presenting an intellectual theme or in the practical conduct of life. There is, of course, always the danger that it may impose preconditions; but a preconception can at least sustain interest and later be corrected, whereas a mere manifold of undigested matter of fact can tell us nothing. (Dorothy Emmet, The Nature of Metaphysical Thinking 1966, p.196)

Reciprocal exchanges between adults and young people about what is important are possible and should be encouraged. I think this process is under-represented in the literature of philosophising with children and perhaps also in practice. Much has been written about the selection of starting points for enquiry and the creation and selection of questions.

However, relatively little attention has been paid to a very simple idea: sitting down with young people and asking: What is important to you at the moment? What excites your imaginations? What makes you angry or hopeful? The teacher would then help put together a programme of enquiries and events to explore those concerns and seek out philosophical dimensions in the topics to be discussed.

I think, also, that young people would expect their teachers to put topics on the philosophical agenda and give reasons for doing so. In an age of climate change, pandemics and obvious injustices around the world, I think children will welcome such an on-going dialogue. That is not to say that all philosophical initiatives in schools should be initiated using this strategy, only that such an approach would play a significant role within the overall practice. Enlightenment without manipulation could be taken as a regulative ideal – a goal that may never be achieved in every respect but that regulates practice. That is because enlightenment, taken to be a broadening of experience and an enhancement of capacities, is a worthy aim.

Philosophy in the humanities

 This post is devoted to a single quote from Alan Bullock (1914-2004)*.

It is taken from his book, The Humanist Tradition in the West (Thames and Hudson, 1985, pp 186-7). It illustrates, I think, the spirit of philosophy for children. In these dichotomous times, I should stress that I don’t think Bullock’s recommendations would necessarily lead to a lack of focus in teaching or learning. Nor would they deprive pupils of a healthy acquaintance with Shakespeare or other great writers. If you are one of the subject-knowledge-is-everything crusaders, try to apply the principle of charity* to your reading of Bullock. If you can accept that there should be at least some time in the curriculum for the sort of thing he proposes, then Philosophy for Children has much to contribute. If you like to see children pondering science-fiction-type thought experiments and paradoxes and you call that kind of thing ‘proper philosophy’, consider Bullock’s vision as an alternative that connects life, learning and philosophising together.

"…I have learned, in a world in which older people are continually deploring the disappearance of values, the extent to which young people are trying to work out for themselves new values to live by, their own codes of behaviour, their own concepts of conscience and of the qualities they prize. They are not the same as those of their grandparents, but neither were ours the same as the values of the Victorian age, nor the Victorians’ as those of the eighteenth century.

I suspect that this is the only way in which values can be re-created in the modern world, no longer by direct transmission but by encouraging young people to discover, or rediscover, them for themselves, out of their own experience and insights, often in discussion with their peers, not taken on authority but deeply influenced by the sympathy and above all the example (practice not precept) of older people.

At a time when the place of the humanities in education is under question, young people’s search for values by which to live seems to me to define the role the humanities can play. It will require something of a revolution in the presentation of history, literature and the arts, to start not from the achievements of the past, but from the human needs of young people today. But it is the same role which the rediscovery of the ancient world played for the Renaissance, providing those who were young then with a strange and exciting world which they could explore and on which they could draw to work out their own answers to the questions and conflicts presented by their own experience. Today the material on which to draw on is no longer limited to the ancient world, but includes the whole range of human experience, contemporary as well as historical, that of other cultures as well as our own Western tradition. This material, thanks to film, television and videos, is now accessible as never before.

Here is a great opportunity to make available to young people in schools and colleges, not a traditional course in the humanities, but a direct encounter, taking advantage of these new media, with human experience of the questions that bother and fascinate them. It could focus in turn on such questions as conscience, conflicts of loyalty, rebellion and authority, the ambivalence of feelings, the search for identity, the power of art and myth, passions and compassion, as these are reflected in literature, theatre, the arts, history and philosophical debate – with the same object, to prompt them, as the discovery of Greece and Rome prompted the young people of the Renaissance, to reach their own conclusions.

Any such encounter with the humanities is valuable not only for the results it can produce, but for the activity itself, engaging the imagination and the emotions in the penetration of other people’s worlds and ideas. In an education which is all too inclined to fill students with information and limit itself to teaching them techniques, here is a way of fostering the emotional, subjective side of human nature which is of so much importance for young people, and which needs to be developed as much as the intellectual if they are to acquire confidence and establish satisfying relationships with other human beings."

LINKS
*Alan Bullock: http://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/feb/03/guardianobituaries.obituaries
*The Principle of Charity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

When method turns to dogma

 

I defer to authorities not only on the basis of coercion but because I trust their competence. I trust their competence, not just for what they already know or the degrees they have, but because I observe that they continue to be willing to learn. It’s a mistake to pin one’s trust or obedience on someone who is not willing to learn.’ (Mary Catherine Bateson, ‘Willing to Learn’, Steerforth Press, 2004, pp.88-89.)

Methods help me to get through life. They give me hope that I can do the right thing even when I feel anxious and confused. When I act methodically I think: ‘this sort of procedure has helped me before, it will probably help me again.’ But how do I know if the method I choose in a particular situation is the best? Perhaps others would work equally well or even better. I usually rely on my accumulated experience and on the testimony of others who have faced similar situations. Sometimes I try different approaches and note the results.

When I am philosophising with children I use methods of philosophical reasoning and methods of group discussion. But a teaching situation is dynamic. I am not just applying a method to the children. I am responding to them – to their personalities, their frameworks for understanding, their interests and abilities as I perceive them. So my methods have to be flexible enough for me to improvise and use my own judgement to meet the challenges of the situation. Rigid adherence to methods is mostly inappropriate for teaching.

The practice of philosophising with children has always struggled to gain a foothold in an inhospitable educational environment. Advocates of differing approaches have gained attention, funding and employment only with difficulty. From this state of affairs Methodolatry* can sometimes emerge.

A method can function as a brand. To gain brand recognition, one has to promote it, distinguish it from similar brands and defend its reputation. Methods of philosophising with children, even when they start as plausible procedures for achieving worthy goals, can turn into dogmas when they become brands and then articles of faith. The American philosopher, John Dewey, wrote that ‘another word’ for method is ‘intelligence in operation’. I like Dewey’s terminology because it suggests thoughtful activity in dynamic situations. In a philosophical dialogue with children I rely on methods to guide that activity, not to control it in every respect. And, of course, I am willing to learn if I notice other methods having good effects.

One final thought: a single model of conduct in enquiry or argument is often discouraging to dialogue and inimical to the enquiry itself.

*Methodolatry is a term (combining methodology and idolatry) used by Justus Buchler in ‘The Concept of Method’ Columbia University Press, 1961 (p.105)

Who asks the questions?

 It is often said by people working in the tradition of Mathew Lipman that pupils should always create and choose the questions to be discussed. Two of the most common reasons given for this practice are, firstly, that it is democratic and democracy is a thing to be encouraged, and, secondly, that it enables us to discover what children think is interesting or important and this, in turn, will lead to their greater engagement with the subsequent dialogue.

Democracy is a complex concept but to my mind an important thread of meaning is the presumption of worth – a belief that each individual in a community has something to offer that could turn out to be of value in influencing what is done. In the philosophical classroom, I do believe that pupils should have the opportunity to contribute what they are capable of contributing. I won’t know what they are capable of contributing unless I allow them to contribute. Through dialogue, they will grow more accustomed to reasoning with and against their peers about things that matter. I hope that this will enable them to make contributions to the increasing number of public spheres they will encounter as they grow and mature.

So should teachers always ask children to create and choose the questions if (a) they want to be democratic in this sense and (b) they want discussions to be more engaging because they address pupil’s genuine interests and perplexities? I think not.

I have had very good discussions when I present pupils with a question I have prepared. Sometimes I negotiate a question with them after some impromptu dialogue around a shared experience, such as reading a book or script. I do often ask them to create and choose starting questions but this is not a hard and fast rule. In any event, it is important they understand the question and actually want to discuss it. This can’t be guaranteed when I ask them to create questions of their own. After all, they are trying to fulfill my request and sometimes they are not especially committed to the outcomes.

There are other things I can do to create opportunities for pupils to contribute.

1. I can ask what is important for them and what they think should be important for everyone. I find some materials related to their ideas and I invite them to make suggestions. (I consult children about some of the topics we will cover.)
2. I can say something like: ‘I think that talking together in a large group is the best way to investigate this question. What do you think?’ (I consult the children about how they want to explore the topics and questions. They sometimes have interesting and useful ideas about alternatives).
3. I can say: ‘What would be a good outcome for these investigations?’ (I consult the children about the aims of inquiry. This helps them to develop an awareness of the kinds of answers they can expect from certain kinds of questions.)
4. I can say: ‘We have some rules for discussion. Do you think those rules are working well for you and for the group?’ (I consult them on the conduct of our dialogues.)

These things reflect a democratic belief that each individual in the community has something to offer that could turn out to be of value in influencing what is done. However, it is also important for me to present children with material and questions I think they should encounter. Enquiry is reciprocal. I respond to their questions and ideas, they respond to mine. There may be some misunderstandings along the way but those are inevitable and they provide impetus for further dialogue.

‘Apories’ and Philosophical Thinking

 According to the philosopher, Nicholas Rescher, philosophical apories are ‘collections of individually plausible but collectively incompatible theses’ (Rescher, 2006, p.17). The recognition of an apory* often leads to doubt and puzzlement. Philosophising is required to achieve greater consistency and  coherence; it is an attempt to systematise one’s ideas in order to achieve a more cogent perspective on reality – to re-draft our ongoing personal guidebook to life. Philosophising in the face of apories can involve some of the following important moves:

1. Retain some theses and abandon others. 

This calls for weighing the costs of abandonments against the benefits of retentions. Here’s an example:

1. Philosophy makes progress in matters that really count
2. Philosophy does not progress in points of communal consensus
3. The achievement of consensus is a key goal of philosophy

For Rescher, three resolutions are available:

Abandon (1): Deny that philosophy makes progress (thereby effectively negating its claim as a valid cognitive discipline)

Abandon (2): Adopt a ‘true believer approach’, insisting that there is indeed a growing consensus but only within the community of real philosophers, thus, in effect, excommunicating most of the community (namely those who don’t see things our way).

Abandon (3): Reject communal consensus as the pivotal desideratum of philosophy.

Rescher favours resolution (3).

2. Make distinctions in order to adjust our common-sense commitments so that they are compatible but also fit with our experience. 

Here is my everyday example just to illustrate the process. Take the following proverbs on the theme of co-operation:

1. ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’
2. ‘Many hands make light work.’

From our experience of co-operating we can recognise both situations. But if we want to develop our own cogent general guidance about the value of co-operation, we make a distinction between would-be co-operators who agree about goals and those do not. We might say: ‘When people agree about the goals of a task many hands can made light work but when they are at odds about the goals, too many cooks can spoil the broth.’ We are beginning to amend our personal guidebook and making common sense into good sense.

So what? Rescher says that a significant part of philosophy over time has involved the making of distinctions but that new apories are regularly discovered. New distinctions then become even more acute and so it goes on. Philosophy in the professional field is therefore necessarily complex. However, philosophical distinction-making is an activity that all (including children) can do and find useful. So an important element of philosophising with children is identifying apories and exploring ways to move forward – either by abandonment of theses for good reasons or by making distinctions to retain all theses. When talking to pupils I may not use the word ‘apory’ but I help them to recognise the problems of consistency that the term describes.

Here is a further example of an apory by Nicholas Rescher’s. I’ll leave it to you to think about it.

1. All events are caused
2. If an action issues from a free choice, then it is causally unconstrained.
3. Free will exists – people can and do make and act upon free choices.

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* Apory or Aporia is an word from Ancient Greek: ἀπορία: ‘impasse, difficulty of passing, lack of resources, puzzlement’. It is used in a more particular sense here. I am unable to think of a one-word or simple-phrase translation of this sense into modern English. Perhaps the phrase ‘problem of consistency’ would do the job, although that misses out the something important – that the individual theses are plausible.

Rescher, N. (2006) Philosophical Dialectics: An Essay on Metaphilosophy, State University of New York Press.

Who's for 'caring thinking'?

 People working broadly in the tradition of Matthew Lipman and his colleagues at the IAPC tend to say that an important aim of P4C is for children to become more disposed to be critical, creative and caring in their thinking. But what use are these terms? Are ‘the 3Cs’, as they are often called, simply part of the dogma embraced by an undiscriminating band of disciples? Let’s see.

Philosophers tend to weigh arguments before coming to judgements so developing the capacity for critical thinking seems an appropriate aim that most critics of P4C would accept. Notions of creative and caring thinking are more often dismissed by those to whom these words suggest a lack of rigour in thinking and a concern to be ‘nice’ above all else. I don’t agree.

Invention and judgement (or creative and critical thinking) have long been partners in the practice of philosophising. In the process of trying to express what they really want to say, people often improvise as they explore commonplace arguments or create new ones. Through such a process, people enlarge the field of experience under critical scrutiny. P4C encourages people to invent and to judge – to combine critical and creative thinking.

What of caring thinking? Some people would deny it any place in philosophising. They imagine it must lead people to prioritise pleasing others over more important aims such as seeking clarity and truth. Yet this kind of criticism fails to appreciate the sense in which the term ‘caring thinking’ is understood in P4C. It is used to indicate a willing suspension of indifference – indifference to the issue under scrutiny, indifference to the opinions and emotions of others, indifference to rational standards of discussion.

Seen in this way, caring thinking is crucial to the cognitive and inter-personal aspects of dialogue. In the case of philosophising with children I suggest that if children don’t care what the outcomes of philosophical judgements are, they will not be disposed to make any in the first place. And if they don’t care about their fellow inquirers in a dialogue, the project of regular philosophising will soon flounder. I think that philosophising in schools should be a form of living together in a reflective way. Living together without care would be an abomination.

Another important point is that the three kinds of thinking (critical, creative and caring) are not meant to be discontinuous, discrete or necessarily opposed to one another. They comprise a fusion of dispositions. So, for example, the sort of caring thinking valued here is infused with criticality and vice versa.

Of course, people sometimes have to make difficult choices about what to think and do, how to express themselves and how to respond to criticism – that’s life. The aim of enhancing children’s capacities for critical, creative and caring thinking is, to my mind, a sensible one that links philosophising to living in general by encouraging children to develop a set of dispositions that are likely to help them choose and judge wisely.

Territories of Wisdom

 

“You, Lucullus, if you have accepted the views of your associate Antichus, are bound to defend these doctrines as you would the walls of Rome, but I need only do so in moderation, just as much as I think fit” (Cicero, Academica, 2.44.137)

American philosopher Nicholas Rescher characterises the modern philosophical scene as no longer dominated by ‘a handful of greats’. He writes: ‘great kingdoms are thus notable by their absence, and the scene is more like that of medieval Europe – a collection of small territories ruled by counts palatine and prince bishops. Scattered here and there in separate castles a prominent individual philosophical knight gains a local following of loyal vassals or dedicated enemies. But no one among the academic philosophers of today manages to impose their agenda on more than a minimal fraction of the larger, internally diversified community.’

The world of philosophy for children* is also becoming more and more diverse. In the beginning, Matthew Lipman and his colleagues bestrode the territory. Their ideas provided the foundations on which many local centres around the world were built. Terms like ‘community of inquiry’  and ‘The 3 Cs (critical, creative and caring thinking)’ became the common language of theory and practice in the field. Models of inquiry adapted from American pragmatists such as John Dewey and Charles Peirce were the norm.

Yet even in those early days of the 1980s a few individuals were developing their distinctive domains of theory and practice and gathering admirers around them. They devised new labels with which to demarcate the territory and distinguish their initiatives from others – ‘philosophy with children’, ‘philosophical inquiry with children’, ‘Socratic method’, ‘philosophical practice’, ‘philosophy in schools’ and so on.

Now there is an even wider range of beliefs about how philosophizing with children should be carried out. Within individual territories of theory and practice there is bound to be further diversity even if people agree to follow certain broad conventions.

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* I am using the phrase ‘philosophy for children’ and the initials ‘P4C’ here to refer to the whole range of initiatives involving philosophising with children and teenagers. Some insist the phrase should be used only with reference to the Philosophy for Children programme devised by Matthew Lipman and his colleagues at the IAPC (Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children). I have not taken that advice but if I am writing about a particular initiative or programme I will make that clear. I will try not to generalise about P4C as if all initiatives are the same.