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| Little Big Minds: Sharing Philosophy with Kids |
I don't really have anything new to blog at the moment after realizing that I'm out of my element trying to read S. L. Hurley's Natural Reasons (the back-cover praise notwithstanding, etc. - although I was able to keep up well enough with one of the praisers' recent masterwork, On What Matters). (In a discussion a while back with a philosopher friend, on the subject of who might compare to Robert Nozick in smarts, depth and breadth of philosophical learning, Hurley's name came up, and Natural Reasons specifically.)
But I do know enough to know that many, many human ills can be cured by what is, by far, the biggest no-brainer in human history, about which I provide a reminder:
(The book shown above is the one book I've read on the P4C subject, and it proves its case beyond a shadow of a doubt. And that's just one of the approximately 100 references - books, articles, and periodicals - at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy page for P4C.)
I wonder if maybe I should go "on strike" from blogging again, until such time as this monumental no-brainer is adopted and implemented? After all, what value-added is a philosophy blog - any philosophy blog - going to have compared to this monumental no-brainer? (I mean, I can't even master Natural Reasons yet ffs. (I've been spending too much research-time on things like reddit threads, see. Could there be some kind of dialectical coming-together of themes about humanity one might glean both from reddit threads and from Natural Reasons? How about Hurley's discussion of evidential akrasia, for starters? Also, I've spent considerable amounts of research-into-the-human-condition time on things like the Howard Stern show. Those poor/philosophy-needing wack-packers, huh?)) Or . . . is a definitive P4C book and/or blog the ultimate solution?
(But what, then, about P4E - Philosophy for Everyone? As I've said before, it stands to reason that if kids can study philosophy, so can adults. But we know for a fact that kids have plenty of free time that the adults may not have, and return-on-investment seems perhaps a lot more promising when you start 'em young. A goddamn shame this isn't happening all over the place already. What's the holdup? Where's the weight of the philosophy profession and educational establishment on this monumental no-brainer? Just think: if a critical mass of the starting-young philosophy students could also compose a work at the level of sophistication of Natural Reasons by age 34 as Hurley did, then . . . ?)
[Addendum: And just to ensure with a high degree of confidence that the child-philosophers don't end up as the dialectic-destroying monstrosities we see in politics and (horrifically) on campuses nowadays, they should be introduced right from the get-go to the Rapoport/Dennett Rules for honest criticism, in whatever age-appropriate fashion (but you might be surprised just how well they grasp the Rules just as presented). Isn't it high time that all credible standpoints get a fair hearing in the free and open marketplace of ideas? Anyone else grown sick and tired of all the blatant flouting of the no-brainer Rules?]
[Addendum: And just to ensure with a high degree of confidence that the child-philosophers don't end up as the dialectic-destroying monstrosities we see in politics and (horrifically) on campuses nowadays, they should be introduced right from the get-go to the Rapoport/Dennett Rules for honest criticism, in whatever age-appropriate fashion (but you might be surprised just how well they grasp the Rules just as presented). Isn't it high time that all credible standpoints get a fair hearing in the free and open marketplace of ideas? Anyone else grown sick and tired of all the blatant flouting of the no-brainer Rules?]
