[Bups-dis] philosophy for children

[djf500 at york.ac.uk]

I'm not sure about the common idea that all (or alot of) other disciplines 
are the 'children' of philosophy. Clearly the genesis of all modern 
academic subjects owes something to ancient philosophy - but why should 
modern philosophy claim any special provenance?

I wonder if modern philosophy stands in the same relation to ancient 
philosophy as other modern disciples - a result of an intellectual division 
of labour, as it were. Apart from the name (a non-essential attribute!) I 
don't see why modern philosophy has any more claim in relation to ancient 
philosophy than, say, modern physics or biology or psychology (not just 
'the sciences', anything academic - not history of art then! [note: joke]).

You could argue that other disciplines have 'split off' from philosophy, 
and that modern philosophy is just what's left. But that doesn't make sense 
unless you assume that the bits of ancient philosophy that have survived, 
as it were, were the essential parts in the first place and that's at the 
very least tendentious and renders the 'genesis' argument useless (i.e. 
because to claim fatherhood for modern philosophy over other disciplines is 
not resolved by going back to the beginning, as it were, because the same 
question needs to be resolved for 500BC as 2007AD - did the bits of ancient 
phil. that we call 'modern phil.' have precedence over the other bits?). I 
think that my point stand even if you point to some kind of distinctive 
method for modern philosophy (though it's far from clear that there is one 
in my view).

So, there needs to be a none-historical argument for the precedence of 
*modern* philosophy over other disciplines - I can't see that there is one. 
One would like to say that the issues modern philosophy deals with have 
some kind of logical priority to other disciplines - *meta*physics - but I 
don't get many knocks on the door from physicists asking for help (thank 
God!). I don't mean that there's nothing in physics (or whatever) that 
counts as philosophy (quite the opposite in fact), but that what people do 
in philosophy departments these days doesn't seem *specially* vital in such 
a way as to give it 'umbrella precedence' as it were.

P.S. I use 'modern' to mean *now* rather than, necessarily, 17thC onwards 
[or whenever].

  

On Feb 19 2007, Russo, Matteo wrote:

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> In response to Paul, I would say that philosophy is that field whose 
> definition is its lack of definition, it has no essential character aside 
> from the questioning of what and why character exists and what its value 
> is in other disciplines along with everything else. Philosophy 
> encompasses and is entrenched in all forms of intellectual discourse. 
> It's almost like the most rudimentary or elemental tool for enquiry, in 
> the beginning philosophy propelled and embodied all intellectual pursuit, 
> today's vast array of disciplines are all children of philosophy but they 
> have adopted structure and methodology where philosophy has remained 
> amenable and unbound by method. I don't think children could practice 
> philosophy any more than they could practice any other discipline to a 
> high level but they would be instilled with the foundations of the 
> philosphical method and would thus be I think intellectually more 
> 'well-equipped' since they would be more predisposed to the questioning 
> of assumptions and more able to uncover them and pry the underpinnings of 
> a given subject as opposed to accept them passively as they are taught 
> to.
> 
> I definitely believe in the teaching of philosophy to children because I 
> think everyone has an underlying 'philosophical disposition' its just 
> that we are indoctrinated from the earliest age with countless 
> assumptions in every field, moral, metaphysical, teleological, such that 
> only those with the most acute form of this disposition will still be 
> drawn to philosophy. Teaching philosophy at an early age would be a way 
> of removing the 'dogmatic condition' which still pervades parts of 
> society particularly with regard to religion, it would instill openess 
> and teach the value of philosophy in itself which is vastly 
> under-appreciated today. _______________________________________________
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