Philosophy is a difficult subject to define.

Its nature has changed over time.

Things that were previously central to it are now recognised as disciplines of their own (for example, the natural sciences).

Further, the various branches of philosophy that exist today are not uniformly accepted as belonging to the discipline.

On the other hand, what remains common throughout philosophical investigations is the application of reasoning to matters of deep importance that do not appear amenable to empirical analysis.

In a sense, philosophy’s subject matter is thought; its nature, structure and the claims that are made from and within it.

Five key areas are worth considering in the context of classroom discussion:

• Logic
• Ethics
• Metaphysics
• Aesthetics
• Epistemology

The beauty of philosophy, for me anyway, is that it reaches out towards that which is most fundamental in our thinking and challenges us to look at it critically.

And this is a great reason why you should use it as part of classroom discussion.

Encouraging learners to think philosophically helps them to think more clearly about themselves and the world.

It also helps them to think with greater care and logic about other areas of thought.

In any discussion there are opportunities to turn the debate toward philosophical investigation.

Three areas tend to be touched on again and again, each of which is outlined below.

Upon familiarising yourself with these areas you will be ready to identify when they come up and to decide whether the time is ripe for a philosophical detour.

Concepts

Concepts are those things that are thought or imagined.

Nearly always they refer to something that is perceived to be in the world, but which does not have a tangible existence.

Courage is a concept.

Clearly there are examples of courage in the world.

We probably all know, or have at least heard of, people we consider to have behaved courageously.

Yet, if we were asked to go out and find courage, we would not be able to do so.

We might be able to find a person who could be said to have courage, or who could be said to have acted courageously, but we could not say that we had found courage.

The most we could say is that we have found a person who is said to have courage or has shown courage by acting courageously.

This would not mean that we had found courage itself though, only examples of it.

Concepts such as courage are mental formations that we apply to the world, but which do not exist independently in the world.

When we communicate, we rely heavily on concepts.

They form the bedrock of language and are used by all of us in nearly all our speech and writing.

One area of philosophical investigation that you can draw into classroom discussions is the analysis of concepts.

This involves fixing on a concept that is being used in the discussion and spending time investigating its meaning and the way in which it is used in different settings.

Here is an example:

In a Geography lesson about tourism the class are discussing the question:

• ‘On balance, is tourism of benefit to the local population?’

Such a discussion is likely to include various arguments for and against the proposition ‘tourism benefits locals’.

Turning the discussion toward philosophical analysis might involve asking learners to spend some time thinking about the meaning and use of the word ‘benefit’:

• What actually is a benefit?
• How does your standpoint affect the way in which you judge if something is beneficial or not?
• In what sense are we using the word benefit (in the sense of an advantage, something which helps, or as a subsidy)?

A philosophical sub-discussion like this is both an end in itself and also a benefit(!) to the wider discussion, providing as it does greater clarity regarding one of the lesson’s key terms.

Ethics

The concerns of ethics (or moral philosophy) cover three distinct yet related areas:

• Questions of right and wrong.
• Questions concerning how we define right and wrong and, therefore, how we make moral judgements.
• The application of moral reasoning to specific situations.

Many classroom discussions present opportunities to investigate ethics.

Any judgement that asserts that something is either right or wrong is an ethical judgement.

These judgements rest on some set of criteria, usually linked to a hierarchy of values.

They will not necessarily be logically consistent. (They may be, but not by necessity.)

Ethical discussions should focus on the reasons learners give for the ethical positions they hold.

The purpose is to encourage learners to think critically about their own values and why they feel they are right, particularly if other learners hold different positions.

There may be times when such analysis leads learners to change their views.

This is not the end goal of ethical discussion but a supplement which may or may not come about.

The overarching intention, which should be pursued throughout, is to make learners think rationally about their own moral positions.

In some cases, this results in them reasserting their original views with stronger reasoning than was originally the case.

At other times, it may cause them to change their views.

Here are three ways you can challenge learners’ thinking when leading them in an ethical discussion:

1. Ask for reasoning. Many ethical positions are asserted without any reasoning to back them up. Asking learners for reasons causes them to think in more detail about why they hold certain views. Be sure to press reasoning – a common attempt at escape sees learners falling back on circular reasoning (which is sometimes legitimate, but generally not).
2. Use thought experiments. This involves imagining a situation and asking learners to apply their ethical positions to it. The purpose is to test whether the judgements hold. By doing this, we are assessing the logic that underpins them, their scope of application, and the hierarchy of values on which they depend. For example, a learner asserts that it is wrong to eat animals. A thought experiment could be: ‘You are on a desert island and there is no food. Do you try to catch and eat fish from the sea?’
3. Suggest alternative viewpoints. When learners put forward ethical positions, ask them to reimagine the situation from another perspective. This encourages them to think about their own judgements from a point of view other than their own. For example, a learner asserts that positive discrimination is fundamentally unjust. An alternative standpoint might be that of someone who has continually been passed over for promotion, seemingly due to discrimination. Asking the same learner to think about their assertion from this point of view is challenging but also rewarding.

Epistemology

Epistemology is that branch of philosophy which deals with issues of knowledge.

It is informed by questions such as:

• ‘What can we know?’
• ‘How certain can we be about the knowledge we think we have about the world?’
• ‘Is it possible to have objective knowledge or is all knowledge bound by subjective experience?’

Clearly, some of these questions are not appropriate for discussions focussed on some other matter. They are perhaps too big to work as a brief diversion.

It can be helpful to detour into epistemological territory that is a touch lighter, and which impacts on the main discussion in important ways but not to such an extent that it overpowers the main topic.

Learners will often make comments or put forward arguments that contain potential problems regarding the knowledge they claim to rely on, or the ways of knowing about the world they have used to derive this knowledge.

It may also be the case that what is being discussed is itself requiring of epistemological analysis.

Here are some questions you can use to get learners thinking about the status of knowledge:

• How can you know that? You could ask this in many situations, not least when a learner has put forward an opinion that appears to rest on flimsy foundations.
• How can you be certain that what you say is true? This question is particularly useful for getting learners to look at the nature of certainty and what the implications might be for their own knowledge of the world.
• How can we know that something is true? This is a good question to use if the concept of truth has already arisen in the discussion. It invites a deeper exploration of that idea.
• How do we acquire knowledge? This question will cause learners to think about how they come to know things in the first place and whether the knowledge they have is sufficient to support the points they are making.
• What does X refer to and is it something of which we can have knowledge? In this question, X is usually a concept that is central to the discussion. Analysing the epistemological status of that concept helps improve the quality of the debate by identifying what we can and can’t know about it.