Combustible philosophy
“It’s been pouring all day… the firewood is totally soaked.” It’s the lament of every soggy camper. Fire-lighting is hard in these conditions, and the quality of the tinder and […]
Tag Archives: argumentation
Unveiling and packaging
Early one summer morning, a young Australian philosophy graduate was awoken by a phone call. It was the eminent professor David Lewis, calling from Princeton University’s philosophy department. “You’ve been […]
Doing without Socrates
The Socratic method, when used correctly, is an ingenious and dependable way of fostering collaborative dialogic argument in the classroom. Yet the Victorian Department of Education and Training (DET) presents […]
Wake up!
Philosophy education and the climate crisis Like many in our community, I find myself moving between shock, anxiety, grief and frustration as news reports indicate that our planet is heating […]
Straighten up and fly right: Making dialogue work
Does dialogue work to harmonise conflicting views, or does it simply entrench differences? According to extensive research in the psychology of polarised opinion, the answer is discouraging: when people of […]
Is philosophy dead?
You might have noticed: having a dig at philosophy seems to have become a sport among high profile scientists. Stephen Hawking famously declared: “philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept […]
Beyond parallel play: Three keys to dialogic argument
In honour of World Philosophy Day, I’m capping off my series on relativism and evaluativism today. If you haven’t read my previous posts in the series – Epistemology Needs to […]
Friendly excursions into disequilibrium
I’ve been progressively building the argument that we educators need to help our students move beyond relativism, and towards an evaluativist level of understanding. But how can we achieve this? […]
NAPLAN persuasive writing test subverts critical thinking
The capacity to persuade is a vital currency: it fosters active civic participation and affords access to power in a democracy. Developing persuasiveness therefore has an important place in education. […]
The Philosophy Club 