Philosophy in High School

[Anonymous No.17793377]

Why don't they teach philosophy in high school?

Here in Ireland for example we have 6 years of Secondary School (age 13-18 usually). It's mostly useless rote learning

Instead you could have a setup where you learn one philosopher a year, read the primary sources (the philosophers works) with some selected secondary reading, then the tests are just essays about their thought

For example:
>1st year
Plato - do a few works and end with Republic
>Second Year
Aristotle
>Third Year
Aquinas
>Fourth Year
Kant
>Fifth Year
Hegel
>Sixth Year
Nietzsche

Something like that, maybe less steep learning curve. But the point would be that when you graduate you have a genuine understanding of 6 major thinkers. I think this would be far more valuable than half of the bullshit subjects on the curriculum.

What would you put on the curriculum?

[Anonymous No.17793389]

i did learn philosophy in high school though

[Anonymous No.17793392]

>>17793377
>make the kids read Deleuze
>1 from every ten becomes a schizo
>eight of these 10 don’t know what’s happening
>one out of ten gets mad that I lowered the age of consent
Ahh well, c’est la vie

[Anonymous No.17793393]

>>17793377
They want kids to be braindead tiktok zoomers, easier to control that way.

[Anonymous No.17793395]

>>17793389
What did you learn?

[Ray Romano, Proud Black Man No.17793400]

>>17793377
they don't teach philosophy in most high school for two reasons. First, a lot of kids are truly not equipped to handle the security-rupturing insights derived from philosophy, and secondly, because the goal of western education is not to improve the quality of mind, but to inculcate a certain dogma and ethic. The second issue is largely responsible for the first.

[Anonymous No.17793410]

>>17793389
most don't

>>17793377
at least in america, it's better that people can't think for themselves. otherwise, they might cause too much of a commotion. If you study it correctly, philosophy makes you think, and we can't have a populace that thinks. that would ruin it for the elites. imagine feminists that could think for themselves. Do you think hilary clinton would still be around? (sorry for the /pol/, it's just a good example.

[Anonymous No.17793437]

My teachers couldn't get the students to read Shakespeare. As if they would have read Plato.

[Anonymous No.17793443]

>>17793395
I went to a Catholic high school. We (unironically) started with the Greeks (all of the notable presocratics -> Socrates, Plato, Aristotle). We covered Kant and Descartes since they're obviously also essential. From there it was mostly prominent Christian theologians and philosophers: Aquinas, Kierkegaard, St Augustine, etc... There was also some literal who atheist "philosophers" for the sake of strawmanning.
Overall it was a great class and was what really got me interested in philosophy.

[Anonymous No.17793450]

>>17793377
The biggest problem (at least in the US) is you are not allowed to teach or talk about religion or politics in public schools. A teacher isn't even allowed to tell you which political party theyre in. This is obviously a huge problem, and philosophers that make any reference to a religious work would have to be culled from the curriculum, which would damage understanding of philosphers that built on the works of those.
I agree its more valuable than spending a month reading 1984, but its the way it is.
>what would you put on the curriculum
I wish I was taught more poetry, Shakespeare is really the only one taught, and even then its just one or two plays in high school

[Anonymous No.17793453]

>>17793377
they do in many countries

[Anonymous No.17793456]

>>17793392
everyone is a schizo anon

[Anonymous No.17793463]

nishctche is cronge tho

[Anonymous No.17793473]

>>17793456
Nah man schizophrenia as content is the production of the unconscious but today people have too many organs on their bodies to be properly considered as schizos. The schizo’s a nomad, drawing the most tenuous of connections but if you are weighed down by all those organs you can possibly hope to be a draw any lines of escape

[Anonymous No.17793480]

>>17793437
I can understand not wanting to read shakespeare though, his plays are dull and difficult, he's the classic example of a writer that people praise universally but very few actually enjoy

Plato is much easier to read and is actually interesting, his thought has practical application. Shakespeare is intended only to be aesthetic and it fails at that

[Anonymous No.17793491]

>>17793480
Not so much because it was Shakespeare but because everyone was an anti-intellectual gronk.

[Ray Romano, Proud Black Man No.17793499]

>>17793480
Shakespeare is meant to be literary and thematic, aka, instructive, not merely aesthetic.

[Anonymous No.17793510]

>>17793491
>Not so much because it was Shakespeare but because everyone was an anti-intellectual gronk.

Fair enough, although I can sympathise with people not liking Shakespeare anyway

[Anonymous No.17793550]

>>17793377
It should start and end with Plato + Aristotle in one

I would replace N with a presocratic or latin or medieval work, because you can't really use N, N to me is more like candy not a tool

[Anonymous No.17793630]

It was an elective at mine

[Anonymous No.17793631]

>>17793550
>you can't really use nietzschean philosophy

U wot

[Anonymous No.17793642]

>>17793443
are you still catholic now?

[Anonymous No.17793658]

>>17793377
I had philosophy in high school though, I am from latin america. I remember they taught us about Plato, Aristotle, and then skipping many, many years into Marx, Freud and Nietzsche.

[Anonymous No.17793858]

>>17793658
here in brazil you have to learn from the pre-socratics to foucalt i think

[Anonymous No.17793895]

>>17793400
>First, a lot of kids are truly not equipped to handle the security-rupturing insights derived from philosophy
Maybe I'm too retarded to internalize things, but I have yet to come across any insight that is "security-rupturing,". Philosophy has been nothing but a benefit to me, offering solutions to things I couldn't figure out on my own. Which is a total contrast to the worldshaking way you describe it.

[Anonymous No.17794082]

>>17793895
erm, perhaps but what philosophers have you read?

[Anonymous No.17794093]

>>17793377
You post Nietzsche, whose biggest failing was the socialist utopianism of the Ubermensch. Nietzche's attention is not directed to metaphysics or epistemology but to the betterment of society, like all socialists. His ideal society is one where every person is an Ubermensch. The immediate problem arises that it would require every single person to be a philosopher. His vision melts away with the realization that only a select gifted few are able to not just study philosophy but actually comprehend it. The distinct feature of the 19th century was the socialization of the masses according to 18th century ideals that had been thought and discussed in relatively small circles of individuals. Philosophy and art are the realms of such idiosyncratic individuals who are not afraid to break the mold of current thought. It is out of reach to the socialized masses. Nietzsche even suspected as much in TSZ.

[Anonymous No.17794139]

>>17793377
We have philosophy classes in highschool in France, but only for junior year (which is the last year in our system).

Most students treat it as an occasion to do their homework from other subjects, or as practice time for incongruous activities. It did produce some memorable moments.

I had friends who held not only a poker match, but a complete poker tournament in philosophy classes (granted they were only 4 players). Others perfected original forms of the pocket calculator game snake where you direct a snake using the arrows. Their favorite invention was "blind snake", in which one teammate directs the snake with the eyes closed while the other guide the first by voice.
One of my classmates would bring food in the class, on one occasion even raw lardons which he ate to the disgust of his closest neighbors.
But the crown should probably go to my friends who held "table races" during lessons. Most our student tables where made to accomodate two seat and two students, but a few of them were one-seaters. Those were light enough to be pushed forward by muscle with relatively little noise. So the idea of the "table race" was that the contestants would start one a one-seater at the back of the class, then slowly move forward every time the teacher was not facing the students. Whoever got his one-seater to the first row without being noticed would win. Generally the prize was the look of confusion on the teacher's face as she found herself suddenly facing a student that she didn't remember seeing in the first row when the class started. I'm not sure she ever figured out was what happening.

I should mention one last thing. During a whole year of philosophy courses, I've never once seen anyone sit within a row of the teacher, so that the first row of students was always on the second or third row of chairs, leaving the teacher surrounded by an area of empty chairs several feet in diameter, as if she were radioactive. Once she mentioned it during class, with a attempted stoic look on her face, but visibly a bit distraught: "I notice that once again nobody is sitting within three meters of me. That's fine, I'm used to it."

I guess that's what I learnt in philosophy class.

[Anonymous No.17794148]

>>17793377
Mass education has one purpose: to raise an obedient, disciplined workforce. Nothing could be more anathema to this purpose than the field which puts "why" before everything.

[Anonymous No.17794182]

>>17794093
>socialist utopianism of the Ubermensch.
I'm so close to leaving this cesspit

[Ray Romano, Proud Black Man No.17794192]

>>17794093
you have a fucking retarded high school student's understanding of Nietzsche. Stop

[Ray Romano, Proud Black Man No.17794200]

>>17794182
its so fucking bad dude
earlier in a thread today somebody "dared me" to try and argue that Derrida and Foucault are similar

[Anonymous No.17794202]

>>17793480
Shakespeare is enjoyable if you just watch the damn play and then talk about it a bit. It's mind numbing when you've got to read it as a group line by line and discuss intricacies of the text that even the teacher doesn't know jack shit about in order to stretch the 3-title reading list out over a semester. How long will it be before kids are handed the script to Mulholland Drive and made to read it out loud in class popcorn-style?

[Anonymous No.17794279]

>>17793480
I just finished reading Tempest. I found that the language is almost too old to be easily followable (it's kind of equivalent to reading in German for me), and I easily lost track of what was happening because of over-descriptive imagery and word-use. Lots of character dynamics, which just wasn't that interesting for me which is probably why I'm not a fan of him in general.

[Anonymous No.17795024]

It would just be analytic dogma and little thought-experiments anyway
t. A* in philosophy A-level

[Anonymous No.17795060]

>>17793377
They do, though.

[Anonymous No.17795063]

>>17794202
>It's mind numbing when you've got to read it as a group line by line and discuss intricacies of the text that even the teacher doesn't know jack shit about in order to stretch the 3-title reading list out over a semester.
The only bad thing about it is your attitude and the clueless teacher, but judging from your post, it's more likely that you were the problem.

[Anonymous No.17795067]

>>17793410
If you want to think yourself, then do so. Institutions aren't gonna help you with that, I'm afraid.

[Anonymous No.17795072]

>>17793480
>his plays are dull and difficult, he's the classic example of a writer that people praise universally but very few actually enjoy
Philistine

[Anonymous No.17795239]

>>17793389
Same lol

[Anonymous No.17795353]

>>17793377
They actually do, maybe not in muttland
>>17793410
You'd be surprised how useless philosophy can be for the populace. They just evolve their idiot selves into useful idiots.

The main problem of this board and of many people who would associate here if given a choice is that there's no empirical observation. Some are even worse, since they're smart enough to make some sort of deductions which however have barely any truth if none at all because the underlining premises aren't even observed. Ironically enough, this problem has already been addressed by Kant in his first critique and no other philosophers have addressed it to the point of having their main ideas rely on ignoring this, because it's such a weak point to thinkers who can't observe.

[Anonymous No.17795511]

>>17795063
>if you don't like shakespeare you're the problem

This attitude is what I'm talking about, you can't even imagine someone thinking Shakespeare sucks because his work being good is dogma

[Anonymous No.17795532]

>>17793480
Based

[Anonymous No.17795572]

>>17795511
I've had this same argument with them countless times, there's no point even bothering. No one ever changes their mind. Some people are desperate to be seen as cultured or intellectual, and will try to argue its "objective value" in order to secure their own image, like the other poster who called someone else a philistine for it.

[Anonymous No.17795575]

>>17793377
most retarded shit I ever heard.
hegel and nietzsche were intellectually dishonest therefore worthless.
kant was muddleheaded therefore worthless.

why do you want to teach kids to be intellectually dishonest and inaccurate in their thinking?

[Anonymous No.17795585]

>>17793410
>If you study it correctly, philosophy makes you think, and we can't have a populace that thinks
most of the philosophy this board jerks off over is the direct opposite of thinking.

[Anonymous No.17795604]

good point but maybe should be an option for 5th and 6th year students. most people aren't interested and kids won't gain as much as you think from it.

[Anonymous No.17795615]

>>17793480
Is there a shakespeare version of the "No!" pasta?

[Anonymous No.17795659]

>>17793410
>>17793400
This persistent myth needs to be dispelled now. Literally every stupid loser who goes into teaching, especially in the social sciences, does so because they want to liberate the minds of young people and help them achieve their full potential. There is no plot to make schools into education for obedient factory workers or to make people politically ignorant or whatever. Everyone involved is trying as hard as they can to reach the children and show them the beauty of learning and that they can do anything they set their minds to. The real problems are, firstly, the only people attracted to working in public education are simpleminded mediocrities; secondly, academia itself is a men's bathhouse; and finally, most children who pass through the school are good for nothing more than a life of drudgery, and would actually be better off just being trained to work in a factory.

[Anonymous No.17796182]

>>17795659
Explain critical race theory and the holohoax being taught in middle schools. GO!

[Anonymous No.17796199]

>>17793377
This is so retarded.

[Anonymous No.17796260]

>>17794139
I notice that it didn't change much since I left school. For non-french readers, the reason nobody takes this seriously must be explained: philosophy is taught in the final year (as you explained) but french litterature ended on previous year. It used to be the crown of the education of a citizen, as most would leave school after that. Times changed but not the school system. As a result, there's no time but to skim superficially over the matter, plus the students are all busy preparing their final exams. Comes the choice to revise physics/maths or philo, everyone chooses to try their chance at bullshiting through the philo exam. It should be called 'history of philo', as it really is but an introduction, 95% of students will never learn any philo past that year. It would make more sense to distill it during the numerous years of Litterature class, but philo teachers arent litt' teachers. As a result, the system won't change, no matter how obsolete and absurd.

[Anonymous No.17796470]

>>17793377
Public school is not an institution of learning or philosophy or the good in any respect. It is a class serve designed to manage the masses and that is it. The fact that they will do everything they can to moralize and lie about this should tell you more than enough about what state we've arrived at. Sure, "teach philosophy" in those classrooms just like you "teach" everything else. None of this will be resolved without bloodshed

[Anonymous No.17796504]

>>17796260
We have pretty much the same thing in the other side of the Mediterranean here in Algeria. Students only have philosophy in their final year, and 99.99% of them never really give it attention since they could simply bullshit their way into a decent note.

[Anonymous No.17796575]

So this seems the most relevant thread.
I just got Beyond Good & Evil and I can't tell if its just the translation or Nietzsche's style but I got halfway through reading Part 1 before getting a headache that surely had nothing to do with me reading in a dark room. It seems as though like its just him ranting at someone. Not you, not me, not Kant or Spinoza that he names. Just at someone, perhaps even something should the paper he wrote/typed on turned out to be the victim. Its honestly like reading the posts of some anon who habitually huffs paint and I am aware that it was not written in English, but the impression remains.
Furthermore, his "questions" seem so self-assured which further implicate the fact that he is in some heated debate with a piece of parchment. Its not the hardest to read but my God, these run on sentences are about as thrilling to read as one that contrarily lack any descriptors. On top of that, he goes out of his way to shit on other philosophers and philosophies in a manner that makes him seem like that one guy constantly muttering to himself about being smarter than anyone but never speaking loud enough to engage in any actual discussion.
Is all of his work like this or is it simply this one in particular?

And so its not entirely off-topic, teaching philosophy to Americans at least is a Herculian task no human can overcome. The people here likely haven't even read more non-ficition books than you can count on a double-amputees fingers. I can delve deeper into it if anyone's interested.

[Anonymous No.17796590]

If your school offers it, take Latin.

I started in ms and it's the only class of which I have 100% good memories. The language, the history, the literature were all great. We read a lot of classics in Latin and English translations, including philosophy. It's a really good antidote to the rest of K-12.

Sample readings we did:
>De Bello Gallico, Caesar
>Meditations, M. Aurelius
>Suetonius
>Petronius
>Horace
>Catullus
>Ovid
>Cicero
>Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid
>numerous Greek, Roman plays
>some early Church Latin, on the side, for those interested (couldn't make it an assignment bc public school + muh establishment clause)

[Anonymous No.17796601]

>>17793377
i had it, it fucking blew
>here is author X that we are going to read for this amount of time no matter how fucking ass he is and you better have the same opinion as the teacher about the concepts and the implications the work is making or else youre failing the course

[Anonymous No.17796612]

>>17794082
Plato, Aristotle,Augustine, Avicenna, Averroes, Aquinas, Anselm, Cicero, Descartes, Hume, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kant, Kierkegaard, Gilson, Barth Berkely, Popper, Foucault, Said, Dray, Cottingham.

All that being said, I have read more Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas than all the others combined.

[Anonymous No.17796627]

>>17794082
>>17796612
Can't believe I forgot Hobbes, Ive read and written a good bit about him.

[Anonymous No.17796637]

I literally learnt it in high school though.
We learnt Kant, Nietzsche, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Descartes, Sartre, Marx, Hume, Anselm, Kierkegaard, Hobbes and Locke, Rawls and a ton of applied philosophy shit.

It was interesting, although I was really good at bullshitting my essays and still passing with an A

[Anonymous No.17796676]

>>17796612
Gonna go on a whim and just say that being too retarded to internalize things may have saved you when you were younger. Most people's concept of the world is taught, that is to say that their ideas are more of a series of inputs rather than experiences. If you are as retarded as you claim, you would've been immune to inputs like "common sense" and "not being a fucking weirdo". But in turn, you had a chance if not a necessity to create your own view based on experiences and knowledge you had.
Thus when you go to read philosophy, where the books might "teach" you a new concept of existence, others are again being affected by that input and their fragile views that are based on the inputs of others are being altered or overwritten. You however only had the view you made. So when another input comes around, one you've likely matured enough to understand, it doesn't overwrite other inputs because there was only ever your own thoughts. As a result your world views based in your own ideas remain unshaken, even when questioned.

[Anonymous No.17796683]

>>17796637
I am curious, how deeply did you guys go into those thinkers? I can't really imagine a bunch of highschoolers pouring over "A critique of Aesthetics," and coming away with anything but a confused look.

[Anonymous No.17796691]

>>17796676
Aha, and so it seems truly that the overman is the retarded man. For only he who is retarded is capable of avoiding the dogmatism of the middlebrow and the ego-death of the smartoid. Truly, people like me are a masterrace.

[Anonymous No.17796706]

>>17796691
>Masterrace
Ehh, master person. A lack of dogmatization means lack of socialization. A lack or socialization means a lack of procreation. A lack of procreation means a lack of generations.

[Anonymous No.17796711]

>>17796676
This
>others are again being affected by that input and their fragile views that are based on the inputs of others are being altered or overwritten
Is honestly the biggest issue with our world. Despite having access to more knowledge than ever, who can declare that young people are actually learning? It is what Plato wrote about, that education ought not to be memorization but guided reflection. Now whether that means you have an eternal soul is another matter, but oh well.

[Anonymous No.17796719]

>>17796706
A fair and true position

[Anonymous No.17796731]

>>17796683
it wasn't exactly deep, of course we didn't have enough time to examine all of them in detail. We mainly just read certain chapters, excerpts and extracts from their texts. Then we spent some time writing essays explaining differing viewpoints on issues. (eg. deontology vs utilitarianism etc)

[Anonymous No.17796733]

They do in my country and it's useless. High school doesn't matter.

[Anonymous No.17796734]

>>17795659
Blah blah blah they operate within a set structure which limits what they can actually do.
They aren’t being taught in a cabin away from the rest of society.

[Anonymous No.17796755]

>>17796731
Of course, I was just curious in the event it was and then you could elaborate. But what you have described seems like the ideal. Ethics is a good start because even kids have a sense of things being either ethical or not so.

[Anonymous No.17796756]

>>17796711
>>17796691
I'm nothing short of amazed anyone got anything from that. I felt like a fool typing it out. Thanks for reading it anons.

[Anonymous No.17796809]

>>17796706
Amazing

[Anonymous No.17796818]

>>17796755
yeah ethics was only one of the units though, we also had theology, political philosophy, epistemology and aesthetics. I liked ethics the most though. For my final essay, I had to write a 6000 word thesis analysing Rawls' Theory of Justice and I somehow got a good grade despite banging it out the night before. All in all, a pretty good intro to philosophy though.

[Anonymous No.17797554]

In Italy there are different types of high schools. There are "professonale" high schools that are more oriented towards making you learn the skills that you'll need to do a specific job (for which you won't necessarily need a degree). Then there are "liceo", where you don't study as much "practical" topics but more theorical stuff (law, Latin...). If you attend a liceo than you usually go to university after. And, in all liceos, you lean philosophy during your 3rd, 4th and 5th year.

[Anonymous No.17798748]

>>17795659
Let's assume all individuals involved do want the best for students. Those people themselves, regardless of intelligence or intention, are still part of a system that often doesn't appear to want students to succeed outside a narrow band of performance criteria (grades, test scores, college admissions, etc.). Then consider that our education system is largely based on the Prussian model that optimizes for compliance.

I went to a very rich public hs, and while there were more opportunities and enlightened teachers, it was the same underlying principles at work. I remember being amazed at the end of four years to find that most people with interesting ideas about what to do with their lives had been so thoroughly discouraged and cowed by their (((education))) as to be rendered almost completely conventional. Even more so after college. To me, that is the best indictment of the education system I can recall.

It's so sad that we waste so much enthusiasm and talent, and I am so thankful I had parents who did not go along with whatever the school said.

[Anonymous No.17799518]

>>17793377
We did but no one gave a shit about philosophy, it was one of those classes people skipped most often along with religion.