Philosophy and Education

Abstract

The conventional wisdom is that philosophy is too abstract to have any bearing on practice and is, therefore, dispensable in school education. It is this conception of philosophy that has brought about the apathy or the division that we have been seeing between philosophy and the majority of the general public. There certainly is some truth in this, especially with regard to philosophical matters that have little or nothing to do with what really matters to people, i.e. questions such as the existence of possible worlds. But philosophy does not only aim to respond to intellectual curiosity and quench this intellectual thirst that we have for knowledge or rational certainty. This, however intrinsically valuable in itself, is not the sole summum bonum of philosophy. Philosophy also aims to edify our minds, i.e. ethics. It aims to show us what the right way is or what actions are right, what justified and what not, what to believe and what not. Philosophy aims to discourage gullibility or credulity, which I think is a product or by-product of uncritical curriculum at any level of education in academia, especially in schools, for people at this age are more impressionable to dogmas and more vulnerable to end up credulous if subjected to uncritical curriculum in their early education, especially in pious societies or societies in which there is not much rational autonomy. Philosophy aims to instil a spirit in us that favors reason over authority, and rational beliefs over dogmas. It is because of this that I shall be, in this paper, arguing that the basics of philosophy should be taught at appropriate levels of education, ranging from primary to high schools.