Should Philosophy Be Studied In High School?

This is along the lines of the Pantheism and Panentheism the other half of the world believes in, the collective unconscious. For more tribal people like myself, time is organic and we can even sometimes feel it flowing through our bodies and see images in our minds, and compare notes. Once, my instant messaging service provided the answers to all my questions before I hit the send button, for roughly two months. Time is the fucking issue, humor is the fucking issue, which is why academics are destroying the world, because their traditions support the wealthy by ignoring and suppressing humor. Time is the fire within which we burn, and the ice within which our minds go numb, because time is never what you think it is until that time rolls round again, which makes lowbrow slapstick intrinsic to nature, and by catering to the wealthy and focusing on beauty we've made rapid progress, but mother nature is about to reclaim the planet and half the planet is not going to like meeting her.

The particle is about to become the wave, the caterpillar is about to emerge from its cocoon, or what we call Childhood's End. Unfortunately, I estimate at least two billion people will suffer and die before this is over.

 

Name any philosopher and I will deconstruct his lifes work down to one paragraph.

Which pretty much sums up Philosophy for me.

As for Psychology, thats the quote unquote "science" that got me to go back check if everything in every other science was bullshit. The cough cough "science" that turned me into a cynic.

 

Well I don't think that would be a very useful exercise. It's probably possible for some philosophers, but not all. I would say your world-view is very reductionist and materialist. I know you are blatantly right-wing, are a fan of Margaret Thatcher, and so on. I don't know what forces in life contrive to make some people so different as me and you, but there you have it. You are basically saying that you refute and dismiss Humankind's entire body of work regarding the nature of existence, what it means to be a conscious being, aesthetics, moral philosophy, theories of knowledge, and all the rest of it. That's fine. These things interest me, and I'm sure they would capture the imaginations of many young people too if they were exposed to them in a conducive way.

Feelings become ignored when an action becomes mechanical.

 

Intetesting you use the term reductionist.

As I believe that is the age we live in now.

What philiodophical wisdom do you think should be compulsory in high school now for the youth of today that cant be condensed down to a couple paragraphs on wikipedia or a 3 minute youtube video

Its not just me

 

i think it could be a good elective but not a class for everyone.

 

I've been criticised for not being interested in reading philosophy.. But I have tried and just find it so hard to not be bored.

I still think the important bit at the start is to get kids discussing whether killing one person to save ten is morally acceptable and things like that. It matters that they don't see it as a subject with right/wrong answers.

 

You don't necessarily have to read a lot of philosophy to do philosophy. Socrates never wrote a thing. It's just a way of thinking about life. So much can be achieved just by intuition.

 

My thoughts precisely.

 

Yeah. Getting young people to study things is useless. Better that they have the attention span of a gnat. (Sarcasm.)

 

I dunno... Understanding the law of non-contradiction is a pretty good start.

 

Indeed. But logic and symbolic logic may be better taught to slightly elder students, as Driftrue has even suggested that some aspects of philosophy should even be taught in elementary school, which I think is a good idea.

Interesting idea from colour theory which just occurred to me which may refute the law of non-contradiction. If we take a black square which is seemingly pure black but in fact has some brown pigment in it, it will appear as being pure black to the viewer. But when placed next to a square that is absolute black pigment, the first square will then appear to the viewer as simply being a very dark brown. In this case the first square equals "A is B" and "A is not B" at the same time, because it can appear as being both black when viewed alone, but very dark brown when viewed alongside a square which is pure black. If the first square is perceived as being black by the human eye, is it not right to say it is indeed black? It's interesting to take logic and try and apply it real world scenarios and see if it holds up.

 

Non-contradiction is specific in that it is stated, "a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect."

It always works in real world scenarios. Except possibly at the quantum level.

 

OK. You have me on that one. I'll have to think about it.

 

Philosophy is the love of wisdom, and academics debate the meaning of everything, while neither love nor wisdom require debate. The academics appear ready to destroy the planet in the name of objectivity and wisdom, so I take my knowledge where I can get it and do my best to ignore the madness of the mainstream.

 

My philosophy is a bit wobbly. Just like me.

 

Sometimes, in order to find a better place to stand, we must first fall down.

 

Why would understanding this be the thing you would single out as a good start? I'm not saying it's not, I just want to understand it's significance, because I didn't actually know it.

 

The law of noncontradiction is the foundation of logic and the laws of thought, but the conscious mind can obviously grasp logic implying quantum mechanics are correct, and nature is irrational despite our conscious minds insisting otherwise. Descartes famously said, "I think, therefore I am" and the conscious mind does much the same, insisting that because it can think it must be real. Of course, Descartes also left just the slightest wiggle room in there for faith to play a part, which was perhaps wise on his part.

 

I agree when it comes to morality/ethics like what is italicized above, however I often think there are correct answers within Philosophy, as in properly respecting arguments put forth regardless of whether you personally agree with them or not.

For instance, I see people often grossly misinterpret Descartes' "I think therefore I am" phrase, a realization that follows from a line of reasoning in his Meditations, where thinking assures existence in some capacity. It's really a simple yet kind of trippy, mindblowing argument. However when people tend to use the phrase, they often assume their humanness to be given and that the "thinking" is contigent on some exterior quality that they may or may not have actualized, such as a body dysmorphic representation of themselves in the mirror or wanting to achieve a list of errands in a day or something...

Speaking of which, I kind of rushed this post, I hope that makes sense.

Also I think, logical structures have correct answers.