Pre-College Philosophy

This article was downloaded by: [Temple University Libraries] On: 15 November 2014, At: 04:47 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK The Social Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vtss20 Pre-College Philosophy Ralph Sleeper a a Queens College and the City University Graduate Center , USA Published online: 29 Jul 2010. To cite this article: Ralph Sleeper (1978) Pre-College Philosophy, The Social Studies, 69:6, 236-243, DOI: 10.1080/00377996.1978.9959413 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00377996.1978.9959413 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. 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Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vtss20 http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/00377996.1978.9959413 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00377996.1978.9959413 http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions PRECOLLEGE PHILOSOPHY RALPH SLEEPER There is a place in the Meno where Plato has Socrates say: “Some things I have said of which I am not altogether confident. But that we shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to inquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know; -that is a theme on which I am ready to fight, in word and deed, to the utmost of my powers.” This is the challenge which has been made to the faculty and the classroom teachers who are participating in the “Philosophy in the Classroom” project at Queens College. As a member of that faculty, and as one whose duties do not normally extend beyond the teaching of graduate and undergraduate courses in the Department of Philosophy, this challenge has posed some special problems for me. In what follows I shall mention some of them and offer some brief descriptions of the ways that we have found for deal- ing with them. I shall begin with the beginning: What is philosophy? And what is it when it becomes part of the curriculum of the elementary and secondary school? In facing this problem I was well aware of the inclina- tion of professional philosophers to assume that philoso- phy is one subject that is best reserved for college level introduction, that it does not lend itself to legitimate sim- plification, that pre-college philosophy curriculums must inevitably involve a “watering down” to a level of innoc- uousness that ought to be avoided. Better no phlosophy at all than the inevitable distortions and misrepresentations that are bound to predominate in the minds of the young if they are exposed to the problems of philosophy at too early an age and at the mercy of untrained and unqualified teachers. Is not philosophy both a difficult and a danger- ous subject, potentially subversive of the cherished beliefs of family and society, a study best reserved for more mature and experienced minds, as Aristotle warned us long ago? Will not philosophy in the pre-college classroom be but a caricature of itself, a disreputable travesty, when crammed down into an already over-crowded curriculum to be taught by teachers who are ill-prepared and harried enough by the problems of student illiteracy and over- populated classrooms?’ How willing are we to join the Socratic fight for inquiry? Ralph Sleeper teaches philosophy at Queens College and the City University Graduate Center. He has been a visiting professor at Dartmouth and Franconia Colleges and Cambridge University, and is a frequent contributor to philosophical periodicals. Choosing an Approach philosophy offer no guarantee of qualification to teach philosophy, so how can these pre-college teachers be ex- pected to acquire that elusive qualification in two short semesters and a couple of weeks of “workshops”-the allot- ted time for the “Philosophy in the Classroom” project at Queens? Will such a course become a shoddy and ram- shackle “cram” course with which no respectable profes- sional philosopher or Department of Philosophy would dare to associate itself? The time seemed short for offering even a “survey” course in the history and basic problems of philosophy. And even if we could offer such a course, what good would that do our pre-college classroom teach- ers? Perhaps it would provide some background, but the curriculum of such a course would hardly serve as a model for what could be done in the pre-college classroom where time would be at an even greater premium.2 ment for the Humanities, (NEH), grant proposal required a very different approach than any with which we were familiar. While it was part of our purpose to test and evalu- ate what curriculum materials were available for the pre- college classroom in philosophy, it was not our intention to train teachers in the use of these materials. Nor did we pro- pose to construct alternative or competing curriculum ma- terials ourselves. If model lessons were to be a part of our “workshop” sessions, as had been planned, clearly the bur- It is clear that even years of graduate study devoted to The task we had set for ourselves in the National Endow- 236 THE SOCIAL STUDIES D ow nl oa de d by [ T em pl e U ni ve rs ity L ib ra ri es ] at 0 4: 47 1 5 N ov em be r 20 14 den of the preparation of such models would be the re- sponsibility of the teachers themselves working within the constraints of their own particular classroom conditions and with such materials as would be readily available to them. The function of the project staff would be limited to advice and guidance. The teachers would be encouraged to experiment for themselves and to learn from their own experience what they could and could not do with philo- sophy in their own classrooms. In the light of these considerations, it was decided ear- ly in the planning of our project to test a very long- standing assumption about the nature of philosophy as such. That is, it would be assumed that philosophy is the subject matter to which no subject matter is foreign; “the subject matter of subject matters” as it is sometimes called. When philosophy is considered from this perspective it soon becomes quite plain that any subject in the school curriculum is an appropriate subject matter for philoso- phical treatment. It becomes evident that every subject matter can be taught philosophically. The direction in which our project would have to go, on the basis of such assumptions, became quite clear. We would try to prepare our students to teach their own subject matters, their own cum’culum, philosophically. In so doing we would not be presenting philosophy as having a content largely com- prised of the competing doctrines of the historically impor- tant philosophers together with the methods that they have employed-as we commonly do in college and gradu- ate courses. Nor would we be encouraging them to teach philosophy in their own classrooms in that fashion. Rather, we would be teaching them that philosophy is a discipline of critical examination and inquiry. We would be teaching them that philosophy has a “content possessing unique merit” as a discipline that can be brought to bear on every subject in the school curriculum from the “Three Rs” to the most advanced high school electives in science and the humanities3 The claim that would be embodied in our project is the claim that philosophy in both its content and its method can be taught in the pre-college classroom by philosophical teaching. Philosophy would be introduced into the classrooms of both our primary and secondary teachers; those classrooms would-if we succeeded-become philosophical classrooms. The Philosophical Classroom Once the decision had been reached to concentrate on the objective of dealing with “Philosophy in the Classroom” by transforming the classroom into something like a philo- sophical forum, i.e. “The Philosophical Classroom,” it be- came necessary to work out a preliminary delineation of the features that distinguish “philosophical” teaching from teaching that is not. From such a delineation the essential characteristics of the “philosophical classroom” soon be- gan to emerge. Moreover, it soon became evident that the “philosophical classroom” would inevitably be a forum in which the most basic problems of philosophy would, of GREAT ROCK OF INNER SEEKING lsamu Noguchi National Gallery of Art , Washington necessity, have to be faced. In every classroom there are problems of knowledge. How do we know what we know? What is true, false, doubtful, and probable? How do we know what to do? What is right and what is wrong, valu- able and valueless? What is real and what is not real? What is the world really like? What ought it to be like? And how can we best find out? What methods have worked best for mankind? Are there better and worse ways of making a decision? Are the reasons given good ones or bad ones? Is there a way of deciding that an argument is a good one or a bad one? Philosophy in Every Subject In traditional terms these are the basic problems of philosophy: metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, and logic. They are implicit in every classroom, in every subject mat- ter, at every level. But they are too often ignored or November/December 1978 237 D ow nl oa de d by [ T em pl e U ni ve rs ity L ib ra ri es ] at 0 4: 47 1 5 N ov em be r 20 14 evaded in traditional pedagogy. They would become expli- cit in the “philosophical classroom’’ and remain as matters of continuing concern. In order to make them explicit and to ensure that they would remain matters of continuing concern we developed four basic rubrics t o serve as criteria of a “philosophical” lesson. First, a philosophical lesson must be concerned with truth and how it is achieved. Sec- ond, a philosophical lesson must be concerned with values and how they are established. Third, a philosophical lesson must be concerned with getting the facts, explaining how they are gotten, and what they mean. Fourth, a philosophi- cal lesson must be concerned with the logic of discourse, with the nature of reasoning and argument. The following may serve to put some flesh on the bare bones of these cri- teria: 1. TRUTH. Philosophical teaching is “nondogmatic” and best proceeds by aiding inquiry. Indoctrination is anti- thetical to philosophical inquiry, stifles curiousity and imagination, and is out of place in the philosophical class- room. Philosophy is, to be sure, in search of truth. Too frequently what is presented as truth amounts merely to “conventional wisdom” or to collective opinion and fails to withstand careful examination. The lesson that Socrates taught early in the history of philosophy is not easily learned and is too often forgotten. Truth claims of every sort must be subject to intensive critical scrutiny as to their grounds in evidence and method. Truths easily come by are most often trivial. Important truths are usually elu- sive and are rarely established on a permanent basis or uni- versally accepted. The lasting value of the search for truth is, however, as evident as is the value of critical examina- tion and inquiry. In the philosophical classroom therefore, truth claims will be treated with healthy respect and delib- erate criticism in whatever context they may arise. The consideration of such claims, in fact, must always be examined in context if needless confusion is to be avoided. Is the claim to truth made by a poet or a scientist? On what authority are we asked to accept it, on what evidence is it based? Is it a candidate for “absolute” status, or is it frankly “relative’: to “available” evidence? Particular and general truths must be distinguished from each other, as must be the difference between what is “probable” and what is “possible”-and the variety of ways in which the word “certain” is used in making truth claims can be a valuable lesson in analysis in itself. Sorting out the logi- cal and epistemological status of the great variety of kinds of truth claims with which the pre-college student is regu- larly confronted should be a major focus of attention in the philosophical classroom. The students who develop skills in this area will possess an invaluable tool for ap- proaching every aspect of their studies, a tool that is basic to thinking itself and that is essential to the process of knowing. 2. VALUES. The second major focus of the philoso- phical classroom is on values. The commonly accepted view of philosophy as devoted to the discovery of the grounds of values, of right and wrong, is assuredly correct. What is not correct is the common view that values are somehow categorically immune to the kinds of inquiry and critical examination appropriate to matters of fact. Values are, to be sure, preferences and aversions. They are held, believed in, acted upon, recommended, urged, and made the subject of truth claims. Also, they are rejected, not believed in, not acted upon, recommended against, urged against, and made the subject of claims to be false. A claim that something is “good” or “ed”-or “beautiful” or “ugly”-is a particular kind of truth claim and, as such, is open to examination and critical inquiry. On what authority is the claim made, on what reasoning and what evidence? While allowance may be made for idiosyncracies of taste and preference, a claim that something is a “moral standard”-or “canon of esthetic judgment”-exceeds the limits of such allowances and must be subject to the tests applicable to any general statement. The view that such moral and esthetic claims are “non-cognitive” in character, which leads to the mistaken conclusion that they are not testable in the ways that “cognitive” truth claims are test- able, arises from the assumption that it is possible to draw a clear-cut distinction between statements of value and statements that are purely descriptive. The myth of “value free” science and social science is itself grounded in this assumption. There is no such absolute categorical dis- tinction possible, for there is no ultimate ontological dis- junction between values and facts. Statements purporting to be “purely descriptive” turn out to conceal valuational perspectives, and generalizations about values turn out to contain hidden assumptions about matters of fact! What this means is that the philosophical classroom will be a laboratory for the investigation of the concealed value assumptions of the sciences and of the hidden factual assumptions that lie behind value claims. The task of dis- covering values that are sound and enduring cannot hope to be successful if the work of such critical analysis is shirked. The often professed duty of the classroom teacher to “inculcate sound values in the student” can be realized only if there is a clear basis for determining what values are-in point of fact-sound.’ 3. FACTS. The third focus of the philosophical class- room may not appear to be especially “philosophical” at all, for there is a fairly widespread belief that “facts speak for themselves.” It requires very little analysis of the ways in which facts are dealt with in the classroom to see the fallacy of such a belief. Facts are but “data” upon which generalizations are based. If the job of a generalization is to “represent” the data, too frequently it misrepresents the facts. The “facts themselves” are meaningless in the absence of generalizations. Theories and hypotheses lend perspective and meaning to facts, infuse them-as it were- with value and significance. Claims as to the nature of facts invariably employ “paradigms” of interpretation 238 THE SOCIAL STUDIES D ow nl oa de d by [ T em pl e U ni ve rs ity L ib ra ri es ] at 0 4: 47 1 5 N ov em be r 20 14 which may not always be made explicit by the claimant, and which remain to be clarified by analysis in the phdo- sophical classroom. Philosophical teaching must be con- scious of the conceptual systems and structures that gov- ern the formation of generalizations concerning facts and to be critical of them. The philosophical classroom is a place where facts are important enough to be accepted at “face value” for, to paraphrase an old Socratic maxim: “The unexamined fact is not worth ha~ing .”~ thinlung-is both an art and a science, as the history and philosophy of logic has amply demonstrated. While we can be somewhat more confident in identifying fallacious thinking than in setting forth the rules for correcting it, there are some simple principles and rules that work quite satisfactorily. Philosophical teaching will make frequent and varied use of such principles. For the most part they will not be such as are found in texts of formal logic, or that require familiarity with a complex symbolic language for their application. They are, instead, the simple rules of practical reasoning in everyday use as they are in every branch’of the pre-college curriculum.’ Of course some acquaintance with formal logical terminology will be of use, but only such terms as have won general acceptance in everyday discourse, e.g., “induction and deduction,” “implies,” “analogy” and “premise.” The philosophical classroom will be a place for discovering and putting to use logical methods of problem solving, of identifying the most successful ways of reaching conclusions and arriving at evaluative judgments. The logic of inquiry itself will be an appropriate subject for examination, for it is close to the heart of all philosophical teaching and learning. 4. LOGIC. Philosophical teaching is logical. Reasoning- An Example from the Philosophical Classroom Tentative acceptance of these four identifying traits of “phdosophical classroom” led to the formulation of a num- ber of actual assignments for the people enrolled in our program. These assignments were designed as illustrations of what could be done in any classroom with a variety of subject matters to introduce philosophical issues and phil- osophical ways of dealing with them. These assignments were aimed at the intellectual level of the teachers them- selves-rather than that of their students-it was expected that these assignments would lead to a better understand- ing of what sort of lesson planning is necessary for the philosophical classroom. It was also anticipated that some grasp of the nature of philosophy itself would result, for there would be ample opportunity for demonstrating how philosophers go about identifying basic philosophical issues and how they deal with them. The teachers would later on be asked to prepare assignments and lesson plans for their own classrooms using our assignments and the inquiry experience of our classroom as background. It was nor our intention to provide the teachers with materi- als that they would find useful in their own classes. Rather, it was to provide actual experience of the clasqoom as a place where philosophical inquiry, teaching and learning, takes place. As an example of such an assignment I have chosen one which was used very early in the project. It was especially designed to bring out the diverse nature of philosophical issues and to show how the subject matters of literature, science, and social studies may overlap. The assignment was simply to read Berthold Brecht’s play, Galileo, in the Grove Press edition. This edition contains the Enghsh ver- sion by Charles Laughton together with an extensive intro- duction by the distinguished drama critic, Eric Bentley, and Brecht’s own essay on “Writing the Truth: Five Diffi- culties.” No mention of the introduction or the essay was made in the assignment. In the classroom I began with the question: ‘What is philosophical about this play?” The range of responses disclosed a variety of assumptions about the nature of philosophy and what it is that makes an issue or problem philosophically important. Among those responses prob- lems about the nature of truth, values, facts and logic were, of course, given special attention and identified as standard problems of metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, and logical reasoning. Through questioning, the following general pro- positions were arrived at: 1 . The play is philosophical because it deals with ma- jor changes in the way science approaches its subject matter and in what is accepted as scientifically true (metaphysics, logic, epistemology). 2 . The play is philosophical because it deals with con- flicting values on several levels, including questions of personal and family loyalty, institutional and eco- nomic obligations, political and social decision mak- ing, and even conflicting esthetic considerations (ethics, social and economic theory, philosophical psychology, philosophy of religion, esthetics). 3. The play is philosophical because it deals with differ- ent ways of perceiving the same set of facts, each of which is seen as quite reasonable and defensible by its respective percipient, and each of which finds dif- ferent “meanings” in the facts accordingly as differ- ent assumptions are incorporated in the different conceptual schemes employed (epistemology, meta- physics, philosophy of science, philosophy of relig- ion). 4. The play is philosophical because it shows how rea- soning can be used to reach different conclusions depending on what assumptions are built into the premises; i.e., how it sometimes happens that the logic of an argument may be “valid” and yet arrive at “false” conclusions (logic, epistemology, linguis- tic philosophy and analysis). More Detailed Responses While these responses which were elicited by inquiry NovernberIDecernber 1918 239 D ow nl oa de d by [ T em pl e U ni ve rs ity L ib ra ri es ] at 0 4: 47 1 5 N ov em be r 20 14 were quite directly related to the four central characteris- tics which we had proposed as characteristics of the philo- sophical classroom, each response in turn triggered a series of more detailed responses in whch specific philosophical issues could be identified. Among them: 1. Galileo’s loyalty, was it to science or to the Church? Was the apparent conflict necessary or was it avoid- able? Is scientific truth different from theological truth? How is each established? What is loyalty? What is moral responsibility of the scientist to his profession, to society at large, to his family, to his country? Galileo, in fact, recant in the manner portrayed by Brecht and for the reasons that Brecht suggests? Is Brecht’s portrayal of the inquisition accurate and unbiased? Does the play accurately represent the political and economic milieu of the period? Is Galileo’s personal life fairly and factually portrayed? 3. What method did Galileo employ in “proving” his theories? What method was used by the inquisition to justify the demand for Galileo’s recantation? Are there examples of valid and invalid argument in the play? What makes an argument valid or invalid? How can a valid argument be used to produce a conclu- sion that is false? What is the difference between “inductive” and “deductive” methods of reasoning? Is one of these the same as “scientific” method? What is the relation of mathematics to the empirical method of the astronomer and physicist? 2. Was Brecht faithful to the historical facts? Did It may be noted that these responses, with one excep- tion, tend to ignore the problem of the author’s intentions in writing and revising the play itself. Discussion of Brecht’s association with the philosophy of Marxism eventually did emerge, however, and provided a very important part of the lesson as a whole. Among the philosophcal issues that emerged: 1. 2. 3 240 What is Marxism: philosophy or ideology? How does Marx view the problem of truth and how does this differ from other criteria? Did Galileo himself use the criterion of truth that Marx accepted? Is Brecht’s view of truth in the essay influenced by Marx? What theory of value (axiology) does Marx embrace? What is his conception of man and of reality (philo- sophical psychology and metaphysics) that is used to justify this axiology? What use does Brecht make of Marx’s conception of “alienation” in the play? What status is accorded to fact in Marx’s philosophy? What is the criterion of a fact? Are there general rules for interpreting facts whch are validly inde- pendent of such a specific philosophical position as is held by Marx? How does Brecht himself view the relation between facts and the truth in the essay? 4. What is Marx’s “dialectical” method? How does dia- lectical reasoning compare with other forms of rea- soning as a basic philosophy of logic? Does Brecht illustrate dialectical reasoning in the play? In the essay? Absence of “Closure” a successful way of introducing philosophical issues and methods into the classroom. Although chosen from the field of dramatic literature it was clearly an excellent vehi- cle for illustrating how philosophical issues cut across the artificial lines separating one subject matter from another in the conventional classroom-artificial lines that it some- times may be necessary to breach in the philosophical classroom. As was also expected, little “closure” was reached as concerns the various philosophical issues raised by the play-a source of some frustration to those accus- tomed to ending each lesson with neat finality-which it- self is very nearly a generic trait of the philosophical class- room. Brecht, in the closing scene of the play, suggests the underlying philosophical reason for this absence of “clo- sure’’ in philosophical matters. There, in brief vignette, he provides a model of teacher questioning. I shall use it here as the preface to the only explicit model of the sort of questioning which was employed in the philosophical classroom and which elicited the responses and questions listed above. In the final scene of the play Andrea Sarti, Galileo’s long time and faithful student, is about to cross the bor- der carrying with him the manuscript of the “Discorsi” which Galileo has arranged to have published in Holland. Questioned by the customs officer as to the contents of the manuscript, Andrea assures the officer that it contains “nothing dangerous” i.e., no religion or politics, “nothing but mathematical formulas.” Meanwhile, in the back- ground, some children are gathered near the window of a small house. It is after midnight, but the window is still lit and a shadow is cast from it on the wall of the house ad- joining. The shadow appears to be that of an old witch stirring her cauldron and it has attracted the attention of the children. They sing: The Galileo assignment, as we had hoped, proved to be One, two, three, four five six, Old Marina is a witch. At night, on a broomstick she sits And on the church steeple she spits. As silence falls, one of the children is seen to creep for- ward up to the little house from whch the shadow comes, and takes the jug of milk on the doorstep. One of the chil- dren shouts, “Run Paolo!” At this point Andrea begins his questioning with a phil- osophical speculation: “Hmm! And because she is a witch she mustn’t have milk. Is that the idea?” THE SOCIAL STUDIES D ow nl oa de d by [ T em pl e U ni ve rs ity L ib ra ri es ] at 0 4: 47 1 5 N ov em be r 20 14 Boy: Yes. Andrea: And how do you know she is a witch? Boy (points to shadow on house wall): Look! Andrea: Oh! I see. Boy: And she rides on a broomstick at night-and she bewitches the coachman’s horses. My cousin Luigi looked through the hole in the stable roof, that the snow storm made, and heard the horses coughmg something terrible. roof? Andrea: Oh! How big was the hole in the stable Boy: Luigi didn’t tell. Why? Andrea: I was asking because maybe the horses got sick because it was cold in the stable. You had better ask Luigi how big that hole is. Boy: You are not going to say Old Marina isn’t a witch, because you can’t. Andrea: No, I can’t say she isn’t a witch. I haven’t looked into it. A man can’t know about a thing he hasn’t looked into, or can he? She is stirring hellbroth. can lift you up. a slingshot out of his pocket.) I can really bash her from there. before we shoot? I’ll hold that. Boy: No! But THAT! (He points to the shadow.) Andrea: Let’s see. Do you want to take a look? I Boy: You lift me to the window mister! (He takes Andrea: Hadn’t we better make sure she is a witch (The boy puts the milk jug down and follows him reluc- tantly to the window. Andrea lifts the boy up so he can look in.) Andrea: What do you see? Boy: Just an old girl cooking porridge. Andrea: Oh! Nothing to it then. Now look at her shadow, Paolo. (The boy looks over his shoulder and back and compares the reality and the shadow.) Boy: The big thing is a soup ladle. Andrea: Ah! A ladle! You see, I would have taken it for a broomstick, but I haven’t looked into the matter as you have Paolo. Here is your sling. The customs officer now enters and returns Andrea’s pa- pers’ reporting that they are all in order and wishing him luck on his journey. As Andrea starts to leave the boy shouts after him: “She is a witch! She is a witch!” To which Andrea shouts a reply: “YOU saw with your own eyes: think it over!” But the boy kicks over the milk jug and, joining the other children, picks up the chant once again about Old Marina the witch. The customs officers laugh. As Andrea goes, Brecht’s final message is flashed on the screen: May you now guard science’ light, Kindle it and use it right, Lest it be a flame to fall Downward to consume us all. The curtain falls, but the absence of “closure” in the les- son is palpably apparent. An excerpt from the discussion of this scene is chosen to illustrate just one direction in which a philosophical analysis might move.g Teacher: Well, what do you make of this final scene? You know, some directors cut it out completely. Student A: If you leave it out, the play ends with a pretty tragic note. That is, Galileo is left a prisoner in his own house in spite of his recantation. He is left a moral weakling and there would not be any assurance that his manuscript would ever be published. Student B: Well, if Galileo is a moral weakling because of his recantation, I don’t see why he can be seen as a tragic hero. Student A: I didn’t mean that the tragedy was Galileo’s. The tragedy would be the tragedy of science. The man- uscript not published. A set-back to scientific progress. That would be tragic. And Galileo’s recantation would just be pathetic. itself the hero of the play, but he is not very sympathet- ic to Galileo’s very human weakness in recanting. After all, Galileo did make arrangements to have the manu- script smuggled out and printed. And there is the story about him saying “eppur si muove” about the earth after his arrest and imprisonment, and in spite of the recantation. Teacher: Is it a fact that he did arrange a way of having the Discourses published? Student C: Yes. I checked it out in several reference works. It is true that the manuscript was smuggled out of Italy, at least, and published in Holland. arranged this? documentation. But isn’t it reasonable to assume that he must have? Student D: I don’t think that such an assumption is war- ranted. For instance, someone like Andrea in the play could simply have stolen it and smuggled it out entire- ly on his own. Student C: I think that Brecht does try to make science Teacher: But are you quite sure that Galileo himself Student C: Well, nobody can be sure of it, for there is no Teacher: And what about the “eppur si muove” story? Student C : That seems to be apocryphal. People don’t seem to want to accept that Galileo-a big scientific Novernber/Decernber 1978 241 D ow nl oa de d by [ T em pl e U ni ve rs ity L ib ra ri es ] at 0 4: 47 1 5 N ov em be r 20 14 hero-could also be a moral weakling. It seems to be as mythical as that he used to drop cannon balls off the leaning tower of Pisa. The point is that Brecht wants science to be the hero and not the scientist. Student B: Yes, but you missed my earlier point. I meant that if Galileo was a moral weakling he couldn’t be a tragic hero. But he could be a tragic hero if he wasn’t morally weak at all, just the victim of historical circum- stances which he couldn’t control. Like Oedipus. Student A: Well, I’m glad Oedipus was mentioned. Doesn’t Oedipus’ downfall occur because of his ambi- tion, his pride? 1 think Brecht sees Galileo as much like Oedipus. He was proud, in the play at least, enough to think that he could convince the inquisition that he was right. And didn’t that lead to h s downfall? Teacher: You must have been reading Aristotle on trage- dy. But even Sophocles lets Oedipus die only after he has become reconciled to his fate. Student D: I’ve been wanting to point that out. If you cut the last scene, Galileo’s last appearance is not very tragic. In fact he is portrayed as fairly well content with his situation. He says that things didn’t work out as well as might have been expected, but they could have been worse. What is added in the last scene is a note of continued optimism about science and pessi- mism about human weaknesses. Student A: O.K. If you are sort of an anti-scientific direc- tor, then, you might leave out the last scene if you were also a true believer in human nature as good. I think it was Rousseau who used to argue that man is good ex- cept when he is corrupted by institutions like the church and the state. There can’t be much doubt that Brecht has no sympathy with the inquisition or with Galileo’s capitulation to it. Both the inquisition and his capitualtion are established facts. But I don’t see Brecht as sharing Rousseau’s confidence in human nat- ure. Brecht put the last scene there to bring out his point very emphatically that human nature is not t o be trusted. Even those kids-supposedly innocent kids-are pretty malicious. The only thing that can be trusted is the truth that comes froin science. Seeing is believing. Teacher: But the kids didn’t believe what they saw? Student A: Right, they saw what they believed! That’s Student D: Sure. That’s Brecht’s point, but how does it Brecht’s point, I think. square with the well known fact that Brecht himself is a spokesman for the Marxist ideology? In other words, that he sees things-Galileo in this case-through the ideologically colored glasses of a Marxist scheme for in- terpreting history. He was a Marxist, wasn’t he? I don’t think that he believed what he saw, but that he saw what he believed! Student C: Why assume that Marxism is purely ideologi- cal? I read that essay of his on “Writing the Truth” and I think that he takes Marxism as scientific rather than ideological. might help me get a handle on the play. Because the play doesn’t square very well with the way most histo- ry books deal with Galileo, I figured that Brecht must be up to something other than writing a nice play for Broadway entertainment. What I got out of the essay is that Brecht thought that Marxism was scientific--or is scientific-that it is not just another ideology, but that it is true. Student C: Right! Right here on page 136 he says, “What is necessary for writers in this age of perplexity and lightning change is a knowledge of the materialistic dia- lectic of economy and history .” That is Marxism for sure, and he takes it for truth all right, a truth that he goes on to tell how to manipulate. Student D: Well then, how about my point of squaring this belief of his with the point that Andrea makes in the last scene, the point that seems to be that science looks into things, that it believes what it sees? Doesn’t Brecht himself fall down here? Isn’t he guilty of seeing what he believes? things that we have to look into? Such as the difference between ideology and philosophy? And between both of them and science? What is science, after all? Is it just a matter of looking into things? And what about human nature? Is it true, as Brecht seems to suggest- perhaps taking his cue from Rousseau and/or Marx- that man is basically good and only corrupted by the institutions of society? And, if it is true, what sort of truth is it? How could it be proved? Is it a moral truth? Or a matter of fact? Where would you like to begin? Student D: I had a look at that essay too. Thought it Teacher: I hate to interrupt this, but aren’t there some The Calileo assignment was designed, as I pointed out earlier, to introduce philosophical issues-not to resolve them. As the excerpt indicates, the role of the teacher in such a lesson can be minimal. For all practical purposes the teacher needs merely to identify the philosophical problems and issues that have been raised in the discussion, to identify them as philosophical problems and issues, and to suggest follow-up readings. In this instance Aristotle’s On the Art ofPoefty , already familiar to at least one stu- dent, could be helpful on the classical conception of trag- edy. Similarly, Rousseau and Marx might be compared as to the nature of man and h s relationship to social and economic institutions. Standard reference works, includ- ing the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, might be used to clear up the matter of “ideology” vis-a-vis “philosophy.” T. S . Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, would be a provocative way to initiate the discussion of the nature of science. Moreover, Kuhn gives valuable in- 242 THE SOCIAL STUDIES D ow nl oa de d by [ T em pl e U ni ve rs ity L ib ra ri es ] at 0 4: 47 1 5 N ov em be r 20 14 sights into the “seeing is believing” and “believing is see- ing” matter. Finally, should the matter of the absence of “closure” become bothersome in such a lesson, the assignment of analyzing the argument of Plato’s “Socratic” dialogue, Euthyphro, would make the important point that failure to reach “closure” is sometimes the intended purpose of a lesson in phdosophy. For in that dialogue Plato raises many more issues and problems than he is prepared to re- solve. He teaches us a great deal nevertheless. Important points about the nature of meaning and definition, about the structure of moral rules and obligation, about religious belief and justifying a moral decision. But we do not reach “closure” about the main issue, which is-ostensibly--the nature and meaning of “piety.” We learn, in such a fash- ion, that lack of ‘‘closure’’ may indeed be an essential feature of the philosophical classroom. introduced in the pre-college classroom by a method which differs quite sharply from that of emulating college level courses. Teachers can, and should, learn to deal with their own subject matters phloso phically . Genuine philoso p h - cal issues and problems abound in the content of every classroom curriculum. Though we have given here only an example appropriate for the students in the group with which we were actually working, those students found it possible to adapt the method to a very wide variety and range of grade levels. Once the process of philosophy has begun in the classroom, the problem is not one of how to keep it going, it is, rather, how to keep it from taking over completely. This we should have learned from Plato long ago- It is our conviction that philosophy can be successfully NOTES 1. See the report of the Committee on Pre-College Philosophy of the American Philosophical Association (APA) 1977. This re- port follows the same basic pattern as that of a report accepted by the APA in 1958, with the exception that the new report includes consideration of the elementary as well as the secondary curricu- lum. Both reports reflect the APA’s grave reservations concerning the entry of philosophical materials into the pre-college curricu- lum. The 1977 report does, however, make certain recommenda- tions as to a “program of action on a national level . . . ” which the earlier report failed to do. Foremost among those recommen- dations is that pre-college philosophy teaching be limited to curric- ulum materials “. . . prepared by or with the advice of professional philosophers or via instruction conducted by individuals who have been trained by or with the advice of professional philosophers.” 2. According to the 1977 APA report referred to above, it is ‘ I . . . impossible to state at this time what exact qualifications would be recommended by the Association for a teacher of such [philosophical] material.” (p. 15) Nevertheless, the report does (P. 13) take a very positive stance in its section on “The Feasibility of Pre-College Philosophy,” despite the absence of studies providing supportive data. 3. The 1977 APA report does contain some support for the particular approach that we have adopted in the Queens College- NEH project. Thus: “If pre-college philosophy is construed as just another college course to be pushed down on an already over- burdened pre-college curriculum, the feasibility of pre-college philosophy will be greatly diminished. However, if it is construed as a content possessing unique merit or as a method which can be related to all existing disciplines in the curriculum, the feasibility of pre-college philosophy will be greatly enhanced.” (emphasis added) 4. See P. T. Mackenzie, “Fact and Value,” Philosophy Today, No. 3, ed. I . H. Gill (London: Macmillan, 1970). The argument is presented with very considerable strength that the apparently factual and descriptive statements of social scientists-which some- times purport to be “value free”-almost inevitably turn out to have value assumptions fused into them. The notion of a “value free” social science appears to be based on the belief that it is possible to draw a clear-cut distinction between the “descriptive force” and the “evaluative force” of propositions in common use by social scientists. Careful analysis shows this belief to be poorly supported. 5. See my article “On Education and Morals,” Studies in Phi- losophy and Education, Vol. 6 , No. 3, 1968, pp. 231-248. Suffice to say that my thesis differs sharply from that represented in the so-called “Bloom’s Taxonomies” which treat the affective” and “cognitive” domains in almost complete disjunction. I argue that the absence of an ontological disjunction between “facts” and “values” makes the usually made epistemological distinction be- tween them quite dubious. My own view finds the Piagetian ap- proach of Lawrence Kohlberg more congenial as it does not appear to assume the kind of ontological-hence-epistemological disjunc- tions which I find unacceptable. Cf. B. S. Bloom, ed., Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Handbook I , (New York: Longmans, Green, 1956) and Krathwohl, Bloom, and Masia, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Handbook 2, (New York: David McKay, 1964), also: Kohlberg’s articles in G. Lesser, ed., Psychology and Educational Practice, (Chicago: Scott, Foresman, 197 1). 6. An excellent philosophical discussion of science-including the intimate connection between “facts” and “values”-can be found in the very readable (it was prepared for a “freshman Eng- lish” course) The Web of Beliefby W. V. Quine and 3. S . Ulian (2nd. ed., New York: Random House, 1978). See also, for more complete discussion of the role of the conceptual apparatus in in- terpreting facts, T. s. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolu- tions (Chicago: U. of Chigao Press, 1962) as well as Kuhn’s earlier Copernican Revolution (New York: Vintage, 1959). 7. The abovementioned Web of Belief, while not a “logic” text, is more useful for the purpose here envisioned than most such. We have found Manicas and Kruger, Essentials of Logic, eminently usable in our own project (New York: American Book, 1968). Robert J. Fogelin’s Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978) should also prove to be very useful in planning lessons in this area. 8. Eric Bentley, whose introduction to Brecht’s Galileo shows his evident disenchantment with the version of Galileo’s recanta- tion which Brecht presents, subsequently wrote his own version: The Recantation of Galileo Galilei (New York: Harper-Colophon, 1972). Bentley’s play might usefully be assigned for philosophical contrast with Brecht’s. The Marxist frame is replaced by a secular “humanist” one in which the issues emerge quite differently. how to avoid the danger that the philosophical forum may degen- erate into a “rap” session. 9. See the accompanying article by Jack Zevin for tips as to November/December 1978 243 D ow nl oa de d by [ T em pl e U ni ve rs ity L ib ra ri es ] at 0 4: 47 1 5 N ov em be r 20 14