July 27th, 2008
My dad taught Philosophy and Sociology all of his professional life, and in his retirement continues to study and think about these subjects. He recently gave a talk about the work of John Gray to the Erasmus Darwin Society in Lichfield, Staffordshire.
John Gray is currently Professor of European Thought at the LSE, and has been an outspoken and controversial academic throughout his career. He has written about a great breadth of topics, but the thread of thought that ties his work together is his rejection of our contemporary belief in the progress of mankind.
The prepared text of my dad’s overview of Gray’s views is an excellent introductory text, with a good bibliography pointing towards further reading. I would strongly recommend this text to students as an overview of his thought.
John Gray, An Appreciation
Posted in KS5 (VI Form), history, philosophy, politics •
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September 20th, 2007
Scientific-Computing.Com’s recent blog articles "Beyond the Prisoner’s Dilemma" and "Global warming and the Prisoner’s Dilemma" are interesting examples of using the logical structures of game theory as starting points for logical thought at younger levels.
The blog conversation starts with the big environmental issue of global warming and this friendly video where the protagonist explains the application of minimax to the global warming debate. He argues, in a nutshell, that given uncertain future consequences of humanity’s impact on the planet, and given also a choice of decisions about how to act against those potential consequences, it makes the most logical sense to exclude the catastrophic choice of doing nothing to prevent global warming by acting as if global warming were a certainty.
I like how the minimax principle here facilitates students’ understanding by offering a powerful structure for considering different possibilities. Because minimax is so clearly structured and relatively easy to grasp, it is the sort of idea, like the Venn Diagram, which ought to be a constantly recurring feature of students’ education. In Mathematics, it bears close resemblance to the Carroll diagram, which is a similarly undervalued structure for understanding issues.
Posted in KS2 (9-11), logic, philosophy, politics, schools •
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May 16th, 2007
Some years ago my dad Alan McEachran - a teacher of Philosophy for over 25 years - wrote a few students guides to classic texts. His precis of The German Ideology in modern English is perfect as a primer to the text, and I’ve published it here for posterity and in the hope that students of this important text might find it useful.
The German Ideology
Posted in KS5 (VI Form), philosophy •
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May 8th, 2007
Combining morality, economics and politics, Jeffry Sachs discusses our global future and humanity’s survival.
This might be a bit beyond sixth-form students - it may be a bit beyond you or I, for that matter - but what reason for teaching students how to think critically can there be that is more important than the hope that they can think critically about these issues?
It is compelling to listen someone with such a depth of understanding of our global state of affairs to give an optimistic view of the future.
Listen to the Reith Lectures by clicking here
Posted in KS5 (VI Form), philosophy •
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March 8th, 2007
The cognitive evolution laboratory at Harvard Universtiy are currently studying morality. As part of their study they have an interesting and thought provoking online Morality quiz, which is open for anyone to take part in.
This would be an extremely useful starting point for discussion about morality with sixth form students. Some may need to be reminded that this is scientific research of course, and so flippant and stupid answers would be inappropriate. The quiz is a series of pairs of moral dilemmas, and choices of action which you are invited to distinguish between. Ideally, I would ask all the students to do the quiz in preparation for a lesson, then would use a data projector or IWB and repeat the test as a classroom exercise, requiring students to come to a consensus about each dilemma.
Posted in KS5 (VI Form), philosophy •
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