Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England, and from a young age was fascinated by the natural world. After completing studies at Cambridge in arts and divinity, he was asked to accompany the HMS Beagle on a two-year voyage to survey the coast of South America. It was the be the most significant event of his life; he collected and examined a great many undiscovered species and became renown as a scientist on his return to Britain.

As a result of these observations, he was able to formulate his theory of evolution and his idea of “natural selection” — On The Origin of Species was published in 1859 and Descent of Man in 1871.

In the former, he postulated that it was due to natural selection in the struggle for life that those who were best adapted to their surroundings would survive and perpetuate the species. He also proposed that the struggle for survival was more difficult amongst species that closely resembled each other — and different species’ advantages in gaining food, such as variations, were most beneficial in that regard. Only the best adapted will not die out.

The Descent of Man drew attention to similarities between humans and animals, advancing the theory that there must be a common ancestor between humans and anthropoid apes. It’s a concept that many still find challenging today. Darwin’s influence on scientific thinking and findings have influenced ethics and the science of philosophy.

This is a part of my interview with Lizzy Lewis — to get the full interview, subscribe for as little as $1 an episode at https://www.patreon.com/kyliesturgess.

Philosophy for Children (P4C) is an approach to teaching in which students participate in group dialogues focused on philosophical issues. Dialogues are prompted by a stimulus (for example, a story or a video) and are based around a concept such as ‘truth’, ‘fairness’ or ‘bullying’. The aim of P4C is to help children become more willing and able to ask questions, construct arguments, and engage in reasoned discussion.

For this episode of the 365 Days of Philosophy podcast, I spoke to Lizzy Lewis, who is the President of ICPIC (The International Council of Philosophical Inquiry with Children) and the Development Manager at SAPERE, the Philosophy for Children, Colleges and Communities group in the UK.

Further Resources:

The Routledge International Handbook of Philosophy for Children (mentioned in the interview as the newly released book)

Philosophy for Children Through the Secondary Curriculum

On Philosophy in the Curriculum: A Conversation with Matthew Lipman

As a philosophy teacher, a graduate of the Philosophy for Children courses and as someone who reads a lot anyway, the question “do you know of any good resources or books we could get for children that encourage critical thinking” comes up a lot.

Sometimes it’s because parents believe children are not being exposed to resources that encourage a philosophical mindset; sometimes it’s because caregivers like teachers or relatives want to provide a rich environment for thinking for young people in their care.

Questions about how to educate young people in a post-fact, possibly fundamentalist world are not new — it’s something that the ancient Greeks struggled with, and more recently, the focus of a book by Stephen Law called The War For Children’s Minds.

Firstly, I should point out that in the 365 Days of Philosophy series, I have recommended works by not only authors like Stephen Law, but also Damon Young, Nigel Warburton, Julian Baggini and even the great intro to philosophy book Sophie’s World — so do look through earlier episodes and subscribe to the rest of the podcast series for more!

A while back I did an interview with Warren Bonnet of Embiggen Books on critical thinking and skeptical books, and for advanced readers, I’d recommend those — it’s called On Great Books In Skepticism. I also have a vodcast recorded from a few years ago, called Godless Parenting Chat: What Do You Do To Bring Up God-Free Children? that features a book list too.

The Skeptical Inquirer website also has a list, but man of those books have been written before 2010 and might not be as freely available as they could be. 

At a Texas Freethought Convention in Houston there was a talk by Christopher Hitchens, where he was asked a question by a young member of the audience about books. Hitchens’ recommendations were:

I ended up writing a six-part blog series on philosophical books for young people a few years back, and at the end of this post is a small part of that list, including a number of recent texts.

Overall, I’d suggest books that don’t look like they’re too prescriptive or just another textbook. In creating texts, look, construct and promoting a sense of wonder is just as important as basic content. 

This also demonstrates the importance of graphic art or comic art texts that communicate scientific topics or portray scientists or skeptics to a young target audience. Don’t neglect graphic novels, picture books and the like. To read in itself is a wonderful thing, and so is being read to — don’t forget to check out audiobooks and podcasts in that regard.

As Hitchen demonstrated, sometimes it’s just the act of encouraging reading to extend worldview and experiences that’s important. So, by encouraging a love for reading — you are already starting to encourage critical thinking.

Since we’ve started looking at language, I’m going to a short deviation from that topic to talk about the place of culture. I’ve a number of resources on the topic, mostly useful videos and links. 

In early philosophical history, the Sophists were groups of wandering teachers who taught the art of rhetoric (public speaking), and were probably the first to propose that there’s a division between natural and moral laws and customs (philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were critics of the sophists, and yet the art of rhetoric is still taught). 

Are we beyond the natural world when we develop things like language, have expectations of behaviour and ways of living? Cultural relativism is also important in ethics; one of the more useful documents I’ve found on the topic of cultural relativism is this one, by Wood:

In philosophy courses I often encounter people who say things like this: “What anyone believes is true for that person. What you believe is true for you, what I believe is true for me.” The view expressed in such statements is usually called “relativism”. This view denies that there is any such thing as absolute truth and claims that all truth is relative to the person who believes it.

Wittgenstein was born in Vienna in 1889 and studied aeronautics at Manchester University in England — demonstrating that there’s a wide range of thinkers who turn their minds to philosophy.

He developed an interest in mathematics, encouraged by his later study at Cambridge university with another philosopher, Bertrand Russell. For Wittgenstein, the central topic of philosophy was language — and if we could understand meaning, could language really communicate everything we wanted to mean, and whether problems in philosophy were due to not understanding language.

His philosophy also included an extreme form of relativism; that is, that there isn’t a single truth or reality — different cultures and historical periods could influence what was truth to them. For Wittgenstein, to focus on language was to ‘show the fly the way out of the bottle’, and his influence on both language and philosophy continues today. There’s also an interesting intersection between his work and the Alice in Wonderland books, with an analysis link here.

Further Resources:

Introduction to Philosophy of Language — MIT Open Courseware — contains lectures, assessment details, all from 2011.

Ludwig Wittgenstein and the Linguistic Turn

The Partially Examined Life Podcast — Episode 55: Wittgenstein on Language

While linguistics is a recognised field involving the scientific study of language, philosophy is a subject that can intersect with practically every topic you can think of — including language. When we analyse questions such as ‘what is truth’, ‘what is the best way to live’ and ‘is there a right way to argue’, there’s an implicit unpacking of key terms being used. We can then ask “What do we mean by truth, best, right,” and so on. 

There’s a number of terms that should be unpacked before starting to look at the history of philosophy and language — firstly, semantics and pragmatics. Semantics is the study of meaning, in language, logic and semiotics (looking at signs and symbols). Pragmatics is essentially context — looking at how and where language is used and the implications that arise. 

In these, there’s questions about logic, understanding and relationships, and while some aspects of language are theoretical and mathematical, there’s real-world applications as well. As the philosopher Wittgenstein put it:

So, is understanding language a factor when comes to understanding oneself and the world? Could you be a philosopher without it? This week will be unpacking the relationship of language and philosophy further.

Further Resources:

Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy

Philosophy of language links

At the age of 17, Aristotle entered Plato’s academy and as he was an excellent student eventually became a teacher. He remained at the Academy until Plato’s death a few decades later. Unlike Plato, Aristotle had an interest in the ‘natural processes’, the way things grew, developed, and his keenness in the natural world led to developments in scientific terminology.

Aristotle thought that things that are in the human soul were reflections of natural objects, so nature was the real world. His notion of causes included the ‘material cause’ — such as the clouds being made of water — the water is the material cause of clouds otherwise they would not exist. The ‘efficient cause’ being the cooling of moisture; the ‘formal cause’ is the falling of moisture to the earth, the creation of rainfall. 

The ‘final cause’ was the purpose or reason for the rain, the sustenance of plants and animals who benefited from the rain. This notion of cycles and classification of the natural world were beneficial ideas to early scientific theory and while we have moved beyond expectation of a ‘final cause’ or purpose to things, the theory of causes demonstrates an interest in scientific problems by philosophers that continues today.

Further Resources:

Simply Philosophy on the Four Causes

Lecture on the Four Causes

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

I never had the chance to study the works of Confucius at university; the course was about the Western canonical tradition and very rarely strayed from that. But he’s one of the most influential philosophers in history, and his work has not only influenced Chinese thought but also carried over to other cultures and modern history. 

The name Confucius is a latinised form of “Kong Fuzi / Master Kong”, a man called Kong Qiu born in the mid sixth century BCE in south-central China. He became a teacher and during a time of social changes and conflict, aimed to encourage peace, social order and governance; he even created a school.

The idea that families, qualified leaders and ethics were the key to good society is not unique (something Aristotle has encouraged too!) but his was drawn from Chinese history where ritual and ceremony were very important for mental calm and overall harmony. We can see respect for teachers and education as a significant part of many Asian cultures and a great deal of that is due to Confucius’ teachings.

Early on in the year, argument structure and logic was touched upon, and Aristotle is an early contributor to the field. He lived in Ancient Greece, around 380BCE and was a student in Plato’s Academy, and even tutored Alexander the Great, another very influential figure. 

Aristotle founded a school, the Lyceum in Athens, and died in his sixties, but not before writing and influencing many thinkers to come.

Aristotle divided the means of persuasion, appeals, into three categories — Ethos, Pathos, Logos. 

A strong argument, according to Aristotle, should have a balance of all of three, although logical (logos) is essential for a strong, valid argument. Appeals can be misused, creating arguments that are not credible. He worked out the rules for syllogistic reasoning and while his views on the movement of the earth and planets being fixed have been since corrected, his efforts in ethics, logic, criticism and so on continue to be studied.

Further Resources:

A General Summary of Aristotle’s Appeals — http://courses.durhamtech.edu/perkins/aris.html

Chapter 5: Aristotle in the 21st Century — Daniel Kies.

The Three Appeals of Argument — University Writing Centre

The three appeals: emotional, ethical, and logical — Quizlet quiz cards.

It’s one of the most famous frescoes of the Italian Renaissance and I’m fairly certain that if you’re skimming through the philosophy section of a library, you’ll find a few books with its image on the cover. It was painted around 1510 by Raphael, and featured in one of the four Raphael Rooms, a suite of reception rooms in the public part of the papal apartments in the Palace of the Vatican. 

While it is a work of art in itself, this one of a group of four main frescos that depict branches of knowledge, with the overhead label “Causarum Cognitio” or Knowledge of Causes (although The School of Athens stems from a 17th century guidebook). 

There’s a notion that the painting features nearly every great ancient-era philosopher, with Plato and Aristotle in the centre — Plato gestures upwards, as if to the notion of an otherworldly realm, as in the realm of the forms; while Aristotle’s hand indicates perhaps a more grounded, earth-wards gesture in response. Plato is holding his Timeus (in Latin it is Timeo), and Aristotle holds his Ethics (Ethica). Surrounding them are hypothetical representations of other philosophers such as Pythagorus, Euclid, Diogenes and so on, although there is speculation about that as well.

Regardless of the accuracy of what it’s depicting, it’s a striking image and a good introduction to the relationship of Aristotle to Plato’s works, a complementary pair with approaches to philosophy that continued to be learned today.