About Maritime Philosophy Friends
We engage young learners in philosophical discussions for three main reasons:
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1. Young people are naturally good at philosophy! The best philosophers are imaginative, curious, skeptical, open-minded, and forthright. Children and adolescents have these traits in spades.
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2. Young people enjoy doing philosophy! Our sessions are lively and exciting due to high levels of student interest.
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3. A growing pool of research suggests that pre-college philosophy has a range of benefits for young learners.
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Given that young people are philosophically talented, enjoy doing philosophy, and benefit from our sessions, we think providing young people with a platform to do philosophy is incredibly worthwhile!
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What is Philosophy?
There are two ways of approaching philosophy. The first is to read books written by philosophers. There is plenty of value to be gleaned from studying the great philosophers. However, it is perhaps even more valuable to take the second approach to philosophy: the do-it-yourself approach.
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To do philosophy is to use logic and critical thinking to tackle questions that defy unanimous answers and which even the natural sciences cannot answer for us. For example, we might wonder what kind of life we ought to live, or whether death is something to fear, or what makes right actions right and wrong actions wrong. We might wonder whether we have free will or a special moral status among other creatures in the world. For that matter, do animals have rights at all? Am I the same person I was 5 years ago? Science does not answer these questions for us and there is no unanimous answers to be found elsewhere.
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So what are we to do? Philosophy! We can learn to tackle these questions ourselves by getting better at constructing and evaluating arguments. Roughly speaking, an argument is a piece of reasoning comprised of a conclusion and one or more premises. The conclusion is a claim about some matter (including the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph) and the premises are the claims used as evidence or justifications for thinking the conclusion is true. We do philosophy when we use logic and critical thinking to construct and evaluate arguments.
There are better and worse ways to evaluate arguments. Learning the better ways to evaluate arguments improves our chances of reaching the truth on some matter (including the ones mentioned above).
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The power of philosophy, then, is twofold. First, its subject matter consists of fascinating and puzzling questions that seem at the same time deeply important and unanswerable. Second, philosophy does not stop at acknowledging and wondering about these questions. Rather, doing philosophy involves applying our intellect (rationality, logic, etc.) to finding the answers to such questions. Putting it all together, doing philosophy nurtures our curiosity about the world and exercises and enhances our capacities as critical thinkers.
Philosophy in Pre-College Education
Sadly, critical thinking is not taught in most schools. The going assumption is that students will pick up critical thinking skills while learning other subjects. This is a faulty assumption. We don’t expect students to pick up reading while learning other subjects. To learn to read you have to focus on reading. The same goes for critical thinking. To become a skilled critical thinker you have to devote time to learning critical thinking skills.
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The lack of attention to critical thinking in our schools means most of us never learn formal methods to help us think critically about our ethical, political, and metaphysical commitments. Maritime Philosophy Friends is here to fill the void and do so in a way that is engaging and rewarding for learners.
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There has never been a better time for young people to learn to think critically about the world and their place in it. In addition to the classic philosophical problems mentioned elsewhere on this site, young people face a slew of problems unique to their place in history: climate change, LGTBQ rights and issues, cancel culture, soaring inflation, social media, rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, life-altering pandemics, and the list goes on.
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How should a young person think about and engage with these issues? Should they simply absorb the opinions of their peers and social media influencers, or should they learn to think independently (and critically) about such things? We think it is clear that the latter option will serve young people better in the long run.
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Gordon Cooper, PhD
I grew up in a small town in Nova Scotia. I have a BA in philosophy from Saint Mary's University (2013), an MA in philosophy from the University of Calgary (2015), and a PhD in philosophy from Florida State University (2023).
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While studying and teaching at Florida State, I started "Florida Philosophy Friends," a group of grad and undergrad students dedicated to teaching philosophy to pre-college students in the city of Tallahassee. I won grants from PLATO in 2022 and 2023 to help fund the program, which was a hit with students and teachers. It was a hit with me too! The philosophical discussions I had with young learners were the most enjoyable part of my graduate studies.
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Now that I've returned to Canada, I plan to continue teaching philosophy to pre-college students in my local community and abroad through online classes.