If requested to think about what a “thinker” appears to be like like, most individuals would most likely image somebody a bit indifferent from the true world. The stereotypical thinker is all the time deep in thought, treating their social life (in the event that they even have one) as a mere distraction. Pierre Hadot, alternatively, had a a lot totally different image of philosophical life. For Hadot, a seminal determine for the up to date Philosophy as a Approach of Life (PWOL) motion, philosophy doesn’t happen in isolation. As a substitute, philosophical life is “intimately linked to philosophical discourse,” (What is Ancient Philosophy?, p. 4) making it one thing that’s greatest lived in a group.
However regardless that group and dialogue are central to philosophical life, deep, reflective conversations are very difficult for first-time philosophy college students. In our personal case, we had been hoping to include philosophical dialogue into our Spring 2021 class “The Philosophy of Race, Class, and Gender” at Florida State College. Not solely had been lots of our college students coming to philosophical dialogue for the primary time, however the politically loaded nature of the dialogue made having productive conversations that rather more tough. With the intention to assist our college students overcome these challenges, we relied on a number of key ideas of the Philosophy as a Way of Life Project: Pursuit of the Good Life, Pupil-Led Dialogue, Numerous Lecture rooms, and Immersive Assignments. On this put up, we’ll share how we structured dialogue inside our course by the inspiration of those PWOL ideas.
Pursuit of the Good Life
As a part of our course construction, college students met as soon as per week for small group discussions. The primary problem that we confronted was body these dialogues. Why discuss matters just like the philosophy of race and gender once they inevitably result in a lot disagreement? That is the place the primary PWOL precept, Pursuit of the Good Life, was important. To assist our college students see the importance of those conversations, we approached the matters by serious about their on a regular basis implications. Typically these had been apparent, different occasions much less so. For instance, how wouldn’t it have an effect on somebody’s life if race is a social assemble? What wouldn’t it imply for the way they understood themselves and what it could take for them to stay a flourishing life? Or how would totally different theories of gender remodel how we take into consideration ourselves on this planet? The solutions to those questions are usually not all the time clear, and it was useful to remind college students that we not solely wish to perceive race and gender, however we wish to admire the ways in which they have an effect on our day-to-day lives.
We additionally mentioned the societal affect of various views of race and gender. Together with contemplating the ethical points raised by systemic racism and abortion laws, we additionally centered on the hostility and polarization surrounding these and different points associated to race and gender. Lots of our college students reported that their relationships had been significantly affected by disagreements surrounding these points, making it clear that residing the nice life just isn’t solely a matter of understanding race and gender but in addition of cultivating the virtues essential for partaking charitably with others. The dialogue teams themselves had been an vital technique for constructing these habits, as they allowed college students to develop in open-mindedness and mental humility all through the semester.
Pupil-Led Dialogue
One other problem that we confronted was creating student-driven dialogue. Lots of our college students had been accustomed to “dialogue sections” that had been extra like remedial lectures than they had been real conversations. Our objective for college students, although, was that they begin having real, collaborative philosophical conversations. Enter the second precept of PWOL lecture rooms, Student-Led Dialogue. Every of our dialogue teams was led by the scholars themselves, giving them the house to observe initiating genuine philosophical discussions. This course of started with the creation of group dialogue norms. Throughout the first dialogue session, college students selected the foundations that they wished their conversations to comply with, pointers like “Charitable Listening: All the time assume that group members imply effectively when sharing and permit them to make clear if misconstrued.” The creation of those norms was the primary means that college students took duty for making a wholesome, ongoing philosophical dialogue.
As soon as the group norms had been established, all college students had the chance to steer the dialogue group through the semester. To make sure that the conversations had been centered on the matters of the course, dialogue group leaders would put together a lesson plan for the dialogue beforehand and get suggestions from their TA. The plan began with a get-to-know-you exercise to construct belief and familiarity amongst dialogue individuals. The lesson plan then included the dialogue questions that the leaders deliberate on asking, questions like “To what extent do you suppose society creates gender roles, and to what extent do you suppose these are one thing deeper than simply societal conditioning?” and “Are gender roles vital for a wholesome society?” When main the dialogue itself, leaders had been additionally anticipated to ask follow-up questions that thought of opposing viewpoints and moved the dialog ahead. Thus, all college students had been capable of observe creating philosophical conversations from scratch, not relying on another person to steer the dialogue for them.
Numerous Lecture rooms
Even with college students main the dialogue teams, we nonetheless wished to be sure that marginalized voices weren’t ignored of the dialog, a problem we had been capable of handle with the PWOL emphasis on Diverse Classrooms. Creating a various classroom meant that our dialogue teams would hear many various views and viewpoints, serving to individuals to be extra open-minded and intellectually humble. Thankfully for our functions, the scholar inhabitants at FSU is already pretty various. In keeping with demographic knowledge collected in 2020 about your complete pupil physique, roughly 42 % of scholars recognized as male, and 58 % of scholars recognized as feminine, whereas roughly 58 % of scholars recognized as white and 42 % didn’t. This on-campus range was amplified in our course, as many underrepresented college students had been desirous about a course on the philosophy of race and gender. This allowed our dialogue teams to have college students from many various walks of life, diversifying the dialog and permitting college students to listen to many various factors of view.
Immersive Assignments
Lastly, we didn’t need our college students to desert what they’d discovered of their dialogue teams as quickly as they stepped out the door. It’s simple for undergraduates to think about their coursework as a purely in-class exercise, however limiting their philosophical conversations to the lecture corridor undermined our central goal of serving to our college students observe philosophy as a lifestyle. For that reason, the ultimate PWOL precept of Immersive Assignments allowed our college students to increase their abilities past the classroom.
For our college students, this immersive task was an off-campus dialog with somebody about race and/or gender. Like with their dialogue teams, in getting ready for this dialog college students created dialogue questions that they deliberate to make use of to provoke and information the dialog, questions that had been designed to assist them perceive the opposite particular person’s views. After the dialog, college students additionally had the chance to mirror on what went effectively in regards to the dialog together with what they might change transferring ahead. On this means, college students took what they discovered of their dialogue teams and utilized these classes to their on a regular basis lives, encouraging them to have conversations with others about difficult matters like race and gender and serving to them to narrate the concepts they had been studying in school to how others take into consideration these ideas. Briefly, they practiced residing out the PWOL emphasis on dialogue, connecting the talents they’d discovered within the classroom with their friends, associates, and household.
In case you are desirous about studying extra about our class, you may learn additional about how we had been impressed by the PWOL strategy in our paper “Philosophical Dialogue for Beginners: Using PWOL Dialogues to Introduce Students to the Philosophy of Race and Gender,” now forthcoming within the journal AAPT Research in Pedagogy.
Wes Siscoe
Wes Siscoe is a Dean’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Florida State College and the Mellon Course Design Coordinator for the Philosophy as a Approach of Life Venture. He acquired his PhD from the College of Arizona and has been a visiting researcher at Brown, Notre Dame, and Rutgers. His research revolves round a number of themes– rationality, language, and advantage – and their significance for accounts of human excellence and achievement.
