Journal of Didactics of Philosophy (Volume 4, Number 1)

Journal of Didactics of Philosophy Volume 4, Number 1 ISSN 2624-540X Editors Jonas Pfister (Bern, Switzerland) Philipp Richter (Bochum, Germany) Editorial Board Ricardo Guttierez Aguilar (Madrid, Spain) Anne Burkard (Göttingen, Germany) Beate Børresen (Oslo, Norway) Bruno Curko (Zagreb, Croatia) Julia Dietrich (Berlin, Germany) Klaus Feldmann (Wuppertal, Germany) Andreas Gelhard (Bonn, Germany) Thor Steinar Grødal (Oslo, Norway) Eric Gustafsson (Stockholm, Sweden) Shinji Kajitani (Tokyo, Japan) Edward Kanterian (Kent, UK) Jens Kertscher (Darmstadt, Germany) Minkyung Kim (Chemnitz, Germany) Helge Kminek (Frankfurt/Main, Germany) Ivan Kolev (Sofia, Bulgaria) Geert-Lueke Lueken (Leipzig, Germany) Leo Luks (Tartu, Estonia) Kirsten Meyer (Berlin, Germany) Dirk Oosthoek (Rotterdam, Netherlands) Attila Pato (Prague, Czech Republic) Moris Polanco (Guatemala City, Guatemala) Donata Romizi (Vienna, Austria) Luca Scarantino (Paris/Milan, France/Italy) Gisele Secco (Porto Alegre, Brazil) Marjan Simenc (Ljubljana, Slovenia) Christian Thein (Münster, Germany) Silvia Tonti (Darmstadt, Germany) René Torkler (Eichstätt/Ingolstadt, Germany) Patricia Verdeau (Toulouse, France) Klaus Wiegerling (Karlsruhe, Germany) Peter Zimmermann (Fribourg, Switzerland) Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) About The Journal of Didactics of Philosophy is a peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to research on the teaching and learning of philosophy. It is published online twice a year. The access to all articles is free. Articles may be about any level of education; however, the main focus is on high school philosophy. We welcome work with a philosophical or normative approach as well as reports of results from empirical qualitative and quantitative research. The journal also publishes reviews of books, textbooks and other educational material of international interest as well as country reports. These reports present information about ways of teaching philosophy, its institutions and activities in different countries. It is an aim of the journal to promote dialogue amongst researchers and practicing teachers across the world. Call for Papers (Volume 4, Number 2/2020) Again, we are issuing an open call for contributions. If you would like your article, country report or book review to be published in the next issue (Volume 4, Number 2/2020), please follow the instructions on the website (www.philosophie.ch/jdph). Your text should reach one of the editors no later than 15th of July 2020 (but manuscripts are also welcome at any time). Jonas Pfister – [email protected] Philipp Richter – [email protected] 2 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) CONTENTS EDITORIAL 4 RESEARCH ARTICLES Christian Thein FROM PRE-CONCEPTS TO REASONS. EMPIRICALLY-BASED RECONSTRUCTION OF A PHILOSOPHICAL LEARNING SCENARIO 5 Frank Brosow TRAP-MIND THEORY. PHILOSOPHIZING AS AN EDUCATIONAL PROCESS 14 COUNTRY REPORTS Georgina Díaz Philosophy at Secondary Schools in Spain – Part II 34 Paul-Marie Bayama / Poutinrwaoga Kaboré Philosophy Teacher Training in Burkina Faso 38 BOOK REVIEWS Le Cours de Philosophie. Conseils de méthode (by Denis La Balme) reviewed by Jonas Pfister 40 Perspectives de didactique en philosophie (by Michel Tozzi, ed.) reviewed by Jonas Pfister 44 3 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) EDITORIAL Dear readers! Welcome to the new issue, which contains two research articles, two country reports and two book reviews. In the first research article, Christian Thein presents the results of a workshop with high school students to support the claim that pre-concepts can transition into good reasons. Thein argues that a full understanding of philosophical reasoning can only take place, if students are aware of the reach and context-dependence of a set of arguments (his example is taken from the just-wardebate). In the second research article, Frank Brosow introduces his TRAP-Mind-Theory. This is an empirically informed and problem-oriented technique of philosophizing based on cognitive psychology. It includes four levels (thinking, reflecting, arguing, and philosophizing) and three areas (understanding, evaluating, and acting). By breaking down the complex process of philosophizing into steps, the author aims at uncovering the key activities in teaching and learning philosophy. In part II of her country report about Spain, Georgina Díaz focuses on the content, methods and forms of assessment commonly used in teaching philosophy in secondary education, and on the procedures for selecting philosophy teachers. For the first time in this journal, Paul-Marie Bayama and Poutinrwaoga Kaboré describe the teaching of philosophy in an African country, in Burkina Faso. Jonas Pfister reviews two books in French, which were recently published in the new book series on the didactics of philosophy of the publishing house Lambert Lucas, didac-philo. The first book by Denis La Balme is intended as a guidebook to new teachers. However, it turns out to be based on personal experience only and to reproduce the traditional understanding of teaching philosophy in France. The second book is a collection of articles edited (and many of them written) by one of the pioneers of modern philosophy didactics in France, Michel Tozzi. At this point we would also like to mention the new figures for the acceptance rate of research articles in the last year. The acceptance rate of submissions in 2019 was about 40 percent, dropping from 60 percent in 2018; this difference is probably merely due to chance, given the number of submissions. In 2019 we received 8 submissions in total and were able to accept 3 for publication. Also, we would like to thank Alexandra Witzel (Bochum) for proofreading the whole manuscript of this issue. Again, if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us. Please enjoy reading! March 2020 The Editors 4 FROM PRE-CONCEPTS TO REASONS. EMPIRICALLY-BASED RECONSTRUCTION OF A PHILOSOPHICAL LEARNING SCENARIO Christian Thein University of Münster, Germany [email protected] Received: 26 July 2019 Accepted: 23 October 2019 Abstract In this article, I present findings from a workshop with high school students focusing on a problemoriented learning scenario about the leading questions in the just-war-debate. The underlying scientific and methodological framework refers to contemporary questions in the field of didactics of philosophy, mainly considering the relevance of pre-concepts in philosophical learning processes. In referring to the empirical example of the workshop, this paper will show how a learning progress in philosophical reasoning is possible. The learning steps of the students are explained among others by reference to performative linguistic theories. The article concludes with a normative discussion of the learning results considering two issues. First, it considers the relationship between reasoning and understanding in philosophical education in general. Second, it shows that especially in teaching philosophy it is necessary to be aware of and distinguish the different ethical and educational dimensions of teaching practices. I will argue that understanding in a wider sense only takes place under the condition that students are able to refer to the genetic development and context-dependence of a set of arguments. This step of learning, then again, helps to keep in mind the different dimensions and aims of teaching practice.1 Keywords: pre-concepts, reasoning, understanding 1. Conceptual framework and methodological background In scientific talks about philosophical education, it is a widespread consensus that the so-called pre-concepts of the students play a crucial role in different kinds of learning scenarios (Bohlmann 2016: 59, Zimmermann 2016: 65-67). Therefore, one of the important tasks in teaching philosophy is to make pre-concepts explicit. For example, in a problem-oriented teaching practice, the preconcepts of the students concerning the focused philosophical topic can, among other things, be founded in practical und theoretical forms of lifeworld-knowledge, in pre-judices, in ethical 1 I would like to thank Jule Bärmann (Münster) for proofreading the whole manuscript and for her help with the translation into English. Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) intuitions, in ideologies or in emotions. These sources are the basis for all further steps of a philosophical learning process, regardless of whether it aims at the acquisition of formal competences like reasoning or substantial input like knowledge about a philosophical position in its history. Anne Burkard and Laura Martena correspondingly defined pre-concepts of students as “attitudes, states of mind and judgements which a) school students contribute to the lesson at a certain point at time, b) which are not yet influenced by the concrete philosophical contents to be dealt with in the following lesson, and c) but which, conversely, can be relevant to the discussion of these contents“ (Burkard/Martena 2018: 83; translation C.T.). This definition follows from some general ideas about what pre-concepts are and which role they can play in learning processes. But beyond that, I want to mention some differentiating aspects about the genesis and structure of pre-concepts. First, I want to argue for a more holistic approach and picture of these primary propositions, attitudes, intuitions and judgements. They are embedded in a complex background of knowledge, beliefs and opinions, that are themselves part of a specific cultural and historical context (Zimmermann 2016: 66-67). Secondly, the sources of pre-concepts like intuitions or prejudices must be distinguished from that what we artificially call pre-concepts from the scientific perspective in didactical and philosophical reflections. Pre-concepts are propositions with a determined semantic content that are the result of a first philosophical learning step. Thirdly, I would not draw the line between pre-concepts and scientific concepts for philosophical education as sharp as the sciences of nature do (Bohlmann 2016: 54-56). On the one hand, knowledge and beliefs in lifeworld could surely be influenced by common scientific or philosophical ideas. On the other hand, science itself and its protagonists are part of a society with specific interests and personal points of view that reach beyond the inner circle of the research processes. In regards to students of philosophy, it seems obvious that their capacity of knowledge does not only have a propositional structure, but also a personal and cultural component that serves as a relevant basis for further steps of reasoning and reflecting (Hofer 2012: 176). So, the main concern regards the possibility to describe the philosophical learning process without a strong reference to the idea of conceptual change. The difference between pre-concepts and judgements that are based on philosophical argumentation (Thein 2017: 33-74) instead lies – so my main argument in this paper – in the ability to get the inferences and incompatibilities between complex argumentations into both an internal and an external view. This is what I call understanding (verstehen), a sophisticated and emphatic act that includes a reflection on the own (speaker) position within the so-called “game of giving and asking for reasons” (Brandom 1994: 167-198). Below, I want to show how this could work in practice by trying an empirical reconstruction of a typical learning scenario. On the World-Day of Philosophy in November 2014, I got the possibility to philosophize with 20 higher-degree-students between the age of 16 and 18 about questions of human rights. To specify the topic, we focused on the justified-war debates by openly discussing authentic examples of the so-called humanitarian military interventions2 and reached an agreement on working on the key question “War for the protection of human rights?” 2 The examples referred to prototypical situations in failed states with deep inner conflicts where the government itself is not able to secure the basic rights of its citizens. In these cases the situation was further deteriorated through the impossibility to achieve human aims in a diplomatic way. So, from an external political position, only a military intervention could lead to a change of the situation. 6 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) (Schmücker 2004).3 In the process of the philosophical learning process that lasted over three full hours, I moderated the discussions and readings. At the same time, I transcribed selected oral and written contributions of the students by observing their participation. In this first step, the criterium for the selection of a specific utterance was its philosophical determination. In the second step, the evaluation of the arguments focused on the level of progress regarding the argumentation in the context of the chosen discussion topics. Consequently, the empirically-based reconstruction of a case study I present in the following chapter is enclosed by a normative stance from two sides. Firstly, from the philosophical point of view I reconstruct the transformation of the pre-concepts of the students into reasons with regard to the pragmatic speech act-theories of Robert B. Brandom and Jürgen Habermas. Both theories offer a theoretical background for this reconstruction since they refer to the usage of propositions within holistic and progressive forms of communication that are typical for the learning step in view. Within the whole setting this learning step is the second one after the articulation of pre-concepts in the propositional form of assertions. From this result the study presented here starts. Secondly, from the perspective of teaching practice the didactical scenario was adapted to common ideas about problem-based learning scenarios with judgement formation as the main purpose. In this paper, my aim is not to look for practical alternatives to teach the topic in question to students. The empirically-based reconstruction follows a research interest in getting into view how a progression in reasoning could work and which learning steps have to be taken, by the example of the case-study presented here (Thein 2016: 159-162). Questions of better forms of initiating such learning settings have to be discussed subsequently. The only normative presupposition with regard to a successful teaching practice I make is that the reference and confrontation of the preconcepts of the students with controversial philosophical theories has to be seen as the core element for the progression in argumentation and judgement (Thein 2017: 55). On the basis of the clear distinction between change, transformation or complement of pre-concepts through the critical reception of philosophical theories (Zimmermann 2016: 67) I, in practice, focused the argumentation process immanently on the last ones. However, within the learning process focusing the just-war-debates, the students made a radical philosophical turn from pacifistic positions to a justification of military interventions in conflicts. The main reason for this challenge was the stronger argumentation-line for military interventions. This is what seems to be important referring to the philosophical point of view as well as astonishing with regard to the ethical and educational dimensions of the teaching practice. Therefore, in the last section, after my reconstruction of the transformation of pre-concepts into reasons in the second chapter, I will argue for the need of a further meta-cognitive reflection that is a significant third learning step with the view of achieving a saturated philosophical education. 2. From pre-concepts to reasons – reconstruction of the learning scenario In the following section, I will introduce an example in order to show how conceptional learning can be fostered through philosophical-reflective work on pre-concepts that were previously uttered 3 Although the question in itself has a dreadful character, it directly confronts the students with the dilemma explained in the footnote above. A philosophical and didactical discussion of the question itself follows in chapter 3. 7 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) by the students. In doing so, I will first refer back to four selected and typecasted statements4 which were collected during an initial collection of thoughts in the context of the addressed workshop on the leading question “War for the protection of human rights?”. For the scientific need, I here and in the following articulate the statements in free translation: ⎯ “Force always triggers counterforce; therefore, I am against war if it means that innocent people die.” (a) ⎯ “I think states should not interfere in other states’ affairs.” (b) ⎯ “People in need should be supported by all means available.” (c) ⎯ “I categorically do not approve force – the use of force is always bad.” (d) With my assistance, in a second step the students ascribed these pre-concepts to certain philosophical, ethical and political dimensions of questioning in order to deduce criteria and principles: a) b) c) d) is oriented towards the question of fundamental human rights (of innocent people) is oriented towards juridical and political rights of states refers to the relevance of the humanitarian principle refers to the prohibition of force In this phase students generally showed a tendency to negate the leading question (Contra: a, b, d). There were only few arguments (Pro: c) approving of the use of military means in order to protect human rights in states that materially violate these. In a following step there was a phase of working in groups on different philosophical and political texts in shared work to get a profound examination on the topic. The greater purpose was the creation of a structured judgement map through the successive validation of the previously articulated pre-concepts in course of the workshop. While working on the pre-concepts, the statements were re-formulated in such a manner that they could claim validity as generalizable reasons for a positioning towards the leading question: a) Military means are not to be used if their application entails the violation of the human rights of civilians. b) According to established law (UN-Charta), states are not to interfere in another state's sovereignty. c) It is an obligation to help people in need; even with the aid of military means. d) Force should never be used as a means for another purpose. Considering the structuring principles, moreover appropriate arguments against (a) - (d) could be 4 As mentioned above, two criteria were essential for the selection of the following statements: 1.) philosophical determination and significance of the propositions with regard to the key question; 2.) a reasonable development of the argument from a pre-concept to a reason. The first criterium was the one primarily within the teaching practice. The second criterium was the leading one for the empirically-based reconstruction of the learning steps. 8 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) developed and analyzed argumentatively. The following table shows the result of the workshop: War for the protection of human rights? Yes, because … Principle No, because … If necessary – in accordance with thorough assessment (e.g. avoidance of greater evil) – human rights should be protected through force. (e) Principle of human rights Military means should not be used if their appliance entails the violation of the human rights of civilians. (a) A state’s right for sovereignty ends if it cannot further warrant the protection of human rights in its country. (f) Principle of state sovereignty According to established law (UNCharta), states are not to interfere in another state's sovereignty. (b) It is an obligation to help people in need; even with the aid of military means. (c) Humanitarian Principle The humanitarian principle only applies for (immediate) vicinity. (g) The fundamental prohibition of force leads towards a false tolerance towards its perpetrators. (h) Prohibition of force Force should never be used as a means to another purpose. (d) Tab 1. Judgment-Map of Reasons The learning progress can be reconstructed philosophically by following some aspects of the pragmatic speech-act-theories of Robert B. Brandom and Jürgen Habermas. While Brandom analyses the processes of the explication of reasons in intersubjective communication, Habermas discusses how, from the perspective of the communicative speakers, a reference to social and empirical questions is possible (Giovagnioli 2001). I am using these philosophical approaches to explain some of the learning steps by pointing out four crucial aspects of the reasoning presented above. We could speak of a “transformation of pre-concepts into reasons” (Thein 2017: 55-58), which is guided by the following steps in argumentation practice: ⎯ Generalization of individual beliefs (a, b, d) ⎯ Retrospective explication of implied premises (a) and conclusions (d) ⎯ Explication of attitudes (wishes, preferences, evaluative attitudes) by introduction of normative vocabulary (should, ought to, law etc.) (a, b, c, d) ⎯ Introduction of a distinction between institutional (b) and moral ought (a, c, d) 9 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) The generalization of individual beliefs shows the students' ability to take up a critical-reflective attitude towards pre-concepts. In this context, according to Habermas, the strive for statements with a universal and intersubjectively verifiable claim of truth is crucial (Habermas 1981: 148). The ability to switch between a subjective articulation of pre-opinions and pre-knowledge and a problematizing communication on the subject matter in these terms is as relevant as the examination of the intersubjectively agreed-on result with regard to the factual status of social and objective reality (Habermas 1981: 149-151). Following this theoretical consideration, one can argue for the necessity of an academic orientation even for lifeworld-oriented teaching. In practice, this can be warranted through the argumentative elaboration and differentiation of students' preconcepts concerning philosophical topics, theories and facts. The following philosophical reconstruction of the conceptual-argumentative phases of learning is oriented towards the model of explication of interferential structures between term and sentence in intersubjective contexts of practical reasoning (Brandom 1994: 245). The retrospective explication of implied premises and conclusions, according to Brandom, takes place in reciprocal quests for reasons for the given claims (Brandom 1994: 141-175). Starting point of the example at hand was the student statement (a): “Force always triggers counterforce and leads to new suffering; therefore, I am against war if it means that innocent people die.” Through the reading of Rüdiger Bittner's statement on the subject matter (Bittner 2004) the premise underlying this statement was revealed: “Military means should not be used if their appliance entails the violation of the human rights of civilians.” From this consideration, Bittner finally deduces a fundamental prohibition of force regarding international conflicts and thus including the rejection of humanitarian interventions. This, abstracted from a level of pragmatic issues, was explicated as a conclusion of statement (d) by the students because from the general prohibition of force the following sentence, implying a moral obligation, could be deduced: “Force should never be used as a means to another purpose.” The explication of implied premises and conclusions, which become visible in the process of transformation of argument (a) and (d), then again is based on logical vocabulary such as the conditional (Brandom 1994: 102-104). For all four conceptual steps of learning it can be stated that a successive explication of lifeworld-related attitudes – such as individual wishes, preferences as well as general judgements – takes place, which is accomplished by the introduction of normative vocabulary (Brandom 1994: 247-249). In the students' first statements, these attitudes usually remain implicit, though they need explication in order to transform the formulated attitudes into a valid reason. Especially behind individualized or anonymized statements such as “I think…” (b) or “One should…” (c) often lie more general or generalizable beliefs with normative implications. Thus, especially the moral ought, which is introduced in the arguments (a) and (c) by the use of terms of ought (a) as well as terms of obligations (c), according to Brandom not only qualifies for a moral statement, but moreover in a Kantian sense determines the agent with regard to the statement made (Brandom 1994: 252). However, moral ought can be distinguished from institutional ought, as is it for example stated by laws (b). In the learning scenario, with recourse to a key text from Juliane Kokott (Kokott 1999) the ambivalence of the legal framework of the UN-Charta has been indicated, which on the one hand argues for the unconditional protection of human rights (e) and on the other hand argues for the sovereignty of states (c). At the end of the workshop students referred to the institutional10 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) legal mediation of the contradiction through the concept of responsibility to protect, the basic idea of which was added to the judgement map (f). This example shows the possibility to close existing political and factual gaps of knowledge and thereby customize these for philosophical reflection. Especially the argument of the “humanitarian principle” with its different levels (g, c and f) had been elaborated with reference to extracts from Juliane Kokott (Kokott 1999) as well as Wilfried Hinsch and Dieter Janssen (Hinsch/Janssen 2006). This indicates very well how a global question with politically and philosophically controversial substance could be related – in the sense of background and horizon – to the initial lifeworld situation of “vicinity.” In this context, with reference to examples close to everyday life in the workshop it was considered and discussed, in which situational, local and territorial contexts the legally established humanitarian obligation could claim legitimacy for which agents, so that finally (g) was developed as a counterargument to (c). 3. Philosophical, ethical and educational dimensions of the learning scenario At the end of the workshop the students were asked for their opinion again. During the process, it became obvious that most of the about 20 participants had receded from the pacifistic position. Overall, the revealed argumentative connection of the protection of human rights and the humanitarian obligation had motivated the students to answer the focused question War for the protection of human rights? with ‘yes’ by absolute majority. This leads to questions about further knowledge and reflection of the results of argumentation from the philosophical point of view, but also with regard to the ethical and educational dimensions of the learning scenario. For further opinion-forming work on the topic of human rights, considering the value-based school education, to me it seems crucial to approach the reflection of the question from an even more abstract level, but within the well-known immanent philosophical object-level: ⎯ Working out the criteria of “ius ad bellum” and “ius in bello” ⎯ Undertaking an autonomous examination, reflection and critique of key terms in the leading question (“war”, “protection” and “human rights”) ⎯ Critically questioning the leading question itself and thus problematizing the question itself Although this teaching scenario would have gone beyond the limited scope of the workshop, its consideration may help to open up a comprehensive and holistic view of understanding in regards to the philosophical leading question. “Understanding always is about recognizing relations, structures, connections and patterns […], as well as about the recognition of coherences” (Scholz 2016: 23; translation C.T.). The development of complex and inferential argumentative structures, as they are visualized in the elaborated judgement map, only constitutes one initial step into this direction. In a second step that starts with the three questions mentioned above, the students learn to take the genesis and the context-dependence of their reasoning and the setting of arguments into account. This means that not only the acquisition of knowledge on political, historical and juridical contexts regarding the leading question is crucial for the learning progress, but also a reflection about the speaker-positions within and towards the discourse. These new critical questions can help to approach habitual patterns of argumentation from new perspectives. Thus, the crucial 11 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) philosophical learning progress should be that the result of the judgement map can only ever be a preliminary one. It follows that the connections and inter-weavings have to be further examined for the argumentations and attempts of judgements of the students to be framed by profound performances of understanding. From this point of view new questions arise: ⎯ Who is the subject of reasoning in just-war-debates? And who is not? ⎯ How would affected persons feel about this kind of discourse? How would they position themselves within that game of giving and asking for reasons? ⎯ How could political and economic constraints be integrated into the normative reasoning and judging? ⎯ What are the limits of normative reasoning, especially with respect to these global political and economic constraints? ⎯ Which kind of epistemic injustices would cause distorted interpretations of the topic in question and its facts? ⎯ How relevant is the reference to empirical facts for an argumentation with soil adhesion? Therefore, my final thesis is that “understanding of arguments” does not only go along with the ability to answer questions on the exchange of arguments in regards to their relation to a thesis in forms of horizontal or vertical differentiating, as Gregor Betz claims (Betz 2016: 190-193). A retrospective form of getting a completed argumentation into view from a hermeneutic stance has to start with posing new critical questions about the whole setting of the operated argumentation as well. Here, the explication of the difference between internal and external reflections would be useful to give students a deeper understanding of the learning steps they perform. This kind of progression within the learning process requires a change from immanent critique on specific arguments to forms of external critique and meta-cognitions. Also, an approach to nourish the ability of empathy could be crucial (Wesche 2009: 203-213). This seems to be the only way to generate synergy between the ethical and educational objectives of teaching and the crucial philosophical ones. References Betz, Gregor (2016), “Logik und Argumentationstheorie”, Pfister, Jonas/Zimmermann, Peter (ed.), Neues Handbuch des Philosophieunterrichts, Bern: Haupt, 169-199. Bittner, Rüdiger (2004), “Humanitäre Interventionen sind Unrecht”, Georg Meggle (ed.), Humanitäre Interventionsethik, Paderborn: Mentis, 99-106. Bohlmann, Markus (2016), “Die experimentelle Erforschung philosophischer Konzepte – Aufriss eines fachdidaktischen Forschungsprogramms”, Dietrich, Julia/Brand, Cordula/Rohbeck, Johannes (ed.), Empirische Forschung in der Philosophie- und Ethikdidaktik, Dresden: Thelem, 51-72. Brandom, Robert B. (1994), Making It Explicit – Reasoning, Representing and Discursive Commitment, Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press. Burkard, Anne/Martena, Laura (2018), “Zur Erforschung von Schülervorstellungen im 12 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) Philosophieunterricht – Eine programmatische Skizze”, Zeitschrift für Didaktik der Philosophie und Ethik 3/2018, 80-86. Giovagnioli, Raffaela (2001), “On normative Pragmatics: A Comparison between Habermas and Brandom”, theorem Vol XX/3, 2001, 51-68. Hinsch, Wilfried/Janssen, Dieter (2006), Menschenrechte militärisch schützen – Ein Plädoyer für humanitäre militärische Interventionen, München: C.H. Beck. Habermas, Jürgen (1981), Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, Band 1: Handlungsrationalität und gesellschaftliche Rationalisierung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Hofer, Roger (2012), Wissen und Können – Begriffsanalytische Studien zu einer kompetenzorientierten Wissensorientierung am Gymnasium, Münster/New York/München/ Berlin: Waxmann. Kokott, Juliane (1999), “Der Schutz der Menschenrechte im Völkerrecht”, Brunkhorst, Hauke/ Köhler, Wolfgang/Lutz-Bachmann, Matthias (ed.), Recht auf Menschenrecht. Menschenrechte, Demokratie und internationale Politik, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 176-198. Scholz, Oliver R. (2016), “Verstehen = Zusammenhänge erkennen”, Sachs-Hombach, Klaus (ed.), Verstehen und Verständigung – Intermediale, multimodale und interkulturelle Aspekte von Kommunikation und Ästhetik, Köln: Herbert von Halem, 17-32. Schmücker, Reinold (2004), “Can War Be a Moral Action? Towards a Normative Theory of Humanitarian Intervention”, Ethical Perspectives 11, 162-175. Thein, Christian (2016), “Normativität und Empirie des Philosophieunterrichts – Eine philosophische Spurensuche mit der Brille des Didaktikers“, Dietrich, Julia/Brand, Cordula/ Rohbeck, Johannes (ed.), Empirische Forschung in der Philosophie- und Ethikdidaktik, Dresden: Thelem, 145-162. Thein, Christian (2017), Verstehen und Urteilen im Philosophieunterricht, Opladen/Berlin/Toronto: Verlag Barbara Budrich. Wesche, Tilo (2009), “Reflexion, Therapie, Darstellung – Formen der Kritik”, Jaeggi, Rahel/Wesche, Tilo (ed.), Was ist Kritik?, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 2009, 193-220. Zimmermann, Peter (2016), “Fachliche Klärung und didaktische Rekonstruktion“, Pfister, Jonas/Zimmermann, Peter (ed.), Neues Handbuch des Philosophieunterrichts, Bern: Haupt, 6178. How to cite this article Thein, Christian (2020): From Pre-Concepts to Reasons. Empirically-Based Reconstruction of a Philosophical Learning Scenario, Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4(1), 5-13. URL: www.philosophie.ch/jdph 13 TRAP-MIND-THEORY. PHILOSOPHIZING AS AN EDUCATIONAL PROCESS Frank Brosow Ludwigsburg University of Education, Germany [email protected] Received: 15 January 2020 Accepted: 2 March 2020 Abstract The TRAP-Mind-Theory introduces a problem-oriented technique of philosophizing, based on the results of empirical research in cognitive psychology. Philosophizing is understood as the mental activity in which philosophical education is applied. In order to learn how to philosophize, students must perform the mental processes that philosophizing is all about. Those processes can be identified by making use of empirical findings of cognitive psychology. The observance of those findings leads to the matrix of contemplation, a model with three areas and four levels. People develop their thoughts to the next level by adding reasons (for themselves, others or all people) to the results of the current one. Reasons and considerations get tested by using the 5C-criteria (clarity, correlation, consistency, completeness, comparison). By breaking down the complex process of philosophizing into these steps, philosophizing with children and grown-ups becomes possible, teachable, and evaluable. Keywords: philosophizing, psychology, educational process, matrix, TRAP-Mind-Theory 1. Introduction This paper is about philosophizing as a mental1 activity and how to teach it. The idea is to develop a lucid model of the mental processes that form what I call the DNA of philosophizing. Like genetics can only explain those parts of human behavior that are independent of socialization and context, this model does not claim to depict everything a philosopher does while philosophizing, but only the ‘stem cell’ of philosophizing as an educational process.2 The model is based on some general assumptions about philosophical education (2.) and the results of empirical research in cognitive psychology (3.). I call this approach the TRAP-MindTheory.3 It is constructed around the matrix of contemplation, a chart with three areas and four levels (4.). By explaining the different parts of the matrix, I will clarify the various ways in which 1 I use the term ‘mental’ in contrast to ‘social’, ‘dialogical’, or ‘communicational’. Philosophizing starts in the mind. Philosophizing as an educational process means philosophizing as a contribution to a profound reflection on the relationship between one’s own self and a complex world (see Brosow 2020). 3 So far, this approach has been internationally discussed at philosophical and interdisciplinary conferences and university courses in Ludwigsburg, Salzburg, Wien, Sevilla, and Chicago (see Brosow 2019a). In 2019, an empirical study in 17 classes at several German schools endorsed the assumption that the model works for philosophizing with students between the age of 10 and 18. The results of this study have yet to be published. 2 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) we make use of ‘philosophizing’ (as a term and activity) in schools, universities and social life (5.). While the three areas of contemplation (understanding, evaluating, acting) define the kind of problem, that we are dealing with, the four levels of contemplation (thinking, reflecting, arguing, philosophizing) define the way, in which we are dealing with it. Figure 1. The TRAP-Mind-Matrix: Areas, Levels, and Fields of Contemplation. With the starting point in intuitive thinking, we develop our thoughts to the next level by adding reasons (for ourselves, others or all people) to the results of the current one. Figure 2. The TRAP-Mind-Theory: Levels, Reasons, and Stages. At each level, we get from the untested to the tested stage by using the 5C-criteria (clarity, correlation, consistency, completeness, comparison) to divide reasons into good ones and bad ones. Figure 3. Questions to Apply the 5C-Criteria at Different Levels of Contemplation. 15 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) By breaking down the complex mental activity of philosophizing into these steps, the TRAP-MindTheory does justice to both, philosophy as an academic discipline and philosophizing as an educational process. Professional philosophers work with more complex reasons on more sophisticated problems, but at the end of the day, they perform the same mental processes as students in school or adults who engage in critical thinking4 in everyday life. In other papers, I already focused or will focus on teacher training and applications of the TRAP-Mind-Theory (see Brosow 2020). The main concern of this article is a proper understanding of the terms I use and of the architecture of the model as a whole. The second focus is on expanding the TRAP-Mind-Matrix as a mere model to a TRAP-Mind-Theory as a technique of philosophizing by empathizing and explaining its roots in subject didactics and cognitive psychology (see Brosow 2019b). The TRAP-Mind-Theory is an invitation to observe evidence-based research on how the mind works while philosophizing, teaching, and learning. Readers who are not interested in this theoretical background may skip the next two sections and continue reading in section 4. 2. Subject didactics of philosophy and ethics Philosophy becomes practically useful through philosophical education.5 As an academic discipline, philosophy does not primarily aim at practical efficacy, but knowledge. However, if philosophy is to be practically effective, it must be applied in a way that brings about an individual or social change. Such changes take place because social agents acquire philosophical education and act (at least partially) as philosophically educated persons. Besides professional philosophers and educators, the target group of philosophical education is, on the one hand, the general public and, on the other hand, decision-makers from politics, science, and economy who have to deal with specific problems. Questions concerning philosophical education for the general public fall within the scope of subject didactics, especially (not exclusively) in schools and universities. Implementing the perspective of philosophical education in interdisciplinary and societal discourses is the responsibility of applied philosophy and applied ethics. 2.1 Philosophizing as Problem-Oriented Thinking Philosophizing is the (complex) mental activity in which philosophical education is applied. Ekkehard Martens calls it the fourth cultural technique besides reading, writing, and arithmetic. (See Martens 2016.) Philosophizing in this sense is by no means limited to classes on philosophy or ethics but can be applied in various subjects, especially humanities, and also outside of educational institutions. The activity of philosophizing is by its very nature problem-oriented (see Tiedemann 2017). Problems are not the same as topics or questions. Philosophizing requires a topic about which we philosophize. With regard to any topic, different questions can be asked. A question becomes a 4 5 Philosophizing as an educational process is closer to critical thinking than it is to public philosophy. I use the term ‘education’ in the sense of the German term ‘Bildung’, not ‘Erziehung’, ‘Ausbildung’ or ‘Training’. 16 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) problem if the correct answer is not easy to find and if we feel an urge to answer it. Teaching students a new technique is fruitless if they lack the desire to learn it (see Schank 2011, ch. 1). Philosophizing is necessarily problem-oriented, but not necessarily problem-solution-oriented. We philosophize about the great questions of philosophy, although we know that no final answer will ever be found.6 It is not decisive that a problem is solved, but that the activity of philosophizing enriches the way of thinking about it. This can, but does not always, contribute to the solution. Philosophizing means to think about problems in a special way that is distinguishable from mere talking or from sharing individual opinions (see Ralla/Sinhart-Pallin 2015, ch. 2.4). Like in the case of reading, writing, and arithmetic, there has to be some kind of standard that tells us whether or not we are thinking about the given problem in a suitable way. 2.2 Processes, Competencies, and Performances Modern subject didactics distinguish between performance and competencies (see Roeger 2019). In this context, performance means some kind of visible and therefore empirically measurable activity, while competencies are seen as necessary conditions to perform this activity on the side of the subject. Empirical research on the effectiveness of teaching and learning observes the performance to test the claim that a given set of competencies of students has increased (see Tiedemann 2011, ch. III.3). However, philosophizing as a mental process (P) is neither a performance nor a competency in the sense mentioned above. The mental process of philosophizing has some necessary conditions in the subject in the form of competencies (CP). At the same time, it is a necessary (not sufficient) condition for empirically measurable performances (X) like sharing a philosophical thought with others. Some competencies are necessary conditions for the mental process of philosophizing (CP). Other competencies (CX) are additional conditions for the empirically measurable performance (X) that may or may not follow the mental process.7 In classes on philosophy or ethics, we are obliged to work on competencies of the first kind (CP). Working on competencies of the second kind (CX) must never replace, but only support the mental process of philosophizing. In both cases, working on competencies is not an end in itself or a means to the end of a visible performance (X), but a means to the end of allowing the mental process (P) to happen (see Roeger 2016, ch. 7). 2.3 Learning by Doing versus Performing for Assessment When it comes to learning, there is no alternative to learning by doing (see Schank 2011, ch. 12). But what do students need to do in order to learn how to philosophize? The easy way for teachers is to make students do anything they can easily be motivated to do (like drawing a picture or talking in groups) and later claim that the students acquired the competencies to do it (“The students can draw a picture / increased their social competence.”) and that this was the goal of their lesson all along. 6 Carsten Roeger calls this the “resistance dimension” of philosophical education (Roeger 2016, ch. 4.2). Examples for CP are associating suitable ideas with a given word or using simple or more complex rules of logic. Examples for CX are being able to talk or write or being motivated to participate in a public conversation. 7 17 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) For subject didactics, however, ‘learning by doing’ is not about making students demonstrably active by doing just anything. It is about making them do what they need to do in order to learn the very problem-solving techniques that we are supposed to teach them (see Schank 2011, ch. 2). It is decisive to notice the difference between the mental activity that students need to engage in while philosophizing and the perceptible performance that is – occasionally – needed for their assessment. Again, the analogy to reading is helpful here: People read (and practice reading) as soon as they perform the mental process that we call reading, although we cannot prove that they are reading before they choose to read something aloud. Worrying too much about perceptible performance and too little about the mental process leads to classes on communication – not to classes on philosophizing. If we want to use ‘learning by doing’ in order to teach our students how to philosophize and if philosophizing is a set of mental processes, we have to make our students perform the mental processes that philosophizing is all about. It is great if students achieve additional competencies to talk and write about the results of this mental process. However, the primal question has to be: What kinds of mental processes do people perform while philosophizing? Figures 4 & 5. Roots of the TRAP-Mind-Theory: Subject Didactics and Cognitive Psychology. 3. Cognitive Psychology For centuries, philosophers claimed that philosophizing was all about thinking as rationally as possible. However, if rationality is the undisputed standard of thinking, a great part of human thinking does not match this standard. Empirical research shows, that rationality is not a constant characteristic of human judgment and decision making. It is an ability that people have at their disposal, but which they do not constantly make use of, and which, like every ability, is limited (see Ariely 2010). The activation of rational thinking comes with the costs of attention and effort 18 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) and is dependent on empirically researchable rules and boundary conditions (see Kahneman 2011, ch. 2). The assumption that the rules and boundary conditions of thinking are empirically explorable is the cornerstone of cognitive psychology. Since philosophizing is a kind of problem-oriented thinking, it must be taken into account that philosophizing may also be empirically researchable (to a certain degree). So, philosophy has good reasons to take the results of empirical psychology seriously.8 The knowledge and observance of the empirical findings of cognitive psychology allow the correction of thought in the sense of philosophical education in general and applied philosophy in particular. 3.1 Dual Process Theory Our self that carries out our judgments appears to us as a unity, as if it was always the same reason that forms our judgments. However, according to the dual process theory, our judgments are based on different processes of thought that often contradict each other and do not work reliably in every area (see Beck 2014). Daniel Kahneman (see Kahneman, 2011, ch. 1) distinguishes: ⎯ “system 1” (works intuitively, quickly, spontaneously, involuntarily and without effort) ⎯ “system 2” (works carefully, slowly, is lazy and can only be activated with effort) Since the activation of our rational ‘system 2’ requires attention and effort, we tend to rely on our intuitive ‘system 1’ even in situations when this leads us to suboptimal results (see Brosow 2019b). ‘System 1’ often interferes with questions that are intended for ‘system 2’. It secretly replaces complex questions with more simple ones that are easier to answer by using intuitive heuristics instead of rational reasoning (see Kahneman 2011, ch. 9). Despite these findings, Gerd Gigerenzer and others point out the considerable strengths of intuitive thinking. In contrast to rational type-2-processes, intuitive thinking can cope with a high degree of complexity without any loss of quality (see Kriesel/Roew 2017, ch. 3.4) or does justice to this complexity through simple heuristics (see Gigerenzer 2007, ch. 3). This applies at least to areas of regularity that give us (as a species or as individuals) the chance to develop a routine with recurring situations and that provide immediate feedback on the suitability of this routine (see Kahneman 2011, ch. 22). Outside these areas, our thinking is susceptible to cognitive distortions. The TRAP-Mind-Theory follows the dual process theory in many ways. It appreciates intuitive type-1-processes as the basic building blocks of thinking and uses the criteria that determine our intuitive selection of associations (clearness, correlation, consistency, completeness, comparison) to distinguish between good and bad reasons at different levels of rational reasoning. Thinking is not measured against external truth theories or abstract concepts of rationality, but consistently against itself. Three distinct areas of contemplation make sure that problems of understanding, evaluating and acting do not get mixed up by interference of ‘system 1’. 8 At the same time, it is important to know the difference between serious research and ‘neuromyths’ about so-called ‘brain-based learning’ which we should not follow (see Agarwal/Bain 2018, ch. 7). 19 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) 3.2 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) The idea of cognitive distortions also got influential in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Developed in the 1960s and 70s by psychiatrists like Aaron Beck and David Burns, CBT is considered to be one of the most effective forms of therapy against depression and anxiety disorders today. The approach is based on the assumption that depression and anxiety disorders are mainly caused by a distortion of thinking. Burns developed a method in which patients identify the negative feelings they experience during the day, the ‘trigger’ of each feeling and the exact thoughts that go through their heads in these situations. The patients analyze each negative thought by comparing it to a specific set of cognitive distortions and formulate a new, rational version of each thought, through which the distortion of their negative thought becomes clear. As a result, their belief in the negative, distorted thought tends to vanish, which often leads to an immediate brightening of their mood. Getting used to this rational response technique can contribute to a significant improvement of the patients’ symptoms and ultimately lead to a complete and lasting recovery (see Burns 2006, ch. 6). The ability to counter one’s automatic thoughts with a rational response is practiced in roleplaying. The therapist initially plays the role of the person whose automatic thoughts are influenced by certain cognitive distortions. Patients correct these thoughts by using their knowledge of the various forms of cognitive distortions. When patients cannot think of a decent response, they perform a role swap, so the therapist can lead the way. The most important distortions in the context of CBT are all-or-nothing thinking, overgeneralization, mental filter, disqualifying the positive, jumping to conclusions in the forms of mind-reading and fortune-telling, magnification/ minimization, emotional reasoning, should-statements, labeling, and personalization/blame (see Burns 1981, ch. 3). From CBT, the TRAP-Mind-Theory picks up the idea of correcting distortions of intuitive thinking through conscious, rational reflection. The ability to correct one’s own thoughts is trained dialogically with an experienced instructor. However, cognitive therapy focuses on the first-person perspective of the patient. The aim is not to solve or comprehend factual problems, but to improve the well-being of patients in the face of their problems. Cognitive therapy is patient-oriented, not problem-oriented. Philosophizing as a form of problem-oriented reflection is therefore different from therapy. 3.3 Interactionist Theory of Reasoning Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber discovered a problem of the dual process theory which they call the Enigma of Reason: Why did evolution give our species a biased ‘superpower’? (See Mercier/Sperber 2017, ch. 1-2). If the main function of reasoning is creating true beliefs about ourselves and the world around us, why are we so bad in distinguishing between true beliefs and distorted thinking? If we do not need proper reasoning to survive and to reproduce, why do we have this superpower? If we do need it, why is this superpower so flawed? The dual process theory divides the variety of mental processes into two groups which are classified as intuitive and rational. In contrast to that, Mercier and Sperber treat reasoning as just 20 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) another specialized module of thinking among many others (see Mercier/Sperber 2017, ch. 8). The area this module is specialized in, is the production and evaluation of reasons. Humans need reasons to justify their thoughts and actions in front of others and to evaluate the reasons given to them by other people. In this social process, it is not a flaw, but an evolutionary asset to be very critical towards other people’s reasons and to firmly rely on fast intuitions when it comes to bringing up reasons for our own position. We have to look at humans as social creatures if we want to understand the evolutionary benefits of our myside bias. Human societies seem to work quite effectively when all individuals come up with a variety of reasons for their own side and treat conflicting reasons presented to them by others with skepticism (see Mercier/Sperber 2017, ch. 11-12). The TRAP-Mind-Theory agrees with this interactionist approach on the main function of reasoning, which is to find and evaluate reasons. To understand the role of reasoning in our lives, we need to expand the concept of reasoning as a private reflection to its social dimension of arguing with others about justifications. The correction of distorted thinking does not end with the rational reflection of one individual but must be repeated from a social point of view by also considering and evaluating the reasons of other people. 3.4 The Problem of Moral Tribalism The psychologist, neuroscientist, and philosopher Joshua Greene transfers findings on automatic type-1-processes and rational type-2-processes to the inquiry of moral problems. He divides moral problems into two types: ‘Me versus Us’ problems concern conflicts between the interests of the individual and the interests of the community; ‘Us versus Them’’ problems concern conflicts between different communities with different value systems. According to Greene, our intuitive thinking (including ‘moral sentiments’) has evolutionarily proven to be efficient in dealing with problems of the first kind but is unfit for solving problems of the second kind (see Greene 2013, ch. 11). Greene states that type-1-processes lead to heterogeneous ‘tribal morals’ which are based on culturally differing prioritizations of values. Despite their heterogeneity, these tribal morals provide equivalent solutions to ‘Me versus Us’ problems. However, according to Greene, moral problems in which these tribal morals conflict can only be solved by a purely rational meta-philosophy based on type-2-processes. For Greene, the rational solution for those cases is to ignore one’s intuitions and to follow the rational ‘correction’ of thoughts offered by utilitarianism (see Greene 2013, ch. 12). Of course, Greene is wrong to assume that utilitarianism provides the only possible meta-theory to overcome tribal morals. Nor is there any good reason (for non-Kantians) to unilaterally bind a universalist theory of morality to the criterion of ‘apriority’. Not only purely rational theories but all theories that are based on impartial reasons that can be accepted by all human beings independently of culture and personal experiences can be taken into account to solve ‘Us versus Them’ problems. According to Gigerenzer, it is not always plausible or beneficial to resolve conflicts between type-1-processes and type-2-processes in the direction of rationality (see Gigerenzer 21 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) 2007, ch. 3). So, the set of impartial reasons includes considerations a priori as well as considerations a posteriori and rational thoughts as well as generally shared (and unbiased) intuitions and emotional responses. Nevertheless, the TRAP-Mind-Theory agrees with Greene’s distinction between different types of moral (and also non-moral) problems and explains them in terms of different levels of contemplation. Problems of the kind ‘Me versus Us’ are conflicts between good reasons for me (at the level of reflecting) and good reasons for others (at the level of arguing). Problems of the kind ‘Us versus Them’ are conflicts within the level of arguing and can only be solved by moving on to the level of philosophizing, at which we deal with good reasons for all human beings. The important step to a mutual understanding is to focus on shared reasons instead of complete theories. 3.5 Moral Foundations Theory According to the moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt, the isolated application of highly rational theories such as utilitarian or deontological ethics can be seen as just another distortion of (moral) judgment9 (see Haidt 2012, ch. 6). Together with Greg Lukianoff, Haidt finds the opposite error in the current trend towards ‘Safetyism’. “Three great untruths” (Haidt/Lukianoff 2018, ch. 1-3), whose individual and social genesis can be explained by various factors (Haidt/Lukianoff 2018, ch. 6-11), seem to affect and endanger an entire generation of students, at least in the USA: ⎯ The Untruth of Fragility: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Weaker. ⎯ The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always Trust Your Feelings. ⎯ The Untruth of Us Versus Them: Life Is a Battle Between Good People and Evil People. If neither rational (utilitarian or deontological) theories nor subjective emotions (emotional reasoning) provide an adequate basis for moral judgments, how can the standard for an undistorted moral judgment be determined? Haidt’s response is to empirically explore the transcultural factors that lead people to their moral judgments. He identifies six pillars of what he considers to be an undistorted moral matrix (see Haidt 2012, ch. 12): 1. Care/Harm, 2. Liberty/Oppression, 3. Fairness/Cheating, 4. Loyalty/Betrayal, 5. Authority Subversion, 6. Sanctity/Degradation. Since the majority of the world’s population considers loyalty, authority, and sanctity to be morally relevant in addition to care, liberty, and justice, Haidt regards positions within ‘WEIRD’ (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) societies that tend to ignore these three factors as distorted. By doing so, Haidt replaces normativity with mere descriptions of common judgment. Haidt also fails to see that the people he interviewed during his research use the term ‘morals’ in two different ways. Those who only consider care, liberty, and justice to be relevant for moral judgments represent a universalist theory of morality. Those who also emphasize group loyalty, respect for authorities and reverence for the sacred have a social definition of morality in mind. 9 Haidt states that Bentham’s utilitarianism and Kant’s deontological ethics both possess the qualities of ‘high systematization’ and ‘low empathy’. These qualities characterize what psychologists call the ‘autistic spectrum’. So Haidt assigns Bentham and, to a lesser degree, Kant to the autistic spectrum (see Haidt 2012, 137-140). 22 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) By definition, universalist norms can be justified on a bigger scale than social norms, but that does not mean that social norms have no place at all in an undistorted moral matrix. A good theory of philosophizing has to distinguish between the social and the universalist approach on morality and to bring both of them together when it comes to applying both views to actual moral problems. However, the TRAP-Mind-Theory learns from Haidt that philosophy needs to explain and justify the one-sidedness of almost every theory of morality within its scope. The theory also appreciates the idea of empirical research on transcultural reasons regarding specific kinds of problems. 4. The TRAP-Mind-Theory Since cognitive distortions complicate both, the development and the application of philosophical theories, it is not sufficient for philosophers to be aware of the findings of empirical psychology while developing philosophical theories. We must also use these findings to develop a profound theory of philosophizing which enables philosophically educated persons to apply these theories appropriately. 4.1 One Theory of Philosophizing The TRAP-Mind-Theory10 treats philosophizing as an open, problem-oriented, educational process. The direction of any philosophical application discourse is determined by the respective target group, while philosophically educated persons who accompany this discourse are responsible for its depth and breadth. The character of philosophizing shows itself in the process of reflection, not in its outcome. If this process is to be initiated and optimized, empirical findings on human thinking must be the starting point. Still, philosophizing is not about intuitions, opinions, the number of their representatives or a consensus, but about the proper justification of intuitions and opinions. Philosophizing always involves collecting and evaluating reasons. Collecting reasons includes finding new reasons and preserving old ones.11 Evaluating reasons includes determining their quality and reach. The level of contemplation required for an adequate justification depends on the nature of the given problem. The nature of a problem depends, among other things, on the area to which it belongs. The aim of philosophizing is not objective ‘truth’ or abstract ‘rationality’, but the studious examination of the plausibility of all considerations presented. The criteria for plausibility are derived from the way our mind works on its most basic level of intuitive thinking. 4.2 Two Kinds of Problems (Philosophical, Non-Philosophical) The problems we philosophize about can be philosophical or non-philosophical. For the purpose of this article, it is not necessary to define the nature of philosophical problems in great detail (see Barz 2019). It is sufficient to say, that a problem is a philosophical problem if its solution requires the activity of philosophizing (with regard to the form of philosophizing) and that it is not a 10 There are, of course, other models with similar objectives, which I cannot discuss in greater detail at this point (see Bräuer 2014; Korthagen 2014; Aeppli/Lötscher 2016). 11 This is why the TRAP-Mind-Theory appreciates systematic philosophy and the history of philosophy alike. 23 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) philosophical problem if its solution can also be found in a purely empirical or another subjectspecific way. The interesting and at the same time challenging thing about philosophical problems is, that by definition, we cannot double-check our solutions by using an alternative (e.g., empirical) standard. Philosophizing about philosophical problems means philosophizing without any safety net and therefore requires an additional set of skills, knowledge, and experience. People who initiate and accompany philosophizing about philosophical problems must possess a high degree of philosophical education. In school, philosophizing about philosophical problems should be left to teachers of philosophy and ethics who have the proper training. Nevertheless, philosophizing about non-philosophical problems can be initiated by anyone who has expertise in regard to the topic they want to philosophize about. If this goes wrong or stays incomplete, other standards may help to optimize the solution found through philosophizing. The TRAP-MindTheory can be used for philosophizing about both, philosophical problems in classes on philosophy/ethics and non-philosophical problems in other subjects. 4.3 Three Areas (Understanding, Evaluating, Acting) Since philosophizing is a problem-oriented process, it starts with the framing and categorization of a problem. The TRAP-Mind-Theory distinguishes problems of understanding, evaluating, and acting. ‘Understanding’ means the search for meaning. Meaning is not a part of the outside world, but a human construction. Understanding an experience or term means having a mental representation that does justice to the experience or term and at the same time fits to already given ideas. We are looking for a mental medium that closes the gap between thinking and the empirical or social world by connecting existing ideas with an object, experience or term. In this sense, all understanding is medial (see Rath 2014, ch. 1). Understanding is about which ideas we associate with specific terms and for which ideas other terms are better suited. In this sense, one can strive to understand each concept and try to express each idea as clearly as possible. So far, there is no judgment about the existence or value of the phenomenon. We can also understand a consideration that we believe to be wrong. Two persons may have an identical concept of the term ‘God’ but disagree about whether God exists or not. ‘Evaluating’ as an area of contemplation is understood in a very broad sense, which includes truth values (true/false), judgments about existence or non-existence and probabilities, moral, aesthetic and other values. Every evaluation requires a standard. Usually, an object that meets one standard does not perform well compared to another. All normative questions fall within the scope of evaluating, but always require conceptual clarification in the area of understanding and have a massive impact on the area of acting. Therefore, it is easy to find transitions from the area of evaluating to the other two areas. However, it is just as easy to get unintentionally and unnoticed from one area into another. ‘Acting’ concerns the relevance of different evaluations for actual behavior.12 In the area of evaluating, it may have become clear that action one is morally more valuable than action two, 12 Examples for problems of acting are ‘Shall I take a short way or a more beautiful one?’ or ‘Should people go to 24 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) while action two is more useful to the agent or a specific group. The question of whether usefulness or morality is decisive in the given case concerns a new problem area. How people weigh different standards depends on what kind of person they want to be (here, now, and in regard to the given problem). This question hits the core of any educational process in the sense of reflecting on the relationship between one’s own self and the world (see Roeger 2016, ch. 3.5). The area of acting gains complexity by the fact that, in practice, people do not reliably treat a specific standard (e.g., morality) as more important than another (e.g., usefulness) at all times. The usual behavior will be that in some contexts, a person treats one standard as decisive, in others the other. Similar to understanding and evaluating, this process can take place intuitively and unquestioningly, or it can be intensively thought through with the claim to a plausible justification. Naturally, there may be a gap between how people act and what they consider to be the right way of acting. Philosophizing about a problem of acting tells me what kind of person I want to be. However, my actions may prove that I am not this kind of person, yet. Philosophizing alone does not solve problems of motivation, but it may help to identify them. Difficulties in solving problems in one area can often be resolved by clarifications in another. Distinguishing three areas of contemplation has several advantages compared to a binary classification (theoretical/practical; descriptive/normative; cognitive/emotional, etc.). The separation of understanding and evaluating protects against the unconscious replacement of one question by another e.g., by using affect heuristics (see Kahneman 2011, ch. 9). The benefits of separating evaluating and acting can be illustrated using the ‘Heinz dilemma’ (see Kohlberg 1981). Understood as a problem of evaluating, the dilemma raises the following questions: ‘What is the morally correct decision for Heinz? Is it right to steal the drug or to let die his wife?’ The answer is supposed to either justify theft or inactivity in the face of the dying of a loved one. Thus, the standard of morality presents itself as something that everyone can bend into shape as they see fit. Understood as a problem of acting, the following questions arise: ‘Which value is more important to Heinz under the given circumstances? Compliance with applicable law or loyalty to his beloved wife? What kind of person does prioritize the first, what kind of person does prioritize the second? And what kind of person does Heinz choose to be?’ This approach recognizes that there is no ‘right’ decision in a moral dilemma. Therefore, the ‘solution’ can only be to justify one’s own decision as far as it is right and to take responsibility for it as far as it is wrong. However, other people (and we ourselves) will only be satisfied with our decision if our justification appears to be as solid as possible. 4.4 Four Levels (Thinking, Reflecting, Arguing, Philosophizing) The four levels of contemplation give the TRAP-Mind-Theory its name. They determine the way we think about a problem. At each level, we adopt a new perspective. The transition takes place by adding reasons of a new kind to our thoughts. Intuitive thinking occurs involuntarily and is not work while they are ill?’. Not knowing how to do something means not knowing what can be an effective means to an end; therefore, it is a problem of evaluating. Not being able to do something one wants to do is neither. 25 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) controllable. When reflecting, I ask for reasons for myself to think as I do, when arguing, I ask for reasons for (concrete) others and when philosophizing, I ask for reasons for all people. The TRAP-Mind-Theory has a functionalistic understanding of reasons. A reason is not a consideration of its own kind. Any thought that is deliberately used to support or attack a consideration is considered a reason by the TRAP-Mind-Theory. Reasons can come from all levels of contemplation. However, their genesis can always be traced back to the lowest, most intuitive level. ‘Thinking’ is intuitive, automatic, and effortless. This level refers to association processes with empirically researchable laws and boundary conditions. In the language of cognitive psychology, this level corresponds to ‘system 1’ or ‘type-1-processes’ (see Kahneman 2011; Kriesel/Roew 2017). Intuitive thinking provides the building blocks for all higher levels. Since no reasons are involved at this level, it is only indirectly accessible to philosophizing (through habituation). The TRAP-Mind-Theory recognizes the value of intuitive thinking for the execution of life. However, intuition is a private matter. That is why intuitions are never accepted in philosophical dialogues without justification and never criticized or praised directly, but only by an evaluation of their justification. The aim is not to think less often intuitively and more often rationally in everyday life. If, however, rational thinking is used, it should be done in an undistorted and correct manner. ‘Reflecting’ is deliberate, conscious, requires attention, and involves effort. At this level, intuitive associations become the object of reflection by consciously searching for reasons for me that speak for or against the appropriateness of the association. For their part, these reasons can still be mere associations. The source of the associated reasons lies in my own experiences. Reflecting initially covers both, good and bad reasons because their examination is still to be carried out at this level. ‘Arguing’ is dialogical, social and consensus-oriented, but at the same time still partisan. The level of arguing is reached as soon as I claim that (concrete) others have reasons for their part to approve of a consideration. This is a step from the private into the social world, which requires empathy and the adoption of roles. We are looking for reasons that (more or less concrete) other people accept measured by their experiences. As with reflection, this search can reveal both, good and bad reasons. ‘Philosophizing’, after all, means systematic, impartial, general, and objective contemplation. By philosophizing, I claim that the consideration put forward, its justification and the standard by which this justification is measured can in principle be accepted by all (impartial) human beings. The considerations in question can be linked to general premises. However, individual and groupspecific experiences and preconditions are consequently neglected in favor of impartiality. The four levels of contemplation build on each other, but must not be misunderstood as a stepby-step model in the sense of Lawrence Kohlberg (see Kohlberg 1981). High levels do not equal high quality of judgment. The goal is not to reach the highest level as quickly as possible or to stay at this level exclusively. The level that is decisive to solve a problem depends on the nature of the problem. 26 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) Philosophizing as a level of contemplation refers to mental work on those reasons which every human being can accept as (good) reasons regardless of individual experiences or premises. However, good reasons that are acceptable to all human beings are only a subset of the larger set of good reasons. Reasons, which are only good measured by the experiences of individuals (reflecting) or groups (arguing), do not belong to the level of philosophizing. But they are still good reasons. People solve some problems by discovering a concept that represents progress in knowledge only for themselves (“For me, happiness is...‟). Other problems require a consensus of a limited group of people, but this consensus does not have to extend beyond this group (“For us, friendship/partnership means...‟). Advancing to abstract philosophical questions usually requires systematic considerations on the last level (“Morality/justice/truth is...‟). Since universalization always comes with decontextualization, it is often advisable to consider reasons from all three rational levels. This has implications for subject didactics, as well. Very few teachers can always rely on their intuitive thinking. So, good teacher training has to take place on all three rational levels (see Concepción 2018). Teachers may have good reasons for themselves to choose a specific teaching style. They should also consider the reasons for others in order to adapt their style to their institution and their students. However, subject didactics as an academic discipline will focus on reasons for all. So, a good paper on ‘best practice’ is not written at the level of reflecting or arguing, but reaches the level of philosophizing. Instead of personal experiences or a specific cultural or political background, it uses evidence that can be accepted by the scientific community independently of individual or group-specific preferences. The three areas and four levels of the TRAP-Mind-Matrix result in twelve fields of contemplation. Considerations within these fields have their own names. Ideas, opinions, and impulses are basic blocks of thinking. Since the process of philosophizing is about evaluating justifications, they are not discussed in isolation, but only in the form of concepts, judgments, and decisions, etc. These can be discussed by determining the quality and reach of their justification. 27 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) 4.5 Five Criteria for Examining Reasons and Considerations (5C-Criteria) The mental work that has to be done at each level of contemplation consists in distinguishing between good and bad reasons and in formulating considerations which, as far as possible, follow only good reasons and no bad ones. The examination of reasons and considerations for their quality is not based on abstract criteria such as truth, logic or rationality, but on the 5C-criteria: clarity, correlation, consistency, completeness, and comparison. These criteria remain the same at all levels. Since unconscious thinking already falls back on these criteria, they form the ‘stem cell’ of plausibility. Reasons and considerations that have not been checked yet are still located on the untested stage of the respective level. Reasons that pass the 5C-test move on to the tested stage. Although these criteria are applied equally at all levels, the same reason may turn out to be good at one level but bad at another. What seems clear to me does not have to be clear to others. What appears to be consistent with the experiences of a specific group does not have to be compatible with the experiences of all people. Sometimes, we do not overrate the reach of a reason but underestimate it. A good reason for me can be a good reason for others as well and even (perhaps in a slightly different framing) a good reason for all people. Therefore, the quality and reach of all relevant reasons must be tested. The 5C-criteria explain why philosophical theories are never uncontroversial and why philosophical problems stay often unsolved. Usually, philosophizing about philosophical problems leads to the point where consistency and completeness conflict. Either we follow all good reasons at the cost of inconsistency, or we find a consistent theory at the cost of incompleteness of the good reasons we consider. Even where complete and consistent theories can be found at the level of philosophizing, good reasons may still be disregarded at lower levels. The TRAP-Mind-Theory points out that the forming of philosophical theories usually prioritizes the criterion of consistency. On the other hand, the practical application of philosophical theories is a matter of taking all good reasons into account. These may be taken from different philosophical theories, as long as their justifications are good and seem acceptable to all people who willingly enter the level of philosophizing by abstracting from subjective and culturedependent premises. The controversy of completeness and consistency cannot be resolved by philosophical theory, but only by philosophical education. Philosophically educated persons follow as many good reasons as possible and take responsibility for those good reasons which they do not follow. It is not through the development of theories, but through the production of philosophically educated individuals that the process of philosophizing reaches its actual purpose and its individual end. 28 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) Figures 7 & 8. Examining Reasons and Example for Applying the TRAP-Mind-Theory. 4.6 Six Questions for Applying the TRAP-Mind-Theory Going into detail on practical applications of the TRAP-Mind-Matrix requires an article of its own (see Brosow 2020). However, instructors can use a checklist (see Gawande 2010) of six questions in order to prepare themselves for philosophizing about philosophical or non-philosophical problems: 1. What is the relevant problem for the respective target group? 2. To which area (understanding, evaluating, acting) does the problem belong? 3. At what level (thinking, reflecting, arguing, philosophizing) can it primarily be solved? 4. What are the various reasons for different intuitive solutions the group may come up with? 5. What quality (5C-criteria) and reach (TRAP-level) does each reason (claim to) have? 6. What follows for the problem, if one follows all the good and none of the bad reasons? In contrast to the process of professional preparation, philosophizing itself must not feel like going through a checklist but should be designed as an open and flexible process (see Roeger 2016, ch. 8). Instructors should not aim at leading the participants along a certain path. Their job is to know the whole territory, to make the participants pay attention to the most important landmarks, hazards, and roads, but to let them choose their own route until they know their way around the area.13 The TRAP-Mind-Matrix is a model, not a method. This model can be applied in various ways and combined with several theories and models of subject didactics, as long as its roots in cognitive science are respected. The process may start with specific questions that aim at the area of evaluating and can be answered by each participant using intuitive thinking. (“Is the following case just or unjust? 13 I adopt this metaphor from Anke Thyen (see Thyen 2016). 29 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) Why?”) The participants realize that they already have a concept (of justice) that they apply in everyday life. The intuitive responses should be written down individually. There is neither a sharing of mere opinions nor a public vote of any kind. Everybody keeps their intuitions private. Then a more general question aiming at the area of understanding is asked, which can be answered by reflecting on the notes from the first questions, but focusses on reasons instead of opinions. (“For what reasons do we call an act just or unjust?”) The collected reasons are used to form a concept. (“How can we continue the sentence: Justice means…”) The concept then gets tested using the 5C-criteria.14 During the test, instructors may refer to the intuitive questions from earlier on. The thoughts the group comes up with do not only get collected but are consequently tested in regard to their quality, claim, and actual reach. If a claim does not match the actual reach of a thought, either the thought or the claim has to be changed. Instructors initiate the test of reasons and considerations by asking questions, not by answering them. They work with thoughts and terms the participants bring up. This guarantees that the group does not get overwhelmed by external thoughts. The instructor sticks to the tested concept until the test shows that it needs to be replaced, corrected or extended. Then a new version of the concept gets formulated by the group and is tested as well until the group and the instructor are satisfied with the outcome. After that, a related problem of other areas (evaluating or acting) may be discussed by making use of the new definition. Additional materials (texts, pictures, other media) may be introduced – and also get tested using the 5C-criteria. The main goal is to make each participant perform the mental process of philosophizing. In addition to that, the participants may also philosophize with each other. The well-educated instructor shows the group how philosophizing works by asking questions that lead the discussion from mere intuitions to the field of contemplation that is most promising for a solution of the given problem. After some time, the group may need less and less assistance of this kind. But especially in the beginning, it is the instructor who bears responsibility for the group so nobody gets lost in the process. 5. Form, Content, and Level of Philosophizing What does the process of philosophizing have to do with philosophy as an academic discipline? To what extent can young children and people with mental disabilities or other impairments philosophize? Does philosophizing exclusively belong in classes on philosophy or ethics, or is it a transdisciplinary educational principle? In which sense does philosophizing take place in interdisciplinary application discourses? How can it be implemented in various forms of media? According to the TRAP-Mind-Theory, one can ‘philosophize’ with regard to the form, content, or level of philosophizing. Philosophizing with regard to the form means demanding reasons for one’s own and others’ considerations and examining them for their quality and reach. Philosophizing with regard to the content means applying this form to philosophical problems. 14 Usually, it won’t be necessary to use all of the 5C-criteria to test every reason or concept. Experienced instructors tend to see which criteria seem to be most promising for further improvement of the discussion. 30 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) Philosophizing with regard to the level means looking for considerations, reasons, and standards that get accepted by all people.15 The TRAP-Mind-Theory considers the form as a necessary and sufficient condition to speak of ‘philosophizing’. Pedagogical approaches that cannot do justice to the form should not be called ‘philosophizing’. It is already proven that philosophizing regarding the form is possible with children and many people with special needs or disabilities (see Ralla/Sinhart-Pallin 2015, ch. 2.4). Philosophizing about philosophical content should take place in classes on philosophy/ethics, which are led by philosophically well-educated teachers. But, philosophizing as a transdisciplinary educational principle can be applied to a wide variety of problems, provided that the teacher has the appropriate specialist expertise. In both cases, the level of philosophizing can be reached at times in addition to the form (and the content) as a sign of the quality and depth of the discourse. Academic philosophy includes philosophizing with regard to the form but is consciously limited to the content of philosophical problems and the level of philosophizing. Applied philosophy/ ethics can also constructively introduce the form and level of philosophizing into interdisciplinary, scientific discourses on non-philosophical problems. However, by limiting itself exclusively to the level of philosophizing, the academic world does not make use of philosophizing as an educational process, but as a means to gather knowledge. In addition to the level of philosophizing, we must also include the levels of arguing and reflecting, to make contributions to social (non-scientific) discourses. “Philosophy,” “lifeworld,” and “science” can be a perfect match (see Bussmann 2019). Figure 9. The TRAP-Mind-Theory: Form, Content, and Level of Philosophizing. By definition, anyone who is philosophically educated is able to philosophize with regard to the form, content, and level of philosophizing, at least about selected problems. Getting used to philosophizing contributes to the development of a philosophical attitude. This attitude arises in individuals who experience philosophizing as an essential part of their human and individual 15 Disagreements about the possibility of philosophizing with children, public philosophy, etc. seem to lack this distinction. Every reader may use the term ‘philosophizing’ with regard to one, two or all three of these criteria; as long as it is clear in which meaning it is used and as long as others are allowed to use the term in alternative ways. 31 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) nature. The philosophical attitude includes an appreciation of problem-related collecting and testing of reasons, motivated by the insight into the deceptive security of cognitive ease (see Kahneman 2011, ch. 5). It promotes the willingness to mental effort and the intuitive feeling for situations in which this effort is worthwhile.16 References Aeppli, Jürg / Lötscher, Hanni (2016): “EDAMA – Ein Rahmenmodell für Reflexion”, Beiträge zur Lehrerinnen- und Lehrerbildung 34 (1), 78-97. Agarwal, Pooja K. / Bain, Patrice M. (2019), Powerful Teaching, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Ariely, Dan (2010), The Upside of Irrationality, New York: Harper-Collins Publishers. Barz, Wolfgang (2019), “The Aporetic Structure of Philosophical Problems”, Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 3 (2019), 5-18. URL: www.philosophie.ch/jdph. Accessed: 21st March 2020. Beck, Hanno (2014), Behavioral Economics, Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler. Bräuer, Gerd (2014), Das Portfolio als Reflexionsmedium für Lehrende und Studierende, Opladen, Berlin, Toronto: Barbara Budrich. Brosow, Frank (2019a), “Philosophizing as an Educational Process – How to Initiate Profound Discussions Using the TRAP-Mind-Theory”, Proceedings of ICERI2019, Sevilla: IATED, 4039-4043. Brosow, Frank (2019b), “Zur Relevanz kognitiver Verzerrungen für die Didaktik der Philosophie und Ethik”, Bussmann, Bettina/Tiedemann, Markus (eds.): Lebenswelt und Wissenschaft. Jahrbuch für Didaktik der Philosophie und Ethik 19 (2018), Dresden: Thelem, 57-80. Brosow, Frank (2020), “Die DNA des Philosophierens. Philosophieren über Heimatverlust nach der TRAP-Mind-Theory”, Zeitschrift für Didaktik der Philosophie und Ethik (2/2020). Burns, David D. (1981), Feeling Good, New York: Penguin Books. Burns, David D. (2006), When Panic attacks, New York: Broadway Books. Bussmann, Bettina (2019), “Wissenschaftsorientierung – Reflexionsprozesse im Philosophiedidaktischen Dreieck“, Peters, Martina/Peters, Jörg (eds.): Moderne Philosophiedidaktik, Hamburg: Meiner, 231-243. Concepción, David W. (2018), “Learning to Teach“, Cahn, Steven M./Bradner, Alexandra/Mills, Andrew P. (eds.): Philosophers in the Classroom. Essays on Teaching, Indianapolis, Cambridge: Hackett, 20-33. Gawande, Atul (2010), The Checklist Manifesto, London: Profile Books. Gigerenzer, Gerd (2007), Gut Feelings, New York: Random House. Greene, Joshua (2013), Moral Tribes, New York: Penguin Books. Haidt, Jonathan (2012), The Righteous Mind, New York: Pantheon Books. Haidt, Jonathan / Lukianoff, Greg (2018), The Coddling of the American Mind, New York: Penguin Press. Kahneman, Daniel (2011), Thinking fast and slow, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 16 A poster with most of the figures of this article can be downloaded at https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.29108.19844. 32 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) Kohlberg, Lawrence: (1981), Essays on Moral Development, Vol. I: The Philosophy of Moral Development, San Francisco: Harper & Row. Korthagen, Fred A. J. (2014), “Promoting core reflection in teacher education: Deepening professional growth“, Orland-Barak, Lily/Craig, Cheryl J. (eds.), International Teacher Education: Promising pedagogies (Part A), Bingley, UK: Emerald, 73-89. Kriesel, Peter/Roew, Rolf (2017): Einführung in die Fachdidaktik des Ethikunterrichts, Bad Heilbrunn: Julius Klinkhardt. Martens, Ekkehard (2016), Methodik des Ethik- und Philosophieunterrichts, Hannover: Siebert. Mercier, Hugo/Sperber, Dan (2017): The Enigma of Reason, Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Ralla, Mechthild/Sinhart-Pallin, Dieter (2015), Handbuch zum Philosophieren mit Kindern, Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren. Rath, Matthias (2014), Ethik der mediatisierten Welt, Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Roeger, Carsten (2016), Philosophieunterricht zwischen Kompetenzorientierung und philosophischer Bildung, Opladen, Berlin, Toronto: Barbara Budrich. Roeger, Carsten (2019), “Können wir jetzt Philosophieren?”, Zeitschrift für Didaktik der Philosophie und Ethik (4/2019), 97-106. Schank, Roger (2011), Teaching Minds, New York: Teachers College Press. Thyen, Anke (2016), “Vorstellen als Methode: Die Gedankenlandkarte”, Brüning, Barbara (ed.): Ethik/Philosophie Didaktik, Berlin: Cornelsen, 108-111. Tiedemann, Markus (2011), Philosophiedidaktik und empirische Bildungsforschung, Münster: Lit. Tiedemann, Markus (2017), “Problemorientierung”, Nida-Rümelin, Julian/Spiegel, Irina/ Tiedemann, Markus (eds.), Handbuch Philosophie und Ethik, Vol. 1, Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 70-78. How to cite this article Brosow, Frank (2020): TRAP-Mind-Theory. Philosophizing as an Educational Process, Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4(1), 14-33. URL: www.philosophie.ch/jdph 33 Country Report: Philosophy at Secondary Schools in Spain – Part II Georgina Díaz, Secondary School Carmen Pantión, Priego de Córdoba, Spain [email protected] The purpose of this article is to continue tracing the way in which philosophy is taught in Spain; in particular, in the first year of the Baccalaureate (at around 17 years old). This report will describe the contents and problems, the methodologies and the forms of assessment commonly used in secondary education as well as the procedures used by the public administration to select philosophy teachers.1 Contents and problems In Spain, philosophy is a compulsory subject in the first year of the Baccalaureate, with a weekly work load of around three hours per week. The content covered in the course aims at offering an introduction to the study of philosophy focusing on the great questions that have worried thinkers throughout history and still do today. As opposed to the chronological approach, which is used in the subject of History of Philosophy taught in the second year of the Baccalaureate, the first year philosophy course is taught in a thematic order, covering the following disciplines and branches of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, logic, philosophy of language, anthropology, philosophy of science, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics and applied philosophy. Each of the these branches is mediated by a question that is presented as a problem to be solved. This initial question to be addressed is: what is philosophy? After covering this, the aporetic nature of the matter is revealed and other major questions can be asked, such as: What is reality? How is knowledge possible? What is science? What is it the human being? What is beauty? What should I do? How can we organize a fair society? How can I apply philosophy to solve problems (personal and professional ones, of individuals and society)? The answer to these questions will require students to research and analyze the arguments on which various philosophical theories are based. In addition, students have to be able to understand and apply basic philosophical terminology as well as be able to begin reading short philosophical texts (more or less autonomously) and formulate their own arguments, both orally and in writing. As a reference on these philosophical issues, works by classical authors of the history of philosophy, such as Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas More, Machiavelli, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Marx, Nietzsche or Ortega y Gasset, are frequently used. When discussing topics such as philosophy of science, philosophy of language, political philosophy and applied philosophy, reference is also made to theories and texts of contemporary philosophers, e.g. Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Cassirer, Rawls 1 See Country Report, Part I in: Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 3 (2019), pp. 84-87. Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) or Habermas, among others. Attention to these well-established thinkers is complemented with the reading of press articles and fragments of literary works or texts by current philosophers. Methodologies and activities The methodology of the study of philosophy has been perfectly coupled to the new trends in pedagogy. This is the case because, contrary to the prejudice that philosophy is a matter anchored in the past (Plato is still Plato after 23 centuries), it is precisely in the approaches of classical philosophy where we find the promotion of critical thinking that today is intended to favor the most innovative forms of pedagogy. Three examples will serve to support this statement: ⎯ the emphasis that the most current pedagogy puts on the relevance of student-centered learning is closely related to maieutics, where it is perfectly assumed that knowledge must be enlightened by each individual; ⎯ the competency approach was already present in a certain way when Kant claimed that one could not learn philosophy but rather philosophize; ⎯ the call to apply theoretical contents to the practical field, far from being a discovery of project-based learning, is present from Plato’s Republic to Marx's Thesis on Feuerbach. The subject of philosophy therefore approaches the new teaching methodologies in a natural way, which affects the role of teachers as mediators, guides and providers of the scaffolding necessary for autonomous construction of learning. Pupils for their part become the protagonists of learning and their goal is to put into play the tools provided by philosophy to solve problems. Among the methodologies used in this area, we can highlight the following types of activities: a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) i) j) k) l) m) Socratic dialogue Formal or informal discussions Exercises of logical calculation, formalization and detection of fallacies Development of philosophical dictionaries Approach and resolution of ethical dilemmas Research and use of ICT media for dissemination and promotion of learning communities Development of outlines, concept maps and infographics Production of dissertations and other argumentative texts Commentary on philosophical texts Comments regarding current news and opinion articles Creation of videos, films or art works with a philosophical sense Philosophical analysis of literary works Other productions: newspapers, podcasts, video creation, plays 35 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) Assessment methods With the aim of measuring student competence, a series of assessment activities are designed. Oral tests generally include presentations, debates and interventions that are spontaneous or derived from the Socratic dialogue. Written tests include essays, text analysis guided by questions, ethical dilemmas and presentation of theoretical and practical aspects based on questions. The current trend in assessment systems is twofold. On the one hand, it seeks to establish more varied evaluation methods, so that the traditional exam loses weight in the percentage of the grade. At the same time, more attention is paid to the quantification of the results. Evaluation rubrics in which the grading of a task corresponds to a set of more specific quality descriptors has been promoted. For example, for a text commentary there would be a different weight assigned to aspects such as terminological analysis, comprehension, expression, formal aspects, etc. Teacher Selection Procedures To be a philosophy teacher in Spain, both in the public and private sector, a certain training that ensures knowledge of both philosophy and pedagogy is required. For example, a degree in philosophy (or other studies that include philosophy in their curricula, like sociology, political science, anthropology, etc.) will be compulsory as well as specific training in pedagogy (Master’s Degree on Secondary Education or equivalent). In addition to the requirements above, in order to work in public education, it is necessary to overcome the selection process, the “civil service examination” organized by the public education administration every two years. Through this procedure the applicants are listed, so that the best qualified ones are those who have access to one of the permanent jobs offered, while those who pass the test but are not selected will become part of a job bank in case of replacements. The examination consists of two parts. In the first part, the applicant must present a series of academic merits (complementary training, masters and doctorates, training courses, etc.) and job experience (previous experience in the educational field). In the second part, applicants have to take a series of exams in which theoretical and practical skills must be shown, both in the area of philosophy and pedagogy. The written exam includes the presentation of a topic related to philosophy and the resolution of a practical exercise (text commentary, ethical dilemma, logic problem or application of educational legislation to specific cases). The oral test consists of the defense of an educational program developed for a class during an academic year. Those who obtain a permanent job position will still have to go through a trial period of one academic year during which they will combine their work in a secondary school with some training courses. After a successful educational inspection, the teacher will be considered a “civil servant.” At this point, the stability of the job is ensured, but teachers usually go through a long period of roaming in which they must once again assert their merits to get closer to the desired destination. A change in the selection system is planned in the coming years with the aim of making 36 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) the theoretical exam more demanding. Instead of the exam consisting of a single topic chosen by the applicant from among five raffled options, it has been proposed to offer a short answer test with questions that cover different parts of the agenda. Paradoxically, despite the tendency of pedagogy towards competency learning, the examinations continue privileging the conceptual domain over other practical abilities, which are more difficult to quantify. 37 Country Report: Philosophy Teacher Training in Burkina Faso Paul-Marie Bayama, Poutinrwaoga Kaboré, National teacher training College, Norbert Zongo University of Koudougou [email protected] / [email protected] The history of philosophy didactics and teacher training in Burkina Faso is very short. Until the 1990s, philosophy teachers, like their counterparts (i.e. teachers of other disciplines), would teach on the basis of their degrees. They would imitate their teachers to such an extent that sometimes, instead of planning their own classes, they would just read the lessons they were taught when they were students. With the creation of the national education science institute (Institut National des Sciences de l’Education, I.N.S.E) the training of philosophy teachers became systematic. The content of the training firstly emphasized methodology and was complemented by further subject-related knowledge. At the same time, the body of secondary school pedagogical supervisors evolved. Teachers would follow a pre-service, theoretical training at school and an in-service, practical training with pedagogical supervisors. The training system from the time of the national education science institute (I.N.S.E.) to the present national teacher training College (Ecole Normale Supérieure, E.N.S) of Norbert Zongo University in Koudougou remained unchanged: a theoretical training followed by a practical one during which students-teachers serve as full teachers in a high school. In the context of Burkina Faso, the content of philosophy didactics is provided and enriched by many sources. Amongst those sources are the activities of the philosophy inspectorate. Philosophy teaching supervisors have addressed the question of philosophy didactics by working to the improvement of philosophy teaching practices. The first concern to be dealt with was the improvement of the assessment practices that gave philosophy the bad reputation of being arbitrary. Thus, methodologies were harmonized through assessment grids and the clarification of the different forms of annotation. The second source of enrichment of the content of philosophy didactics is constituted by the pedagogical supervisors’ (i.e. advisors and inspectors) research work composed of traineeship reports and mainly the inspectors’ research work. In academic research, we can mention Bayama’s thesis (2011). This research work argued for the legitimacy of philosophy didactics in Africa, as an epilogue to the problem of African philosophy developed therein. The conclusion reached by the reflection on the existence of an African philosophy is this: Africans must philosophize. But the question of what is the best way to philosophize in Africa has not yet been answered. Anyway, we believe that for Africans, there is no other way to philosophize than through the teaching of philosophy, the efficiency of which presupposes a steady and rigorous didactic reflection. We have been working in this perspective. All of the sources of knowledge mentioned above are used to elaborate the content of Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) didactic courses. The introduction addresses the theoretical aspects and provides an outline of epistemology. The rest of the components are: the do’s and don’ts of certified grammar and secondary school teachers; the program of philosophy; the class planning and teaching that demand the exploitation of the yearly schedule and the lesson plan; the methodologies of dissertation and commentary with assessment grids; the assessment of teachers’ performances with the lesson grid; and finally, the teaching methods, techniques, and procedures. A philosophy didactics class is both theoretical and practical and includes guided work. Guided work will cover all the different parts of the planning of philosophy classes in order to familiarize student-teachers with the methods and techniques of the planning and teaching of philosophy classes with the lesson plan and the lesson grid. For want of experimental classes or facilities for micro-teaching, we resort to simulations that consist of role play. One after the other, student-teachers play the role of the teacher while their classmates play the role of students. At the end of the class, they play the role of the pedagogical supervisor and evaluate the class before the synthesis by the trainer. When there are studentsupervisors being trained at the teacher training college, they join in the role play with student-teachers and they play the role of full supervisors. This way of training in philosophy didactics complies with the clinical method, which means that the trainer watches the trainees perform and offers constructive criticism. This method seems to be efficient in the sense that it allows for trainees to learn the skills of teaching and to be critical about their practices. Indeed, during classroom visits, we realize that student-teachers teach accordingly, by following all the different steps of the philosophy class. Therefore, a few student-teachers fail in their final exams which consists of teaching a class. A board of examiners evaluates their performances. In Burkina Faso, we are witnessing a development of the didactics of philosophy that is progressively improving teaching practices, due to the pre-service and the in-service trainings. Sources to keep up the progress do exist and are rich in their contents. References Bayama, P-M. (2010), L’enseignement de la philosophie au Burkina Faso. Diotime, Revue internationale de didactique de la philosophie, SCEREN CRDP Académie de Montpellier, N°46. http://www.educ-revues.fr/DIOTIME/AffichageDocument.aspx?iddoc=39421 Bayama P.-M. (2011), Problématique philosophie africaine et dynamique culturelle, Thèse de doctorat, UFR/SH U- Ouagadougou. Tapsoba, M. B. (1998), L’enseignement de la philosophie au secondaire au Burkina Faso: contribution pour une meilleure adaptation aux réalités africaines, Mémoire, ENSK. 39 La Balme, Denis (2018): Le Cours de Philosophie. Conseils de méthode, Limoges: Lambert-Lucas. Reviewed by Jonas Pfister, Gymnasium Neufeld Bern [email protected] There is a new book series in the didactics of philosophy, didac-philo.1 It is in French and edited by the publishing house Les Editions Lambert-Lucas.2 In 2018 they started the book series didacphilo dedicated to the theoretical and practical aspects of teaching philosophy. Its target audience is, on the one hand, students and teachers who should find both useful tools for their teaching practice as well as syntheses on philosophy education, and on the other hand, the general public interested in theoretical and historical aspects of philosophy education. The book series is explicitly pluralist, allowing for a diversity of philosophical viewpoints among its authors.3 It is edited by Frédéric Cossutta, a trained philosopher and linguist, agrégé in 1975, former high school teacher in philosophy (1976-2010) and since 1993 research director of a group investigating the analysis of philosophical discourse.4 Le cours de philosophie. Conseils de méthode, published in September 2018, is the first book of the series. It is this book that will be reviewed now. As the title indicates, Le cours de philosophie. Conseils de méthode, is primarily aimed at beginning teachers to provide them with advice. However, the introduction does not start with some of the main challenges a beginner might face but rather with a quite dogmatic exposition of the nature and the aims of the teaching of philosophy. There is no overview or background information provided, no description of what to expect in the book or why we should follow its assumptions. But there is a table of contents at the end of the book, which informs about its structure in three parts (after the introduction): part one on how to conceive a course of philosophy, part two on the dissertation and the explication de texte – the only two forms of philosophical examination allowed in the French school system, both being very tightly regimented –, and part three on how to give a course in philosophy. One will search in vain for an index of topics or authors or a bibliography of works cited. The book is obviously not meant to be used as a tool and work of reference but rather as an initiation to the profession. There is no reference to any didactical literature, neither general nor about the subject philosophy, neither in French nor in any other language. It is rather to be seen as a direct instruction based on personal knowledge. So, let’s follow the author, Denis La Balme, of whom we learn on the book’s cover that he has taught for twentyfive years. The introduction about the nature and aims of philosophy education starts with an exposition of the philosophical curriculum in France (programme de philosophie en classe terminale). The 1 See URL: http://www.didac-philo.com/ (26.02.2020) Lambert-Lucas was created in 2004 by Geneviève Lucas et Marc Lambert-Arabyan with the aim of publishing academic work especially in the field of linguistics and in the humanities in general. See URL: http://www.lambertlucas.com/a-propos/ (26.02.2020) 3 See URL: http://www.didac-philo.com/collection/didac-philo/ (26.02.2020) 4 See URL: https://gradphi.hypotheses.org/frederic-cossutta (26.02.2020) 2 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) author claims that the curriculum has always been generally the same and changes were only “marginal,” whether or not it was in the 1960s, the 1980s, after 2003 or after 2019, the year in which a new reform was planned (p. 7). But is this true? Can it be true that there was no change at all? The author argues for his claim about the contents by comparing the former curriculum, – which followed the Aristotelian classification of philosophy: logic, metaphysics, natural philosophy, moral and political philosophy, – with the contents of the 2003 curriculum: the self, culture, reason and reality, politics and morals. He claims that these are basically the same because the contents of “the self” are finally logic, metaphysics and natural philosophy, and the content of “reason and reality” is logic. Now, I am not in a position to assess whether the author’s claim is in fact true, but at least on the face of it, “the self” and “reason and reality” are different from logic (unless, of course, one identifies “logic” with “philosophy,” which for example Aristotle does not). But let’s assume that the vague general claim is true; in general, the contents of the curriculum in philosophy in France have stayed more or less the same over the past sixty years. The next question one then would expect is the following: Are there good reasons that there was no change in the contents of the curriculum? Possible criteria to answer this question would be: Are the contents such that they a) include important philosophical topics, b) are of interest to the adolescent high school students, c) reflect important scientific, social and cultural challenges of our times, and d) reflect the variety of gender and cultures of the world? But these criteria or others are not considered by the author. He seems to take the curriculum as given, and as being unquestionably good like it is – and always was. But a look at the selection of the authors in the 2003 curriculum published in the book (p. 9) reveals that it is heavily Eurocentric – starting with Plato and not mentioning one single nonEuropean philosopher! – and heavily gender biased – mentioning only one woman, Hannah Arendt – and including no living philosopher (ending the list with Foucault)! But wait, if we take a look at reality outside the book, we actually see changes happening in France! The new curriculum for 2020 includes Zhuang Zhou, Nagarjuna, and Maimonides, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone Weil, Jeanne Hersch, Elizabeth Anscombe, and Iris Murdoch, and it ends with Hilary Putnam (deceased 2016).5 The second part of the introduction explains the aims of philosophy education (according to the view of the author). These are, according to the author, three: first, the autonomy of thinking, i.e. the ability to think critically and independently; secondly, contemporaneity; and thirdly, politeness. While the latter two may strike us as rather unusual – the author argues for them with the help of Giorgio Agamben and Henry Bergson – the first aim is well known and uncontroversial. However, the author goes on to discuss the pedagogical methods of reaching this goal. Based on Hannah Arendt’s comments about the role of the schools as facilitating the transition from the family to the world, La Balme identifies two errors that keep schools from playing this role. The first consists in keeping the child a child. La Balme calls it “pedagogism.” The second consists in making school the world and therefore of forcing the child to be successful in the world. La Balme calls is “pragmatism.” The first, pedagogism, means according to the author to “adapt oneself to 5 See URL: https://cache.media.education.gouv.fr/file/SPE8_MENJ_25_7_2019/15/9/spe238_annexe1_1159159.pdf (20.02.2020) 41 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) the level of the student, to render the student active, producing knowledge by himself.” This involves, according to the author, two absurdities: first, knowledge by definition is never at the level of the student who “learns what he did not know before,” while teaching means “wanting to pull the students up”; secondly, knowledge is not the fruit of the students’ invention but rather something “given,” something they have “neither invented nor constructed,” and the students are to “receive what has been done without them” (p. 15-16). Reading these arguments, one wonders: why knowledge cannot be an invention, construction or discovery or a least something similar? Claiming otherwise is to contradict common sense as well as psychological theories at least since those of Jean Piaget. Reading the arguments, one is also shocked at what kind of image of his students this teacher must have (and other teachers may have): the students are to passively receive what the teacher offers to them. This does not show any respect for the autonomous person the adolescent student is. And one wonders how autonomous thinking – the first aim of philosophy education (see above) – can be achieved without respecting and encouraging the autonomy of the person. That there is little respect for the students in the view proposed can also be seen in some remarks later in the book, in part 3, in a paragraph about student participation (6.2). La Balme starts by saying that most school inspectors insist on the importance of student participation. He states this without considering the reasons for the importance, and almost as if he did not agree with it when he makes a proposal for how to reconcile the “necessary and often stimulating” student participation with the “transmission of a real content by the professor” (p. 173). If this means that the contents of the students’ remarks are in fact not “real contents” it surely is not what could ground a relationship of mutual respect between students and professor. La Balme sees the best place for student intervention at the start of a new chapter. Here students may be asked for example in the topic on freedom whether they feel to be free, at what moments and whether they like to be free. If this is all that students are supposed to say, it is clear that they are not asked to philosophize! The other place of student participation is in asking the professor questions about his lecture. However, the author readily warns us of getting distracted by such questions, and he suggests that the students wait with their questions until the professor has finished his argumentation. The author understands that the students like to be “heard, encouraged and respected” (p. 174), and yet it leads him only to the claim that one should refrain from negative comments. Where is the place for real philosophical dialogue between student and teacher in this format of a course? The teacher is seen by La Balme as the holder of truth and wisdom. He writes: The teachers’ “mission is that his students look up to the wisdom that he incarnates” (p. 175). This is an almost theological legitimation of the teacher’s authority over the student. For the most part the book is a presentation and detailed description of ways to develope a lecture (according to the model of a dissertation) about a particular topic from the curriculum (part 1, about 70 pages) and about how to write a dissertation and a explication de texte (part 2, about 60 pages). At the end of the chapter about the dissertation and the explication de texte, the question is raised about how to make corrections in class. The author states the ideal of involving a maximum of students (p. 133 and 156). But this contradicts the aim of addressing the thoughts each student has developed individually in his or her text. The method proposed by La Balme seems to lead to a one-way-communication between the professor and the students in which the 42 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) professor takes up some selected ideas of the students and develops them further. It seems to be a highly demanding method which does not resolve the contradiction just mentioned between involving a maximum of students and addressing each individual student’s thought. At the end of part 2, the pedagogical question is raised about how to evaluate texts by students (p. 163-165). La Balme leaves the reader here with obvious assertions, such as that one should avoid “humiliating” low grades (p. 164). But he also makes surprising claims such as that professors should start their written comments to the students with the weaknesses of the text and should end with the strengths in order to give “encouragement” to the student (p. 164). One wonders how an evaluation may be perceived as encouraging when the first thing that is mentioned is what the student has done badly. The natural psychological reaction is to feel disappointed, not encouraged. When one then reads about the good points, one will perceive this as a kind of consolation that the weaknesses are not so bad after all. Therefore, it will have precisely the opposite effect of motivating students to make changes. Instead of serving as a motivating tool, the method proposed by La Balme seems rather to be an instrument of fostering the authority and control of the teacher over the students. This book does not offer good advice for the beginning teachers at all. Rather, it is a historical document of how the teaching of philosophy was once done by some, and a vivid example of how it should not be done. 43 Tozzi, Michel (ed.) (2019): Perspectives de didactique en philosophie. Eclairages théoriques et historiques, pistes pratiques, Limoges: Lambert-Lucas. Reviewed by Jonas Pfister, Gymnasium Neufeld Bern [email protected] In France, the didactics of philosophy is a relatively new field that began to emerge in the 1990s and was mainly initiated by Michel Tozzi. The purpose of the new book edited by Tozzi, Perspectives de didactique en philosophie. Eclairages théoriques et historiques, pistes pratiques, is to report on the results and developments in the research on the teaching and learning of philosophy in the past thirty years. It unites a number of contributions on different topics (problematization, conceptualization, argumentation, interpretation, reading and writing) by researchers from different countries (France, Belgium, Canada (Québec) and Switzerland). The preface by Abdennour Bidar very clearly points out some of the main weaknesses of the traditional approach to teaching philosophy still prevalent in France. This method of teaching, which is based on the view that it already contains its didactics and that the teacher therefore need not take into account anything else except the philosophy that they lecture, leads the students to imitate the rhetoric of the professor and not to think for themselves. The philosophy that is professed ex cathedra by the teacher makes of it a “catechism without God” (p. 12). The students do not philosophize themselves, and therefore do not acquire the abilities to think for themselves. This also has social and political consequences, for it is only the critical thinker that can become an active citizen in the republic. According to the author, the major challenge faced by schools today is that they seem to become obsolete given the general access to information in the internet. However, according to the author, there are two reasons why the schools are here to stay: to develop critical thinking and to develop the ability to deal with existential questions. In the first chapter, Tozzi (Montpellier) explains what didactics of philosophy is and presents the three main approaches to the didactics of philosophy in France: first, the traditional view that philosophy needs no didactics; secondly, the view that didactics consists of methods for helping students to better learn within the traditional way of teaching philosophy; and finally, the view that philosophy needs a proper normative didactics which leads to some major changes as compared to the traditional way of teaching philosophy. Tozzi explains what other sciences and what the didactics of other school subjects can contribute to the didactics of philosophy. He then describes developments in the didactics of philosophy in other countries such as the movement for the philosophy for children started in the USA and continued in Canada by Michel Sasseville and Marie-France Daniel, the ethics education in Québec and Belgium as well as the didactical approaches in Germany (Rehfus, Martens, Henke) and in Switzerland (Frieden). Finally, Tozzi briefly describes some of the institutional aspects in France that influence the development of the teaching of philosophy. In general, this chapter gives a good introduction to what didactics of philosophy is and a good, brief description of some of the developments in other countries. In the second chapter, Tozzi presents some of the major contributions to the didactics of Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) philosophy in the past forty years, starting with the Greph (Groupe de recherche sur l’enseignement de la philosophie) founded in 1975 by Jacques Derrida. Other contributors include the Gfen (Groupe françaid d’éducation nouvelle), the Acireph, an association of professors aiming at the creation of institutes for the research on philosophy education, the international journal Diotime created by Tozzi in 1999, and finally Tozzi’s own approach of philosophizing, including the processes of problematization, conceptualization, and argumentation. This chapter gives a good overview of the main developments within France. However, it does not include an exposition of the major contributions to the didactics of philosophy outside of France. This is a pity, for it keeps the research in different countries apart, instead of helping to build a basis for uniting them. The next four chapters discuss philosophical competencies: problematization, conceptualization, argumentation and critical thinking, and interpretation. In the third chapter, Gaëlle Jeanmart (Leuven, Belgium) discusses the competence of problematization. She starts out by presenting the strength of problem-based learning, a didactical method developed since the 1970s. She explains the way in which it can be used in the teaching of philosophy, but also the way in which the application of this method differs in philosophy. In philosophy, we may start with practical problems of everyday life, but the aim in philosophy is not to solve this problem; since philosophy starts only when a philosophical problem appears. The solving of such a problem may well lead to other philosophical problems. In philosophy, we learn to “love” problems (p. 66) because they are what initiates our thinking. The author also presents some methods for starting with personal experiences and emotions and of how to deal with them in the way proposed by Stoic philosophers. In the fourth chapter, Tozzi takes up the topic of conceptualization – a process which takes up a major part in his own approach. He points out how important it is for students to have examples in order for them to start a process of abstraction. One didactical method is to start with the personal experiences of the students, and their differences will lead them almost naturally to compare and contrast them. Another didactical method is to start with language and what it “says,” comparing words with other words that have the same or a different meaning, thereby requiring the difference to be spelled out. Tozzi also explains some of the challenges one faces in conceptualization, such as transitioning from a representation to a meaning, and transitioning from something concrete to something abstract. In the fifth chapter, Mathieu Gagnon (Sherbrooke, Canada) and Michel Sasseville (Laval, Canada) discuss argumentation and critical thinking. First, they present the basic aspects of traditional Aristotelian syllogistic logic. Next, they present the competences of critical thinking according to the definition of the Delphi Report (1990) as well as two models of how to operationalize the conditions. Here the focus is first on the “dialogical critical thinking” (pensée critique dialogique) of Marie-France Daniel, which distinguishes between four aspects (logical, creative, responsible and metacognitive) and sets critical thinking within a schema of psychological development of epistemic cognition, from egocentrism via relativism to inter-subjectivity; and secondly on the model of Gagnon that distinguishes ten “constitutive interventions.” They also present a table of common fallacies and describe the four types of methods in teaching critical thinking distinguished by Philip Abrami. This chapter gives a good overview of different aspects of critical thinking. However, it gives little advice on how to teach critical thinking, and even less 45 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) on how to teach argumentation, basing it on Aristotelian logic, which has been outdated since the works of Gottlob Frege. In the sixth chapter, François Galichet (Strasbourg) investigates the philosophical competence of interpretation. He takes up the four principal characteristics of a concept according Gilles Deleuze: intensity, historicity, undecidability, and non-discursivity. He applies them to the interpretation of particular works of art, and he shows how the characteristics can be used in the teaching of philosophical interpretation. The next three chapters discuss three philosophical activities that can each involve the aforementioned philosophical competencies: writing, reading, and discussing. In the seventh chapter, Nicole Grataloup, one of the founders of Gfen in 1989 and editor of the journal Pratiques de la philosophie, discusses writing in philosophy. She starts out by showing the wide variety of genres of philosophical texts, and then focuses on the dissertation, the only form of examination (besides the explication de texte) accepted in the French system. Each year, the body of teachers almost unanimously deplores the low quality of the majority of the texts written by the students at the baccalauréat exams. Grataloup states two explanatory hypotheses. First, the dissertation is seen as a work on the concept, entirely distinct of the subject of the writer, and of the process of writing, thereby excluding a didactical work on the process of writing. Second, the methods given as advice to the students are based on a “weak conception of learning” (p. 132), that is on a conception which sees learning as the simple application of a method, not related to any method already present in the student, and therefore as not requiring anything more than being stated clearly by the professor in order to be learned by the student (p. 143). Grataloup goes on to explain how philosophical writing can really be taught. A first didactical point is that one should not start with the writing of long texts but rather with very short ones. A second didactical point is that the students should not only write texts that are then corrected by the professor but rather texts that are then read by other students, so that they understand that the aim of writing is (also) to be read. The more fundamental point here is that the use of language should be seen not as the use of words or sentences but rather as statements (énoncés); that means, as something that someone says to someone. Once one takes this view as a teacher, the field of teaching philosophical writing becomes wide open; one may work on the perspectives, for example, by giving the exercise of writing a dialogue or a letter; one may work on the meta-discursive elements, for example, by asking the students to describe what they are doing (explaining, arguing for, refuting, giving an example, etc.), and this can also be done by asking them to describe it to each other, giving them the opportunity to learn from their peers. Grataloup’s explanation of the poor situation of the teaching of philosophical writing in France is convincing, and her suggestions for how to teach philosophical writing are ingenious and inspiring. In the eighth chapter, Nathalie Frieden (Fribourg, Switzerland) discusses reading in philosophy. She writes about the exercises that are used when training future teachers of philosophy. She discusses some of the difficulties that can be faced when reading, and she shows how texts – not only philosophical texts in the narrow sense, but also literary and journalistic texts – can be used for teaching. She places reading in the context of teaching independent thinking. One important point of her approach to reading and to philosophy in general is the first-person perspective. She writes: “To find the meaning of a text, its effect on every person is done always in the first-person” (p. 46 Journal of Didactics of Philosophy 4 (2020) 163). In the ninth chapter, Tozzi takes up the topic of discussion in philosophy. He first analyzes the weaknesses of the traditional account of teaching, requiring the students to concentrate on listening silently for long periods of time to the teacher’s lecture. He explains how one of the main aims of modern didactics of philosophy in France was to rehabilitate the oral as a way of thinking. To discuss means to think aloud together. In order to do this in the best way, one needs to respect certain conditions and be able to work with certain roles (such as president, secretary, observers, etc.). He also presents formats developed by Gfen, the “colloquium of the philosophers” (colloques des philosophes) and the “trial” (procès). The book ends with a concluding remark, in which Tozzi asks whether the philosophers and philosophical institutions will use the opportunity of the reforms in 2019 and 2020 to continue to develop the teaching of philosophy in France, and with a postface by Jean-Charles Pettier (Créteil). As this review hopefully has made clear, the book offers an excellent overview, both of the development and of the results of research in the didactics of philosophy in France in the last forty years. The book is well structured with initial chapters about didactics of philosophy and its development in general, chapters about philosophical competencies, and finally, chapters about philosophical practices. While most chapters focus on research in French and on the situation in the French system, the group of authors is international, bringing in research and practical experiences from Belgium, Canada and Switzerland. However, many of the topics discussed – and the didactical methods presented – apply to the teaching of philosophy, independent of any particular educational system, as long as the aim is to develop critical and independent thinking. I would like to express my full recommendation: this is a book that every French speaking philosophy teacher should read. 47