4-Week Philosophy Course (October)

This is a philosophy class for children running in four-week blocks.

Online philosophy class for all ages and abilities from everywhere - with home educated children in mind.  These will combine fun dialogue games that help children connect to one another, with opportunities for deep thinking and disagreement about juicy, debatable questions. 

This month's themes:

Week 1 - Unappealing Arguments

“It’s the most expensive, so it must be the best.”

“People voted for him, so he must be the best person for the job.”

“It’s true because my dad says so.”

These sorts of arguments are often used, but we’ll explore why such appeals usually don’t (but sometimes do) make logical sense. By the end of this session, you’ll be able to spot when people are trying to pull the wool over your eyes, and convince you that’s a good thing because wool is a natural product!

Week 2 - The Invisible Hand

If you look around the room you are in now, it’s likely that hundreds of people you’ve never met have been involved in designing, making, transporting and selling the objects around you. Nobody is in charge, and everybody is serving their own interest, but somehow it seems to work. We’ll explore the idea of the “invisible hand” from philosopher-economist Adam Smith, and see what it gives and what it takes away, as well as creating our own pop-up factory to test another of his key ideas.

Week 3 - Full Marx

“Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” – one of the most famous quotes from Karl Marx. As the thinker whose ideas inspired communism, under which 1/3 of the world’s population once lived, he certainly changed the world. But what will you think of the way he interpreted it? We’ll see what he thought about money, power and history.

Week 4 - Object of Curiosity

We think of physical objects as being more down-to-earth and less open to argument that those floaty, wishy-washy things of the mind and soul like thoughts, opinions and emotions. Maybe that’s why “objective” seems a good word to use for truths that are not just a matter of opinion. But are objects are easy to understand as first appears? Is a burp an object? Or the sky? In this session, we’ll try to grab hold of what an object really is.

Different times are available for different age groups.

Times shown are GMT +1 until October 25th 2020, then GMT