Alex asked:

Dear Friends,

I have already studied philosophy for several years, but I really can't make up my mind to say if it is
possible to transfer this knowledge to anybody, i.e. to teach somebody philosophy. Have You ever
had the same problem and how do You solve it?

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As you can see, those of us on this website are attempting to solve this problem in a way involving
your choice of questions, our interest, and modern technology. But that's a superficial answer, in a
sense; I assume you're asking something more along the lines of detailed methodology, and detailed
content. Well, then, there are of course always Socrates' methods. I won't go into them; if you have
indeed studied philosophy you know them. Why don't you think they work? They did for Plato,
Socrates' pupil.

What is philosophy, in terms of what can be taught? Is it primarily content or primarily methodology? If
content, what is that content; if methodology, how can that be described and taught? Speaking of
content, surely you can think of many methods to teach that?

What about methodology, i.e., techniques of thinking? Well, how do you teach methods of clear and
effective thinking? How is mathematics taught, for example? First, it's learning by doing, right?
Second, one critiques technique in process. One might think of teaching technique in terms of
teaching a craft; and how is that done? Now, I'm not asserting that teaching is easy, especially
teaching methodology, no indeed... but I am asserting that it is doable, given willing pupils (and that's
yet another issue, isn't it). However, there are some characteristics of philosophy, in my opinion, that
make it particularly difficult. First, it primarily deals with highly abstract concepts, and those are not
usually easy to grasp clearly. In fact, accomplishing that understanding is part of what must be taught.
I believe it is de-emphasized in our culture because of that difficulty, but also, I believe, because
learning critical and clear thinking leads (hopefully) to questioning the beliefs of one's teachers and of
one's culture, and who wants a pupil who does that? The more repressive a culture, the less
philosophy is encouraged (and I do notcount textual interpretation, per se, as philosophy). Further, in
any culture, philosophers are somewhat like monks... they preserve learning, they reason and think
abstractly, they produce systems of ideas, but they do not directly(although I believe — and of
course I'm prejudiced — they do produce valuable products) produce "goods" which people can pay
for (except as teachers... and there we run into the second problem, when the pupils go home and
defy their parents). What we need is a culture in which philosophy is valued, and that in turn requires
an attitude toward questioning oneself and others which is usually very difficult to tolerate.

So it seems to me that teaching philosophy must go beyond conventional teaching of methodology
and content into the realm of the proper means of the philosopher interacting with others in order to
influence them in a way that induces a kind of questioning which is almost inevitably threatening,
without being threatening. A good trick, wouldn't you say? Oh well.

Now that we've got it analyzed (joke), why don't youcome up with some solutions? Historically, as far
as I can see, the best solution has been to keep philosophers in the "academy", where that type of
thinking is tolerated because it is isolated from the rest of the culture... a kind of intellectual ghetto, if
you will. Is that the best solution? Well, it has endured around 300-400 years, in this culture... not too
bad a record. Then there's this forum, and some others like it, and in addition there is the new field of
philosophical therapy, which I do not expect to do very well, precisely because of the above
problems.

Steven Ravett Brown

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