On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 09:14, Peter Damian <peter.dam...@btinternet.com> wrote: > 1. Is there a quality problem in certain areas. Yes or no? > > 2. If there is a problem, are there any underlying or systematic reasons? > > 3. If there are any underlying or systematic reasons, can they easily be > addressed? > There was an adjournment debate in the House of Commons in 1999 about the importance of philosophy in education, in case anyone's interested in reading it. http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199899/cmhansrd/vo990701/debtext/90701-33.htm
The MP who raised it, a former academic philosopher, touches on some of the issues we've raised here. Because children routinely ask themselves philosophical questions -- "What is right and wrong?" "Why should I obey the law? -- adults tend to think they know the answers, or that they''re questions without answers, or that as soon as you identify something as a philosophical issue, you're saying it's a waste of time. This is absolutely the attitude I've encountered on Wikipedia, where everyone thinks that if you know how to ask "what is truth?" you're also able to have a go at answering it. But that's the basic error right there, and it has driven off several of the specialists who might have written some good articles on those issues. And it's not only in article space that academic philosophers would be able to help improve things. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l