"Are You A Philosopher?" Exercise

Lesson Plan: Are You a Philosopher?

Topic/Question: What is Philosophy?

Time: About half an hour

Materials: I usually use a rotary cheese grater, but nearly any item, from a coffee cup to a wipe-board eraser can be employed.

Description:

I begin the lesson by asking students a simple question: “When you hear the word ‘philosophy,’ what comes to mind?”

I purposely phrase the question this way so as not to suggest to student that there is an answer that I am looking for; I want to know what comes to their minds, not mine, when they hear the word. I try to record their responses on the blackboard as they offer them. And it can be quite illuminating to hear what students say.

Typically, people will say things like, “ideas,” “arguments,” “the way you think about the world.” Often, a student will have had some sort of introduction to philosophy and will give the standard definition “love of wisdom” (although often, it’s given as “love of knowledge.”) It’s not unusual for students to conflate philosophy and psychology, and so typically, someone might say something like, “philosophy is the study of the way people think.” And especially when I work with high school students, it’s not uncommon for a student to say that what comes to mind when he or she hears the word “philosophy” is “dead white males.”

I stress that I’m not looking for a particular answer, because, as a matter of fact, in philosophy, we want to explore a range of possible responses. I usually take some time to explore in a little more depth some of the suggestions and will try to do something to clear up misconceptions like the conflation of philosophy and psychology, but in general, it’s not my intent at this point to get any sort of working definition of the term; we’re just sharing ideas.

What I do pursue is the following question, “How many of you would consider yourselves philosophers?” I ask for a show of hands, and usually, only a few students raise theirs.

I then make the claim that I am going to present to students a three-part argument in support of the conclusion that they are all philosophers. I may talk a little bit about arguments here, but my main point is that I will offer up a three part argument that I believe can convince them each person in the room that he or she is a philosopher.

I tell students that I will show them that, first, they do what philosophers do; second, that they can do it for the reason that philosophers do it; and that third, they can do it in the somewhat unusual way that philosophers do it. We then launch into what this thing that philosophers do is.

I ask students to think of things that they find difficult to stop doing; what do they find difficult to not do? Typically, students will answer with responses like, “It’s hard to stop eating candy.” “I can’t stop biting my nails.” “No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop watching TV.” After each such response I say, “Well, let’s try.” Pretty obviously, we can stop doing these, even if it’s difficult.”

Sooner or later, some student will usually offer up “breathing,” as a possibility. I say to the class, “Well, let’s see. On the count of three, everyone stop breathing.” It’s amusing to see everyone holding their breath, and the point is made: it’s hard to stop breathing, but we all can do it, at least for a little while.

Finally, someone, prompted or not will say, “thinking.” Again, I suggest, “On the count of three, everyone stop thinking.” You see students doing their best to comply; I usually say, “Whatever do you, don’t think of a pony,” which draws laughter and leads into a discussion of what it was like to try to stop thinking.

Naturally, students allow that they found it very hard to stop thinking; we explore together what was going on in their heads when they tried to do so. Usually, students will talk about how they attempted to think “don’t think” or how they closed their eyes and visualized a black space—which, of course, was a thought they were having. Occasionally, one or more student will claim that they were able to stop thinking; sometimes students will refer to meditative practices that enable a person to suspend thought; all such comments add to the discussion and serve to build upon the main point here: it’s hard to stop thinking. And the point I want to make—that I think usually is made—is that if you, yourself, find it difficult to suspend your thoughts, then that’s step one to being a philosopher, because thinking is what philosophers do a lot of. So, I reiterate: if you find it hard to stop thinking, then, that’s step one to being a philosopher.

I then continue on to the second point of my argument: You can do what philosophers do (think) for the reason philosophers do it. As an example, I tell students the following story.

Some years ago, my sister, who was living in a different town than me, was pregnant. She went into the hospital to have her baby and called me up the next day and said, “Hey Dave, you have a brand-new nephew.” I thought about what she said and could figure something out about that child. What was it?

It takes no time at all for one or more students to answer that the child was a boy. I ask them, quite fascinated, “How did you know that?”

Again, it’s quite simple for students—even students as young as kindergarten—to note that since I used the word “nephew,” that the child had to be a boy. This leads to a discussion about how amazing it is that, as human beings, we can simply think about something—the word “nephew,” for instance—and gain knowledge, just by doing so. I point out that what students have done is construct a little argument in their heads that goes something like, “All nephews are boys. This child is a nephew. Therefore, this child is a boy.” And while that might seem quite mundane, it’s really pretty impressive. I probe to see whether any students were unable to construct such an argument and rarely, if ever, have anyone admit that there were unable to. (Although sometimes we have interesting discussion about whether it’s true that all nephews are boys; often students want to wonder whether if, say, my nephew had a sex-change, he would be my nephew or my niece.)

The point that follows from this is the second prong of my argument: if you can think to figure things out—and you’ve demonstrated that you can—then you have two of the three qualities that make you a philosopher.

The third, then, is to illustrate to students that they can do what philosophers do—that is, think—in the rather unusual way that philosophers go about it. And here I offer up an exercise to illustrate this.

I break students up into groups of three to five. In each group, one person is designated to be the scribe; he or she will write down answers that group members come up with.

I then hold up a common everyday household item. My favorite is to use a rotary cheese grater, but I have used a coffee cup, a wipe-board eraser, an even, in one case, a tennis shoe. I ask students “what is this thing?” Students will typically respond that it is what it’s commonly used for; in the case of the cheese grater, the answer given is, “It’s a cheese grater.”

I agree that it can be a cheese grater, but that’s not all it could be. I tell students that I would like them to look at this thing in different ways, from different perspectives and to come up, in three minutes, with all the different things they could imagine this thing being used for.

I set the groups off to brainstorm their lists. They are given three minutes to come up with all the other functions they could imagine the item performing. As they work together, I have them pass the item around, touching it can help stimulate their creativity. I also encourage them to imagine themselves in different settings, and to view the item from different perspectives. “What if you were an ant, what could you use this for?” “What if you were camping?” “What if you were an ancient Greek philosopher?” “What if you melted it down or crushed it?” I try to encourage students not to censor themselves; they should feel free to come up with as many possibilities as they can without trying to edit their answers.”

At the end of three minutes, I ask the groups to report back. I ask them to look at their lists and see how many possibilities they’ve come up with. (As an aside, I usually mention that when I do this exercise with little kids—kindergarten to about 3rd grade—the groups will usually come up with around 20 to 25 different possibilities; when I do the exercise with middle-school students, groups usually generate about 18 possibilities; with high-school students on the order of 12, and with college students around 10. So, I say, “If you’ve hit around twenty, congratulate yourselves for reaching the kindergarten level.”)

Spokespeople for their groups are asked to share with the class a couple of their favorite uses for the item, which I write on the board as we go around the room. (Some of the typical responses I’ve gotten with the cheese grater include, hamster wheel, paperweight, torture device, pencil sharpener, hair curler, ice crusher, weapon, fashion accessory, and kaleidoscope.)

After all the groups have shared a couple of their favorites, I then ask the question, “So what is this thing?” I point out that I ask this quite sincerely (and I do). I’m really not sure anymore what this contraption is. I authentically wonder what it is and what makes it so. At this point, we usually explore the metaphysical question , “What makes something what it is?” Students typically offers answers such as, “A thing is what it’s used for.” Or “What makes something what it is is what it was originally designed to be.” Or “It is whatever it does best.” Or, perhaps most typically, “It is whatever you want it to be.”

I’ll usually note that in asking this type of question, we are doing philosophy. We are wondering, as philosophers do, about the essences of things; we are trying to achieve some sort of clarity about why something is what it is, and what makes it so. This, I’ll usually note, is what we call in philosophy a metaphysical inquiry.

More importantly, we are wondering about something that only a little while earlier, seemed commonplace. We took this everyday item, this cheese grater, for instance, looked at it in different ways, from different perspectives, and now find ourselves wondering about it in ways we didn’t before.

This is the “punchline,” if you will, to this exercise. As philosophers, we commonly take everyday things—tangible things like a cheese grater, or intangible things, like ideas—look at them from different perspectives and find ourselves wondering about them. (This is always a good point to interject that one of the most famous of all philosophers, Plato, famously said, “Philosophy begins in wonder. And wonder is the attitude of the philosopher.”)

I tell students that if they’ve gotten even a taste of this—that sense of looking in a new way at something they thought they understood and, as a result, beginning to wonder about it—then, they are doing what philosophers do—thinking—in that rather unusual way that philosophers do it.

So, I then return to the original question I asked at the outset of this exercise: Who here is a philosopher?” Routinely, nearly all students raise their hands this time which is, I believe, a core assumption of doing philosophy with children. I take it as a given that practice assumes that all people—children especially—are philosophers and that the goal of doing philosophy with kids is to stimulate that natural philosophical impulse within.

Now this, too, of course, is open to philosophical inquiry. I’ve had some very interesting discussions with students about whether indeed all people are philosophers. And in one instance, we got into a very rich debate about whether doing philosophy makes a person a philosopher. “I do math all time time,” said a student, “But that doesn’t make me a mathematician, does it?”

While honoring the process, I try to set such concerns aside; it seems to me that the impulse to explore such questions is testament to the philosophical impulse in any case and so, may be evidence in support of the claim I’m making.

What’s important, I believe, is that through this three-part exercise, students tend to be, by and large, persuaded that they are all philosophers—or, at least, have had a taste of what it’s like to wonder about things—and this sets the stage for further philosophical inquiry, through additional exercises and activities like those I will describe below.