Imperfect Cognitions

On the occasion of  #PhiloFortnight2025 , a period of two weeks in the UK dedicated to promoting philosophy, a webinar took place to demostrate some methods and resources that can be used to bring philosophical reflection and discussion in the classroom. Poster of the webinar The three panelists are all philosophers from the University of Birmingham and presented methods that they researched and practised and materials they designed: Laura D'Olimpio   (School of Education), author of Philosophy of Education (Palgrave 2025) and The Necessity of Aesthetic Education: the place of the arts on the curriculum (Bloomsbury 2024), and co-founding editor of the open access Journal of Philosophy in Schools . Henry Taylor (Department of Philosophy) works at the interface of philosophy and STEM subjects, with a special interest in consciousness, perception, and attention. Some of his recent research is on cultural robotics (e.g., see " A culture of their own ").   Li...

 This post is by Sally Latham. Fantastic Philosophy Teaching philosophy to children has been shown to have a positive impact not only on critical thinking and creativity, but also on emotional development, such as independence, self-assurance and self-assertion ( Rahar et al 2018 ).  Yet philosophy is not explicitly part of the National Curriculum for England, with the closest reference being that in English: "Pupils] must be assisted in making their thinking clear to themselves as well as to others and teachers should ensure that pupils build secure foundations by using discussion to probe and remedy their misconceptions. Pupils should also be taught to understand and use the conventions for discussion and debate." However, teachers are not always confident in bringing critical thinking into the classroom without formal training.  Labour have also now identified ‘improving communication skills (oracy)’ as one of their  targets in their mission statement  Breaki...