academic society

Recently, eighteen members of the Academic Society accompanied by Mr Golding, visited the Lancaster University Department of Philosophy and Public Policy. The Department had set up a full day of lectures and group based activities designed to provide an introduction to Philosophy and Ethics solely for our pupils.

"It was a genuine delight to watch some of our brightest young people engaging so readily and so fully with some really challenging material in a relaxed and informal setting and without the pressure of an examination to come...it was genuinely the pursuit of learning for learning's sake. The only ‘complaints' that reached me were that there was too little time to explore certain issues as fully as the students would have wished and that, for some, there ought to have been even more ‘difficult' Philosophy," commented Mr Golding after the visit.

The day was led by Dr. John Foster (Research Fellow) and Dr. Neil Manson (Senior Lecturer in Philosophy) together with four of their current third year students. Our students were invited, through a brief lecture and then a series of engaging tasks, to begin to think ‘philosophically', a skill that was aptly termed ‘never stating the obvious', and to appreciate the truth of the dictum that ‘philosophy begins in wonder.'

Dr. Manson gave an impressive introduction to Epistemology and had some of our students positively apoplectic with the realisation that ‘big' questions have a range of answers and that each may or may not be right, if any are right at all!

The afternoon was devoted to applying philosophical ways of thinking to key modern issues such as climate change which provoked heated and sometimes hilarious debate!

This provides an excellent springboard for Mr Golding to organise some further sessions within school to pick up on some of what was covered in Lancaster and take the discussion further for those who like to do so.

Posted by: R E Golding
Date: Tuesday 25/11/2008