Wondering Aloud: Philosophy With Young People

February

The House in WinterHere,in the year’s late tidewash,a corner cupboard suddenly waversin low-flung sunlight,cupboard never quite visible before. Its jarsof last summer’s peacheshave come into their native gold—not the sweetness of last summer,but today’s,fresh from the tree of winter.The mouth swallows peach, and says gold. Though they dazzle and are gone,the halves of fruit, the […]

Online Philosophy Resources

People often ask me about finding philosophy resources online. There is now a multiplicity of online resources available for free — online philosophy classes, lectures, materials, etc. This is a sampling: http://www.epistemelinks.com/index.aspx (thousands of links to philosophy audio and video, course materials and other philosophy resources) http://broodsphilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/06/15/online-videos-of-philosophical-lectures/ (list of online videos of various philosophy lectures) […]

Science Fair and Ethics

Yesterday I showed up in the fifth grade classroom in which I’ve been teaching, prepared to talk with the students about whether you can get something form nothing, whether everything has a beginning, and related questions. When I arrived, the class informed me that they had just had a discussion about an ethical problem related […]

The Book Thief and Psychological Egoism

On Friday I had a marvelous discussion with a group of students in an eighth grade English class about The Book Thief, a novel by Markus Zusak. The story is told from the perspective of Death, who describes his experiences during the Holocaust, and in particular the story of a young girl living near Munich. […]