Abstract
A reasonable familiarity with philosophical content, skills, and attitudes can contribute to a science teacher becoming an educator rather than an instructor or a mere supplier of content. However, lately, philosophy and other foundational studies courses have lost their status in many teacher-training curricula – philosophy courses are frequently accused of being irrelevant, unnecessarily obscure or merely an old-fashioned ornamental addition to teacher culture. These criticisms can be refuted by the discussion of the many relevant issues that philosophy can bring to the development of an educator. However, this chapter does not focus on the philosophical content to be taught (what is taught) but rather on the way in which that content is brought to the classroom (how it is taught). The author discusses different approaches to teaching philosophy and suggests some ways in which a philosophy course could be aimed at becoming a more significant experience for science teacher education.
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Notes
- 1.
Mutatis mutandis some of these rationales (and others) can be applied to POS education for scientists (Grüne-Yanoff 2014, pp. 117–123).
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
The idea of “features of science” advanced by Michael Matthews is more congenial to a POS perspective. However, the differences in focus and choice of content still stand.
- 5.
This conflation between “teaching philosophy” and “teaching the history of philosophy” is sometimes an unconsidered choice, following on from “what has always been done”. However, it can also be derived from a deliberate, well-founded approach. We will come back to this point.
- 6.
Among others, the World Congress of Philosophy includes a section in “Teaching Philosophy”. 23rd World Congress http://www.wcp2013.gr/files/items/6/644/programmejuly29.pdf/20th World Congress – Paideia Project https://www.bu.edu/wcp/MainTeac.htm
- 7.
Rabossi was mainly interested in teaching philosophy in philosophy departments at university level. However, these categories can be extended to philosophy teaching at other educational levels.
- 8.
F. Nietzsche once wrote “It has thus come to pass that, in place of a profound interpretation of the eternally recurring problems, a historical – yea, even philological – balancing and questioning has entered into the educational arena: what this or that philosopher has or has not thought; whether this or that essay or dialogue is to be ascribed to him or not; or even whether this particular reading of a classical text is to be preferred to that. It is to neutral preoccupations with philosophy like these that our students in philosophical seminaries are stimulated […]” (Nietzsche 1910, pp. 129–130).
- 9.
There is no unique, universally accepted notion of philosophy or philosophizing, but a multitude of diverging perspectives. Therefore, every stance on teaching philosophy reverts to a philosophical (or metaphilosophical) problem in its own right, by critically reflecting and explicitly upholding a particular way of understanding the practice and content of philosophy itself (Couló 2008).
- 10.
In the original Greek “aporía” means “impassable”, from the negative particle “a” and “póros”, “passage”. It usually refers to a contradiction or paradox, or, subjectively, a puzzle conducive to a state of grave uncertainty or doubt. In elenchus, one of the forms of the Socratic Method as depicted by Plato, aporía refers to the moment when someone’s position is refuted, and no apparent way out is envisioned. Rescher coins a stipulative definition for this term.
- 11.
Good ideas for this type of resource can be found in Baggini (2006).
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Couló, A.C. (2018). Philosophy of Science in Science Teacher Education: Meeting Some of the Challenges. In: Prestes, M., Silva, C. (eds) Teaching Science with Context. Science: Philosophy, History and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74036-2_24
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