Socrates Satisfied. Personal Development with Tim LeBon

Happiness and its Causes conference in Sydney

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Mon, 12 May 2008 07:24:00 +0000

A major Happiness and its Causes conference is happening in Sydney at the moment and has spawned interesting newspaper coverage. For example:

Happiness is not having children

THE belief that children and money will bring people happiness is one of life's abiding illusions, a Sydney conference attended by 2000 seekers of happiness was told yesterday.

The scientific evidence shows people are very bad at predicting what will make them happy, said Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University and the author of the book Stumbling On Happiness
Read more

Tim LeBon says: This research is important, but could it be that children impact more on meaning than happiness so the headline is rather misleading? Which isnt to say that people who dont have children can't lead very meaningful lives, but that for those who do have children, the benefit may be more in terms of meaning than happiness.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Stephen post ... cites a study, published by the US National Academy of Sciences, which monitored the brain activity of people asked to choose from a list of charities to which they would like to make a donation.

"This is in a laboratory environment, so they are not actually contributing, they're just thinking about contributing," he says.

The study found that when the subjects selected a charity from the list, the part of the brain dealing with joy, called the metholimbic pathway, was activated.

"So it suggests we are hardwired to feel a certain joy when we give," he says

Read more

Tim LeBon says: There is a lot of research into the benefits of altruism for the giver. However, many people dont like the idea that we should be motivated by selfish reasons to be altruistic. Perhaps the way round this is to use this research to quiet any voice that says "why bother?" or "how about my new car?" when considering an altruistic voice - nearly everyone, I suspect, has this "selfish voice", and this research can be used to silence it.

Positive Psychology and Death

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:36:00 +0000

Anyone who thinks that Positive Psychology is just about smiley faces and being over-optimistic, read no further, unless you want to be disillusioned.
If you really want to find out more about positive psychology, I recommend subscribing to the Friends of Positive Psychology listserver which you can do by e-mailing FRIENDS-OF-PP-request@lists.apa.org
One of the things that has suprised me most since joining this mailing list is the number of posts on the subject of death.
Number one post on death in the positive psychology world concerns the free on-line lectures given by dying and wise 47-year-old professor Randy Pausch, especially his "Last Lecture", which you can view in long or short versions. He's just published a book called The Last Lecture.

In another vein, the poem variously called "If I had my life over" and "I would pick my daisies" and attributed to either Nadine Stair, aged 85 or Erma Bombeck after she found out she had a fatal illness ,has also been cited as an inspiration to live more authentically.
One version of it goes like this.

I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
I'd relax. I would limber up.
I would be sillier than I have been this trip.
I would take fewer things seriously.
I would take more chances.
I would take more trips.
I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers.
I would eat more ice cream and less beans.

I would perhaps have more actual troubles but I'd
have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I'm one of those people who live sensibly
and sanely hour after hour, day after day.

Oh, I've had my moments and if I had it to do over
again, I'd have more of them. In fact,
I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments.

One after another, instead of living so many
years ahead of each day.

I've been one of those people who never go anywhere
without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat
and a parachute.

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot
earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.

If I had it to do again, I would travel lighter next time.
I would go to more dances.
I would ride more merry-go-rounds.
I would pick more daisies.

In positive psychology jargon, thinking about death connects with "counting your blessings" as well as living more authentically. Eric Weiner in his Geography of Bliss also comments on stumbling on the importance of death in the search for happiness. I suspect that as positive psychology gets more and more mature, it will increasingly engage with death and its importance to life.

Life before Death exhibition

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:26:00 +0000

Recently I taught a ten week Personal Development Through Philosophy course, and, though we talked about many interesting things - wisdom, happiness, meaning, love, work - the topic that grabbed students attention most this time was death. I don't think that this was because the group was particularly negative or morbid - it wasn't - but because it's the one aspect of the human condition that is both inescapable and most frequently denied. Many live as if they believe they are guaranteed their full three-score and ten years - as if important things can wait.The truth is that even if we do not suffer an early death, time is our most important and non-renewable commodity. Whilst philosophers may associate a focus on death and time with existentialist philosophers like Martin Heidegger, other rather more populist thinkers have echoed similar sentiments. I particularly appreciate John Lennon's

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." (from the song Beautiful Boy)

It's one thing to nod sagely at the above thoughts, another to let it affect one's life. If you are anywhere near Euston Station in the next couple of weeks, I recommend half an hour spent at the Life Before Death exhibition at the Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road.

The collection describes itself in this way

24 sets of photographs taken before and after death

Nothing teaches us more about life than death itself. Journalist Beate Lakotta and photographer Walter Schels asked 24 terminally ill people if they could accompany them during their last weeks and days. From these vigils came a series of insightful descriptions and photographic portraits taken before and after death.

Far from being gloomy, these intimate concerns of the dying reveal the preciousness and transience of life, and make us question what we often take for granted

You can view a slideshow of photos before and after death here.

The exhibition has received many positive reviews - see for example this five-star review. Even The Sun did a positive feature on it.

Personally, I found the exhibition moving and a further confirmation of the importance of facing the possibility of premature death head on.
One 68-year-old could scarcely believe the way death was cheating her out of her retirement. She had been working hard all her life to finally enjoy herself. "Can't death wait?" she pleaded. It could not - eight days later, she was dead.

Another of the condemned, aged 47, mused "It's absurd really. It's only now that I have cancer that for the first time, ever, I really want to live." Existential therapist Irvin Yalom has longobserved how impending death trivialises the trivial. Wouldn't it be good if we could do this without the sentence of imminent death hanging over us?

The exhibition is free and continues until 18th May.

The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner (part I)

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:34:00 +0000

A funny book is one of life's great under-rated pleasures. An
instructive book is by no means t always pleasurable, but at least it's
good for the soul.
I've just started reading Eric Weiner's /Geography of Blis/s and it has
all the hallmarks of that rarest of breed, a funny /and /instructive book.

Wiener, a self-confessed grump and one-time foreign correspondent,
decided to spend a year in search of bliss. A journalist by trade, he
combined work
with pleasure, persuading his publishers to finance a year's travell to
the earth's spots most likely to provide clues about the nature of
happiness.
I'm up to chapter 5 so far, and his search has taken him to the
Netherlands, Switzerland, Bhutan and Qatar.

Top Ten personal development classics

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:57:00 +0000

Whilst there are plenty of flakey self-help books out there, the very best personal development books contain wisdom delivered in language we can all understand. They can both be inspiring and insightful.

What is needed is a way to sort the wheat from the chaff. I've been a fan of the genre and been using them as part of my therapy and coaching work for quite some time. So which books have I and my clients found most helpful? Each year I update my personal top ten self-books - which books have I found most helpful in the last year.

The best self-help/personal development classics

My annual personal top ten (in brackets is position last year)

1. The Seven Habits of Highly effective People Stephen Covey (1)

2. Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl (2)

3. The Feeling Good Handbook David Burns (8)

4. Overcoming Low Self-Esteem Melanie Fennell (5)

5. The Conquest of Happiness Bertrand Russell (4)

6. Don't Sweat the Small Stuff -and it's all small stuff Richard Carlson (3)

7. Emotional Intelligence Daniel Goleman (7)

8. The Art of Happiness Howard Cutler and the Dalai Lama (-)

9. How to Win Friends and Influence People Dale Carnegie (6)

10. The Consolations of Philosophy Alain de Botton (9)

What are your favourite self-help books?

Bertrand Russell's Conquest of Happiness - a personal development classic

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:46:00 +0000

Bertrand Russell’s Conquest of Happiness

Bertrand Russell’s books were described by Time magazine as a modern substitute for the Bible. If this is so, the The Conquest of Happiness must be at the very centre of his works.

Make no mistake, this is no abstract philosophical treatise – it is a recipe for good living, written for the likes of you and me. Russell’s work is based on two assumptions. First, happiness needs to be conquered. You can’t expect to waltz through life reaping happiness without putting in some thought and effort. But – and this is why The Conquest of Happiness is essentially an optimistic book– if you do make this effort, you can, given average fortune, attain happiness.

The conquest of happiness comes in three stages: first you need to learn about the principles that lead to happiness, next internalise them and, finally, put them into practice. Unless you had unusually wise parents, you must forget what you learnt on your parents’ knee; you must also put aside what teachers, friends and, especially, priests have told us. You must replace these ideas with ones that really will make you happy. One way to do this is to read The Conquest of Happiness, for what Russell has done here is describe fourteen characteristics of happy and unhappy people. This is the essential first stage, but it’s important to realise that Russell does not think that it is sufficient. Next, you have to really internalise these principles – it’s not enough to repeat them parrot fashion, you have to really feel them as you do your feeling of wanting to protect your own children. A superficial reading of the book might not pick up the point, yet Russell emphasises it several times.

“Let your conscious beliefs be so vivid and emphatic that they make an impression upon your unconscious and be strong enough to cope with the impressions made by your nurse or your mother when you were an infant.”.

The third stage – the transformation of your life - will happen automatically if the first two steps are carried out. For example, take a theme close to Russell’s heart – that you shouldn’t feel shameful about sex. The first step involves realising at a conscious level that, whatever the priest said, consensual sex is part of a happy life, not a sin. The second step is to fully internalise this belief, to feel it, not just to recite it; if you’ve really done this, then the pay-off will be that a sense of shame will no longer stop you leading a sexually fulfilling life.

If you can follow these three steps for each of the fourteen characteristics described by Russell you will give yourself the best chance of achieving not just happiness but also freedom from what the Enlightenment philosopher Spinoza called ‘human bondage’. You will no longer be flotsam and jetsam, acted on by the forces of society and the commands of your parents, but a self-determining human being. You will be happy and free.

This framework is given flesh by Russell’s analysis of the fourteen characteristics of happy and unhappy people. Each chapter consists of a justification of why the chosen characteristic is good or bad, nice distinctions between its various senses and a discussion of other writers’ views and Russell’s practical advice for attaining happiness. Sometimes Russell digresses to make some rather tangential remarks about society and education and other personal concerns. Since our concern is with how to be happy, rather than Russell’s other preoccupations – such as the difficulty of obtaining good housemaids in the 1920s – this will be our focus.

The Conquest of Happiness in a page

To CONQUER UNHAPPINESS

1. Don’t be taken in by melancholy

Melancholy is only a passing mood; don’t mistake it for wisdom.

2. Don’t get caught in the competitive treadmill

Feeling happy is the only true success.

3. Develop the right attitude to boredom and excitement

Excitement is best sought in small doses and in the right places.

A certain amount of boredom is to be expected.

4. Make your worries concrete, don’t suppress them

Get a sense of perspective; Ask yourself ‘what is the worst thing that could possibly happen?’

5. Don’t envy, admire!

Enjoy what you have for its own sake, don’t compare yourself with others

6. Fight back against guilt & shame

Look out for the superstitious voice of your early influences; reason with it and defeat it.

7. Don’t suffer from an exaggerated sense of injustice

Exaggerate neither your own good nor others’ interest in you!

8. Don’t care too much what others think

Respect public opinion only to avoid starvation and stay out of jail.

To CONQUER HAPPINESS

1. Cultivate zest

Get into the habit of taking a lively and friendly interest in everything

2. Be affectionate

Reach out to other people and give affection; accept, but never demand it, in return.

3. Be a good parent

Give your child time & user your parental your child’s good

4. Do interesting, varied and constructive work

Find work that is varied, builds on a skill and creates something.

5. Cultivate plenty of relaxing minor interests

Enjoy as many diversifying hobbies and pursuits as you can; make sure these provide variety from your day job.

6. Find the right balance between effort and resignation

Do your best and when you have done all you can leave the issue to fate

BBC Programme on Self-Help Books

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:18:00 +0000

He came to mock, but ended up producing one of the best and balanced programmes on self-help books I've seen in a long time.

Alan Yentob, former Controller of BBC 1, gave us a glimpse of many of the self-help greats in The Secrets of Life, the latest programme in his Imagine series.

The programme begun with The Secret, a massive commercial success but an easy target for the sceptic. The "Law of Attraction" which underpins the book goes back a long way but is sufficiently New-Agey to get the "Are you Serious?" treatment from Yentob. "I can't help thinking that the easiest way to make money from self-help books seems to be to write one", he sneered.

Fortunately, though, Yentob wasn't the only voice we heard, and This Life writer Amy Jenkins
provided a balancing and very sane perspective in praise of self-help books. Just as some people like to go for a run in the morning, and others go down the gym, Jenkins likes to read a chapter of a self-help book to get her in the right frame of mind to face the coming day. And why not?
She agreed that The Secret was a bit OTT, but pointed out that it nevertheless contained some useful insights.

Yentob did not seem persuaded, and unsurprisingly neither Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People nor firewalking motivator Anthony Robbins, did anything to improve matters.

A turning point seemed to come when he interviewed Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway author Susan Jeffers. Her catch-phrases -"Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway" and "Whatever happens, I can deal with it" at first sight seem to exemplify the worst sort of trite positive thinking. Yentob wondered out loud whether some situations were too complex and too awful to benefit from such simple advice. "That's when you need it make", Jeffers replied, "for example, when I had breast cancer over 20 years ago." Yentob's expression became noticibly more respectful, and turned positively deferntial when he introduced us to holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. (A special treat was seeing rare footage of Frankl).

Things got even better when Yentob spoke to David Burns - apparently still wearing the same golfing jumper that features on the cover of The Feeling Good Handbook. Burns is one of the leading writers of self-help books helping people to practice CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). CBT is one of the most evidence-based therapies, and reading self-help books a crucial component. Burns told Yentob about a suicidal Latvian lady he counselled in his early days as a therapist. Rather than ask her to talk about her childhood, as a psychoanalyst might, he asked her think about some of the positive things that had happened in her life. In effect, he asked her to challenge her idea that she was a worthless person - and sure enough it turned out out that there was plenty of evidence to the contrary. Changing the way you think really can change the way you feel.

Yentob concluded his travels in France, going on a Buddhist meditation retreat led by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh , author of The Miracle of Mindfulness. The integrity and inner peace of the Buddhist monk contrasted starkly with the salesmanship and mania of some of the Californian-style gurus we had seen earlier. It was clear which impressed Yentob more.

Yentob seemed to have learnt something from giving self-help books a chance. Maybe we all can. To help, I've produced a list of my current top ten personal development books, and also a guide to one of my favourites not mentioned by Yentob, Bertrand Russell's Conquest of Happiness.

If you can access the BBC's I Player, there is at the time of writing still 3 days left to view the programme, and I thoroughly recommend doing so.

Why the good life question?

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:13:00 +0000

I sometimes use the "What is the good life?" as the focal point of a whole course. "What's so important about the good life question?", I hear you ask. After all, it's not a question you hear discussed on TV everyday, or in the pub, or - anywhere at all, actually. So here are my three good reasons to give the pub or TV a miss for once and think about this question

1. It can give you a direction is life. As the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca suggested,

"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable”.

Once you formulate your answer to the question, you will be better able to resist the winds of chance and peer pressure face dragging you off course.

2. It's the big question
Once you know what the good life is, other questions - such as "should I be in a relationship?" , "should I work more or enjoy myself more?" and "Should I have children" fall into place. As management guru Stephen Covey said,

"Many people climb the ladder of success only to find the ladder was leaning against the wrong wall."

3. You can improve your answer
In week 1 on my course I ask people to come up with a provisional answer to the question "What is the good life". Over 10 weeks, they then learn both philosophical methods and ideas of philosophers about the good life and refine their definition. The improvement in definitions is often startling.

I hope that's reason enough to think about the good life question. What would your answer be?

New Year's Rules for Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 16:39:00 +0000

Regular readers may recall that in general I am not in favour of New Years Resolutions
(See last year's article New Years Resolutions? You must be nuts ...)
However, today's Times features a really interesting piece by none other than the Chief Rabbi,
Jonathan Sacks, entitled Count your blessings and begin to change your life
The apparent contradiction is resolved because Sacks isnt so much recommending unrealistic
resolutions as pretty
wise-looking rules for living well. You can read Sacks's whole article online, but here's a list of his 10 recommendations.(the bits in brackets are my gloss on what he says)

1. Give thank (be grateful, count your blessings)
2. Praise (other people)
3. Spend time with your family. (quality time)
4. Discover meaning. (purposes and main goals)
5. Live your values. (by developing habits, using rituals)
6. Forgive. (good for those who have upset you , better still for you)
7. Keep learning. (not just for the young)
8. Learn to listen. (really listen)
9. Create moments of silence in the soul. (if only for five minutes, prayer and meditation are two possible sources)
10. Transform suffering. (don't let yourself be a victim, look for what you can now do you wouldnt have done before

I can't say how many of these ideas are inspired by Sacks's religion.
Sacks attempts to make the connection with religion in the final paragraph of his article, where he says that "the great religions are our richest treasuries of wisdom when it comes to the question of how best to live a life." I can say that many of them are endorsed by recent positive psychology research on happiness. It looks like a good list of wise rules for living to me. I wouldn't argue with any of them, but here are 5 more wise rules for living I would add.

11. Socialise, and make friends a priority (a few good friends may be better than many not so good friends)
12. Find and enjoy meaningful work (a portfolio career may be the answer for some)
13. Look after your body - diet with regards to health as well as weight and exercise in whatever way you enjoy.
14. Use your strengths and manage your weaknesses (positive psychology tends to emphasize the first bit more)
15. Be aware of negative emotions rather than avoid them, and either use CBT-type techniques to reduce them or discover the existential messages in them and take appropriate action.

I'd be interested if other readers would like to suggest other wise rules for a happy and meaningful life, or comment on the link between religion and wisdom suggested by the Chief Rabbi.

Happiness and its Causes, London Conference report

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 11:49:00 +0000

This was a great conference for three reasons.

First, it brought together some leading thinkers on happiness. Second, it was eclectic and inclusive and had a light touch - happy in spirit as well as subject matter. Thirdly, it was inspiring - I went away thinking and feeling that this was a vibrant area, and that this was only the first step.

Make no mistake, there were some serious thinkers on show here, including authors of three recent books on happiness.

Lord Richard Layard - the "Happiness Tsar" - a leading economist and author of Happiness - lessons from a New Science.
Daniel Nettle of the University of Newcastle and author of one of the best short books on happiness (Happiness - The Science behind your Smile) and
Professor Richard Schoch of the University of London and author of a book with a more philosophical slant (The Secrets of Happiness : Three Thousand Years of Searching for the good life).

But this conference was a meeting of East and west, for we also had several Buddhist monks and nuns, which was very fitting since science is beginning to show a link between meditation and both happiness and improved health. As positive psychology expert Felicia Huppert wrote in her paper in the conference proceedings (Learning about Happiness)

By bringing together the Eastern spiritual enlightenment and the Western intellectual enlightenment I believe we can do much to increase our individual and collective happiness

It brought together science and religion, academics and monks, as well as those involved in developing happiness programmes in organisations in one large, well-organised two-day conference in London.

I won't attempt to give a full report here - just some personal highlights and some thoughts about the next steps that might follow from such an inspirational event.

Walking in to see actress Goldie Hawn eulogising about how a few minutes mindfulness each day lights up childrens brains in the programme she has founded
Hearing the different perspectives of psychologist Daniel Nettle and philosopher Richard Schoch on happiness
Hearing the Venerable Sangye Khadro , author of How to Meditate (as Kathleen McDonald) talk about Buddhism
Hearing the group from Wellington school talk about their well-being classes
Some contributions from the floor, including an impassioned rendering of Amazing Grace

I'm not sure what impression the above list gives - probably sounds like a cross between an academic conference and Woodstock. Which is probably not so far off the mark. Except the drug being consumed was happiness and the variety particularly Buddhism.

The conference felt like it was the start of something more - perhaps even a new movement, bigger than positive psychology, different from Buddhism, aimed at the development of happiness and well-being -a multi-disciplinary movement with real impact. I hope it is.

(Happiness and its Causes took place on 13-14 October, 2007, at Savoy Place, London, UK).

Wise Living: Some Definitions

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 07:10:00 +0000

This post will be very much a first draft, to be amended, commented on and supplemented in due course. I hope it's useful.

Feel free your own ideas in the comments section.

Goals & Setting Goals

Definition

A goal has been defined as "an intended outcome that requires action that satisfies needs". Personally, I'd define a goal more simply as

"a desired outcome that requires action"

We can use the term "wise goal" to indicate

a goal which increases the probability of achieving a truly desirable outcome

Goals and Wise Living

Values (such as "fun", "happiness" and "achievement"), whilst crucial to wise living, can be rather vague and daunting. It's important therefore to link enlightened values with smart goals. For example, just seeing "achievement" as a value may actually make someone feel worse ("I haven't achieved much"). It may even be counter-productive if they feel demotivated. What is need is to set a specific goal related to achievement (e.g. "write an outline of the story I am writing by the end of the week". Goals can also help build virtues and wise habits (e.g. "I will meditate for at least twenty minutes each day").

Goals and Life Coaching

In Life Coaching, setting goals is often considered a critical part of the process. For example, in the TGROW procedure, each session is structure around setting goals (G) for the session's theme (T). SMART goals are routinely recommended in coaching and business.

See Setting Goals Tim LeBon's Guide to smart - and wise - goal-setting

Goals and Psychology

Goal-setting theory Influenced by Aristotle, psychologist Edwin Locke formulated goal-setting theories in the 1960s. According to Locke, goals need to be specific, difficult yet perceived to be attainable. You also need feedback. Goals can increase motivation by increasing effort and persistence and wise decisions. Goals can also stimulate planning, creativity and problem-solving. Researchers have been concerned about a paradox where sometimes setting goals can reduce performance. This can be due to goals being too distant, and by setting outcome goals instead of learning goals when people do not have the right skills.See also Performance Goals - a Paradox

A good academic paper giving an overview of goal-setting theory is freely available - "Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task Motivation - A 35 Year Odyssey" by Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham.

An article connecting SMART goals with goal-setting theory can be found here.

Virtue

"Virtue (Latin virtus; Greek ἀρετή) is moral excellence of a person. A virtue is a character trait valued as being good. The conceptual opposite of virtue is vice."

The 4 Cardinal virtues of ancient Greece were

temperance/self control (sōphrosynē)
practical wisdom/prudence (phronēsis)
courage (andreia)
justice (dikaiosynē)

Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtues

"A Virtue is a trait of character manifested in habitual action that it is good for a person to have" (James Rachels)

Examples of virtues relevant to many people today include:

Assertiveness, Proactivity, Wisdom [emotional, practical, values and existential], Self-awareness, Benevolence, Being Loving, Friendliness, Co-operation (win/win), empathy as well as all the cardinal virtues.

Wisdom

Wisdom is the possession of knowledge about what matters and deep understanding about the universe, the human condition and human nature, combined with good judgement and the disposition to put this knowledge into action

Wisdom has four overlapping dimensions: emotional, practical, values and existential. Practical Wisdom is closely connected with wise decision-making.

See http://www.decision-making.co.uk on wise decision-making and Progress.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking involves testing whether arguments stand up to critical investigation and seeing whether we have good reason to accept them.

Accordingly there are two approaches to critical thinking: learning, detecting and correcting fallacies, and assessing reasons in terms of their truth-value and strength (relevance is sometimes given as a third criteria).

Thought Experiments

A thought experiment is an experiment carried out not in the laboratory but in our minds. It is the use of a hypothetical scenario to test assumptions and isolate what matters

An example of a thought experiment useful to wise living is "The Ideal Life Exhibition" as described by in Jones, Hayward and Mason in Exploring Ethics. For a description of many thought experiments see "The pig that wanted to be eaten" by Julian Baggini.

Conceptual Analysis

Conceptual analysis is a way of becoming clearer about what we mean. It involves a careful investigation of language and usage and includes searching for definitions and drawing distinctions.

Examples of methods of conceptual analysis are Socrates' elenchus and my method as first described in Wise Therapy

Elenchus

Method of question and answer attributed to Socrates. Typically, the process begins with a request for definition, and then refutations and refinement of each definition. Can end either in a refined, improved definition of the term or, as sometimes occurs in Plato's representations of Socrates, aporia, or confusion. The latter is held by some to be an improvement in that at least the interrogated person is wiser in that they are more aware of their ignorance. Elenchus is a form of conceptual analysis and can also be seen as a type of critical thinking.

Happiness

See Tim LeBon's main web page on happiness

Articles by Tim LeBon on happiness

What is Happiness?

Teaching Happiness

Therapeutic Happiness

Michael Fordyce was an early researcher on interventions to enhance happiness - you can get his free e-book

Two Levels of Moral Thinking and R.M. Hare

Philosophy

R.M. Hare ( 1919-2002 ) - Intuitive and Critical Levels of Thinking

Leading UK moral philosopher of his generation. Hare was originally famous for his books The Language of Morals ( OUP, 1952) and Freedom of Reason (OUP, 1963) where he sounded very Kantian in his stress on the importance of the logical properties of moral words, especially their universalizability and prescriptivity. In his latest book Moral Thinking (OUP,1981) he sounds much more like a utilitarian, and if successful has miraculously combined the best features of Kant and Mill.

Hare thinks that the conflict between Kant and Mill disappears once we realise that there are two levels of moral thinking. At one level, the critical level, we are constrained by rationality to be utilitarian. Hare argues that the only practical way to apply Kant's Categorical Imperative is to imagine ourselves in the position of everyone affected and then decide what on balance we would prefer - which leads to utilitarianism. However Hare argues that it would be disastrous if we tried to do act-utilitarian calculations all the time, for a number of reasons. We are short of time , we lack information and we make special exceptions for ourselves. Given our limitations, we shall not achieve the best outcome by doing a utilitarian calculation each time. Instead, we should cultivate in ourselves a set of principles which lead to the best outcome. These principles will become second nature to us - they are our moral intuitions. At the intuitive level, we behave much like Kantians - sticking to principles and rules whatever the consequences, and only departing from doing our duty with the greatest reluctance and guilt. Critical thinking - utilitarianism -should be used only to select the best set of principles for use in intuitive thinking and to resolve conflicts between principles.

Wise Living

Hare's theories can be extremely useful in constructing a theory of wise living. We need to use critical thinking to construct wise principles and virtues which we can then become second nature - we should teach these to our children and, if we have been brought up differently, we will to habituate ourselves in them. And we need to use critical thinking when principles or virtues conflict in difficult situations. This is rather like practical wisdom.

Values

"In lay definitions, values emerge as ideals or morals that are very important to people and provide guidance and meaning in life." (http://hebb.uoregon.edu/04-01tech.pdf)

"A value is simply a preference for some thing or some process. Values are expressed through behaviours and words." (http://www.values-exchange.com/faq/)

"A principle, standard, or quality considered worthwhile or desirable"

Something worth striving for & considered good - either in itself (Intrinsic) or for something it leads to (instrumental).

Virtues are one source of value, in that they are character traits that are considered important (Virtues can in addition be instrumental to other sources of value.

Viktor Frankl identifies three dimensions of value: attitudinal (corresponding roughly to virtues), creations (roughly differences we make to the world) and experiential (which includes but is not limited to enjoyment and pleasure).

Values can either be subjective or objective. In Wise Therapy I describe RSVP, a procedure to help lead one to more enlightened values. In education, values clarification has been developed to help children become more aware of and develop their values.

There are obvious connections also between values and happiness, well-being and the good life.

Meaning of Life

The good life

Well-being

Theories of well-being include hedonism, the informed preference satisfaction theory, and objective list theories.

Ethics

Utilitarianism

Lectures on utilitarianism

Philosophical Counselling/ Philosophical Counseling

Philosophical Life-Coaching

Psychotherapy and Counselling

Life Coaching

Means and Ends

Love

Friendship

Compassion

Existentialism

Hedonism

Eudaimonia

Stoicism

Virtue Ethics

Deontology/Principle-Based Ethics

Flourishing

Human Nature

See L. Stevenson & Habermans 10 Theories of Human Nature

Practical Philosophy

Practical Philosophy is a discipline that uses philosophical insights and methods to explore how people can live more wisely. Exploring ancient philosophy and more recent academic philosophy it aims to help us understand and pursue the good life, wisdom and meaning in life.

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Harry Potter and the Philosophers' Predictions Part 3 - Who will die in book 7?

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:54:00 +0000

In parts 1 and 2 of this short series, we looked at the questions of whether Snape is really evil [unanimous answer: "No"] and whether Harry will die [less certainty here, but agreement that he will probably not end up dead]. Which leaves the question, who will die. Well one likely candidate is Snape himself - probably helping Harry - and another one who I believe will bite the dust is Wormtail - paying his debt back to Harry. But I'm afriad we can also expect some good guys - or girls - to get the chop.

Who will it be?

Ed Kern

Within alchemy, the "work" is often cast as progressing through three stages, the black, the white, and the red. I think the
death of Sirius Black signals the end of the nigredo; the death of Albus Dumbledore, the end of the albedo; and perhaps the death of Rubeus
Hagrid, the end of the rubedo.

Shawn Klein

If I had to guess, I'd say Hagrid is going to get killed. I suspect possibly a Weasley family member(Percy?) and maybe even a Dursley family member (Petunia?) But these are really just guesses, hunches.

Tom Morris

I think that something important will happen with Neville Longbottom. He's been such an obvious underdog, struggling with an apparent dearth of natural talent but a good spirit. I suspect he'll rise up and make a big difference. But we may have to say goodbye to Neville. I can't imagine his not playing an important role. One of the things Rowling has been keen to remind us is that things are not always what they appear. And I suspect that applies to Neville.

Well, I guess we'll have to wait a few more days to find out the real answers.

Has this predicting got anything to do with philosophy? Ed Kern thinks it has, so lets leave the last word with him?

All this speculation is fun and interesting, but I've
tried to do so in ways consistent with how the texts model
an ethical system, portray characters, and develop
particular themes. A lot of fans treat the works as
mysteries, but they're really not, because of the way each
subsequent book in the series introduces elements to the
story that really could not have been foreseen by readers.
For this reason, philosophy and character (in both senses
of the word) offer the best grounds for speculation.

I'm sure that's not the last we will hear of Harry Potter. Personally, I would like to write some more on the personal development significance of the Potter series, which I have made started here. I'd be interested in your thoughts ....

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Will Harry die? Harry Potter & The Philosophers' Predictions: Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 09:28:00 +0000

Is Harry destined for the graveyard or wedding bells ?

In article 1 of this short series on "Harry Potter and the Philosophers Predictions", published in the week leading up to book 's arrival, we asked whether Snape is really evil. Much disputed in fandom (where people argue in equal measure for Snape being evil, Dumbledore's man or his own man), our 3 philosophical sages agree that Snape is Dumbledore's man and will be redeemed. Which you might think is good news for Harry. But can he really survive in book 7? After all, Dumbledore seriously injured himself just retrieving one horcrux, and Harry has to destroy four- without Dumbledore. And J.K. Rowling famously challenged Paxman's assumption that there would be a tale to tell of Harry the adult with these chilling words How do you know he'll still be alive?

Let's find out what our own three philosophical sages think.

Will Harry die in book 7?

Shawn Klein

Harry probably lives and flourishes

Harry's death would end the series with a malevolent feel. Moreover, I think it would be in sharp contrast to almost everything in the series. This series is fundamentally a story about moral development; it is a story about Harry becoming a responsible and mature adult. His death is not the logic progression here. The logical end is his independence and the flowering of his power. Harry's development towards independence has been a central theme: from escaping the Dursleys to losing Sirius and now Dumbledore. I think we will see Harry take full control of himself and his powers and take his place in the adult world.
JKR has left it so that she can really do anything. There are 700 some odd pages left and a lot can be revealed that can up-end the best predications. From a fan point of view as well as philosophical/artistic point of view, I don't want to see Harry die. I say personally because I like Harry and I like happier endings. I say philosophically because I don't think killing the hero of the story is consistent with the kind of story of moral development and growth that JKR has been telling. I say artistically because the ultimate point of art is to uplift our souls, provide us with strength, and give us insight into our selves and to our lives. I don't see how Harry's death would serve those ends.
But if Harry must die, I don't want him to die in some grand sacrificial manner that casts him as some kind of Christ-like figure. Such an ending would be personally unsatisfying, but also against the grain of the whole series. The imagery and symbols have largely been drawn from classical and pre-Christian culture and so pasting a specifically Christian symbol on to it at the end would be incongruous.
Ultimately, however JKR close the series, the path she takes us on to that end will be more important than how it ends. Whether Harry lives or dies, whether Snape is evil or not, what will matter is if these last 700 pages tell the story in the way that makes it so when the end comes it is what we will need to see.

Tom Morris

Harry probably lives - but ...

I'd be very surprised if we were to lose Harry in the last book. But I can understand the viewpoint of those who think we will, because going out in a self sacrificial and successful effort to save the lives of his friends would be a fitting culmination of his moral development. And Rowling has some Christian "power in the blood" passages related to the self sacrifice of Harry's mother and dad, and some "power of love" passages that could be taken to foreshadow such an end.

Ed Kern

Harry the phoenix will accept death but will probably not literally be killed off.

I try to make the case in the last chapter of my book, The Wisdom of Harry Potter, that Rowling has structured Harry's adventures as a very traditional hero's quest, which, among other things, employs alchemical symbolism to chart Harry's moral growth and to cast him, at least in part, as a metaphorical phoenix. I think this works pretty well with the Stoic themes I've found in the series. Because of this alchemical symbolism, and because of the way Voldemort's "sin" has been characterized, I'm pretty sure that Rowling will have Harry accept death - as he already did at the end of book 5, when Voldemort possessed Harry and dared Dumbledore to kill him. I think that this is also in line with other Stoic "suicides" occasioned by the demands of reason--at least from a Stoic perspective. I'm not alone in fandom in thinking that Dumbledore himself arranged his own death at the end of book 6 in the service of a greater good. He really is presented as a kind of Stoic "sage" guiding Harry's own development. Rowling has also had him make the claim, several times, that there really are worst things than death. And I really do think that the Harry Potter series is really more about death and the need to accept it than is usually acknowledged in critical commentary.

Within alchemy, the completion of the "work" results in the "death" of the alchemist before his "rebirth." If Rowling follows the path that she has already charted, Harry will, thus, have to "die." But he will do so as a phoenix, a reconciler of opposites and a bringer of life out of destruction.
Now, for what I might call meta-literary reasons, I don't think that Rowling will literally kill off Harry. Despite her protestations, she really is writing children's literature, and if she kills off her hero, I think that she'll turn off her audience. She'll also spoil the series for future readers, who won't invest the time in a lengthy story with a tragic ending, as well as for her current readers, who won't return to the stories again and again, as they've been doing now for some time.

So it looks like Harry will probably survive. But we know that more than two characters will die? Who's for the chop? Not Ron and Hermione surely? What about Luna? Nevile? Hagrid? Find out what our philosophers think in the next article, published very soon ...

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Harry Potter - the end is nigh, but for whom?

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:04:00 +0000

Harry Potter and the Philosophers' Predictions

Part 1 of 3

Is Snape really evil?

As the publication date for the final installment in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, looms ever closer, the questions left unanswered in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince become every more urgent. As a Potter fan, I've been musing over questions like "Is Snape really evil?" and "Will Harry die?" ever since reading the (literally) shocking last chapters of book 6. I've re-asked them when listening to Stephen Fry's excellent reading of the book with my kids. And I became more worried when J.K. Rowling spoke of book 7 involving a "bloodbath" in her recent TV interview with Jonathan Ross (even if she did backtrack on this a bit).

My own hunch is that Snape can't be on the side of the Death-Eaters, because that would turn Dumbledore into a Neville character of the worst kind - Chamberlain not Longbottom. Dumbledore is really wise, right, so he can't make such a howler? Regarding Harry's survival -well I'd hate to see him die, but after JKR's "bloodbath" comment I'm a bit concerned. In the same interview she also said "I think that Harry's story comes to quite a clear end in Book Seven". Are we to see a Hamlet-like ending in which all the major protagonists are killed? As a reader who has seen none of Rowling's plot twists coming, perhaps I ought to leave the serious predicting to the experts....

But which experts? The fan sites are full of predictions, and I'm sure the correct ones must be there somewhere - but where? It so happens that three excellent books have been written by academics about the philosophy in Harry Potter. Perhaps "lovers of wisdom" who are also lovers of Harry Potter books can set my mind at rest. I tracked down the books' authors and they were kind enough to share their thoughts with us ...


The Wisdom of Harry Potter by Edmund M. Kern	If Harry Potter ran General Electric by Tom Morris	Harry Potter and Philosophy by David Baggett & Shawn Klein (eds.)

It's been said that if you put 3 philosophers in a room together and ask them a question, you'll usually hear at least 4 different answers. Surprisingly - and perhaps significantly - there was almost complete agreement amongst these three Potterphile philosophers.

So, over to Professors Kern, Morris and Klein ...

1) Is Snape really evil?

Tom Morris:

Remember that Dumbledore seemed to plead briefly with Snape right before Snape killed him. I can't imagine that the Headmaster was asking to be spared. After all, this is the man who famously said that there are things much worse than death, and that "After all, to the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." I think Dumbledore was pleading with Snape to go through with a plan and use his wand in a way that Snape never would have wanted to do. So I believe that Snape has been on the side of Dumbledore throughout the books, and has infiltrated the dark lord's army.
Can Dumbledore make a misjudgement? Certainly, we see him do so in the case of overly protecting Harry and withholding truth from him. But this is a mistake too big for such a wise man and wizard to make. I see his trust of Snape as definitive.

Ed Kern:

Snape is a very interesting case, because, I believe, his animosity toward Harry is genuine, but he has also chosen to associate himself with the righteous cause.This conclusion is dependent to a large degree upon speculation, but I also think that Rowling has provided us clues about Snape's true disposition if we look to his eyes... Take a look at Snape's eyes when Dumbledore asks him to return to Voldemort's service: they tell us that he can't wait to exact his revenge. I'm 99% sure that Snape will die while defending Harry. No other character is more overdetermined for redemption.
I think we'll find out that Snape did have a hand in Dumbledore's death, but it was primarily because the
headmaster himself wanted it - for a number of reasons, not least placing an agent in Voldemort's inner circle.
Of course, the most important question posed by several characters is why did Dumbledore trust Snape. Simply, we can't know for sure at this point. But I don't think it's stretching things to surmise that the headmaster and potions master entered into a kind of magical contract that was made possible by Snape's genuine remorse over having a hand in the killing of Lily Potter. We are likely to learn that she had shown Snape friendship and understanding, and that he had turned away from her because of her interest in James Potter. Upon the occasion of her death, he felt true remorse. In a sense, the only person Snape detests more than Harry is Voldemort.

Shawn Klein:

I think ultimately Snape is redeemed. If Snape turns out to be truly a Death Eater, then Dumbledore has been made quite the fool. Snape has been the red herring in each of the books, and I think he's still the red herring. Then again, Dumbledore has admitted to making mistakes (at the end of Bk V where he takes some of the responsibility for Sirius's death and for placing Harry into more trouble than Dumbledore expected). Moreover, maybe the biggest red herring of them all is that Snape really is evil. As the saying goes, the best hiding place is in plain sight. This scenario is, I think, unlikely. It would end the series on such a sour and malevolent note.

So we are all agreed then - Snape is Dumbledore's man, he killed Dumbledore because he was asked to by Dumbledore he will probably die helping or even saving Harry. But will Harry survive? And who are the characters (more than two ...) who will die in book 7? Find out what the experts think in part 2 of "Harry Potter and the Philosophers' Predictions", coming very soon to this website...

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Philosophy in Schools - Interview with London philosopher and teacher, Peter Worley

noreply@blogger.com (Tim) — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:56:00 +0000

Increasing numbers of schools in the UK now offer philosophy and philosophy-related subjects such as critical thinking as part of their curriculum.
The momentum for philosophy with children has grown since research in Scotland, which demonstrated an IQ gain of over 6 points for primary school children who had done philosophy with children.
But philosophy with children is happening a lot closer to home than Scotland and is being developed in innovative ways.
Peter Worley, 34, is a philosophical practitioner who for the last four years has been developing his own successful approach to teaching philosophy to London primary school children. I caught up with Peter recently to find out exactly what happens when you mix philosophy and eight-year olds ...

London-based philosopher and teacher Peter Worley

If I was to attend one of your "Philosophy in Schools" classes, what would I see?

I think the best way to illustrate a session is to describe one. For example, I’ll describe this morning’s session at Sandhurst primary school, a state primary school in South East London. It was conducted with 8-9 year olds (year 4) with the full class and their usual teacher present. The tables had been moved to one side and the chairs organized to form a horseshoe shape so that all the children could see each other, the board and myself. The teacher sat with them and became a co-enquirer.

We usually start with a short focusing exercise to help get them in the right state of mind: one of calm concentration. This is done with their eyes closed so that they can focus their minds on one thought for a minute or so. This focusing exercise is followed by a short discussion of what they have just been thinking about.

The next part of the session is a puzzle of some kind. This was my second session with this class. In the first session I asked them to spell philosophy in English. This week’s task was to translate "philosophy2 from ancient Greek into English. The idea of being able to read and write in a strange new language excites the children.

So far they have done a variety of thinking exercises, though one could argue that it is not strictly philosophy. The next part of the session (which is about half of it) is designed to address this. This is the part of the session that I would like to describe in more detail.

I began this part with another short puzzle. I wrote a complicated looking sum on the board:

12 x 9 x 6 x 14 x 4 x 7 x 22 x 0 = ?

At first the response is of consternation with comments like “that’s impossible!” But it was not too long before somebody said that the answer is 0.

I bring their attention to ‘zero’, then I ask them to try another short exercise:

“Sit once again in the focusing-exercise position. Now, I want you to try to think of nothing.”

I leave them for a minute to do this then we stop the exercise. The next question I ask them is: “Is it possible to think of nothing?”

This stimulated many thoughts from them, many of which come from responding to each other.

For example, one person said, “Yes, I just think of black.”

Then someone responded immediately with, “But if you think of black you are thinking of something.”

From this someone else concluded, “It is impossible to think of nothing because you have to think of something.”

For anyone familiar with Parmenides’ thinking on this, they will recognize a similar move. So, after this has been discussed for a while, I then introduced them to Parmenides (and we have some fun trying to pronounce his name). I then presented a simplified version of his argument on the board and I asked them if they recognized anything they themselves had said. This has the effect of identifying them with the material and they consequently read it more carefully.

Here’s the argument:

The early Greek philosopher Parmenides (c. 515-445 B.C.) tried to think about nothing and also about the word “not”, which we often see in ordinary sentences.
But Parmenides reasoned that, if we think about nothing then nothing becomes something.
Why? Because nothing must become something otherwise we would not be able to think about it.
So, if nothing must become something in order to be thought about, then it seems that we cannot think about nothing.
Therefore, Parmenides concluded, nothing does not exist at all.

(This is a simplified version of the argument as it is presented in Philosophy For Kids: 40 Fun Questions That Help You Wonder…About Everything by David A. White)

On this occasion several of the children recognized their own or someone else’s comments in Parmenides’ argument. The bit they recognized is highlighted in green. I suggest to them that if they were thinking the same things as a famous philosopher then that makes them philosophers. This is empowering for them.

Parmenides (c. 515-445 B.C.), a Greek Philosopher who attempted to prove that nothing does not exist. Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy fans may recall that Douglas Adams invented a character who proved that black equaled white and then got run over at the next zebra crossing. He was probably a distant descendant of Parmenides

In order to try to take the discussion to a deeper level I then asked them that although we may agree with Parmenides that we are not able to think of nothing as we must turn nothing into something in order to think about it, does that mean that we agree with Parmenides that nothing does not exist? (This is of course a more complex question, and I would only venture this sort of further depth if I judge the group to be capable. On this occasion I did). One girl responded with, “ ‘nothing’ is just a word so it must exist.” But then a boy made an important distinction: “ nothing ’is not just a word. For example if I take the word ‘monkey’, the word ‘monkey’ does not climb off a page and go up a tree. So it’s not just a word.” There was a mumble of astonished agreement, as they begun to understand the point. This boy had touched upon an important philosophical distinction between the ‘sense’ of a word and its ‘reference’. This is a distinction that was made by the philosopher Frege. If I hadn’t run out of time I may well have introduced Frege to the children.

Frege for eight-year olds. I'm impressed! How, in general, how do the children respond to philosophy?

The children – on the whole – look forward to philosophy and often describe it as very different to their other subjects. It’s what they find different about it that interests me. It seems a shame to say it, but this keeps coming up as one of their reasons: that they rarely get an opportunity to say what they think about stuff. On top of this the philosophy sessions give them an opportunity to follow their thoughts through to some depth in a rigorous and controlled environment. They seem to enjoy the fact that there are constraining rules to stop bullying or over-aggression in the group. And time after time teachers comment on how certain children surprise them with their contributions in the philosophy sessions: very quiet or underachieving children in the class often shine in philosophy. Philosophy doesn’t work for everyone and there are children who begin reluctantly or are bored by it and quite clearly do not see its value. However, it is difficult to say that it is having no impact on these children and that it will not affect them positively in later life. I have seen some very encouraging transformations with certain ‘reluctant’ children who have begun with antagonism and ended with a respectful attitude towards philosophy.

I think that there is something naïve about philosophy, and this lends itself well to the naivete of children. Plato said that philosophy begins in wonder, and children have a great deal of wonder. What I hope philosophy will do is crystallize that sense of wonder so that hopefully it will never leave them. I think the description above of the session at Sandhurst School where the children came to similar insights to a pre-Socratic philosopher highlights the connection between children and philosophers and therefore children and philosophy.

The Scottish research relates specifically to the approach invented by Matthew Lipman, and indeed that is the most usual way of doing philosophy with children. I understand that whilst you incorporate some of Lipman's ideas, you try to take philosophy a bit further. Is that right?

Matthew Lipman, an American philosopher who pioneered the Community of Enquiry method for doing philosophy with children. Researchers from Dundee University have recently shown that Lipman's method not only helps children think and empowers them, it also boosts their IQ.

What I am trying to do is to introduce the subject of philosophy to the children, not just provide them with a platform to think and express their thoughts. I am attempting to engage them with the philosophers and the major topics of philosophy. Not all of what I do is strictly philosophy - I do critical thinking, logical and lateral thinking, the interpretation of poetry and stories, and the playing of games, but always from the point of view of philosophy. There is a lot of overlap with Lipman’s approach, for instance, the younger the children are the more like Lipman’s approach my sessions are. I also use the community of enquiry model to conduct some of the sessions, a method borrowed from Lipman, but I use many other structures and approaches as well. Lipman’s approach actively avoids teaching (names, dates, ideas in philosophy) in favour of facilitation, whereas my approach combines teaching with facilitation, particularly with the older age groups.

Any personal experiences that stand out?

When I was at school I was a difficult child, and one of the reasons - suggested by a head teacher of mine at the time - was that it was because I was bright but not challenged enough either at school or at home. For this reason I often identify - and sympathise - with bright and difficult children and try to use philosophy to provide them with the stimulation I didn't get.

Not long ago I went into a room to run a philosophy session with a small group of year 3 children, including one notoriously difficult child, and a teacher coming out of the room whispered to me upon seeing who I was with: "Good luck!"

We did the philosophy session.

I won't pretend it was easy, but when I had finished, I came out of the room exhausted and a little disconsolate. The same teacher saw me and said, "what did you do in there, it was so quiet?" And with these words I realised how successful it had been. The child in question had remained engaged with all the activities we had followed and had made some excellent contributions (as well as some inappropriate ones). I discovered that he was a very bright child and his confrontational, challenging nature had been given a constructive platform. There was still a great deal of work to do with him but I had seen how philosophy had done perhaps what other subjects couldn't do for him.

The moral of the story is that philosophy offers that extra challenge both to gifted and talented children and children with behavioural difficulties; it goes beyond the national curriculum and addresses some of the issues that I wish had been addressed when I was at school.

How would you like to see philosophy with children/philosophy in schools develop?

I would like to see more specialists such as myself in schools, so that it becomes normal for a school to have a resident philosopher. I would also like to see more teachers using some of the techniques of philosophy and particularly Socratic questioning in the classroom and integrate philosophy within the national curriculum. It would be great for a philosophy programme to be run right through a child’s education from reception to secondary school and for philosophy to replace the traditional role of religious instruction and education in schools. I would really like to see more studies done into its effects such as the one done recently by Dundee university.

If any readers are interested in contacting you to do philosophy at their school, how can they contact you?

The best thing is to visit my website www.thephilosophyshop.co.uk and/or email me at peter@thephilosophyshop.co.uk to find out about courses.

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