Let's suppose you say to me "How's your brother Paul?" I say "My brother is fine, but actually his name is Peter." Most likely that will be enough to convince you. And unless your reactions are rather unusual, you're likely just to ay something like "Oh. Yes. Guess I got mixed up." It would be really odd to call this indoctrination. Or suppose I've been working on a budget and I send you the figures. You tell me that the total is off by $2,000. I don't believe you, so you work through the math with me, pointing out where I made a mistake. And I end up agreeing. Still nothing that seems like indoctrination. However, those may not be the sorts of cases you have in mind, so try this one. Suppose George thinks that women shouldn't be allowed to run for public office. Mary asks why. George gives his reasons, which reflect false beliefs about women's intelligence, emotions and so on. Mary engages him in a long, calm discussion, after which George agrees that his views reflected various kinds of ...

I'm always a little worried about broad generalizations about society. That said, I'm willing to grant that there is a real bias of the kind you describe. And I would also agree that many very worthy people get overlooked on that account. As for why it happens, that's an empirical question and as a philosopher I have no special insight into the answer. But I can offer a hypothesis: it's a time-saver. No doubt there are many people with no degrees who are smarter and more knowledgeable than people with Ivy-League credentials. But if I'm an employer, I don't have the time or the means to figure out who among all the applicants is really the most capable. So I will use things like educational achievement as a proxy. If someone got a degree, there's a good chance that they have at least a certain basic level of intellectual ability and stick-to-itiveness. And if their degree is from a prestigious school, that inference may be a little more solid. At least, I'd guess that this is what many employers...

One obvious problem here is that teachers have a sort of power over students. They can give them bad grades, refuse to write letters of recommendation... If the students "consent" to the arrangement, it will be that much less clear that the "consent" was strictly voluntary. So in addition to the inherent wrongness of the scheme, the extra problem is that the teacher is quite likely taking unfair advantage of the students.

Consider an analogy. Suppose I wanted to learn physics, and I decided to read great works of physics in chronological order. Whatever value that project might have, it would be a poor way to become a physicist. So no: I wouldn't recommend reading historical works in chronological order. I wouldn't even recommend putting a lot of emphasis on reading historical works, period. One reason: philosophy is essentially something you do . Working philosophers aren't intellectual historians. They're trying to sort their way through problems. Work by older philosophers can be suggestive and relevant, but most working philosophers spend very little of their time reading the classics. I'm guessing that by "secondary sources" you mean commentaries on historical works or introductory material on various problems. My suggestion: move next to edited collections of contemporary papers on problems that you're interested in. For example: if you're interested in the free will problem, you might consider getting...

This answer may not be quite what you want to hear, but if someone is convinced "for a fact" that nothing they're learning in high school is relevant to anything that matters, then one of two things is likely: (a) this is a very unusual high school, or (b) the person making the judgment isn't really in a very good position to judge. My guess is that most people on this panel thought at some point in their high school careers that everything they were doing was a waste of time. My guess is that most of them also woudl agree that on reflection, this wasn't really so, even if the benefits weren't immediate or obvious. The agenda proposed here sounds awfully ambitious: become a Buddhist monk and study religion, philosophy and science extensively. I'm hard pressed to think of many people who've managed all that. Perhaps someone like Matthieu Ricard would count, but he had the benefit of a PhD before he became a monk -- something he probably wouldn't have gotten if he hadn't finished high school....

Answering this question isn't altogether easy, for two reasons. The first is that we need to get some sort of a clear fix on what philosophical ability amounts to. And supposing we were able to sort that out, the next problem is that the question is an empirical one -- a matter of what the facts are -- and here philosophers have no special expertise. Compare: suppose we wanted to know whether the average person is more mathematically able than people were say, 50 years ago. There might well be data around that could give us a fix on this; perhaps someone even has some sort of reasonable answer. But while mathematicians will have something to say about what counts as mathematical ability, they aren't likely to have any special insight into the distribution of mathematical ability in the population. Still, in the mathematical case we might expect to get some sort of broad agreement about what counts as mathematical ability. The ability to come up with solutions to certain sorts of problems would be a...

I have actually taught philosophy online. (I may be the only panelist who has.) In my case, it was a contemporary moral problems course, and I will be teaching an intro to philosophy course online as well. My own view is that there's no good reason why this can't work. A former colleague of mine had a view of philosophy that I've come to think is correct. Although philosophical conversation is good, philosophy ultimately gets done by writing. I don't know how many times I've had the experience of trying to write up an idea that I'd thought about or discussed and discovering that it needs considerable tweaking if it's going to work. The advantage of the online course is that it's all in writing from the outset. One popular format that worked well for me: I would pose a question in response to the readings or to earlier discussion. The question would be of a sort that couldn't be answered in a line or two. Students would have to post a reply on a discussion board, and they would also be required to...

It partly depends on what the method is supposed to be. In reading some of the Socratic dialogues, one gets the strong impression that it was a technique for walking the person being questioned into a pre-determined and sometimes peculiar answer. (Do we really think that Meno's slave boy had learned about triangles in his life before birth?) But the goals people claim to have in mind when they use the Socratic method are good ones: to encourage critical thinking, to get students to take ownership of their ideas, and to see that easy answers are often not forthcoming. Starting with a question -- especially a provocative one -- seems like a plausible way to get people thinking. But we all know that things with the grammatical form of questions can sometimes serve the same purpose as simply making a claim; sometimes it's not hard for students to pick up on the answer they're supposed to go for. Perhaps the real question is what methods work best for getting people to be critical thinkers. That's a...

This is a hard thing to have to think about, and since all of us on this panel are teachers, we all have to come to terms with the issues. Let me just offer some thoughts on how I think I would handle things if this sort of case arose. There are some obvious conflicting values here. The privacy of the student is one, and public safety is another. If I got a piece of writing or witnessed behavior that I found disturbing, the first thing I would do is seek advice from someone better qualified than me. In the past, on a few occasions, I have called staff in the counseling office and described what I was concerned about without telling the counselor anything that would identify the student. I should add that none of these have been cases where public safety was an issue, but I think the advice still goes. A trained counselor is likely to be better than me at judging the level of threat and advising me on how I might approach the student. Also, if I was worried that the student might harm him/herself or...

Brains, like the rest of us, need rest; I wouldn't be bothered by the occasional hazy day. Simple tips include getting enough sleep, getting some exercise, drinking tea or coffee in moderation -- all the obvious stuff. A little less obvious: some sort of meditation practice. Take a look at http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1865567 or http://www.news.wisc.edu/13762 for some information on a recent study that might be to the point. You asked: is it necessary to take breaks from intellectual work? The answer I'd suggest is that, necessary or not, it's good. Intellectual activity is valuable, but so are many other things, and a well-rounded life would include a few of them. Listen to some music; socialize with friends; learn to play squash; volunteer at a soup kitchen; cook a tasty meal -- you get the idea. Things like that are valuable for their own sake, and who knows? Time away from thinking may bring you back refreshed and full of ideas. I bet none of this comes...