It’s been said that philosophy can help develop useful critical thinking skills, and analysis of argument, concepts, and hypotheses, etc. seems to be much of what philosophers do. But what about the creative aspect to their work? Can studying philosophy help us to better hypothesize, speculate, generate more and better ideas or problem solve generally? Critical thinking can be studied separately from philosophy, but are there resources for exercising this creative aspect? It would seem to me that this area is just as useful and transferable to other disciplines as critical thinking, yet not much seems to be said of it. Or is it that creativity is something that a person just has (like a talent) in a certain area and it’s not easily transferred form one area to another? For example an artist can be very creative with her paintings but stumped when it comes to generating ideas for resolving her business problems. How do the really good philosophers come up with the great unifying theories, persuasive...

Studying philosophy can indeed encourage the development of synthetical skill as much as analytical skill. Very often philosophers will apply a concept or way of thinking common in one area to another, just to see what will happen. A historical example might be Thomas Aquinas applying Aristotelian metaphysics to Christian theology. It seems plausible that intellectual creativity and certain aesthetic creativities (visual or tactile, for example) would not be interchangeable; people are generally more comfortable in some media than others. But if one's media is thought, ideas and propositions, it can probably be transferred across disciplines (from philosophy to, say, literature or geology). It also seems plausible that intellectual creativity is a talent that people possess in varying degrees, though it can be cultivated, just like any other. How do the really good philosophers come up with their ideas? Wish I knew; then maybe I could be a really good philosopher, too :) In most cases...

Should philosophy and epistemological precepts be taught to grade school children?

There are indeed philosophers making strong arguments in favor of introducing philosophy to young children. See Michael Pritchard's article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for some examples. Gareth Matthews has been working for a long time in an area he calls " the philosophy of childhood ." As a philosopher and mother of nine, I can think of many, many instances in which a philosophical precept has helped my children understand a difficult idea or make a tough decision. (Of course, I can think of many more in which their eyes glazed over as they mumbled some remark about their friends' "normal" moms...)

How do you think technology will affect the teaching and practice of philosophy? During my undergraduate degree (in philosophy), I took notes in numerous classes on a laptop and could download papers from a variety of journals as PDF. I have seen numerous academic perspectives regarding technology and learning - from Bert Dreyfus' idea that the podcast of his lectures at Berkeley on philosophy and literature reduced class attendance, to law schools having "laptops off" sessions to science professors encouraging (or even requiring) graduate students to blog about their lab work. I even saw a theory that ethical theories are implicitly tied to the technology of their time - the printing press linking with Kant, utilitarianism, Mill-style liberalism, the mass media of television, radio and newspapers doing the same for Rawls and Nozick. And, of course, many philosophy professors like Brian Leiter now have blogs and some have podcasts too. At technical conferences, we use technology to provide things like ...

I couldn't resist adding to Saul's thorough response. The combination of technology and philosophy raises many issues, of which two have intrigued me particularly, both of which were inspired by observing the online interactions of my teenagers. First is how the real-time communication technology so embedded in young people's social practices can be used in teaching philosophy. The second pertains to Saul's comment (above) about philosophy's role as an interpreter of conceptual change: I believe technology is very definitely shifting some of our standard philosophical concepts, especially in ethics (though this "especially" may be a reflection of my own specialization). Like Saul, I've put some of the more casual forms of computer-mediated communication to use in my classes with great success, including an instant messaging account that I also call "virtual office hours" (here I thought I'd invented the term!). My students love it, especially when they're studying for exams, working on papers,...

Oh, and one more brief comment, an anecdote: Saul noted that "[m]ost philosophersstill read prepared talks, and few use multi-media aids." This is quite true, at philosophy meetings, but can be a source of considerable anxiety for the philosopher invited to present at interdisciplinary conferences. I was fortunate to be on the program for the Society for Business Ethics annual meeting this past summer, where I expected to read my paper, without any multi-media enhancement, the way I always did. I soon discovered that everyone else -- except for the Presidential Address, on which level my paper was definitely not -- seemed to have PowerPoints, about which slides they spoke conversationally. Luckily, I'd made the acquaintance of a fellow philosopher who also happened to be a KPMG consultant, and he converted my paper into a very polished Keynote (Mac version of PowerPoint), which he operated remotely from his PDA, wowing the attendees -- and especially, me.

I read a question on this site: What are the questions philosophers usually ask? My question is: What are the questions we (non-academic people/people not trained in philosophy) should put to philosophers? Elaboration: Are there areas in philosophy from the exploring of which laypeople would benefit? If yes, any list of priorities? With a list of questions (from various philosophers), I'll start my next innings on this site. :) But, seriously, I would really like to know what questions philosophers would "advise" people to ask, and not necessarily the ones they'd love to answer.

The questions that should be asked are those for which you'd like answers, I'd say. (How's that for a " right back atcha" response?) You might ask what makes an answer to a given question a good one. You might ask what it is about philosophy that makes questioning philosophers worth your while. When I teach undergraduates with no background in or plans to pursue philosophy, I start with rudimentary logic, because this is the area that sets the ground rules for the philosophical "game." But seriously, the best philosophical questions to ask really are the ones whose answers you want to know.