Stephen Law

Juliana suggests children won't be able to think critically about morality, religion or other "Big Questions" until post age 11. Well, let's have them doing it then, at least. But actually, there's growing evidence that it's beneficial before then. There have been a number of studies and programs involving philosophy with children in several countries. The results are impressive. One notable example is the Buranda State School, a small Australian primary school near Brisbane, which in 1997 introduced into all its classes a philosophy program. Children collectively engaged in structured debates addressing philosophical questions that they themselves had come up with, following a Philosophy in Schools programme using materials developed by the philosopher Philip Cam and others. The effects were dramatic. The school showed marked academic improvement across the curriculum. A report on the success of the program says, [f]or the last four years, students at Buranda...

Thanks for the insightful comments on my previous post. I guess the first thing I should say (as I do in The War For Children's Minds ) is that of course various purely causal mechanisms are inevitably going to be applied to shape belief in and out of the classroom, and yes this is, to some extent, a good thing. Giving a kid a sweetie or a hug when they do well can be a form of “emotional manipulation” but is certainly not brainwashing. Getting kids to repeat stuff and learn by rote is obviously not brainwashing either. I also doubt whether a very precise algorithm-like definition of brainwashing can be given – certainly not in terms of “ necessary and sufficient conditions ”. Brainwashing is, I suspect, what Wittgenstein calls a “ family resemblance concept ”. There is a range of indicators for brainwashing, and the more are satisfied (and the more strongly they are satisfied) in a given system, the more like brainwashing it is. There is, if you like, a sliding scale from educati...

In the last couple of posts I've been exploring two ways in which we might explain, or try to shape, someone's beliefs - by giving reasons, or by applying purely causal mechanisms. One of the most obvious ways of engaging in purely causal manipulation of what people believe is, of course, brainwashing . What is brainwashing, exactly? Kathleen Taylor, a research scientist in physiology at the University of Oxford who has published a study of brainwashing, writes that five core techniques consistently show up: One striking fact about brainwashing is its consistency. Whether the context is a prisoner of war camp, a cult’s headquarters or a radical mosque, five core techniques keep cropping up: isolation, control, uncertainty, repetition and emotional manipulation. The isolation may involve physical isolation or separation. Control covers restricting the information and range of views people have access to, and includes censorship. Cults tend endlessly to repeat their beliefs to ...