Public Services Lab Blog

Thoughts from the Philosophy Shop

Mark Griffiths - 15.07.2011

This week I visited a learning experience that The Philosophy Shop are delivering on idiscover.

The young people were taking part in a philosophical debate on John Stuart Mill's' declaration that "it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied." (The consensus from the young people was that it was better to be a happy pig. Oh well.)

The students on the experience, facilitated by the great Luke, Ben and Dan, were engaged, they were thinking (and thinking hard), they built on and critiqued each others' ideas and treated each other respectfully and with attention. (They also called me 'sir' - something I could get used to.)

Seeing this brought to mind Alain de Botton's argument that we need to show more vulnerability if our conversations are to be as meaningful as they can (and should more often) be - after all, these young people were talking about what makes for the good life, our answers to which reveal something of the core of who we are.

It also made me think of two questions that I am sure the Philosophy Shop would be sympathetic to: what more can we say about the type of knowledge creation that these students were engaged in, and why should even the most hard-nosed GDP obsessed person care about it? In the spirit of this blog post, let's introduce another Philosopher - Karl Popper. 

When I was at University, and, ok, I confess that I studied Philosophy (class of 1997, University College, London) Popper was only talked about amongst my peers as the man whom Wittgenstein furiously waved a poker stick at, but I have recently read his Three Worlds paper.

In this paper Popper argues for the existence of three 'worlds'.  The first world is the world of objects (chairs, trees, books).  The second world is "the mental or psychological world." 

So far, so commonsense, but he also argues for the existence of a third world.  This is the world of "the products of the human mind"; in this 'world' are such things as "languages; tales and stories and religious myths; scientific conjectures or theories, and mathematical constructions; songs and symphonies; paintings and sculptures."  The play 'Hamlet' may be physically realised in the first world every time the play is published or performed, but these are "embodiment[s]" of the third world object, 'Hamlet', that exists separately from these physical instantiations.

Whether or not there exists three worlds, Popper helps us to understand the type of learning achievements that there are and why they matter[1].  On the latter question it is helpful to state again Popper's definition of the third world - it holds, he says, "the products of the human mind" (my italics). This world therefore contains the products of the greatest minds - Hardy's 'Jude the Obscure' say -but also a really efficient business process, a well-evidenced report, or a video game.

When we talk about the move to an innovation driven economy what we are talking about is a move to a world where far more people will spend their working lives attending to third world type things.  This is the world where such things go on as "thinking of alternatives, thinking of criticisms, proposing experimental tests, deriving one object from another, proposing a solution, and criticising the solution."[2]  This is a type of knowledge creation different from knowledge of facts (operating in the first world) or of thinking strategies (second world). 

It's clearly important that education supports students to think about and understand all three worlds, but we need a balance, and, increasingly, more attention to the third world.  The Philosophy Shop supports, prompts, and encourages its students to do this - and we need more of it: after all, it is here that our pressing problems - climate change, sustainable economic growth, and social problems like crime - will be addressed.  If our young people don't know how to attend to third world objects, then the first and the second will be poorer places to be.

 

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[1] This is what Bereiter argues

[2]Hattie 'Visible Learning', p.27 - 28