How does philosophical conversation develop an open mind?

“I understood that I am expected to put my point of view across in a way that allows me to get involved with the discussion”

(Matt, Grendon) Interview data and fieldwork notes suggest that both the structure of the classes and the content of the discussions were contributing factors in the course impacting on developing more open minds. Here I provide more in-depth examples of philosophy sessions in Grendon to explore how the course structure worked in the context of a therapeutic environment and in what ways the structure, content and nature of the discussions related to the participants’ defi-nitions, or informal descriptions, of open minds.²²

To illustrate how the philosophy course ‘works’ in relation to open minds, I focus first on the sessions on Descartes and Hume followed by the sessions on moral philosophy which covered Kant, Bentham and Mill. The sessions on Descartes and Hume mirrored each other in

22 In describing the content of these sessions, I relate various summaries of philosophers’ arguments and work. I developed these teaching materials using a range of websites and books. Appendix I provides a list of sources used to develop these ideas.

structure but focussed on opposing perspectives on knowledge and identity. I designed the stages of each session to draw participants through the philosopher’s thinking. Both sessions followed the same structure, first asking ‘How do we know something to be true?’ In the case of Descartes I initially presented participants with a series of optical illusions and asked whether our senses are reliable sources of information. I followed this by introducing Des-cartes’ famous ‘evil demon’ scenario.

To counter this, the session on Hume also began with the question of ‘What is knowledge?’ (see overleaf).

Over the course of these two sessions, the participants engaged in conversation around the difference between knowledge and belief; the purpose of gaining new knowledge; what empirical knowledge means; how this relates to imagination and creativity and what it means

Session 5, Stage 2, Grendon

Descartes analysed the basis of knowledge. His first observation was that our senses some-times deceive us. He went on to ask ‘how do I know I am not dreaming?’ Taking this thought further he considered the following scenario:

Suppose there exists an evil demon, god-like in its power that is intent on deceiving you.

This demon might place all sorts of ideas and experiences into your head. It might cause you to think you are surrounded by physical objects when in fact nothing exists apart from you and this malevolent being. How can you know anything for certain?

Descartes notes that even if there is such a demon, this demon cannot deceive him into believing that he, Descartes, exists, when he does not. Descartes hits upon ‘the cogito’.

Cogito ergo sum: I think therefore I am. Even if the demon deceives him, still Descartes continues to think, and if he thinks then he must exist.

Session 6, Stage 1, Grendon

David Hume (1711-76) claimed that knowledge comes solely from our sensory experi-ences. Basic knowledge of the material world comes from observation. We are also able to have knowledge of concepts or ideas, the basis of which he claimed are in experiences.

(This is known as empiricism)

to have doubt. Participants grasped these ideas enthusiastically and took a great deal of interest in comparing “what we believe, what we know exists, and all we can say is that we personally exist.” (Alex, feedback form, session ).

The final stage of Session 6 brought in a modern philosopher’s adaptation of Hume’s ideas introducing a third perspective on personal identity (see below).

Both of these sessions used the philosopher’s ideas of knowledge to explore their dif-ferent perspectives on personal identity. Whilst Descartes believed in a distinction between the mind and the physical self (known as dualism), Hume conceptualised the self as a ‘bundle’ of thoughts and experiences. Both philosophy sessions introduced ideas of personal identity as a logical extension of the two philosophers’ perspectives on knowledge:

Session 5, Stage 3, Grendon

Descartes’ other great insight along this line is that, while he could imagine himself in some strange situation existing without a body, he could not imagine being a body without a mind. Therefore, his mind or consciousness is fundamental to who he is with the body being secondary. His assertion of ‘I think therefore I am’, led him to the belief that the think-ing mind must be the fundamental essence of the human bethink-ing. This led him to state that the mind and the body are entirely separate beings. A human being consists of an immaterial mind united, somehow, with a material body. The mind does the thinking, feeling, desiring, perceiving and so on. The body does the moving around. This is known as ‘dualism’.

Hume rejected the notion of there being a single unitary self. Instead, he claimed that we are a bundle of thoughts, experiences and perceptions. He came to this conclusion based on his own beliefs regarding knowledge. He did believe that introspection was a valid sen-sory experience but claimed that when examining the inner self it wasn’t possible to ‘catch sight of the soul’. All you see are thoughts and experiences running through your mind, therefore, that’s all the self is; a bundle of thoughts and experiences.

“Looking at Descartes’ theory seems a bit nuts now after working through Hume, Arendt and then Baginni. The mind and body can’t be separate as the ‘ego’, sense of self etc., influences our identity and embodiment happens, identity is portrayed through the body and the body influences our mind, ego, sense of self, personality etc.”

(John, Grendon).

Over the course of two philosophy sessions, participants engaged in conversation around the nature of knowledge, the essence of a human being and the development of a per-son’s identity. The structure of the sessions started at first principles before leading the partic-ipants through the logical steps of the philosopher’s argument. This meant particpartic-ipants not only reflected on their own point of view of personal identity, but also considered where these views come from: What do they believe knowledge is and what does that mean for their view on personal identity? Are they consistent and coherent in thinking through these ideas? Im-portantly, instead of asking the participants directly about their own views, they were asked to think about a philosopher’s point of view. Providing two competing theories of knowledge and three ways of thinking about identity, provided participants with a space in which they could think about these ideas for themselves:

Both of these sessions were intellectually challenging, for them and for me. Participants challenged Arendt’s notion that everyone was free to act; they debated the question of knowledge; they appreciated the competing arguments around identity, the soul and truth. By allowing two sessions to mirror each other, participants could see how each stage built on the

Session 6, Stage 3, Grendon

Arendt agreed somewhat with Hume’s Bundle theory of the self. At the very least, she agreed that there is no fundamental essence of the self. Instead, she claimed that each individual is born with the freedom to choose how to act; each new birth is a new beginning and each person has the capacity to change the world. However, she also stated that we do not act in isolation and it is important that we are part of society. We need our actions to be observed and approved of by others. It is in action and speech that the individual dis-closes who they are. Identities are developed through narratives that emerge from actions of the individual. She claimed that an individual’s identity is self-constructed through rep-resentation of the self in society. This constructed identity is constantly renegotiated and developed through the individual articulating and defending different conceptions of them-selves.

last. Participants began to develop skills in understanding the foundation of arguments, and the structure of the sessions allowed for an accessible introduction to complex philosophies;

“I think that a lot of thought processes and a lot of thinking, in my view, has gone into the whole scholar's work…I mean people don’t just wake up one day and have an idea, a philosophical idea, they must have to work through that theory and kind of test it as well to some point.”

(Charlie, Grendon)

“…the way you structured it as well, to look at one thing and then to expand on it with a recent idea from an old idea or whatever. You know, you sort of progress through it.”

(John, Grendon) This was the intention of these sessions – to carefully illustrate how philosophers build their arguments. By introducing ideas and premises in stages, participants had opportunity to reflect on each stage and consider what their own opinions were before progressing on to the next step in the philosopher’s line of reasoning. Participants developed a strong understanding of the philosophical arguments being introduced because they themselves followed the same process, analysing and critiquing the arguments as the sessions progressed.

The two sessions on moral philosophy followed a different structure. In these two ses-sions we tackled the question of morality by looking at Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism and Kant’s categorical imperative. Although these sessions were paired and offered competing phi-losophies for the foundation of moral actions, each session presented arguments for and against those particular philosophies within one session.

The first stage in discussing utilitarianism presented Bentham’s consequentialism.

This states that the extent to which an action is morally right or wrong is determined by its consequences, with decisions being made according to that which creates the most happiness overall. The second stage presented Mill’s extension of utilitarianism and included a discussion around the notion of happiness and the greater good (see Appendix I for sources used to de-velop stimuli). Participants discussed questions including “What is happiness?” “What is pleas-ure?” “What is pain?” and “What is suffering?” On the whole, participants broadly agreed with the principles of utilitarianism, though with some reservations. However, the session con-cluded by employing a classic counter-example of utilitarianism known as ‘framing the inno-cent man’ (McCloskey, 1972);

The purpose of using such an extreme example was to ‘shock’ participants into appre-ciating how far philosophical arguments can be taken. Again, mirroring the structure of the session on utilitarianism, the session on Kant began by introducing his ideas around moral action before countering it with an extreme example. Kant’s categorical imperative states that we, as people, should act in a way that we would wish others to act. In contrast to the utilitarian perspective, Kant emphasised duty and principle in his arguments around moral action. The final stage of the discussion described an illustration of this perspective (provided by Kant himself).

Session 4, Stage 4, Grendon

Suppose a black person kills a white person in an area torn by racial strife. As a result there are daily riots and escalating levels of violence leading to increasing levels of un-happiness. As a visitor to the area you know you could secure the arrest of an innocent black person for the original crime simply by testifying against them. The riots would immediately stop and further bloodshed would be avoided – a much happier outcome. A utilitarian calculation suggests that morally, the right thing to do is to frame an innocent black person. But surely, that would be very wrong indeed, whatever the consequences might be for happiness overall?

Session 3, Stage 4, Full Sutton

There’s a knock at the door. You answer. It’s your best friend who looks pale, worried and out of breath. They tell you someone is chasing them, someone who wants to kill them. He’s got a knife. You let your friend in, and they run upstairs to hide. Moments later, there is yet another knock at the door. This time it is the would-be killer and he has a crazy look in his eyes. He wants to know where your friend is. Are they in the house?

Are they hiding in the cupboard? Where are they? In fact, your friend is upstairs. But you tell a lie, you say they have gone to the park. Have you done the right thing?

According to Kant, you have not done the right thing. It is morally wrong to tell a lie and this is always the case. Therefore, it is morally wrong to lie to the would-be mur-derer. This is an example that Kant himself used and demonstrates the length to which he took his ‘categorical imperative’.

In both the sessions on Kant and utilitarianism, as the discussion progressed through each stage, they changed their minds in light of what they heard; turned over ideas; considered them from different angles and took account of a variety of factors and perspectives. The first half of each discussion focussed on the arguments of Kant, Bentham and Mill with participants raising objections and criticisms but ultimately recognising the value in each of the philoso-phies. However, the final two stages introduced key counter-arguments that often shocked the participants. As such, they developed more nuanced opinions;

“There are basic principles one must rely on to guide your life but consequences matter. You have to think about consequences as well because if you don’t, you can end up committing a large wrong because you don’t want to commit a minor wrong. Sometimes, the right thing to do is commit a small wrong in order to ensure a greater wrong does not occur.”

(Alex, Grendon) The ideas of Kant and Mill encouraged participants to consider the fundamental principles upon which to base a moral framework for actions. For the participants, these ideas raised a multitude of questions – is it our intentions or our emotions that make something a moral act?

Or is it the act itself that is inherently moral? Does morality depend primarily on consequences?

At the end of each of these sessions there was a buzz or energy in the room, and I felt the weight of heavy intellectual discussion. The environment of a CoPI provided opportunity for stimulating conversation around a variety of issues. Participants made contributions and formed opinions, received feedback from their peers and gained new knowledge as the sessions progressed. The following section discusses the participants’ reactions to these sessions out-lining what they felt they gained from participation.