This is a horrifying development – from The Guardian Comment is Free:
For A-level students in the UK, there is only one exam board that runs a real philosophy course. And that’s about to be changed into yet another religious education course.
For the last nine years, I have taught the AQA’s A-level philosophy course. It’s a good course, and the only one to represent the breadth of philosophy as a discipline in its own right. So I was somewhat surprised to learn that the AQA have this week, without warning or consultation, published a completely new draft syllabus, which is now just waiting to be rubber-stamped by Ofqual.
The new specification completely excludes the previous options to study aesthetics, free will, all European philosophy since Kant, and – most significantly – political philosophy. This will be all replaced with a compulsory philosophy of religion topic, which will make up 50% of the AS course.
And that’s not even all, or even the worst. The new specification also reduces the how of philosophy to focus on the what. The how is the important part!
The exam board will also reduce the marks given for students’ ability to critique and construct arguments, and more marks will be given for simply knowing the theories involved. Essentially, where young philosophers were previously rewarded for being able to think for themselves and question the role of government, the new course can only be passed by students who can regurgitate classic defences of the existence and perfection of God.
Appalling. Let’s hope the secular philosophers can intervene and fix this mess.
I read that as meaning that the students marks would be reduced if they offered a critique of the religious arguments.
It’s a horrific backwards step that is for sure. I can only hope that A.C. Grayling and his ilk kick up a big fuss.
They plan to. There’s a post to that effect on Jerry Coyne’s blog. A friend pointed out the post so that’s my source for this. I can well imagine Anthony’s displeasure at such a development!
There’s a whole lot more fields of philosophy than philosophy of religion. There’s political philosophy, scientific philosophy, philosophy of history (not to be confused with historical philosophy), applied philosophy, philosophy of ethics, philosophy of logic, etc., etc., etc.
Well and above all there’s epistemology – which we’re talking about in all this arguing over the reliability of memory for instance. I’m basically always talking about it. I always want to know how people think they know things they can’t know, and reminding myself what I don’t know, and the like.
Pretty incredible stuff in Saffrey’s Guardian article:
“In a climate where university philosophy departments face closure, the very survival of philosophy in the UK depends on philosophers being able to make clear to post-16 students what secular philosophy is and why it is worth studying. It is difficult to see how the new specification will make this anything other than impossible.
“Not only will future students not get a representative grounding in philosophy; it is likely that schools and colleges will eventually cease to run a discrete philosophy course, and will increasingly staff the course from RE departments – if they run it at all. The implications for the discipline in general are likely to be devastating.”
Next step is the teaching of ‘what we believe’ by the rote learning of a catechism. The step after that: compulsory lobotomies, or maybe lobotomy combined with circumcision for all in infancy.
Is ‘Orwellian’ too strong a word?
Omar @6 – it’s a shame we’ve gotten so far into “skills training” and “relevance” that policy makers can’t see the relevance of philosophy. Knowing how to think is at least as important (more important, IMHO) as knowing what to think. But now it’s all about money, and philosophy isn’t a profitable field for big business.
I’m a scientist, and I hate the idea of reducing philosophy. I find that my philosophy courses taught me something science couldn’t. Together, science and philosophy could be an unstoppable force.
If you spend any time on the net at all, or involved in local life or in politics generally it, becomes painfully obvious that the ability to reason is sadly lacking in a large proportion of the population. Far from converting A Level philosophy to religious instruction we should to be teaching reasoning skills to 5 year olds – although compulsory examination of politicians and policy makers in the subject. as a pre-requisite would be a pretty good idea too.
Which philosopher was it, who waxed so eloquent about the virtues of rote memorization?? I forget….
Oh, right, it was none of them.
policy makers can’t see the relevance of philosophy
Policy makers absolutely can see the relevance of philosophy. That’s why it scares them. Good authoritarian followers don’t learn the socratic method or any of that skeptical stuff — it’s what makes people inclined to examine the claims of politicians more closely than bears scrutiny.
Ian, exactly. Also Marcus @ 10. Oh, everybody.
iknklast @#7:
“Together, science and philosophy could be an unstoppable force.”
I agree, and there is plenty of precedent for it. On the other hand, science and religion have never got on well together. Science as the servant of religion only enhances the power of religion, which easily becomes intolerant and destructive. Religion’s power is best checked by reason, but competing religions or religious factions can do a pretty good job on one another, (eg Sunnis vs Shias in Islam.) And religion cannot contribute anything to philosophy beyond being a subject for critical analysis in its own right.
Philosophy is continuous with science.
Is anybody else reminded of Gove’s attempts to move the GCSE History curriculum in this direction?
Get ready for the backlash against the criticism of this proposed change. Critics will be labelled “left-wing academics” and members of the “educational establishment” who are out to “indoctrinate” young people into “ideological purity”.
‘Critics will be labelled “left-wing academics” and members of the “educational establishment” …’
Or else they will be called ‘elites’.
Gflughdfhuga! Fifty percent philosophy of religion? That’s nakedly biased! Imagine if the only history course were 50% history of religion, or the only literature course based half its lessons on the bible and Dante and Pilgrim’s Progress.
And I am flabbergasted that any educator would think their students need less training in composing and critiquing arguments. Isn’t… isn’t creating and critiquing arguments the whole point of every academic subject? Mathematicians prove things, scientists and historians present theories and interpret evidence, literary experts analyze and critique. Even theology, that festering sore on the face of the academy, is all about arguments. Every scholar – indeed, every voter – needs to be good at arguments, because they’re how you decide and discover what is most likely to be true. Faced with a nationwide course that trains students to compose and critique arguments, any teacher worth their apple will hold on with both hands and howl at anyone who tries to take it away.
I don’t know what the exam board is thinking over there. All honor and the best of luck to those trying to save the philosophy.
Making 50% of the course religion is like making 50% of a cosmology course astrology.
it’s a shame we’ve gotten so far into “skills training” and “relevance” that policy makers can’t see the relevance of philosophy. Knowing how to think is at least as important (more important, IMHO) as knowing what to think. But now it’s all about money, and philosophy isn’t a profitable field for big business.
I don’t know if it’s still true to any degree, but back in the 1980s I learned from some friends that Silicone Valley companies looking for programmers liked to get people with degrees in philosophy and no formal programming learning because they were trained in constructing formal arguments but didn’t have bad programming habits already.