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Young Brains need philosophy, not maths!

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Young Brains need philosophy, not maths!

Mike H
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Posted 05/18/09 - 09:27 PM:	#31
I don't know about teaching full-blown philosophy before college - most of the texts are simply too advanced. However I think that logic and critical thinking skills definitely need to be taught - there's no way you can argue those are less important than history, math, or english. Actually I think many of the U.S.'s problems can be traced back to the vast majority of its citizens' total lack of any education whatsoever in critical thinking or logic. If we were forced to choose between educating kids in math or critical thinking/logic, I think I'd go with the latter. However, we aren't forced to choose; and actually, I think the subjects complement each other. Mathematics exercises the mind, and trains it in discovering the logical consequences of different concepts. It can aid us in the analysis of nearly all aspects of life. If you never learned it well, you just don't know what you're missing. Its not at all just learning how to do on paper what you could just do on a calculator. Granted, students often hate math. But is that math's fault, or the schools' fault? Math is usually taught in a rigid and boring way: "these are the rules, just follow them." But what if students were encouraged to do experiments to discover the rules themselves? What if they were given more real life problems which they had to solve using math - instead of just a bunch of abstract numbers? What if they were taught the basics of the philosophy of math - what is a number, a set, etc?

coriolis
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Posted 06/22/09 - 03:59 PM:	#32
I remember going through proofs in geometry. It teaches one to think logically, which is necessary for Philosophy. I'm an engineer and had to take all manner of math in school. In day to day practice we occasionally use some algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and statistics - but not at a very high level. Most of our calculations are based on formulas that we can look up in a handbook. Nowadays we have software that does most of the number crunching. We never use all the calculus or higher math that we learned in school. However, in school we went through the exercise of deriving these formulas starting with the basic physics and mechanics, and then using calculus (most of the time) to get to the formula. We had a joke that every formula could be derived from F=MA, which wasn't too far from the truth. Statics and dynamics was so much fun. It gave us a tool to show analytically what we had a sense of intuitively. For instance, we could look at an irregular object and by judgement, pick the centroid (or center of gravity), and then do the math to see how close we were. Or we could use the conservation of energy to see if a roller coaster would make it up the next hill. It was an exercise that was worth it to me, because now when we use these formulas, we feel the continuity and have the confidence that we know we are going in the right direction. If we encounter a situation that ia not quite a textbook case, (often) we have a feel of whether a particular formula is even the right one to use, or whether it will be a good approximation to the real answer. Too often, a real life situation presents, that requires the analytical skills and a sense of what the answer should be. You have to know the rules before you can have the confidence to know which one applies, and when you can get away with an approximation. An old engineer I used to work with had a saying that "it's better to be approximately correct, than exactly wrong." The meaning of course is that any fool can pull out a formula, put together an impressive series of calculations (or spreadsheet, today) and be totally, completely wrong. Now as far as the debate of math vs. philosophy, I'll offer the following: Math teaches logic, reasoning, a respect for order and rules. It's a morally neutral endeavor which makes it "safe" for young people who haven't yet reached the maturity in their soul. If we started them out in problems of ethics or trying to prove that god does/doesn't exist, I think that we'd have a lot of young people get lost in speculation or become unable to accomplish anything. A mature person can consider nothingness, free will, and all the other "advanced" philosophical pursuits, and then snap out of it and get his laundry done. But if they're not grounded in logic, and don't have the confidence to actually do anything, they'll be lost. Finally, the teaching of math is safer for the teachers and for the schools. I can't imagine the political battles and nonsense that would ensue if our elementary and secondary schools seriously tried to teach philosophy. Think of what happened to Socrates. I'm firmly on the side of the argument that says that we should have as much math as we can stand.
I have a love affair with Socrates but I only know him in a Platonic way.

Ico
私たちは一緒に死ぬよ。

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Posted 06/28/09 - 04:44 PM:	#33
Maybe I'm stating the obvious here, but...why not math and philosophy? Kids don't know enough math nowadays anyway, I don't think we can sacrifice much more of it.
...the Bible (nor any 'holy' book) should not have a favored place in our human exploration of what is true about our world ~Ellory Schempp (Abington vs. Schempp)

Tenkamuteki
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Posted 07/10/09 - 09:16 PM:	#34
Philosophy at a young age is and could be based on how its delivered. Math is without question and is basic logic and something you cannot argue. Hard to say that philosophy couldn't be twisted into a ugly picture combined w/ a child's home structure. Its not saying it would be, but having even a 1% chance it could would be dangerous. For a young student to have there eyes open to another's perception with the ugliness of life unknown is putting them at risk. Math is undeniable predictable and constant no matter the time and being able to adapt math to life and see the world in numbers makes you understand the cost of the knowledge. I believe philosophy is higher education and is a wealth of knowledge that could be overwhelming to a person unaware. For example giving a child a 1000 dollar allowance could create a quiet monster rather then a dollar. Math teaches the tools to drive, but does not drive you there. Its the search for truth that makes philosophy interesting, but if your search was not for the truth then knowledge of philosophy could teach much more. Math has no direction and you need to understand what your looking for to use it or you'll stay lost and without a tool. Could you find what you wanted without math? Probably, but by the time you were able to you would understand the consequences of your actions to get there. Math streamlines that process and provides order with a predictable path that's constant without any change in tempo. It adds a boring structure that lets you breath easy when you understand the up and down tempo it could be that could make you fail. As for the not needing math I am no math major or some mathmatician, but its only when I can see a situation in mathmatical terms am I able to verify what I predicted a outcome would be. The one situation where I can not see the world in numbers is in love because the idea of that is to be insane and seems to always be ever changing. Still does a young brain need to understand love or is that something that only time can teach you? So I believe Math is by far the most important subject and one I'm not very good at, but the older I get and the more I experience the more I relate every aspect of life to.

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