Melton Mail

Philosopher's Club

Philosopher’s club is an opportunity for students to develop their critical thinking skills, broaden their worldview, and have fun discussing with peers!

 

On Monday, 8 August the topic was “what is truth?” Students played a concept game trying to sort out various possibilities of truth.  The students realised there are many different perspectives to the same truth, and that there are different kinds or categories of truth, such as the truths in mathematics as opposed to the truths that we see in science. They also discussed the connection between knowledge and truth, and how these ideas connect.

 

On Monday, 15 August our young philosophers discussed the topic, “Do dreams influence reality or does reality influence dreams”. The main arguments they raised were about the purpose of dreams for making sense of the external world, the feeling of dreams as you experience them and lucid dreaming. Our young philosophers drew connections to Psychology, in particular to the ideas of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.

All topics discussed at Philosopher’s club are chosen by our young philosophers. Our next topic for discussion on 22 August will be “Does God exist?”

 

Young philosophers can join us at Philosopher’s Club every Monday after school in H3A from 3:15pm to 4:30pm.

 

But… What is philosophy?

Philosophy is a discussion-based subject in the humanities where learners discuss everything from physical reality to the meaning of life, and learn to justify their arguments with solid reasoning through their conversations with others. Building a philosopher’s mindset can help learners to understand and connect ideas from other learning areas, and strengthens their analytical and evaluative reasoning across all curriculum areas. By practicing philosophical discussions, our young people build the skills they need to:

  • make value judgements (ethical decisions)
  • understand their own thinking about the world
  • communicate effectively
  • solve problems
  • organise information 
  • give justified reasons for their beliefs and actions

Melton Secondary College offers Philosophy as an elective subject for year 9, 10, 11 and 12, as well as Philosopher’s club and Philosophy In Public Spaces (PIPS) excursions – keep an eye out on the Compass news feed for the most current Philosophy news!