The examined life: why does philosophy belong in schools?

In 2022 I published an article in the New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies arguing that philosophy should be offered to secondary school students in Aotearoa New Zealand (you can download it here). Now that Civics, Politics and Philosophy (CPP) is being introduced as a new secondary subject, the argument feels worth returning to. The inclusion of philosophy is an important and welcome development, giving more young people the opportunity to encounter a subject that can help them think more clearly, examine the questions that matter to them, and better understand themselves and their world.

If our students are to live and flourish in that world, they need to know how to think, interpret, analyse, problem-solve and create, and to do so with confidence, flexibility, humility and morality. We value critical thinking, creativity, independence, citizenship, and wellbeing, but these aims can remain vague unless students are given regular and structured opportunities to practise them. Philosophy provides exactly that.

Philosophy is sometimes misunderstood as abstract, impractical, or suitable only for academically-inclined students. In reality, it begins with questions that young people naturally care about. How should I live? What is fair? Who am I? What do I owe to other people? What can I know? What should I believe? What makes an action right or wrong? What kind of society should we want?

Philosophy gives students a disciplined way of approaching such questions. It does not merely invite them to express opinions; it asks them to give reasons, identify assumptions, define their terms, examine arguments, consider objections, and revise their thinking when better reasons emerge. It helps them learn that having a view is not the same as being able to justify it, and that changing one’s mind in response to a better argument is not a failure but an important part of good thinking.

The word philosophy is commonly translated as the love of wisdom. Its content includes questions, concepts, arguments, problems and traditions, while its central method is reasoned inquiry. More simply, philosophy looks to establish and challenge foundations. It asks what sits underneath our ideas, beliefs, values and systems, and whether those foundations can withstand examination.

This is what makes philosophy distinctive as a school subject. Other subjects certainly involve reasoning, interpretation, and analysis, and philosophy does not have a monopoly on good thinking. However, reasoning within a subject is not quite the same as reasoning about reasoning itself. Philosophy makes thinking visible. It teaches students to identify contradictions, draw distinctions, use examples and counterexamples, evaluate arguments, and recognise the difference between holding a belief and having good grounds for it.

We do not expect students to become good readers without being taught to read, or capable mathematicians without being taught mathematics. Yet we often assume that students will become good thinkers simply by being in classrooms and completing schoolwork. Some improve their reasoning this way, but there is no reason to assume that all students will naturally develop a reliable understanding of argument, evidence, and conceptual clarity. Philosophy treats thinking as something that can be taught, practised, and improved.

There is encouraging evidence that this practice makes a difference. Students participating in regular Philosophy for Children (P4C) sessions make significant gains in verbal, non-verbal, and quantitative reasoning. They also improve literacy and numeracy compared to control groups, and substantial improvements in cognitive and higher-order thinking skills. Such gains have also been shown to endure, even when the P4C learning ceases. 

This evidence provides good reason to believe that when students regularly practise giving reasons, testing claims, listening carefully and explaining their thinking, the benefits are likely to extend beyond the philosophy classroom. But philosophy is not valuable because it might improve the data produced by other subjects. It is valuable because thinking matters, and because students deserve opportunities to examine questions of truth, value, meaning, knowledge, and justice. The research strengthens the case for philosophy, but it is not the whole case.

Philosophical inquiry asks students not only what they believe, but why they believe it, whether their reasons are sound, and what might lead them to reconsider their conclusions. A student who becomes more aware of their own thinking is better placed to recognise confusion, identify gaps in understanding, and improve their reasoning across the curriculum. This is metacognitive thinking – thinking about thinking – a key marker, alongside critical and creative thinking, of contemporary educational success.

Such thinking also requires intellectual humility. Students can learn that confidence and certainty are not the same thing, that difficult questions do not always produce simple answers, and that people who disagree with them may still have reasons worth considering. Philosophy does not require students to abandon their beliefs, but it does ask them to understand and examine them; necessary steps towards becoming an independent thinker.

Adolescence is a reflective stage of life. Young people already think about who they are, what they believe, where they belong, and what kind of future they want. Philosophy gives them a structured space in which to do this. It does not tell them what the meaning of their lives must be, but it helps them examine their beliefs and values. It allows them to think seriously about happiness, fairness, loyalty, obligation, friendship, suffering, success, and the good life without reducing these questions to motivational slogans.

Studies of philosophical inquiry have reported improvements in students’ confidence, speaking and listening skills, self-esteem, and social development, as well as reductions in dependency and anxiety. An education that seriously asks students what they think, expects them to give reasons, teaches them to listen to others, and treats their ideas as worthy of examination is likely to influence how they see themselves as learners. 

Ethics is especially important because students will encounter moral problems throughout their lives. Some will be personal, involving friends, family, and work. Others will involve politics, justice, technology, climate change, culture, and inequality. Students need more than a list of rules for dealing with these problems, because rules cannot anticipate every situation and different values will sometimes conflict. They need to develop moral judgement.

Moral philosophy helps students practise that judgement by considering what makes an action right or wrong, whether consequences matter more than intentions, what we owe to people we do not know, and how freedom should be balanced with responsibility. Students can learn to consider different ways of approaching moral problems, explore the implications of a position, and identify where it may lead to conclusions they find difficult to accept. The aim is not to provide a formula that resolves every disagreement, but to help students reason more carefully and responsibly when disagreement cannot be avoided.

If one purpose of education is to help students flourish, schools need to care about more than academic achievement or preparation for employment. They should help students become capable of living thoughtful, ethical, and meaningful lives. 

Philosophy also has a democratic purpose. Democracy depends on citizens who can think, speak, listen and judge. It requires people who can examine evidence, understand competing arguments, recognise manipulation, and participate in disagreement without treating those with different views as enemies.

Philosophical inquiry can function as democratic education because it requires students to participate in shared reasoning. In a worthwhile philosophical discussion, students are not simply taking turns to announce opinions. They are building, testing, and revising ideas together. They must listen, ask clarifying questions, challenge claims respectfully, and respond to objections. These are intellectual habits, but they are also democratic ones.

Students inhabit a world in which they are constantly surrounded by claims. They encounter political messaging, advertising, misinformation, conspiracy theories, ideological certainty, algorithmically promoted outrage, and AI-generated content. Simply telling them to “think critically” is not enough. They need to practice working out what a good reason looks like, whether a conclusion follows, how a concept is being used, and what assumptions lie underneath confident assertions.

Philosophy can help students understand the difference between having a reaction and making a judgement, or between finding a claim appealing and having grounds to accept it. That is why UNESCO has argued that philosophy should have a proper place in secondary education, as it encourages open-mindedness, civic responsibility, understanding, and tolerance. These are capacities that a democratic society should want to cultivate. 

Taught well, philosophy has a low floor and a high ceiling. Students can enter an inquiry through a question that is immediately understandable, while the same question can become increasingly complex as they learn to define ideas, draw distinctions, consider objections, and develop arguments.

Philosophy can stretch able students through abstraction, complexity, logic, language, and argument, and is even more important for students who are not always well served by traditional academic structures. Research suggests that philosophical inquiry can benefit lower-achieving students, students learning in non-native languages, and students from disadvantaged communities. Studies have shown that the greatest benefactors of learning philosophy, in terms of gains in verbal and non-verbal reasoning, are middle- and lower-achieving students, as well as the traditionally marginalised.

Disadvantaged students need access to powerful forms of thought, not a narrowed curriculum limited to compliance, basic skills, or preparation for employment. Existing inequalities are reinforced when privileged students are trusted with theory, debate, abstraction, and complexity while less privileged students receive thinner and more instrumental education. Philosophy can help disrupt this pattern by treating all students as thinkers and giving them the language and reasoning with which to understand and question the conditions of their lives.

The inclusion of philosophy within CPP therefore has considerable potential. Civics can give students knowledge of institutions and participation, politics can help them examine power and decision-making, and philosophy can investigate the concepts and values that underlie both. Students can ask what democracy is, what makes political authority legitimate, what justice requires, what rights people possess, and what citizens owe one another. Bringing these areas together can help students connect the operation of political life with the deeper questions upon which it depends.

For philosophy to make its full contribution, it will need to remain more than a collection of interesting discussion questions attached to civics and politics. Students should encounter philosophical concepts, arguments, thinkers, and traditions, while also having opportunities to question, discuss, and develop ideas of their own. Students learn philosophy by doing philosophy, with knowledge deepening their inquiry rather than replacing it.

Teachers will need suitable preparation and resources, since facilitating a lively discussion is not easy, and requires training. They will need sufficient subject knowledge to unpack arguments, introduce relevant ideas and help students move beyond initial opinions. Assessment will also need to value reasoning and inquiry rather than the reproduction of information. These are important questions, but they should be seen as part of the work of giving students access to philosophy rather than reasons to doubt its inclusion. There are many existing teachers with philosophy degrees, and many students who may be pleased to learn that their love of philosophy may soon be a more employable pursuit.

Philosophy asks students to slow down and consider the point of things: what is true, what is valuable, what is fair, what is worth doing, and what kind of life might be worth living. This is one of the ways philosophy respects students. It treats them as people capable of serious thought and does not wait until adulthood to allow them to ask important questions. They deserve more than answers handed down without examination. They deserve help in learning how to think well.

The introduction of CPP gives many students the opportunity to become clearer and more creative thinkers, more informed and responsible participants in democratic life, and more capable of examining the ethical and existential questions they will inevitably face.

We should want students to question, reason, and marvel at the world they inhabit, while developing the knowledge, discipline, and empathy required to do so well. An examined life is part of what a meaningful education should make possible.