Smeagol, you make good points, but have a common misunderstanding
of what Philosophy is. Literally, Philosophy is the "Love of Wisdom".
As such, it can encompass everything, and historically it did.
Every branch of knowledge is derived from Philosophy (though Religion,
hardly a branch of knowledge, is not). At present, Philosophy retains
several subcategories, most important of which I count Logic, Ethics,
and Epistemology.

Logic has to do with the mechanisms by which we derive knowledge
from a given set of facts. I strongly believe that Logic should be taught
as soon as children are ready for it - which I believe could be done
in elementary school. A simplified form of logic should be accessible
to just about anyone - the trick is to actually apply it,
and to give children the confidence to use it.

Ethics has to do with right and wrong - what and why. This also
should be taught at a young age, but not as a list of do's and don't's
to be memorized, and especially not a list based on what was useful
4,000 years ago in a nomadic tribe.

Epistemology has to do with the very foundations of knowledge -
how we know what we know. Even a cursory examination of this field
will reveal that we can't be sure of anything beyond our own existence.
Nonetheless, it seems useful to believe that the world exists,
and to believe certain things about it.

If children understood these topics this would be a far better world.
If even half the adults understood these topics, it would be
a far better world. One can look through the Anti's arguments
and count the fallacies by the dozen - but the Anti's have not eyes to see.

And speaking of ethics: How does one justify deliberately keeping
children misinformed, especially when their ignorance can lead
to devastating consequences for them? Yet this is what happens
in the United States when the Religious Right insists on
Abstinence Only sex ed - and rates of pregnancies and STDs go up.


Baldur