Hi Baldur,

Thank you for your clear and informative post.

"At present, Philosophy retains several subcategories, most important of which I count Logic, Ethics, and Epistemology."

May I ask why you do not also include the subcatagories of aesthetics, which has to do with reality as revealed to us by our senses, and metaphysics, which can be described as the general or specific knowledge of "being" or "knowing"?

"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."

In elementary school, this is taught to children primarily in mathematics, although only to the extent that it helps them perform mathematical functions. Somewhat paradoxically, in this day and age of excessive, politically based testing, they are taught some "logical" ways to pass the test. In any event, at least in elementary school, logic is taught only as a means performing some immediate, and often trivial, task.

"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."

When we talk about "Ethics" it is necessary to describe whose ethics we mean. In most schools, it's the ethics of the mainstream, including such incongruities as abstinence based pseudo sex ed. In short, kids are taught that, "We're right, and anyone who tells you differently is wrong". To me, this is "training" (we want you to come to a pre-arranged conclusion) not "education" (We want you to think for yourself and come up with your own conclusion{s}.)

"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."

Again, this is taught only as it relates to specific tasks. The procedures of inquiry and principles of knowledge, unfortunately, are designed for the purpose of passing a test and being trained as a replacement part for the military/industrial complex. The existence of a world beyond that, is for the elite's replacement parts, not the general population.
Again, training, not education.

Aesthetics: With art and music being sacrificial lambs to budget cuts in many places, the appreciation of beauty, both visual and auditory, is in danger of being limited to what is currently popular in this culture. Only those relatively few, who possess the curiosity and drive to do so, will be privy to anything outside the narrow parameters of their own culture. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I would ask, "What if the beholder is blind"?

Metaphysics: Well, children get all they need to know from church, right?

The philosophy taught today is the philosophy of General Motors, not the philosophy of Aristotle, Socrates, or Plato. I agree with those who think this will have a deleterious effect on the quality of life specifically, and and the entire human condition in general. Fortunately, another discipline, history, tells us that things tend to be cyclical, and that what once was, will once again be.

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