PHILOSOTHON 2010Victoria

PEFORMANCE CRITERIA23 – 25 Assists in the facilitation of procedural inquiry e.g. students contribute to the smooth running of the inquiry with a clear understanding of the importance of rules,

procedures, dignity and respect.Develops a substantive dialogue with peers about stimulus materials e.g. students engage in a detailed way with ideas and assumptions about stimulus materials put forward

by peers.20 – 22 Articulates with some clarity conceptual difficulties held by self / peers e.g. students make an honest attempt to make clear difficult ideas and assumptions put forward by

peers. Prepares a conceptually sound explanation in relation to key views / issues e.g. students offer the best explanation based on reason and evidence.17 – 19 Adjusts responses as new arguments arise; students correct thinking in light of evidence from the inquiry.Tests ideas held by peers against one another for their validity e.g. students weigh reasons offered by peers against one another to come up with the best reasons. Questions peers about views on core issues and concepts in stimulus materials e.g. students endeavour to see alternative ideas and assumptions.13 – 16 Formulates open questions which employ reasoning e.g. students ask questions to gain information and clarify difficulties.Shares observations about core issues in the stimulus materials e.g. students are willing to share ideas with peers in a dignified manner.Responds to open questions generated by stimulus materials e.g. students explain to peers in a respectful manner.10 – 12 Exchanges ideas and builds on the ideas of others e.g. students use ordinary questions to help build examples and counter-examples in an argument.Identifies some core issues and concepts in the stimulus materials e.g. students focus on a concept and an issue and make an attempt to explain it to peers.Identifies the consequences of an action in a given context e.g. students explain the relationship of cause and effect between two or more ideas. 5 – 9 Simplistic / limited engagement with questions / peers in light of the stimulus materials, e.g. students need to make ideas and assumptions clear to peers.Limited interpretation and explanation of the stimulus materials e.g. students need to explain the concepts and issues in the stimulus material fully and clearly.1 – 4 Asks rhetorical questions and/or disjointed questions/answers to stimulus material/issues/peer questioning e.g. students provide unclear questions and/or answers to peers.Mere assertions about stimulus materials / issues / peer questioning e.g. students make claims with no reasons and no evidence.0Dominates / monopolises the inquiry e.g. students need to treat peers properly and need to contribute to the running of the inquiry.

• STIMULUS

• BIG IDEAS

• QUESTIONS

Four STIMULI

1. The Cassandra dilemma

2. The Ring of Gyges

3. The idea of God

4. Art and Life

Our questions to you …

There will be four different inquiries.

For each inquiry, do we want:• One Stimuli and one question?• One question and several stimuli?• Three questions and one stimulus?• Three questions and several stimuli?• Other?

ONE The Myth of CassandraApollo, the god of light, the sun, truth, prophecy

and more, fell in love with daughter of the Trojan King Priam.

In order to win her heart, he promised Cassandra the gift of prophecy, but as soon as Cassandra got the gift, she rejected him.

Enraged, Apollo asked for one kiss and spat in her mouth, thus cursing her with the ability to know the future, yet no one would ever believe her words.

Everyone thought she was mad when she spoke, yet what she predicted always came about..

Cassandra foresaw the danger of the Trojan Horse and predicted the sack of Troy. The citizens of Troy ignored and abused her and she was given to the Greek king Agamemnon as a war gift.

Cassandra predicted that a terrible fate awaited Agamemnon and herself. When they reached his home in Mycenae they were both murdered by Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus.

See Aeschylus “Agamemnon”. Lines 1070 -1365

"Apollo archetype": refers to any individual's or culture's pattern that is dedicated to, yet bound by, order, reason, intellect, truth and clarity that disavows itself of anything dark and irrational.

Hecuba sees her daughter Cassandra taken by the Greekshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMk6sDTm1wo&feature=player_embedded#!

Cassandra 2ABBA performance

"Cassandra"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os_bSwg02J4

ABBA lyricsDown in the street they're all singing and

shoutingStaying alive though the city is deadHiding their shame behind hollow laughterWhile you are crying alone in your bed Pity Cassandra that no one believed youBut then again you were lost from the startNow we must suffer and sell our secretsBargain, playing smart, aching in our hearts Sorry Cassandra I misunderstoodNow the last day is dawningSome of us wanted but none of us couldListen to words of warningBut on the darkest of nights

Nobody knew how to fightAnd we were caught in our sleepSorry Cassandra I didn't believeYou really had the powerI only saw it as dreams you would weaveUntil the final hour So in the morning your ship will be sailingNow that your father and sister are goneThere is no reason for you to lingerYou're grieving deeply but still moving on

You know the future is casting a shadowNo one else sees it but you know your fatePacking your bags, being slow and thoroughKnowing, though you're late, that ship is sure to

wait Sorry Cassandra I misunderstoodNow the last day is dawningSome of us wanted but none of us couldListen to words of warningBut on the darkest of nightsNobody knew how to fight

And we were caught in our sleepSorry Cassandra I didn't believeYou really had the powerI only saw it as dreams you would weaveUntil the final hour I watched the ship leaving harbor at sunriseSails almost slack in the cool morning rainShe stood on deck, just a tiny figureRigid and restrained, blue eyes filled with pain

Sorry Cassandra I misunderstoodNow the last day is dawningSome of us wanted but none of us couldListen to words of warningBut on the darkest of nightsNobody knew how to fightAnd we were caught in our sleepSorry Cassandra I didn't believeYou really had the powerI only saw it as dreams you would weaveUntil the final hour I'm sorry CassandraI'm sorry Cassandra

Cassandra Dilemma 3CASSANDRA DILEMMA"the moral nature of certain predictions, which tends to evoke inothers a refusal to believe what at the same time they know to betrue, and expresses the universal tendency toward denial"

“Many environmentalists have predicted looming environmental catastrophes including climate change, rise in sea levels,irreversible pollution, and an impending collapse of ecosystems, including those of rainforests and ocean reefs. Such individuals sometimes acquire the label of 'Cassandras', whose warnings of impending environmental disaster are disbelieved or mocked.

Environmentalist Alan Atkisson states that to understand that humanity is on a collision course with the laws of nature is to be stuck inwhat he calls the 'Cassandra dilemma' in which one can see the most likely outcome of current trends and can warn people about what is happening, but the vast majority can not, or will not respond, and later if catastrophe occurs, they may even blame you, as if your prediction set the disaster in motion.

Occasionally there may be a "successful" alert, though the succession of books, campaigns, organizations, and personalities that we think of as the environmental movement has more generally fallen toward the opposite side of this dilemma: a failure to "get through" to the people and avert disaster.

In the words of Atkisson: "too often we watch helplessly, as Cassandra did, while the soldiers emerge from the Trojan horse just as foreseen and wreak their predicted havoc. Worse, Cassandra's dilemma has seemed to grow more inescapable even as the chorus of Cassandras has grown larger. “

Cassandra Inquiries

BIG IDEAS• Reason, intuition and truth• Being misunderstood • Prediction and prophesy• Denial of truth• When the obvious is not believed.• Reason vs Vision/Intuition (Apollo V Cassandra)• Paradigm shifts• Archetypes

QUESTIONS• If you refuse reason could you still know the truth?• What is madness?• Is knowledge of the future possible?

TWO The Ring of Gyges

• BIG IDEAS

• STIMULUS

• QUESTIONS

PLATO uses the Myth of Gyges

In The Republic, Plato puts the tale of the ring of Gyges in the mouth of Glaucon, who uses it to set us a Philosophical problem.

TOLKEIN uses the Myth of Gyges

The Fellowship of the Ring "The Shadow of the Past,” p. 64

The Myth of Gyges Inquiries

BIG IDEAS• Justice and desire• Justice and goodness• Temptation• Weakness of will

QUESTIONS• Why be a good person?• Does Justice matter?

THREE In search of God

QUESTIONSWhat does it matter if god is there or not?What difference is there between believing in god and believing in magical creatures?If there is only matter, does that mean that nothing matters?

“In search of God” by Leunig

KANT on God (an interpretation)

Kant was of the view that while the existence of God could not be proven, we ought to come to a belief in God's existence by way of "logical understanding.”

Kant had concluded that this world was not sufficient in itself; and that God was a requisite for morality, it gives meaning to our life here on earth.

The existence of God was, for Kant, but one of three postulates of morality, the other two being freedom of the will, and immortality of the soul.

These moral axioms, unprovable as they are, existed for Kant simply because they were the sine qua non of the moral life.

Also see, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-religion/God, the unifying principle of all phenomena (the world and self).

BIG IDEASAestheticsEthicsThe nature of Judgment

FOUR Ron Mueck Sculpture

Thoughts re STIMULI

Cassandra: The text, (Ittay’s reassuring lie vs. inconvenient truth cartoon). Epistemology

Ring: The Myth itself and The Ring image - Ethics

God: Two cartoons: Angelo and Spaghetti Monster (too “monothesistic” ?? Raises theological issus) Ontological, Conceptual

Art: Mueck ?? 4 pictures (Bonnie). Aesthetics

Thoughts re QUESTIONS

1 stimulus, 1 question.• Gyges: Why be a good person? If I could do any act and get

away with it would it be right?• God: Does it matter if god is there or not? What’s the difference between belief in God and belief in

Magical creatures?• Art: Mueck: Seeing height of ladies; what is art? How do we

decide if something is a work of art? Other stimuli?• Cassandra: Madness? Political? How do you know that you

know something? What does it mean to know something? When should a person be believed? Is knowledge of the future possible?

Amendments to Criteria sheet

• Selena to construct Rubrics sheet (3 elements)• Each Judge to have participants in their four groups

named and numbered on personalised rubric sheet.• (Judges do not need to add totals for each

individual – just need to provide a number for each of the 3 rubrics.)

• Someone need to collect sheets, and to add up numbers for each individual, and each school, on a master sheet

Advice to Facilitators

• Emmanuel to write up – include 5 minute bell and closing activity.

• No need to problematise – jump straight into inquiry by referring to stimulus and using opening question. It occurs to me that the first to speak will set the agenda – Is there someway to make this fair?

• Facilitator is more like traffic cop – ie students need to demonstrate procedural questioning skills so facilitator does not need to model this – should only use questions to support students.

• Teachers to send support material to Claire to be shared by all – and to help guide facilitators.