Philosophy

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Monty Python’s Philosophers Football Match ‘Replay’: Ireland vs England in a World Cup of ideas?

For an Irish Times Unthinkable 2026 World Cup special, I ask who would line out in an Irish team for a renewed edition of the Philosopher Football Match? George Berkeley and John Toland are nailed-down starters but there’s a place for Roy Keane too…

Now imagine: “There are seconds left – the sides are deadlocked. Does a tree fall in the woods if no one sees it? Who knows, but VAR has spotted a hand ball in the English box. And it’s George Berkeley who is stepping up to take the penalty. ‘Esse est percipi,’ he says. ‘To be is to be perceived.’ Bentham – a notorious critic of human rights – tries to refute it. Already on the losing side of a key argument in moral philosophy, he dives the wrong way. And it’s a goal!

“More precisely, it either crossed the line, or it didn’t cross the line, and that’s good enough for referee Erwin Schrödinger.

“England captain AJ Ayer is protesting; he says the verification principle of logical positivism implies the final score is a pseudo-statement lacking empirical rigour. John Locke and John Stuart Mill are arguing about the proper limits of liberalism after conceding what was a soft penalty. And, in an outburst viewed as unsporting behaviour, an exasperated Bertrand Russell proclaims ‘the present King of France is bald’ and gets a red card.”

One doesn’t have to dream. Ireland has a winning tradition of philosophy. It deserves more recognition.

Read the full article here: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026/06/08/ireland-vs-england-in-philosophy-who-would-win-a-world-cup-of-ideas/

And a recommended team change from UCC’s Prof Vittorio Bufacchi: “… the absence of Jonathan Swift from the starting 11 is unforgivable. Swift’s contribution to the philosophical tradition of utopianism, immortalised in his masterpiece Gulliver’s Travels, cannot go unnoticed, especially this year, the 300th anniversary of its publication.

“Swift’s inclusion in the Irish team could be a gamechanger. As Kathleen Williams pointed out in her 1958 book Jonathan Swift and the Age of Compromise, Swift’s work is characterised by ‘the elusive brilliance of the attack … [but] the attack is also a defence’… take William Molyneux out and give the No. 10 shirt to Swift. A small change guaranteed to make a big difference.”

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2026/06/10/in-the-world-cup-of-ideas-jonathan-swift-should-play-for-ireland
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In Ireland, we’ll talk about anything except the meaning of life

For all the faults of the Catholic Church, it at least attempts to provide an answer to the ultimate question of life’s ‘purpose’

David Brooks signed off from The New York Times in January 2026 after 22 years as a columnist. He penned a thought-provoking, final piece on the “shredding of values” he has witnessed in America.

A deep source of regret for Brooks is the way education has become just another arm of the economy. “Multiple generations of students and their parents fled from the humanities and the liberal arts, driven by the belief that the prime purpose of education is to learn how to make money.” He cited recent Harvard research showing 58 per cent of college students say they experienced no sense of “purpose or meaning” in their life in the month before being polled.

“Loss of faith produces a belief in nothing,” Brooks writes. “I’m haunted by an observation that Albert Camus made about his Continent 75 years ago: The men of Europe ‘no longer believe in the things that exist in the world and in living man; the secret of Europe is that it no longer loves life’.”

Picking up on the theme, I wrote this piece for The Irish Times, arguing for a national conversation on values, or better still a national conversation on the meaning of life. Why are we here? Is there a purpose to our lives? In Ireland we’ll talk about anything except the most fundamental question of existence.

For all the faults of the Catholic Church, it at least attempts to provide an answer. Much of Irish society is too incurious, or too prejudiced against religion, to even enter the discussion.

My own submission is that we’re here to be human – and that means erring on the side of humanity. On hard cases, I humbly suggest we should lean into kindness.

Call it an article of faith. But some kind of faith may be necessary. As theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote: “Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.”

Full article here…

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026/03/09/in-ireland-well-talk-about-anything-except-the-meaning-of-life
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Say no to groupthink: how philosophy can transform learning

Why is there such resistance to teaching philosophy in Ireland?

Joe Humphreys          Tues, Nov 19 2013             The Irish Times

If philosophy had been on the curriculum 30 years ago, would we be in the same mess we’re in today? It’s a tantalising thought and the very sort of “what if?” question philosophers love to debate. But it’s being asked with deadly seriousness by an increasing number of educationalists.

“To help children think about what’s important to them, and why, is surely important to their education,” says Prof Joe Dunne who was, until recently, a principal lecturer at St Patrick’s College, Dublin City University. Citing US philosopher Michael Sandel’s idea that “statecraft involves soulcraft”, Dunne says philosophy can help students reflect on the sort of hidden values or “external goods” operating in society.

In a post-primary system where there’s a “fragmentation of subjects”, philosophy also “could get students to think more about knowledge in the round”.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/say-no-to-groupthink-how-philosophy-can-transform-learning-1.1596500

(continues….)

 

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Yes we Kant: How to teach philosophy to kids

Joe Humphreys               Tues Nov 19 2013              The Irish Times

If you’re a teacher and you’re planning to do philosophy with your class then resist the temptation to reference weighty tomes written by dead Greeks or unpronounceable Germans. That’s the advice of teacher-trainer Dr Mary Roche, who has 20 years experience in the field. “The first resource that people need is an open mind,” she says. “To become a critical thinker is as much a way of being as it is about developing skills.” What else do you need?

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/finding-philsophy-lessons-in-child-friendly-places-1.1596521

Chose a story to spark discussion With primary-school children, Roche recommends using “a good quality picture book to act as stimuli for discussion. Choose one that does not yield up its meaning too easily and allows for multiple perspectives and deep engagement.

“The teacher reads the picture book aloud allowing time for engagement with the images as well as the written text. Then she asks: what might that story be about? Any child can begin and the discussion proceeds around until all children have had an opportunity to contribute or pass.”

Arrange a democratic forum Under the Philosophy for Children (P4C) model, pioneered by Matthew Lipman in the US and adapted 30 years ago by Joe Dunne and Philomena Donnelly into “thinking time” for Irish schools, the children engage in an open-ended, “Socratic” dialogue. Conversation passes from one child to the next, the transfer formalised through a tip or passing an object around a circle.

The teacher must wait his or her turn and so is on an equal footing in the debate.

Let the students take over “The children might begin by examining the ‘message’ of the book; the ideology which can be overt or covert,” Roche continues. “But they are doing so at their own level and pace. The teacher needs to take off the mantle of the expert, become a participant in the group and be open to listening and learning.

“The teacher should refrain from interrupting. If the discussion wanders off the point she can ask a question to try to put it back on track when it comes to her turn. But teachers shouldn’t be striving to bring the discussion around to where they want it to go.

“It’s not about looking for consensus. It’s about encouraging children to think for themselves, to dig deep beneath the surface of a story and offer their points of view for others to agree with, disagree with, partially agree with.”

No one is forced to speak It is important not to pressurise the class; it can take some time for some children to be comfortable hearing themselves express their own opinions. “In the beginning, they can be jealous of other kids who have big words or are more outspoken,” says Josephine Russell. “I would always say, ‘We are like a football team, where you have the striker who scores the goals but everyone is just as important on the team’. There is also value in silence, and listening is as important as speaking.”

Don’t turn it into a competition “Thinking time is an act of trust,” says Donnelly, who notes that while Lipman emphasises consensus, her focus is more on participation.

“The best analogy is play. I would see loads of educational value in play but if you mention it to some people they say ‘Play is just a very pleasant waste of time’. The wonderful thing about play is it’s child centred.”

Be alert to the dissenting voice One story Roche has used in class is Yellow Bird, Black Spider by Dosh and Mike Archer (Bloomsbury), which explores the theme of individuality through the eyes of an unconventional bird who is being nagged by a spider about its behaviour.

She recalled one group of eight year-olds who said they empathised with the bird’s desire to “do your own thing” and be free. “I said, ‘Okay, then, when I drive up to a red light I want to go through it because I want to be free’. They said, ‘No, you can’t do that: that might hurt other people’. ‘So doing your own thing and being free is only okay at certain times?’

“The conversation continued with many agreeing that the yellow bird had the right to be himself and live life his way. Then one child said, ‘But doesn’t the spider have a right to be himself too?’ and that opened up a question of the contest of two rights. It took an eight year-old to bring that to my attention.”

Timetable it School timetables are packed but philosophy can be worked into literacy and oral language classes, or alternatively RE (religious education) or SPHE (social, personal and health education), says Roche.

“What I recommend is when you sit down to plan the year ahead you block out your lessons. So, for example, I might choose a story for an English lesson about scaredy squirrel making a friend, which also covers the topic of friendship in SPHE and possibly RE. That allows me to free up time for the discussions.”

Fail, fail better Practitioners at secondary level have adopted a similar format, using a story, or even a passage of philosophical text, depending on the age group, to spark a discussion about ideas. As teaching aids, Donnelly recommends books such as Robert Fisher’s Teaching Children to Think (Nelson Thormes) and David White’s Philosophy for Kids (Prufrock Press).

Roche left the primary sector in 2008 and now works as a lecturer in St Patrick’s College, Thurles, Co Tipperary, where she does a P4C module with undergraduates. She is now producing her own resource on how to use picturebooks “as stepping stones to philosophising” to be published mid-2014 by Routledge. She warns, however, “I do see people saying ‘Just give me a bunch of resources that I can go and teach’. But that is not being open-minded enough to think up your own questions. The bottom line is, it’s about mindset. It comes back to what John Dewey called the ‘reflective practitioner’: you have to be whole-hearted, open-minded and reflective.”

. . . and tips for parents If your school doesn’t offer philosophy don’t worry, says UCC lecturer Vittorio Bufacchi. “I do it with my kids every day at home. If you watch a film such as Cinderella, you can ask ‘Why is she feeling this way?’, ‘Where is her beauty?’ Those are the hardest questions,” he says.

He has two children, aged seven and eight, and they “don’t need to know theories about symmetry and beauty to tackle those sorts of questions”.

Robert Fisher, a UK author in “thinking and creativity” and a P4C advocate, suggests children have four needs: emotional, physical, social and reasoning. To promote the latter, he suggests: encourage children to build on their ideas; try to get them to see the implications of what they say and make them aware of their own assumptions and encourage them to find reasons to justify their beliefs.

As with adults, movies and books can provide the spark for conversation. Take Harry Potter: As one P4C textbook points out, it throws up “questions in ethics (Is power more important than good?); epistemology (How can we know ghosts and trolls?); and metaphysics (How do spells work?)”, among other fields.

“We have made philosophy into a discipline but it’s really about thinking and reasoning, just starting to spark conversation. Then you just become more sophisticated in the questions you ask,” says Bufacchi.

Philosophy resources Educational Action Research in Ireland, eari.ie; the UK Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education, sapere.org.uk; philosophy-foundation.org – includes downloadable resources for the classroom; European Foundation for the Advancement of Doing Philosophy with Children, sophia.eu.org.