Welcome to PHILOSOPHY UNLEASHED

Philosophy Unleashed is about breaking free from the limits of syllabi and exam boards and allowing students and teachers to cast a philosophical eye on issues that interest them beyond the topics of an exam paper. If you want to write for Philosophy Unleashed click HERE.

All views expressed on the blog are those of the author of each post, and are not a reflection of, or affiliated with, any institution to which they may belong. In some cases, being philosophical inquiries, they may not even be the views of the author, but rather a “devil’s advocate” position they are trying on for size and kicking about, ultimately to reject. Consider this place an intellectual gymnasium where we “work out” our thoughts. And enjoy!

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224. LIP SERVICE - On the Difficulty of Transforming What is Entrenched

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“As Audre Lorde so famously put it: “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”. Yet schools, as reproducers of the dominant culture of any given society by design, are the very definition of “the master’s house” and it is they which are giving students their useless tools. “

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222. JUSTIFYING FREEDOM - On Assuming Rights We Might Not Have

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"Freedom is not as self-evident as these young people seem to think it is, and an appeal to individual freedom is not the knock-down killer argument they seem to think that it is. In a world where are freedoms are routinely curtailed, often for very good collective reasons, the argument that X can’t be allowed because it will take away some freedom or another is simply insufficient."

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221. FROM DESPAIR TO WHERE? - Has Philosophy Failed Us?

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“The comfort of thinking it can’t happen here is the surest sign that it is already near. Right on your doorstep, right on your street. Amazing how well we can walk in our sleep”


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220. HELLO HUMANS - A Teacher Writes on Their Inclusive Classroom

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“the bell rang and I could not think of a response in the thirty seconds I had to dismiss the class so left the question unanswered. I have been thinking about a response ever since so I have decided to write this.“

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218. FLAGS - Against Lamppost Patriotism

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“Once we did have a symbol of the country that used to make me proud:

hotels welcoming those seeking asylum from persecution with open arms.

Now the hotels are being shut down by angry mobs

and all we have in their place are cheap flags tied from lampposts

wilting damply in the rain. “

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217. I WAS WRONG: Rejecting Settling For a Better Tone of Oppression

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“Watching the Starmer government continue the same performative cruelty as their Tory predecessors for the last twelve months, I have to admit that all my anarchist and other radical critics were right and I was wrong: the tone of our oppression has not changed under Labour. “

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Association of Philosophy Teachers Annual Conference 2025: REPORT

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“The third annual conference of the Association of Philosophy Teachers (APT) took place on a beautiful June day at the equally beautiful St Dominic’s Sixth Form College in Harrow last Friday…“

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216. HAS WORLD WAR III STARTED? - On Defining Conflict

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“My students, raised on Remembrance Sundays and Lest We Forgets, are therefore asking me “do you think there’s going to be another world war?”

And I want to assure them that there won’t be, but my initial gut response is to ask instead how sure they are that we’re not already having one?“

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215. IT’S OK TO END THINGS - On Saying No Under Capitalism

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““I’d prefer not to” - the catchphrase of Melville’s scrivener, Bartleby, is a slogan of privilege. And yet it shouldn’t be. “It’s ok to end things”. And yet for many under capitalism, ending some things are impossible.”

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214. I'M GOING FOR A WALK - Connecting and Disconnecting from Nature

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“We take these walks through nature, I think, on some deep level, to remind ourselves that the majority of our lives are illusions. That nothing is permanent and eventually the march of nature will stomp right through our assured lies that we are someone separate from it; somehow protected. We check in with the world as it really is, to both maintain the illusion for little while longer once we get home, and to ready ourselves for what is inevitable: when the illusion necessarily ends.“

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213. IS GOOD CONTEXTUAL WHEN IT COMES TO ART? - Aesthetics and Geography

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“This conclusion doesn’t intend to demean our ideas of what we find good or bad in art. Rather it intends to expand our definition. Recognise that the thing we have written off before might only be written off because it was the wrong time or place to receive it. That everything can be given a second chance, or a third, or even a fourth if you are open to seeing what it is that others seem to appreciate but which you cannot, yet, seem to access.“

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212. A WASTE OF TIME? - How Ought We Spend Our Days?

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“the older I get, the more I am coming to realise that everything we do could be perceived as both a potential waste of time, or as precisely what time is there for: to fill it. The assumption that there is an objective “ought” about what we should do with our days is the mistake. “

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211. TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS - Why the UK Supreme Court Got It Wrong

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“Despite the court’s lip-service assurance that this judgement does not suddenly make it ok to discriminate against transgender people in the UK, in practice it absolutely does in ways that are both predictable and disgraceful.“

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