Welcome to PHILOSOPHY UNLEASHED

September 09, 2030 by DaN McKee

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!

CLICK EACH LINK BELOW TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

182. MUCH TOO QUIET ON SET - Stepping on Eggshells as we All Work Under Capitalism

April 21, 2024 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Culture, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, Work, Wrestling

“This is not just Hollywood stuff. This is not just the entertainment business. This is all work under capitalism.“

179. INFERRING THE END - Doom-Spiral or Fallacy?

February 26, 2024 by DaN McKee in Communication, Culture, Economics, Meaning, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed

“We had seen the signs that things weren’t going well. That the wheels were falling off a bit. And we had made the inference - this place was going out of business. And the inference was right.“

178. FREE PALESTINE - On Anti-Semitism

February 19, 2024 by DaN McKee in Identity, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Racism, Politics, War

“As a Jew, I want to live in a world without anti-Semitism. I also want to live in a world with a free Palestine. These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, or in tension with each other. And we need to ask questions of motivation from those repeatedly peddling the myth that they are.”

177. REACHING ROCK BOTTOM - Why England Needs to Sober Up

February 05, 2024 by DaN McKee in Culture, Identity, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics

“I guess what I am really doing is posing the following thought experiment: do you think a sober society would have sat by and done nothing for twenty-four years as their country failed to meet even the most basic standards of functioning anymore? And does the fact that England is not a sober society give us some explanation as to why the English have seemingly done exactly that?“

175. SUING MADONNA - The Ethics of Honouring Stage Times

January 22, 2024 by DaN McKee in Communication, Culture, Economics, Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture

“is Madonna’s late start really “unconscionable, unfair, and/or deceptive”? In philosophical terms: are such late start times, different from those advertised, genuinely immoral?“

174. THE TRAITORS AND EPISTEMOLOGY - Why We're All Floundering In The Dark About Knowledge

January 15, 2024 by DaN McKee in Epistemology, Media, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Pop Culture

“It is epistemically wild to watch how fellow human beings construct seemingly viable theories of knowledge out of the flimsiest of observations and inferences.“

172. INFLUENCERS - Why Violent Video Games Must Make Us More Violent

December 03, 2023 by DaN McKee in Culture, Death, Education, Environment, Ethics, Meaning, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Pop Culture, Social Media, Teaching, Wrestling

“When you speak to a classroom of teenagers about the possibility that playing violent video games might make them violent, you can immediately see the smirks and ready yourself for their knee-jerk defensiveness. After all, they are the smirks and defensiveness you, yourself, have given in response to the same suggestion your whole life…“

171. RISHI SUNAK'S ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT - Rwanda and the Greatest Fallacy of Which We Can Conceive

November 27, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Economics, Elections, Immigration, Logic, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Truth

“Sunak’s latest descriptive wish of a ‘safe’ Rwanda is just another modern day Gaunilo’s island: a stark example of the demonstrable failings of the ontological argument’s logic and, perhaps, of the UK Prime Minister’s troubling commitment to perpetuating damaging linguistic fantasies instead of solving actual problems in the real world.”

170. ON HEELS - Whatever Happened to Good and Evil?

November 20, 2023 by DaN McKee in Elections, Ethics, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Pop Culture, Wrestling

“When things are so awful everywhere all the time, they lose their impact as being awful. Exploiting children to bring us cheap consumer goods is no longer an outrage, it’s just good business. Taking a home away from someone is just what happens. Another bomb is dropped on Gaza, we hit another year in the Russian invasion of Ukraine - this is just life for those people. We glaze over. We don’t think too much about it. We share some more funny memes and watch videos of people injuring themselves online.“

168. IT'S NOT JUST THE KIDS, IT'S US - Why It's Important for Teachers to Look in the Mirror

November 06, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Culture, Education, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Pop Culture, School, Technology, Teaching

“in a world where there is a very real epistemological threat coming from falling down online rabbit-holes into algorithm-guided conspiracies, we teachers are spending a lot of our own free-time guided by those very same dangerous algorithms as we hunt and click for hours looking for the perfect clips for our students. We then normalise this behaviour to our students“

166. WHAT'S IN A NAME? - What The Trivial Can Tell Us About The Significant

October 16, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Free, Gender, Identity, Meaning, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed

“if my utterly inconsequential change of capitalisation could not be easily noted and assimilated into the understanding of work colleagues, friends or family, then I could barely imagine what it would be for a far more important identity marker to be so similarly ignored“

165. JUSTICE FOR VICTIMS - Why I Wouldn't Want My Killer Jailed

October 09, 2023 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Education, Ethics, Justice, Mental Health, Philosophy Unleashed, Philosophy, Politics, Punishment, School

“One student was obviously unconvinced, and remained incredulous that I was advocating a world without punishment. The last question of the night saw them ask: “what would you want to happen then if someone right now, god forbid, ran to the stage and shot you dead? What would you want to happen to them?“

164. CHALLENGING UNIFORM - The Unwarranted Assumption Behind What Children Wear at School

October 02, 2023 by DaN McKee in Education, Identity, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Work

“We realised that there was a big, and unjustifiable, leap that has been made to get from the starting assumption of needing a uniform to the end conclusion that children need to be dressing up everyday like businesspeople from a bygone age. That even if you wanted to justify the idea of enforcing a uniform, you needed to go a long way further from that to justify the bizarre uniforms most schools actually make their poor students wear.“

162. PRACTICAL ETHICS - When Do Economies Become Unethical?

September 17, 2023 by DaN McKee in COVID19, Economics, Death, Education, Ethics, Justice, Obligation, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Politics, Punishment, School

“I am interested in the question of whether the practical compromises economies necessarily demand on our actions are, in fact, immoral, and whether such immorality makes these economies not only unfit for purpose, but unfit to such a capacity that we actually have a moral duty to replace them?“

161. THE GREAT CONSPIRACY - On Philosophy Classes and Dangerous Thought

September 11, 2023 by DaN McKee in Authentic Democracy, Communication, Culture, Education, Epistemology, Ethics, Meaning, Mental Health, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Perception, Politics, School, Technology

“conspiracy thinking - the initial pathway that leads to conspiracy answers - trades on many of the motivating assumptions of philosophy as an activity: a desire to get to some underlying hidden truth beyond the superficial understanding of everyday life.“

158. SOCRATES WEPT - On Resisting The Unexamined Life

June 19, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Education, Epistemology, Meaning, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Truth

“I had some interesting conversations with students this week about first principles. How, once you unpack the thing you are talking about you might realise that you no longer believe what you thought you did, or might even be having a different conversation entirely…“

157. I WON'T MISS SIR - On Naming Our Teachers

June 11, 2023 by DaN McKee in Communication, Culture, Education, Gender, Identity, Meaning, Perception, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Work

“Any time we approach an area of education with an attitude of it being too difficult or even impossible for someone to do something, we make it so through a process of self-fulfilling-prophecy.“

156. USE YOUR ILLUSION - Magicians and Reality

June 05, 2023 by DaN McKee in Epistemology, Meaning, Perception, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, Truth

“I used to think it was the clowns who were the real heroes - speaking truth to power about the absurdity of power and mocking those in authority with satire and parody. But nowadays I think it might be the magicians.“

ANARCHIST ATHEIST PUNK ROCK TEACHER

June 01, 2023 by DaN McKee in Anarchism, Book, Education, History, Philosophy, Philosophy Unleashed, School, Work, Wrestling

Is the memoir of DaN McKee's twelve years as a conflicted Philosophy and Religious Studies teacher out June 16th on Earth Island Books!

It not only contains some highlights from the last four years of Philosophy Unleashed, but shows how anarchist philosophy, atheism and a background in DIY punk rock has influenced and shaped DaN's approach to the classroom, as well as his approach to life.

As the blurb says: "'Anarchist Atheist Punk Rock Teacher' is more than just a memoir of some teacher you've never met. It is philosophy of education, of anarchism, of authenticity, and of life. Throw in some personal history, the deaths of both of his parents to deal with on top of juggling all the professional absurdities that come with the job (not to mention having to teach through a global pandemic), and you have all the earmarks of a biographical classic."

If you want to pre-order it directly from the publisher, do so here. If you want to pre-order it from Amazon, do so here. It's available in both paperback and as an eBook.

CLICK EACH LINK BELOW TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE

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