EPIC Welcome to EPIC International Consultants. EPIC (the European Philosophical Inquiry Centre) was founded by Dr. Catherine McCall in Glasgow, Scotland in 1990 in order to deliver Philosophical Inquiry projects with children, schools, business and communities, and to create postgraduate courses (offered in both Strathclyde and Glasgow universities) to train PI facilitators. In 1993 EPIC moved to Glasgow University where M.Phil. postgraduates were involved with many schools and community PI projects. EPIC International Consultants continue to implement Philosophical Inquiry with adults and children in Scotland, Portugal, Germany, Bulgaria, Australia and England. EPIC INTERNATIONAL CONSULTANTS Dr. Catherine McCall (USA and Scotland) Dr. Veselin Dafov (Bulgaria) Dr. Maria Rego (Portugal) Dr. Claire Cassidy (Scotland) Ms. Avril Sigerson (Scotland) Mr. Eitan Grant (Scotland) Mr. John Macmillan (Scotland) Mr. Howard Robinson (USA and Germany) EPIC International Consultants offers a service to schools, businesses, Health-care Trusts, community organisations - wherever people need to think well, make good judgements, and communicate effectively. We help you to solve problems, develop creativity and improve communities

June 2006 conference TALKING THIINKING: Philosophy and Dialogue with children and adults Saturday June 17th 2006 – Monday June 19th 2006 at The Centre for Lifelong Learning, Strathclyde University, 40 George street Glasgow G1 1QE, UK The 2nd EPIC International Conference on Philosophical Inquiry and Lifelong Learning (2006.) Including SOPHIA [The European Foundation for doing Philosophy with Children] The conference is preceded by the Strathclyde University Certificate of Professional Development in Community of Enquiry Methodology from June 12th - 16th. The conference will give delegates the opportunity to learn about many different aspects of philosophical dialogue with both children and adults from distinguished international speakers. The presentations include: · Participatory workshops in which delegates will experience different methodologies by taking part in live sessions · Live demonstrations of Philosophical Inquiry with children · Video presentations from different countries · Reports of empirical research in the field · Theoretical papers from international speakers The first EPIC International Conference on Philosophical Inquiry and Lifelong Learning in 1996 introduced delegates to the nature of communities which are created though different practices of philosophical dialogue with both children and adults. This second international conference is designed to continue this learning as well as introducing teachers and other professionals to this expanding field. As well as attending presentations, delegates attend a reception in city chambers and a ceilidh. Time is also made available for delegates to pursue cultural activates such as visits to museums, art galleries, concerts and city walks. Day One Saturday 17th June 10.00 -12.00 SOPHIA BOARD MEETING 12.00 - 1.00 lunch 1.00 - 3.00 SOPHIA BOARD MEETING 3.00 - 4.00 break 4.00 - 5.00 Conference delegates’ registration 6.00 – 6.20 Official Opening and Welcome Dr. Catherine C. McCall University of Strathclyde, President of SOPHIA, Director EPIC 6.20- 7.00 Special Presentation Eulalia Bosch, Gao lletres, Barcelona Philosophical settings 8.00 - late Scottish Ceilidh with buffet This is a participatory event which includes: traditional Scottish music; traditional Scottish dance (delegates will be taught how to dance Scottish dances); songs, poems and stories from delegates and speakers mother cultures. Day Two Sunday 18th June 9.00 - 9.40 Presentation and Participatory Workshop Radmila Sutton and Dr. Sara Liptai, SAPERE, England "What good are the arts?" – Aesthetic enquiry with a contemporary work of art from Glasgow 9.40 - 10. 20 Keynote Speaker - Paper Dr. Karel van der Leeuw, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands The Relation between Written and Spoken Dialogue in Classical Chinese Philosophy 10.20 - 11.00 Live Demonstration of Philosophical Inquiry with children Dr. Catherine McCall, Director EPIC, President SOPHIA, Tutor CLL Strathclyde University, Scotland, (EPIC International Consultant) 11.00 –11.20 break 11.20 – 12.00 Presentation Prof. Marina Santi, University of Padova CIREP Educativa sul Pensiero, Italy 12.00 – 12.40 Participatory Workshop Dr. Oscar Brenifier, Institut de Pratiques Philosophiques, France “Mutual questioning” 12.40 - 4.40 p.m. lunch break followed by cultural visits/ project meeting/ WORKSHOPS 4.00 – 4.40 Paper Dr. Claire Cassidy, Faculty of Education, Strathclyde University, Scotland (EPIC International Consultant) 4.40 - 5. 20 Presentation Dr. Aneta Karageorgieva, Dept. of Philosophy, Sofia University, Bulgaria Leonard Nelson’s Socratic Method 5.20 – 6.00 Paper Predrag Krstic, VI Grammar School, Belgrade, Serbia '' Why still philosophy? Once again.” 7.30 - Conference Reception at Glasgow City Chambers Day Three Monday 19th June 9.00 - 9.40 Presentation Dr. Zanda Rubene and Ms. Ieva Rocena, Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology, University of Latvia “Philosophy and Teacher Education. Latvian case” 9.40 - 10. 20 Keynote Speaker Paper Dr. Tiziano Tosolini, University of Nanzan, Japan "The I-Thou Relationship in the philosophy of Nishida Kitaro “ (EPIC International Consultant) 10.20 - 11.00 Live Demonstration of Philosophical Inquiry with teenagers Avril Sigerson, Kennyhill School, Glasgow, Scotland (EPIC International Consultant) 11.00 –11.20 break 11.20 – 12.00 Paper and Demonstration Ms Mary Haight, Dept. of Philosophy, Glasgow University, Scotland “Teaching Philosophy through Thought Experiments” (EPIC International Consultant) 12.00 - 12.40 Paper Howard Robinson, Germany (EPIC International Consultant) 12.40 - 4.40 p.m. lunch break followed by cultural visits/ project meeting/ WORKSHOPS 4.00 - 4.40 Keynote Speaker - Presentation Dr. Maughn Gregory, Director IAPC, Montclair State University, NJ, USA “Evaluating Philosophy in Schools” 4.40 - 5.20 Paper Dr. Maria Rego, Director Centre Menon (Portugal) “Perception and Cognition and its relation to Philosophy for children” (EPIC International Consultant) 5.20 – 6.00 Plenary Presentation Mr. Roger Sutcliffe, President SAPERE, Chair ICPIC, “The importance of Reflection” 6.30 – 7.30 Final Conference dinner Conference details and Application form

Applied PI projects - PHILOSOPHY IS FUN From 1994- 1995 EPIC ran a community project in Castlemilk Glasgow called PHILOSOPHY IS FUN. PHUILOSOPHY IS FUN was funded by 'safe Castlemilk' an organisation which was established to reduce the levels of violence in the community in Castlemilk. PHILOSOPHY IS FUN involved six groups: group 1 - 7 year old children from Braeside Primary School groups 2 , 3 and 4 - 10-11 year old children from several different primary schools were brought together in order to create a community between children from opposing sectarian sections and so prevent violence. group 5 - adults who met in the local community centre group 6 - adults who met in the local pub Each group was facilitated by graduates from the M.Phil. degree in Philosophical Inquiry at Glasgow University PHILOSOPHY IS FUN proved to be the most successful project in preventing violence in secondary school by bridging the sectarian divide which exists between sections of the community and affects children who attend the different primary schools divided on sectarian lines. The project was featured on STV NEWS and in 'The Big Issue' newspaper.

APPLIED PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY PROJECTS EPIC has developed applications of PI with: · Children in schools, · Adults and children in the community · Philosophy and European Contemporary Art · Against violence in the community and many more EXAMPLE 1 Philosophy and Art with children . The PECA project which ran from 1995- 1998 involved children, teachers and teacher trainers from Scotland, Spain, Belgium and Italy. PECA was featured in ‘The Readers Digest’ , ‘The Sun’, ‘The Herald’ and on BBC Scotland News . The PECA project won an award from the European Union as a model of European co-operation and development in education. – see link below. EXAMPLE 2 In 1992 the ‘Empowerment through Philosophical Dialogue ‘ project featured in ‘The Independent’ , ‘The Times’ , ‘The Herald’ on the BBC WORLD SERVICE , BBC Radio Scotland. This pioneering project involved children and mothers from areas of multiple deprivation in Glasgow . PECA Philosophy and Art with children

WHAT IS PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY [PI]? I first created the practise of Philosophical Inquiry or PI (as taught in the M.Phil. in Philosophical Inquiry from Glasgow University, and practised by M.Phil. graduates) in 1975-76. PI is a practise used by trained Facilitators to get groups of people to engage in philosophical dialogue with each other. PI differs from Philosophy in so far as people in a PI group do not learn the history of philosophy, nor do they use academic language, but rather they are guided by the Facilitator to develop their own thinking about philosophical questions and issues. I developed PI initially for the use of members and guests of The Metaphysical Society of Trinity College, University of Dublin in order to make the Metaphysical Society papers more accessible and more attractive to the general public. Adapting the practise described in Plato's Symposium, guests were encouraged to discuss theories and ideas with visiting philosophers round a table (with wine). These discussions were directed and structured so that a quasi-dialectical form would be followed. Participants were requested that one person present an argument as a thesis, and a second person would then be expected to present a counter-argument (antithesis). Other participants were encouraged to present examples and counter-examples which would illustrate the thesis and antithesis. Participants were encouraged to reach a synthesis beyond the two original arguments, which in turn would act as the thesis of the next stage of the dialogue. Although a little difficult to start, the practise was very popular with both visiting philosophers and the participants at these meetings. Some years later teaching a Manchester University extra-mural philosophy class, I found I needed some way of including all the students who included a University Fellow in Genetics, a sixteen year old school leaver, some housewives, a judge et al. I decided that rather than teach the course I had prepared, which I could not 'pitch' at a level which would be suitable for everyone in the class, we would hold an inquiry into the topic using the method I had developed for the Metaphysical Society. The course was very successful and one of the major features of the course was that the participants laughed! This contrasted with the more traditional teaching methods which I was using with the Hons. Philosophy students at the time. I began to look for ways in which I could do practical philosophy, and in 1984 I was invited to New Jersey USA, to teach postgraduate courses for teachers in Philosophy for Children and develop postgraduate courses with Matthew Lipman . Finding that there were no teaching materials for children under the age of 10, I decided to simplify the structure of PI in order that young children (5 and 6 year olds) could engage in PI. The simpler structure proved to be extremely fruitful with adults as well as children and has been in use since 1984. PI participants inquire into philosophical ideas and /or philosophical aspects of experience which they themselves have raised. The topics of inquiry which are raised by participants are usually stimulated by reading a text. This can be a philosophy text or a newspaper article, or more usually a novel which has been written especially to stimulate philosophical thinking. Usually there are a range of questions to choose from and the PI Facilitator will choose the question which has the most philosophical potential as a starting point of the dialogue. Not every subject will bear philosophical inquiry, and so not every topic which a group may raise will bear philosophical inquiry - at least not in the form raised - never-the-less the dialogue in which the group engages will be about a topic or topics raised by the group. It should be stressed that it takes time for a group of people, whether children or adults, to become proficient in the practise PI. Initially a group of people starting to engage in discussion about philosophical topics, tend to put forward views as individuals. People are more inclined to defend views against counter-argument as in debate, rather than contributing ideas to the group. People feel very attached to the ideas or views which they put forward, and most people experience any disagreement about their ideas as personally diminishing. However through the experience of the PI procedures of making relationships between different views clear, members of the group gradually come to realise that contrasting points of view are necessary for the emergence of dialogue. Concurrently as dialogue emerges the enjoyment of real PI increases, as the movement or dynamic of the dialogue takes hold. What begins as a collection of individuals engaging in discussion or debate gradually transforms into a community engaging in philosophical dialogue. The individual's experience of being a member of a community of philosophical inquiry is very different from the experience of engaging in a discussion. Adults describe the experience of being a member of a Community of Philosophical Inquiry as energising. Even though they have been engaged in intensive thought and dialogue for perhaps two hours at the end of a working day, many adults report feeling refreshed and invigorated after the experience. Personalities within a group become less and less important, as people become more and more engaged in the inquiry itself. One important feature of the community of philosophical inquiry which distinguishes it from other forms of discussion and/or investigation is that within a community of philosophical inquiry everything is open to question. Questions concerning the truth of assumed premises, ethics, the consequences and implications of solutions which go beyond any set problem are crucial in a Community of Philosophical Inquiry. While children and adults can be taught logical or analytical thinking (such as the kind of thinking taught in Critical Thinking courses) and can gain mastery of problem solving and decision making procedures, these procedures although similar in the reasoning skills involved, are limited in their subject area. They take an isolated area of experience and define the boundary of experience to be considered. It is because of these set parameters in problem solving or decision making procedures that a meaningful claim can be made that a logical solution could be, and some even claim was, arrived at concerning, for example the so called problem of what to do with unwanted children in Nazi concentration camps (see below). The "problem" as defined in such an example is not open to question. Assumed premises are not open to question. The problem is a given, and while the problem solver might use logical thinking skills to come to an answer, "solving" such set problems never involves questioning the premises. It may be that every case of deliberation, reasoning or inquiry must start with assumed premises, or unjustified assertions, but - and this is a crucial point - in a Community of Philosophical Inquiry such premises are open to question. For example, during an inquiry about the nature of moral action the community may raise an initial question as to whether an action be judged good or bad by considering the intention of the actor, the action itself, or the consequences of the action. This is the temporary starting point of the inquiry. Dialogue may ensue with different views concerning the implications of weighting these different factors. However in a Community of Philosophical Inquiry it is likely that the assumption itself (that action can be divided as it were into these components) would be challenged. Questions concerning the nature of action itself might be asked -" Is there such a thing as unintentional action?" Or queries concerning whether it is possible to judge the intention of another person at all, and therefore what is meant by intention in the original question, might be raised. The assumptions behind the initial question are themselves open to inquiry, as are the possible implications of theories or statements. What the participants are required to do is to show the relevance of the questioning of the assumptions to the issue under investigation. It is always possible to question every assumption as a matter of course, in what could be considered a trivial way. So although assumptions are always open to question in a community of inquiry the questioning itself has to be shown to be relevant to the inquiry. The difference between the use of reasoning skills - logical and analytic thinking skills - in closed problem solving or decision making procedures and the emergence of reasoning skills within a Community of Philosophical Inquiry is important. I will illustrate with an extreme, but real example. Take the group of doctors who worked with human subjects in Nazi concentration camps. They used logical procedures to further their inquiry. They discovered more about the subject matter under investigation. (Information which is still used by the community today). They discussed with each other. No doubt even agreed and disagreed with each , gave reasons for their , looked at counter-examples . The primary reason that the group of nazi doctors did not and could not constitute a Community of Philosophical Inquiry was because certain kinds of assumptions - for example that Jews, Gypsies and others were subhuman - were not open to question. Neither the truth of such assumptions nor the ethical implications of their assumptions were open to question. The presuppositions which allowed the closed problem solving deliberation could not be questioned. Problems were set in a form similar to saying that: 'Given that these 50,000 people are endangering the pure Aryan Volk ' then ' ......' What was never up for investigation was the given. While other environments are appropriate places for reasoned argumentation, the important feature of Philosophical Inquiry is that kinds of thinking and behaviour which are not rational, cannot succeed. It is through engaging in dialogue that participants come to know what succeeds in furthering the inquiry. They discover for themselves that certain kinds of thinking and interaction do not further the inquiry. So for example, aggressive behaviour towards other members of the group kills the inquiry. It does not take long for the group and it's individual members to realise that the inquiry has gone cold. What was an interesting and even enthralling dialogue has died. The group comes to know by experience that the inquiry does not and cannot proceed by aggressive argumentation in forensic style. It just does not work and so it gets dropped. Similarly in the initial stages members of a group who are uncomfortable with disagreement often try to nullify differences by re-describing the issues so as to present a consensus position. Again the group's experience of what happens to the inquiry leads to this style of interaction being dropped. The purpose of philosophical inquiry is not to come to agreement, or to find a consensus, or to solve a problem or to find an answer. It might occasionally happen, but agreement or consensus within an inquiry is always a temporary resting point. The purpose of inquiry is to inquire, the inquiry provides insight into issues or illumination of concepts rather than definitive answers. It is because issues about which there are no definitive answers comprise the content of philosophical discussion or argumentation, there is no other successful way to proceed to do philosophical inquiry. One needs to strive for consistency; to present arguments; to give examples; to examine consequences; to examine assumptions; to examine counter-arguments etc. There are no authorities on philosophical questions. While there are famous philosophers [alive and dead] whose views are influential, the jury is never in on philosophical questions. So other ways of proceeding such as obeying orders, or making arbitrary decisions, or memorising information, following algorithms etc. cannot be successful in furthering the philosophical inquiry. There are other kinds of environment which require this kind of reasoning. For example, a theoretical physicist at the fore front of the field is likely to be in an environment in which obeying orders, or making arbitrary decisions or memorising established facts etc., would be entirely unsuccessful procedures to use. In such an environment the answers are not known, there are no authorities or precedents. The environment requires innovative, rational thinking and inquiry procedures. I would note here that a great deal of the work undertaken by scientific researchers and investigators does not require innovative inquiry procedures, but theorists at the conceptual edge need to be able to generate and reason about theories. Unlike conceptual inquiry in theoretical physics, very little experience of the world is needed in order to engage in e.g. metaphysical inquiry. Very little empirical knowledge is required to inquire about the nature of reality, or truth, or justice or beauty. These are basic human issues and anyone, no matter how little knowledge or experience they may have, can think about them, can reason about them, and can engage in philosophical inquiry on these issues. Experience of the world and knowledge about the world can provide the inquirer with illuminating examples to bolster his or her arguments, and to enrich their investigations, but the basic questions are the same for a six year old child as they are for a sixty year old philosopher. But the Community of Philosophical Inquiry involves more than just the use of philosophical reasoning to pursue philosophical questions. It is created by participants engaging in philosophical dialogue in order to pursue a joint inquiry. Individuals within a Community of Philosophical Inquiry do not compete with each other, but rather contribute to the inquiry being undertaken by the group. It is through the dynamic created by the dialogue that the argument or line of inquiry is furthered. And the dynamic is dependant upon the fact that there is a resource of different people with different ideas to draw upon. Within the Community of Philosophical Inquiry conditions are created which encourage synthesis between ideas and transcendence of any individual idea or argument. The knowledge of any one person is limited. Joint inquiry provides a larger pool of experience, and the possibility of generating new ideas and theories. In 1897, Charles Peirce wrote "Only once, as far as I remember, in my lifetime have I experienced the pleasure of praise ..... and the praise that conferred it was meant for blame. It was that a critic said of me that I did not seem to be absolutely sure of my own conclusions." People who are sure of their own conclusions are not curious, people who are not curious have no desire to inquire. The disposition which drives inquiry, either in a community of philosophical inquiry, or in Peirce's community of scientists arises from curiosity. If there were such a thing as infallible human beings there would be no need to engage in philosophical dialogue in order to inquire. Adapted from The Stevenson Lectures 1991 (c) Catherine C. McCall (1991)