Labs are part of biology, chemistry, and physics classes. The lab experience presupposes that biology, chemistry and physics are relevant fields of study. Math generally does not have labs, but students do exercises on boards. We do not see labs in art, history, most psychology, english and political science courses. Perhaps foreign languages are among the few soft cultures with labs. This does not mean the courses are irrelevant, but that they are mainly intellectual and lecture-discussion disciplines. No labs exist for philosophy. Indeed, many people would consider philosophy as irrelevant.
Field experiences may be more common for arts, broadly speaking. Sociology, anthropology, political science, religion and other disciplines have teachers taking students to various locations outside the classroom, outside academia for experiential learning. Again, philosophy has no known field experience or trips.
The closest we may come to something more than lecture and discussion in philosophy are powerpoint, movie, and similar technologies. Powerpoint helps in developing student observation and reflection. Slides will show city streets. Instructors would then have students think about and write down whether streets are one way or two way. The former are due usually to congestion, and are to simply have people get from point A to point B, instead of both ways. Are the main streets only for mass transit and autos, or do they have bike lanes? Bike lanes assume the philosophy of transportation that pedestrians and nonmotorized vehicles are relevant and healthy for travel. Is there much auto traffic? This supposes that cars are relevant, necessary, and we ought put up with such traffic especially in the big city. One way streets, absence of bike lanes, and lots of auto traffic can mean atomism or monism, while two streets, bike lanes, and moderate auto use would denote the more humane and existential, phenomenological. Means of travel reveal that city officials who may never have studied philosophy, necessarily make philosophical assumptions about the existence of, and getting from point A to point B.
Does the city have parking meters? These denote that city officials believe the government needs money to such an extent, that taxes and so on provide insufficient funds. Students see autos that are two- and four-door. The former simply allow the passengers and driver to get in and out. The latter make entering and leaving more comfortable and existential.
What of buidings? Slides can show high rises, two and three story buildings, those with decor or ornateness, and any following form follows function. High rises, and form follows function denote monism and mere quantity. One, two or three level buildings, ornateness reveal the phenomenological and existential.
What students view on slides, teachers can also have pupils observe and experience during field trips. They will take relatively long walks, ride elevated and subway trains, and buses. They can also use bicycles. Their aim is to determine whether objects and processes show monism, phenomenology, existentialism, or other positions. And perhaps students can discuss the impact on life of which they experience.
Police in cars mean monism, on foot patrol and bikes, they represent intersubjectivity.
Learning can involve shopping. Paying by credit card or other form of technology denotes monism and reduction to numbers. Using cash means the economy acknowledges phenomenology and is semi numeric. In stores, self service and automation tell us shopping is increasingly impersonal, and reduced to quantity and monism. Existence of cashiers would mean intersubjectivity, and that the economy has the human or existential element.
By scheduling visits, the class can go to learning institutions regarding forms of epistemology. A trip to a school for the gifted, or ordinary educational place with rooms for the gifted, shows that some learners are innately knowledgeable. Seeing places where tutors help many slow learners, manifests the idea of mere empiricism, and that some pupils need much sensory experience to know. The class does not need to restrict itself to reading about Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Descartes, Kant, and Leibniz.
The class may see parks. This means a humanizing, existential character in the city. Green lawns, trees, gardens reveal an ecological relation with nature. Recreational areas, open spaces throughout the city reveal phenomenology, the existential and human factor. A city with few such areas, a suburb with few if any open land is a monistic situation. Cities where neglect has blighted areas, might have these because of postmodernism, pragmatism, nihilism of citizens.
Whether in alleys or on streets, most neighborhoods have garbage bins, and often recycling bins. If only garbage bins exist, then society is only discarding after use. If recycling bins are seen, the city is reusing the material instead of only discarding. Bins mean people are discouraged to litter the streets, revealing monism and quantity. To put items no longer used in either garbage or recycle denotes a more existential orientation, helping promote aesthetic and healthy cities. Government officials may or may not have studied philosophy but have made philosophical assumptions regarding garbage and nature.
As students walk around the city, have them write down the number of times they hear or engage in conversation where the speaker says something needing proof, or not needing proof? This is part of the philosophical notion of truth and truth theories. Reading about truth and truth theories is fine, but ought be integrated with students’ daily conversational experiences.
Hospitals exist, and hotels relate to them etymologically. The philosophical assumption of phenomenology meant caring for the sick came first. Then society made the assumption that healthy people can temporarily stay in a hotel if need be. In 2019, there are outpatient, neighborhood, small clinics even for surgery. This brings in the existential dimension to health and medicine. The bigger and more complex the hospital, probably the more we reduce patients to numbers. In many cases, hospitals denote reaction to illness instead of preventative medicine. Students ought note whether hospitals have preventative medicine classes or programs. Prevention is intersubjective and pre-numeric. The doctor is not yet prescribing medicine, which is chemicals and quantities. Treating a sick patient is often reaction. Reaction tends to mean an illness was beyond our control. This leads to discussions of whether we are free or determined.
Give students an opportunity to see if the city is part of urban sprawl. This is monism. Cities expand atomistically, lacking parameters and simply adding block and mile after mile of development. People are constantly having to travel from points A to B because city planning has allowed the urban area to be divided into different points. Division and distance require more time and energy for the person to travel from one place to another.
There is a difference between the small shop and the neighborhood grocery, and the huge commercial chain grocery. The former two serve local people and often the owners know their clients. People are more than consumers. They are human beings. Just as in medicine, the monistic doctor treats the illness where the phenomenological, existential one treats the patient, in shopping, the large chain store sells to the consumer. The smaller grocer sells to the person living nearby. The large chain store sees the consumer as an “it,” where the small store considers each person as an “I-thou” relation.
Have students observe how many people walk around either talking on cell and smartphones. Indeed, how many people are carrying their phones in their hands? Communication and conversation have been reduced to quantity, technology, and anonymity. This is monism.
Bridges over rivers can be ornate (phenomenological, existential), or mainly form follows function and thus monistic, sterile, mechanical. Students can see bridges and evaluate how society considers travelling from one side of a river to the other. Do people simply mechanically “cross the bridge” as they get there, or do they existentially appreciate a humanized bridge that is ornate? If there is much traffic, are we reducing travel to number and mere population density? Such conditions will lead to bi-level bridges. Residents from one side cross or drive on the top level, those crossing from the other side take the lower level. This is akin to the monism of two way streets turned into one way streets.
Along with experientially familiarizing students with monism, phenomenology, pragmatism, and existentialism, and postmodernism, teachers can insert the ethical. It is one thing to discuss a philosophical position such as whether reality is one, many, or embodied. It is another and deeper to debate the moral and ethical principles and implications of these positions.
The philosophical field trip, which is philosophy on foot, is the pedal, experiential aspect of the total teaching and learning system. To paraphrase the allusion to MIT at the start of this blog, in the field and perhaps watching powerpoints in class, students learn by doing. They observe and write down sensory activity. In the classroom, they think about what they have experienced in the city, suburbs, or in slides. A dialogue occurs between the field and classroom, between the slides and class discussion. This interaction between classroom thinking, and field and powerpoint doing, might well start with freshman orientation, and recur as senior reorientations.
Field trips would also include attending and taking notes during town hall meetings, city hall events, and other open government activities discussing community issues. Back in class, philosophy introduction students would discuss what they experienced during the meetings. They participated in and observed how and why the government is doing what, when it is doing things, implementing laws. Introduction to philosophy, as my book shows, brings together parts of field experience into a coherent whole, having seen monism, phenomenology, existentialism, and other metaphysical positions in ethics, epistemology, social thinking.
Michael M. Kazanjian
Michael M. Kazanjian teaches college philosophy. Kazanjian's books, articles, presentations, and conference papes, are interdisciplinary, showing that philosophy touches on all technology, art and science. The expansion of knowledge increasingly reveals how philosophy continually puts disciplines into integrated perspective. His third book, Unified Philosophy: Interdisciplinary Metaphysics, Cyberethics, and Liberal Arts, alludes to MIT's notion that students "do" in laboratories, and in class "think about" doing in labs. Physical activity and lab experience is good as part of a teaching and learning interaction with cognitive, reflective acts to put the bodily experiences into perspective.
