Excellence in Thinking: Philosophy at Scotch Dominates

The teaching of Philosophy opens students' minds to big ideas and promotes deep thinking. Students learn to reflect deeply, analyse arguments rigorously, arrive at independent judgements, and articulate their views with clarity, subtlety and respect.

Philosophy lessons in our Primary and Middle School levels are largely influenced by our inquiry process through the Primary Years Programme and the Middle Years Programme. This approach to learning encourages the development of a collaborative and investigative classroom community. It cultivates useful intellectual and social habits, such as careful listening, imaginative and critical thinking, clear communication and empathy. Students learn to articulate their views and to explore disagreements reasonably.

In Senior School, Philosophy is an established subject available to students that they are able to select in Year 9 and 10.

These elective courses are designed to introduce students to Philosophy as the mother of all intellectual academic inquiry and the birthplace of all the disciplines they study at school every day. Students are provided with a philosophical compass and toolkit with which to 'think well' and think through problems together in a community of inquiry. We provide frameworks for tackling subject matter that is often ambiguous, murky and difficult to resolve. Questions of identity, reality and moral significance. Students learn to appreciate the interdisciplinary and connected nature of knowledge whilst contending with the often wildly different perspectives and world views that exist. AC Grayling, one of the greatest philosophers of our time, provides perhaps the best metaphor for what philosophy can give our students,

"We humans occupy a patch of light in a great darkness of ignorance. Each of the disciplines has its station on the arc of the circumference of the patch of light straining to see outwards into the shadows to decry shapes and thereby to push the horizon of light a little further outwards. Philosophy patrols the whole circumference, making special effort on those arcs where there is yet no special disciplines, trying to formulate the right questions to ask in order that there might be a chance of formulating answers."

We ask boys to begin to imagine what the disciplines of the 22nd and 23rd century might be?

In addition, we also offer through Enrichment and Extension, Philosothon. An annual national philosophy competition that sees the best teams from each state duke it out in the spirit of deep philosophical inquiry. Unlike the debate format, students at this competition engage in what are called 'communities of Inquiry'. This is a highly collaborative format in which 10 students sit in a circle, tackle a question over the course of an hour together, are judged by experts in various fields of philosophy, and are rewarded for their critical, creative and collaborative thinking.

High performing Philosophy students are selected to take part in rigorous intellectual training sessions with our Scholar in Residence, Akram Azimi, around challenging stimulus material.

Scotch has dominated the state competition over many years now, winning the competition in 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 and securing first place in the national competition in 2016.

We wish this year's team well in their preparation for the first online Australasian Philosothon that will take place in late September.