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Comment by standeven | Hacker News Reader

I strongly believe that if everyone were to take an introductory philosophy course such as this, the world would be a much better place. It seems most arguments that people make, on both sides of any issue, are fallacious and hide the really important points that should be discussed instead.

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> I strongly believe that if everyone were to take an introductory philosophy course such as this, the world would be a much better place.

France has mandatory philosophy classes in the 12th grade. The average French citizen is far from being a model of critical reasoning and a paragon of logical thought.

(this week the "bac" takes place, a final exam French students have to take to graduate high school. A text from Victor Hugo was in the French language exam; shortly after the exam, "Victor Hugo" started trending on Twitter, insulted by high schoolers all over the country [0]).

[0] http://www.france24.com/en/20140619-france-victor-hugo-twitt...

Maybe it's just me, but I think the title is kind of off-putting. These really are valuable skills, but anyone who got into arguments or did debate in high school, etc., etc. developed at least the rudiments of making arguments and discerning when a point was/wasn't valid just as verbal 'self-defense'.

In my philosophy 101 class at a decent public university, people had a lot of trouble actually engaging with the questions, every week we had a couple of asides dealing with what were usually pretty silly points.

I thought the instructor did a decent job with it, but it was always a boring period in the class.

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