Epic Questions: Mind, Meaning and Morality

FAIN: ES-50362-10

University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA 22903-4833)
Mitchell S. Green (Project Director: March 2010 to June 2012)

A three-week institute for thirty school teachers to immerse themselves in an intensive treatment of topics central to philosophical inquiry.

Mitchell Green, the NEH/Horace W. Goldsmith Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Virginia, proposes a three-week Summer Institute to be held in July, 2011, aimed to provide high school teachers the knowledge and skills needed to teach Philosophy. This will consist in an intensive treatment of some main topics in the field selected with an eye to what teachers can most effectively bring back to their schools to enhance existing curricula. Topics to be covered will depend on the expressed needs of the Institute participants, but will be drawn from the areas of Metaphysics, Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind, Ethics, Political Philosophy, and Bioethics. Throughout, the emphasis will be on enabling teachers to present these materials Socratically rather than in a lecture format. All sessions will be held on the Central Grounds of the University of Virginia, and administrative support will be provided by the University's Center for Liberal Arts.

Media Coverage

Epic Undertaking: U.Va. Professor Aims to Strengthen Teaching of High School Philosophy (Media Coverage)
Author(s): R. arrington
Publication: U.Va. Today
Date: 8/31/2010
Abstract: Aesthetics. Epistemology. Metaphysics. Just a few terms that University of Virginia philosophy professor Mitchell Green hopes become part of the lexicon of American high school students. To achieve this epic goal, Green recently received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities [LINK TO http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/seminars.html] for a summer institute for high school teachers, which he developed and will sponsor in collaboration with U.Va.'s Center for Liberal Arts. "Epic Questions: Mind, Meaning and Morality," is part of a larger project that he has initiated, called The High-Phi Project.
URL: http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=12739

Associated Products

Project High-Phi (Article)
Title: Project High-Phi
Author: Mitchell S. Green
Abstract: This paper gives an overview of the aims and activities of Project High-Phi, whose goal is to support philosophical inquiry in America's high schools. One important component of Project High-Phi, and thus of the paper, is a description of the 2011 Epic Questions Institute held at the University of Virginia.
Year: 2012
Primary URL Description: This chapter appears in Goering, Shudak and Wartenburg (eds.) _Philosophy in Schools: An Introduction for Philosophers and Teachers_ (Routledge), forthcoming, 2012.
Format: Other

Metaphysics in the High School Classroom (Article)
Title: Metaphysics in the High School Classroom
Author: Mitchell S. Green
Abstract: This articles discusses a variety of topics and strategies for teaching metaphysics at the secondary level. It is based on discussions held at the Epic Question Institute, sponsored by the NEH, in summer 2011 at the University of Virginia.
Year: 2012
Primary URL Description: This article appears in J. Mohr Lone and R. Israeloff (eds.), Philosophy and Education: Introducing Philosophy to Young People (Cambridge Scholars Press), pp. 137-47.
Format: Other

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