"In some ways one might welcome the fact that they are being brought up by one parent in such an unusual and distinct manner, as compared with the majority of their peers." Oh, really? I think not. The kids are being subject to child abuse of a rather nasty kind (how else should we describe telling children that their greatgrandmother is going to be damned to hell?). Of course, saying that doesn't settle how you should respond to the abuse. I agree with Oliver Leaman at least in this much: future influences are likely to counteract some of the effects. A healthy teenage dose of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll will probably do wonders. Still, you don't want your kids getting too caught up in some superstitious farrago in the meantime. What to do? I'd suggest some cheerful urbanity and gentle mockery (after all, kids rarely like to think that they are being uncool and rather silly ). But why not try some philosophy too? Press the obvious questions with wit and good-humour when the occasion arises: ...

I wonder what is meant in the question by talking of philosophy as a self-perpetuating field ? In what sense is philosophy supposed to be "self-perpetuating" while biology isn't? Perhaps the idea is supposed to be that philosophy is self-perpetuating because, unlike biology, it just goes round in circles for ever and never settles anything. If that is the implicit claim, then I think it should be resisted vigorously. It would be just absurd to deny that we now know a vast deal more about issues about language, meaning and reference than we did before the time of (say) Frege; it would absurd to deny that we now know a vast deal more about the nature of the mind than we did before the time of (say) William James. Again, think about the philosophy of space and time: it would crazy to suggest that we are stuck where Newton was. And so it goes, through area after area. Of course, "settling a question" in philosophy isn't exactly like settling a question in biology (though that too, as the...

To understand "the philosophers and their theories" you have to understand what philosophical questions were bugging them -- and understand the arguments they give for their theories (since the theories are worth no more than the arguments that support them). So it's not a really an issue of where to start, philosophers vs. questions. It's more an issue of whose list of questions to start with. An agenda set by some of the great dead philosophers? Or an agenda set by a class of students? Or perhaps somewhere in between -- an agenda set by the author of a good introductory book (like Simon Blackburn's Think ) which raises questions that look likely to have immediate "relevance" to the students, but which relates some of the responses and arguments to those of the great dead philosophers? In general I'd go for the third option. I certainly wouldn't go for the first.

Well, Jake, it is flattering that you put the philosophers on this site on the same level as the famous philosophers of the past! But I don't think we quite deserve that . And maybe, indeed, what separates us from those all-time greats is some quality of mind that we're never going to acquire, however hard we work -- something innate, if you like. But let's not worry about trying to emulate the great: let's take your question to be one about how to get modestly competent at philosophy (like your average philosophy professor here). The short answer is: by reading, and thinking, and discussing. A lot. It is no good reading without thinking hard about what you are reading, trying your best to understand and critically evaluate the arguments as you go. It is no good just thinking without reading, or you will almost inevitably just re-invent various tempting views that are now well known to be horribly problematic: you need all the help you can get to avoid the pitfalls. And even if you read and...