[PROPOSAL] The teaching of Philosophy and its didactic transposition

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Proponent:
Near account for payment: jsc2022.near

Project timeline: Mach 29 to May 10 (2022).

History: The Project “The Teaching of Philosophy and its Didactic Transposition” is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) which aims to discuss topics related to what is properly philosophical with regard to the common national curriculum base in Brazil (especially based on habilities and competences) and also on how to make the didactic transposition of complex philosophical topics to basic education without trivializing the themes and without making them even more complex. The project’s target audience are academics from undergraduate courses in Philosophy and professors who already work in the basic education network. The project started in 2014 (through the OpenLearning platform) and now we will develop the second edition through the Canvas by Instructure platform in 5 modules. Participants will receive individual certificates for each module completed (as each module is closed).

Objective:
Promote the continuing education of those interested in improving their pedagogical techniques and discussing the philosophical bases of argumentation (analytical and probabilistic reasoning) as a topic capable of developing cognitive skills for the consolidation of general competences.

Justification:
Reasoning is a fundamental tool, especially for problem solving and for anticipating events (essential for survival). There are several theories (philosophical, psychological and neuroscientific, for example) about how reasoning works (if they are syntactic or if they are semantic) and, since argumentation is one of the important tools of Philosophy, it becomes essential to understand how reasonings work and how is possible to make more efficient of the use very os this important skill. Our purpose is to promote additional and continuous training for future teachers and teachers who already work in the basic education network. In this sense, the project provides for a dialogue between the university and graduates so that a more adequate understanding of the role of Philosophy in basic education can be achieved and also on how to teach Philosophy (whether through the History of Philosophy or through Philosophical Problems). No less important is the contemporary impact of MOOCs (either in NEAR or in Universities), as they potentially reach thousands of people from different states and countries. The fact that the links will be posted on the DAO Store and that the guests will receive funding from NEAR, will cause a large number of people to start using NEAR (whose popularization could significantly contribute to the growth of DAO and NEAR as well). In 2017, when we relaunched the first edition on CANVAS, we had 650 subscribers in the first week after the course started (later we reached approximately 1,500 subscribers). Below I send the link of an article published on the website of the Federal University of Pelotas (still with the possibility of registering).

Timeline (Module 1):
Until 15 April: Call for 03 guests to recording videos about the following topics.

  1. Challenges of Teaching Philosophy in Basic Education.
  2. The National Curricular Common Base and the Role of Philosophy.
  3. Argumentation: Theories of Mental Logic versus Theories of Mental Models.
    Until 09 May: Recording videos, video editing and production of subtitles by jsc2022.near.
    10 May: Release of the videos and activities on Canvas by Instructure.
    In the months of April and May we will also do the same process for the launch of Module 2, whose proposal will be forwarded for approval after the response regarding the first module - and so on for modules 3, 4 and 5).

Project:
The videos and activities will be made available on Canvas by Instructure (free and unrestricted access platform for educational purposes) with an institutional and introductory video to NEAR so that course participants understand the potential of NEAR and can contribute to the community. phttps://canvas.instructure.com/search/all_courses

Budget:
USD 350 in NEAR - PhD. Juliano do Carmo (jsc2022.near) for organizing the Module 01 of the project [call for guests, recording videos, video editing and production of subtitles].
USD 50 in NEAR - for each of the three guests who will record the videos and propose the activities.
Total: USD 500 in NEAR.

Products/Deliverables:
03 published videos and activities of MOOC in Canvas by Instructure in Module 1. The videos will also available through the YouTube Channel of The Philosophers DAO. 03 NFTs that will have NEAR sponsoring in the description, with the link for Canvas and a cover image (with the description linking with the videos) and with splits for the DAO at the DAO’s store: philosophart.mintbase1.near - Minter.

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cc @thephilosopher - might be something for you to check out :tada:

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Already did, David. I called Dr. Juliano do Carmo to write this project down. It is already in our funding proposal. But we are thinking if it is possible to submit our funding proposal to the Creatives DAO, given there is no funding alternatives at Community DAO for this set of projects, and we tried to justify why this set would be a creative one:

What do you think, @David_NEAR?

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Ah, perfect. Good to hear.

Would be interested to hear what @tabear and the remaining CreativesDAO Council Members thing :100:

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Hey there, thanks for looping me in.

The Creative DAO moderators have discussed this earlier. Given that Philosophy belongs more into the are of education, we have linked the Philosopher with Sashi from the education team and hope that this way the Philosophy DAO can grow.

This is not to exclude anyone but to assure that the Creative DAO supports what it is meant to support - creative projects (NFT creation, musicians, VR etc.).

@David_NEAR if you have any other link to the education team or see a possibility for this to be supported by the Community squad, I am sure both @jsc2022.near & @thephilosopher would be very grateful.

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Unfortunately, @tabear and @David_NEAR, I havent got any answer that could lead to some development. Education did not answer, and Community answered, through @jlwaugh, but there is no funding oportunities for this DAO at this moment at Community DAO. James suggested me to look for a grant, but we are not seeking a grant at this moment. And he also suggested that I make a proposal to Ecosystem DAO, but not for The Philosophers DAO, but for an Academic Vertical we were developing the idea. So, concerning The Philosophers DAO, we are back to the Creatives, trying to get funding for a wonderful group of philosophers that could broader the ecosystem.

I asked many philosophers (PhD, Professors) that did not know the blockchain to build projects inside the NEAR forum, I asked them to open near wallets, I even asked some of them to login on mintbase and start building a profile. All of them did it; they are willing to enter this world, but it would be awesome, if we can help them. My fear is that they did everything, but maybe NEAR is not interested. If this is the case, please just let me know, and I will explain the other philosophers that NEAR does not have the intention for now to work with philosophers, and we can give up. But I am a little bit tired to run from one place to another (education, community, ecosystem…)

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In our funding proposal, you wiill see that all of our projects will mint NFTs. So Creatives would be supporting NFT creation, if our funding proposal is accepted.

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That’d be ace. Generally, I think it might be a little difficult to find a funding vertical to fund the discussion of philosophy. I’m only saying that because I feel as though it has little to do with NEAR, but happy to hear points contrary to that.

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Hi, David. Thank you for answer. I would say that if near main objective is to increase the community and take near ecosystem to more places, the Academy would be an important one. As I coordinate a project with around 200 professionals, from which at least 40 are phds, I think we can bring many people to near.

Concerning Philosophy specifically, i would say that it is already spread through the Creatives DAO. There are many talks about philosophical questions concerning art. This project is not specifically about art, but about how to teach philosophy. I think it could be a Creatives one, if we build creative products from the project. Do you agree?

I usually say that philosophical problems are problems that we can only solve by argumentation, and not by experiments or calculus. So, every academic area has philosophical problems, which are the deepest problems from each area. And we could dive into philosophical problems of many creative areas.

Beyond that, argumentation and building philosophical theories seem to me creative in a different aspect, maybe similar but different to literature. Philosophy is not hard science, neither a science like geography or history, given there is no empirical basis like they have. So maybe our theories are near Literature than History, for example.

And there are so many philosophical questions to debate over nfts, property, blockchain, art, politics, that philosophy would be a great addition to near.

Do you think these arguments are good?

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Hey,

Apologies for the late response.

That would make the most sense IMO.

I’ve no doubt there’s room for discussion on the topics from a philosophical POV, I would just need more convincing in regards to:

A) How it relates to NEAR
B) How it adds value to the community/ecosystem

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These are great questions, and I am glad you gave the opportunity to talk about them. Let me answer the seccond question first. I think this project and philosophy in general add value to the community and to the ecosystem in the following way:

  • First, it will call university professors to the ecosystem. This is good because: professors have their identity public and have a name to zeal, so they will not pretend to be someone else, they will not make fake accounts. This is the first things.

  • University professors also have access to university students, so the ecosystem can be broaded by them, in a way that we would have professors and students inside the ecosystem. I believe one of the main intentions of NEAR is to expand the use of the near token to many places.

  • In the third place, I believe philosophy university professors are a public that already have some resources (because of good salaries), so instead of just pulling out resources of the ecosystem, they can start to spend inside the ecosystem.

  • Another way they add value to the ecosystem is by bringing university books as NFTs, so it broaden ths specter of NFTs that mintbase and paras are used to work. Please, give a look in this project I made with an artist and a publisher from Philosophy: philosophart.mintbase1.near - Mintbase Store

  • So our answer is that we bring value, with philosophy, by bringing public people, professors, with resources and more communities around, to the ecosystem, and by the inovative production these people and communities will bring to the web3.

I had to answer the second question, in order to go to the first, because now I can tell you why it is related to NEAR. NEAR is protocol, a token, a community and an ecosystem around that protocol/token. If philosophy can produce movement in the blockchain (by NFT production) and it can bring communities to the use of the token and insertion in the ecosystem, with possibility of investing in it, it seems it could be an important community for NEAR to look at.

It ended up that we removed this project from our funding proposal, because maybe it was the least Creative of our projects, but I think our conversation here is deeply important nevertheless, because it seems this is broader than the topic of the proposal, given I am arguing for the importante of Philosophy and the Academy as a whole to NEAR.

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