Some of the choices:
But first, a question: what happens to your Basic Beliefs in discussing these?
The goal: reaching ethical Maturity. In our quest for maturity we may find a pattern to which philosophical viewpoints are most attractive to us at different biological ages. As the comic strip above suggests, teenagers are not generally interested in “meaningful discussion.” There are exceptions to this of course, but the icon of the teenager would not be so commonly accepted if there was no basis for it.
It is also clear that a young person is unable to discuss more complicated issues than their biological age permits. Is this a function of neurological development? Is it related to the amount of experience a young person has had? Perhaps the vocabulary needed for “meaningful discussion” is lacking?
Certainly all of these things seem to be factors. The typical stages have been described by philosophers and psychologists. Among those descriptions most prevalent today are those developed by Kolberg. If we follow these what we discover is a movement from one of selfishness and certainty toward community and uncertainty. If this holds, then it would seem that the movement would follow a philosophical pattern in the following stages:
Religious – stage
where metanarratives described by parents are taken for the real.
Faith – stage where
metanarratives come in moderate conflict with other possibilities.
Idealism – stage
where metanarratives take on a more universal character.
Realism- stage where
previous metanarratives are given up in favor of the particular.
Empiricism –
stage where particular factors come to dominate.
Skepticism –
stage where metanarratives seem unbelievable.
Relativism – stage
where metanarratives are viewed as culturally contextual.
Pragmatism –
stage where metanarratives are evaluated as progressively better.
Postmodernism –
stage where metanarratives are evaluated as universal and coherent.
Phenomenology,
Functionalists
and Structuralists, Post-structuralists
and post-modernists
See the Outline of the Quest or continue from this point with the Syllabus to Introduction to Philosophy notes. You can also return to the Quest menu below to move to the next level.
Putting Wisdom to practical use.
