Teaching Philosophy

Volume 21, Issue 4, December 1998

Philosophy Laboratory

This paper presents the author’s vision of a computer game, called “The Game of Life,” which would function as a classroom exercise to assist in the teaching of philosophical concepts such as principles of individuation, supervenience, the phenomena/noumena distinction, the physical stance, design stance, and intentional stance (as described by Dennet), the argument from design, and even monads. Originally invented by the British mathematician John Conway, the author describes a computer game version which would aid in philosophical pedagogy by allowing students the ability to experiment interactively with concrete instantiations of the highly idealized concepts that philosophy works with. The author addresses the pedagogical value of such interactive experimentation and argues that all philosophy laboratories should be stocked with such a computational workbench.