"Why We Should Require All Students to Take 2 Philosophy Courses."

Colleges should require all students to take two philosophy courses, argues Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner in his article in the latest Chronicle of Higher Education. One course would be designed "to equip graduates with a philosophical armamentarium they could draw from - and contribute to - for the rest of their lives," focussing on "the big questions of life:"

• "Questions of Identity" (Who am I? Who are we?).
• "Questions of Purpose" (Why are we here? What’s it all for?).
• "Questions of Virtues and Vices" (What is truth? What is beauty? What is morality?).
• "Questions of Existence" (What does it mean to be alive, to die, indeed, to be? Or not to be?).

The other would study "how reflective human beings have been asking such questions for millennia, across many cultures and many epochs."