Philosophy sports: A new modality of public participatory philosophy

My theoretical presentation in Mexico demonstrated Philosophy Sports, a new modality of public participatory philosophy featuring social reasoning (collaborative argument construction), confrontation of divergent perspectives, live dialogue, plus real-time phone voting and measured persuasive effects. This presentation was the first opportunity for the global community of practitioner philosophers to be exposed to, learn, critique and adopt Philosophy Sports as the future of public participatory philosophy.

Public participatory philosophy is both community engagement and experiential learning, two key strategic aims of Douglas College. The standard modality of public participatory philosophy is Cafe Philosophy, which, however, has recognized defects, specifically a lack of rigour and criticality, unscrutinized personal criteria of truth, and no measure of successful participation. Philosophy Sports is the next generation of Cafe Philosophy. Philosophy Sports is a series of games of competitive persuasion (publically-engaged experiential learning) that socialize the criterion of truth and the rules of logic as fair play. These games overcome recognized defects of Cafe Philosophy by requiring a shared (though contestable) criterion of truth, recasting the principles of logic as rules of fair play, and valorizing rethinking.