What We Do

Individual stand-alone courses over 10 weeks, one session a week. These courses are especially appropriate to prisons where the population is relatively stable. They are run by young and able philosophers, who devise the courses themselves, advised and monitored by us: normally each course is run by two or three people.   These courses can be adapted to the population of particular prisons: for example, focussing on some problems in feminist philosophy for women’s prisons; or focussing on questions of identity and meaning for sex offenders.  

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Short courses over three weeks, one session a week. These courses are suitable especially for prisons with high mobility but can also serve as introductions to philosophy where a long course is planned subsequently. They focus on a particular problem (such as personal identity) with the aim of sparking an interest in this kind of work. They may work as a particular project (resulting, for example, in the collective development of an argument and counter-arguments) or more generally as an introduction to philosophical thinking. 

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Philosophy Clubs.  These are single sessions, run on a regular basis – monthly or bi-monthly –on a particular topic, suitable as introductions in prisons which are considering the possibility of inviting a longer course; or as continuity in prisons where a course has already been run, and possibly to bridge the gap between one course and the next.  Again, these are normally run by young and able philosophers, who devise the sessions themselves, advised and monitored by us; but occasionally they may involve senior philosophers to address some particular topic.