Why does France insist school pupils master philosophy?

Other countries have school-leaving exams which cover the history of ideas and religion and so on. But the French are very clear that that is not what theirs is. The purpose of the philosophy Bac is not to understand the history of human thought but to leap into the stream that is the actuality of human thought. If you learn about what Kant or Spinoza once said, it is not so much to understand their argument as to use their argument. Napoleon launched the Baccalaureat in 1809, and philosophy was one of the subjects in the first ever exam (though back then it was oral, and in Latin, and only 31 males took it).The idea behind philosophy was itself entirely philosophical. In the newly created republic (and yes, I know Napoleon had just made himself emperor, but the point still holds) it was important to create model citizens. Had not the great writer and thinker Montesquieu himself said the republic relied on virtue, and virtue consisted in the capacity of individuals to exercise their own freely-formed judgment? So the purpose of teaching philosophy was - and remains, in theory - to complete the education of young men and women and permit them to think.

 By Hugh Schofield /BBC News / more