The purpose of the paper is to evaluate the philosophy syllabus content-, process- and integrative curriculum-wise. The overall objective of the philosophy curriculum is to encourage pupils to ask their own questions and to analyse philosophical texts in order to promote independent and critical thinking. In the Slovene upper-secondary schools, philosophy may be taught either in the third or the fourth year of studies. The curriculum is broken down in three modules (A, B and C). A module is taught in all general and professional upper secondary schools in 70 hours; module B is taught exclusively in classical upper secondary schools in 105 hours; and module C comprises 210 hours to be taught to those who choose to sit a baccalaureate exam in philosophy. The C module makes it possible for pupils to develop a high degree of independence in their thinking since pupils are required to read a philosophy book and write an extended essay on a chosen problem. The module A is focused on 4 questions: (1) what is philosophy; (2) what can I know; (3) what shall I do; and (4) a topic to be chosen. In all modules one of the main teaching methods is working with a text. Nevertheless, 70 hours allow to read only short passages. The classical programmes allow for a link to be made between ancient Greek and Latin on the one hand and philosophy texts on the other. Module C requires pupils to be thoroughly familiar with one philosophy work. Curriculum offers a systematic approach philosophy and an overview of philosophical disciplines (theory of cognition, anthropology, ethics and aesthetics). Thus the previously cumbersome historical approach to teaching philosophy has been readjusted. The paper looks into how to make the philosophy curriculum more interdisciplinary and integrative. Since philosophy is a basis for all other sciences, teaching philosophy could be in principle linked to any other subject and not only to psychology, sociology and the Slovene language. The issue is how to achieve this objective in terms of staff and organisation. Anglo-Saxon world has connected philosophy curriculum with ethics and religion. Module A allows philosophy to be associated with psychology, sociology, the Slovene language and history. It is possible to make most associations in module C since this model has most hours at its disposal. Still, since links are not predefined, it is up to philosophy teachers to contact colleagues of other subjects.

This paper constitutes a further reading to the evaluation study “Evaluation of the upper secondary education from the perspectives of the extensiveness of the curriculum, inclusion of the cross-curriculum knowledge, and representativeness of the curriculum goals” which compared the changes that occurred in the curricula between 1991 and 1998 and analysed philosophy syllabus 2005.

Various new didactical approaches lend themselves to process-oriented approach, in particular the constructivist didactics and the communication didactics of dialogue. Philosophy didactics comprises these special kinds of didactics but from a critical perspective. A critical approach is necessary since philosophy is a problem in its own right that philosophy has to solve time and time again. Philosophical didactics requires a teacher to be well-versed and to have an open philosophical mind in order to be a reflecting practitioner. The teacher has to be able to ask various types of questions in order to pursue objectives of philosophy classes and to realize the process-oriented curriculum which defines pupils' thinking procedures.