In close collaboration with the late Matthew Lipman, Ann Margaret Sharp pioneered the theory and practice of 'the community of philosophical inquiry' (CPI) as a way of practicing 'Philosophy for Children' and prepared thousands of philosophers and teachers throughout the world in this practice. In Community of Inquiry with Ann Margaret Sharp represents a long-awaited and much-needed anthology of Sharp's insightful and influential scholarship, bringing her enduring legacy to new generations of academics, postgraduate students and researchers in the fields of (...) education, philosophy, philosophy of education, Philosophy for Children and philosophy of childhood. Sharp developed a unique perspective on the interdependence of education, philosophy, personhood and community that remains influential in many parts of the world. This perspective was shaped not only by Sharp's work in philosophy and education, but also by her avid studies in literature, feminism, aesthetic theory and ecumenical spirituality. Containing valuable contributions from senior figures in the fields in which Sharp produced her most focused scholarship, the chapters in this book present a critical overview of how Sharp's ideas relate to education, philosophy of education, and the Philosophy for Children movement as a whole. The historical and philosophical nature of this collection means that it will be a vital resource for philosophers and educators. It should also be of great interest to teacher educators and those involved in the study of pragmatism and feminism, as well as the history of education across the globe, particularly in the United States of America. (shrink)

When we speak about the aim of doing philosophy on the elementary school level with children as transforming classrooms into 'communities of inquiry', we make certain assumptions about nature and personhood and the relationship between the two. We also make certain assumptions about dialogue, truth and knowledge. Further, we make assumptions regarding the ability of children to form such communities that will engender care for one another as persons with rights, a tolerance for each other's views, feelings, imaginings, creations as (...) well as a care for one another's happiness equal to the concern one has for one's own happiness. Lastly, we make assumptions about children's ability to commit themselves to objectivity, impartiality, consistency and reasonableness. The latter has social, moral and political implications. This paper is an attempt to identify and clarify some of these assumptions. (shrink)

In this first part, Matthew Lipman offers the reader a glimpse at the thought processes that resulted in Philosophy for Children and, in so doing, ...

The writings of Simone Weil support a feminist philosophy of education that locates freedom in self-determined creative work within contexts of necessity. In particular, Weil’s discussion of Force, the Good, Work, Method and Time provide criteria for a feminist philosophy of education, in terms of educational ends and means. Philosophy for Children is relevant to each of these themes, in various ways.

"Have you ever wondered how words began?" Monica asked. "I have," Stefan responded. "Did you come up with any theories?" "I'm afraid not," Stefan said. "The most I could think of was that perhaps words are what we make up to gather up the silence. That's not much of a theory." "I have a theory, Monica," I said. "Do you want to hear it?" The class settled down as if they were expecting a story.

By now, I would guess that thousands of teachers and children have read chapter one of Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery by Matthew Lipman. It is the chapter in which Harry discovers, among other things, the Aristotelian notion of conversation. The students and the teahers have probably talked about truth, conversation, discovery, invention, mind, resentment, daydreaming, and perhaps even the role of Lisa as the one who supplies the counter-example to Harry's theory about language and how it works.

A role of perirhinal cortex (PrC) in recognition memory for objects has been well established. Contributions of parahippocampal cortex (PhC) to this function, while documented, remain less well understood. Here, we used fMRI to examine whether the organization of item-based recognition memory signals across these two structures is shaped by object category, independent of any difference in representing episodic context. Guided by research suggesting that PhC plays a critical role in processing landmarks, we focused on three categories of objects that (...) differ from each other in their landmark suitability as confirmed with behavioral ratings (buildings > trees > aircraft). Participants made item-based recognition-memory decisions for novel and previously studied objects from these categories, which were matched in accuracy. Multi-voxel pattern classification revealed category-specific item-recognition memory signals along the long axis of PrC and PhC, with no sharp functional boundaries between these structures. Memory signals for buildings were observed in the mid to posterior extent of PhC, signals for trees in anterior to posterior segments of PhC, and signals for aircraft in mid to posterior aspects of PrC and the anterior extent of PhC. Notably, item-based memory signals for the category with highest landmark suitability ratings were observed only in those posterior segments of PhC that also allowed for classification of landmark suitability of objects when memory status was held constant. These findings provide new evidence in support of the notion that item-based memory signals for objects are not limited to PrC, and that the organization of these signals along the longitudinal axis that crosses PrC and PhC can be captured with reference to landmark suitability. (shrink)

This article explores loneliness as the affective life of settler colonialism through the work of queer Indigenous writer Billy-Ray Belcourt's two volumes of poetry This Wound Is a World and NDN Coping Mechanisms. In particular, the article focuses on how Belcourt draws on queer affect theory and critical race theory in the work of scholars such as Jose Muñoz, Leo Bersani, Lauren Berlant, Ann Cvetkovich, Saidiya Hartman and Christina Sharpe – as he explores the relation between sex and death, (...) and between cruising cultures and the ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples. It argues that Belcourt's innovative fusion of poetry and theory provides new genres for racialised understandings of loneliness and other structures of feeling. (shrink)

Focusing on the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason, historical and contemporary critics of Kant's rationalist ethical theory accuse him of holding an impoverished moral psychology and an inadequate account of character and virtue. Kant's sharp contrast between duty and inclination and his claim that only action from duty possesses moral worth appear to imply that pro-moral inclination is unnecessary for, if perhaps compatible with, a good will. On traditional accounts of virtue, however, having a good will and possessing (...) virtue require pro-moral emotions and inclinations. Thus, Kant's moral psychology seems at odds with the common view that emotions and appetites are constituent elements within virtue. Kant's defenders have argued that an adequate assessment of these charges must address his theory of virtue, as it is set out in The Doctrine of Virtue, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, and the Lectures on Ethics. Yet the prospect for reconstructing a plausible Kantian account of virtue from these tests may appear bleak when we see that Kant conceives of virtue as moral strength of will over recalcitrant inclinations, and characterizes virtue in terms of the autocracy of pure practical reason. For autocracy may seem to require the extirpation or suppression of feelings and inclinations. Indeed, it might seem difficult to distinguish the autocratic agent from the agent who, in Aristotle's terms, is merely continent, or who, in Schiller's terms, possesses dignity, but not grace. But these objections misunderstand autocracy. In the thesis, I argue that the self-mastery constitutive of Kantian virtue involves the cultivation of sensibility according to reason and that emotions and appetites modified and regulated by a proper conception of the moral law play a constructive role within Kantian virtue. (shrink)

What, if any, is the problem with treating bodies as objects or property? Is there a defensible basis for seeing bodies as different from "other" material resources? Or is thinking the body special a kind of sentimentalism that blocks clear thinking about matters such as prostitution, surrogate motherhood, and the sale of spare kidneys? I argue that the language we use does matter, and that thinking of the body as property encourages a self/body dualism that obscures the power relations involved (...) in all contracts that cedes authority over the body. Recognising the self as embodied, however, also makes it harder to insist on sharp distinctions between activities that involve the body and those that "just" involve the mind, hence harder to justify refusing payment for explicitly body services while condoning it for those to which the body is more incidental. I therefore provide a modest defence of monetary compensation for those who "donate" bodily products or services. Compensation does not, however, mean markets for there is at least one sense in which the body is special. This is that more so, and more intrinsically than other markets, markets in body parts or bodily services depend on inequality. I use this to make a case against such markets. (shrink)

Kantian Ethics aims to develop a defensible theory of ethics on the basis of Kantian principles. Its primary focus is Kantian ethics, not Kant scholarship or interpretation. The book fulfills a promise of Wood’s earlier book, Kant’s Ethical Thought , by developing a Kantian conception of virtue and theory of moral duties in greater detail, and it goes beyond Wood’s previous work on Kant’s ethics in offering extended treatments of substantive moral issues, such as social justice, sexual morality, punishment, lying, (...) consequentialism, personhood, and the status of non-rational animals.Acknowledging that his reading of Kant is now even further from traditional interpretations than it previously was, Wood contends that it is nevertheless “closer to the truth” . He aims to correct what he takes to be some serious misinterpretations of Kant’s views and, in setting the record straight, to provide for us “a better understanding of Kant’s own thoughts” . Some familiar points that Wood rejects are the ideas that Kant’s moral psychology involves a sharp dualism between nature and freedom, and that he was unconcerned with the empirical nature of human beings and human history, regarding such issues as entirely irrelevant to morality. (shrink)

This book explores the future of doctoral research and what it means to be involved in all stages of the process, providing international insights into what's changing, why it's changing and how to work best with these changes. It looks at the key issues that have been thrown into sharp relief by crises such as world pandemics. Drawing on work from outstanding authors, this book shows the ways in which the doctoral process has altered the supervisor/supervisee model, the challenges that (...) now need to be managed and demonstrates the importance of aligning all the stakeholders, systems and processes to ensure a successful future for doctoral education. Bringing together a range of perspectives, innovative practices and rigorous research this book tackles topics such as: how doctoral research changes in keeping with the global expansion and transformation of doctoral education programs the significant influence funding bodies - be they charities, governments, businesses, or non-governmental agencies - can have on doctoral research the extent to which doctoral research penetrates daily life and vice versa, and how to encourage and embed an ethical approach to research, as well as university responses to external challenges Uniquely international and bringing together the many stakeholders in the research business, this book is essential reading for all doctoral supervisors, candidates, and anyone involved in designing or organising research programmes for early career researchers and doctoral students. (shrink)

Andrée-Anne Cormier | : Cet article explore la question des implications de l’exclusion des animaux de la catégorie des sujets de justice dans le cadre du libéralisme politique de John Rawls. Plus spécifiquement, j’examine et critique les lectures de Ruth Abbey et de Robert Garner. Abbey suggère que le libéralisme politique est incompatible avec la thèse selon laquelle nous avons des devoirs moraux universels envers les animaux. Garner, pour sa part, avance que la théorie de Rawls n’autorise pas l’État (...) libéral à adopter des mesures de protection des animaux. Dans cet article, je démontre que ces lectures sont erronées, car elles sont fondées sur des interprétations du libéralisme politique qui ne sont pas plausibles. Je soutiens, d’une part, que le libéralisme politique est neutre eu égard à la question de la nature de nos devoirs moraux envers les animaux et, d’autre part, qu’il permet de justifier une gamme considérable d’interventions étatiques visant la protection des animaux. Je suggère donc que la tension entre le libéralisme politique et l’éthique animale est moins forte que ne l’affirment ces auteurs. Enfin, j’identifie des stratégies possibles, cohérentes avec le cadre théorique rawlsien, pour élargir la sphère des sujets de justice de manière à y intégrer les animaux. | : What are the implications of John Rawls’s Political Liberalism for animal ethics? In this paper, I examine Ruth Abbey’s and Robert Garner’s answers to this question. Abbey claims that Political Liberalism is incompatible with the view that there exist universal moral duties toward animals. Garner contends that Rawls’s theory cannot justify state interventions designed to protect animals. I show that these readings are based on implausible interpretations of Rawls’s theory. I argue, on the one hand, that Political Liberalism is neutral with respect to the question of the nature of our moral duties toward animals and, on the other hand, that the theory can potentially justify a significant range of state interventions in the interest of animals. This indicates that the tension between Rawls’s theory and animal ethics is less sharp than Abbey and Garner suggest. Finally, I identify possible strategies, consistent with the Rawlsian framework, for including animals among the subjects of justice. (shrink)

In this paper, I will demonstrate via reductio ad absurdum that a resolute reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus should reconsider their equation of “throwing away the ladder” with the “end of philosophy.” To do this, I will show that an inconsistency arises in Wittgenstein’s view regarding the relationship of philosophy and science since he associates “the correct method of philosophy” with the propositions of science at the end of the aforementioned text. Due to this, I will maintain that it is reasonable (...) to posit that the sharp distinction that Wittgenstein makes between philosophy and science in the Tractatus is merely illusory. An interesting consequence of this is that if this interpretation holds then this provides sufficient grounds to maintain that what some scholars refer to as “the end of philosophy” may actually be the beginning of “Wittgenstein’s naturalism.”. (shrink)

Involuntary autobiographical memories are spontaneously arising memories of personal events, whereas voluntary memories are retrieved strategically. Voluntary remembering has been studied in numerous experiments while involuntary remembering has been largely ignored. It is generally assumed that voluntary recall is the standard way of remembering, whereas involuntary recall is the exception. However, little is known about the actual frequency of these two types of remembering in daily life. Here, 48 Danish undergraduates recorded their involuntary versus voluntary autobiographical memories during a day (...) using a mechanical counter. Involuntary memories were reported three times as frequently as voluntary memories. Compared to voluntary memories, they were associated less with problem solving and social sharing and more with day dreaming, periods of boredom, no reasons for remembering and predominantly came to mind during unfocused attention. The findings suggest that involuntary recall is a typical way of accessing the personal past. (shrink)

This article analyzes the experiences of ecologists who used data they did not collect themselves. Specifically, the author examines the processes by which ecologists understand and assess the quality of the data they reuse, and investigates the role that standard methods of data collection play in these processes. Standardization is one means by which scientific knowledge is transported from local to public spheres. While standards can be helpful, the results show that knowledge of the local context is critical to ecologists' (...) reuse of data. Yet, this information is often left behind as data move from the private to the public world. The knowledge that ecologists acquire through fieldwork enables them to recover the local details that are so critical to their comprehension of data collected by others. Social processes also play a role in ecologists' efforts to judge the quality of data they reuse. (shrink)

The controversy between hunting apologists and their anti-hunting antagonists continues to escalate. Numerous attempts to settle the issue have failed in part because the participants have often not distinguished and treated separately the various activities labeled “hunting.” Those who participate in hunting fall into one of two categories: shooters or sport hunters. Shooters are those whose ultimate goals do not depend on hunting but can be met in other ways; sport hunters are those who take immense pleasure in the hunt (...) itself and who kill in order to have had an authentic hunting experience. Discussion of the morality of hunting (as opposed to its prudence) is properly restricted to the moral evaluation of the desire of sport hunters to kill for pleasure. This desire can be explained by biological/evolutionary concepts and defended as morally neutral. Neither the animal protectionists nor the utilitarian apologists recognize that violent death is part of nature and that man’s desire to participate in it can be both natural and culturally valuable. Though well-intentioned, utilitarianism is an impotent ethical defense of hunting because it can judge only the prudence, not the morality, of hunting. (shrink)

In December 1984 Angela Weir and Elizabeth Wilson, two founding members of Feminist Review, published an article assessing contemporary British feminism and its relationship to the left and to class struggle. They suggested that the women's movement in general, and socialist-feminism in particular, had lost its former political sharpness. The academic focus of socialist-feminism has proved more interested in theorizing the ideological basis of sexual difference than the economic contradictions of capitalism. Meanwhile the conditions of working-class and black women have (...) been deteriorating. In this situation, they argue, feminists can only serve the general interests of women through alliance with working-class movements and class struggle. Weir and Wilson represent a minority position within the British Communist Party (the CP), which argues that ‘feminism’ is now being used by sections of the left, in particular the dominant ‘Eurocommunist’ left in the CP, to justify their moves to the right, with an accompanying attack on traditional forms of trade union militancy. Beatrix Campbell, who is aligned to the dominant position within the CP, has been one target of Weir and Wilson's criticisms. In several articles from 1978 onwards, and in her book Wigan Pier Revisited, Beatrix Campbell has presented a very different analysis of women and the labour movement. She has criticized the trade union movement as a ‘men's movement’, in the sense that it has always represented the interests of men at the expense of women. And she has described the current split within the CP as one extending throughout the left between the politics of the ‘old’ and the ‘new’: traditional labour movement politics as against the politics of those who have rethought their socialism to take into account the analysis and importance of popular social movements – in particular feminism, the peace and anti-racist movements. In reply to this debate, Anne Phillips has argued that while women's position today must be analysed in the context of the capitalist crisis, it is not reducible to the dichotomy ‘class politics’ versus ‘popular alliance’. Michèle Barrett, in another reply to Weir and Wilson, has argued that they have presented a reductionist and economistic approach to women's oppression, which caricatures rather than clarifies much of the work in which socialist-feminists have been engaged. To air these differences between socialist-feminists over the question of feminism and class politics, and to see their implications for the women's movement and the left, Feminist Review has decided to bring together the main protagonists of this debate for a fuller, more open discussion. For this discussion Feminist Review drew up a number of questions which were put to the participants by Clara Connolly and Lynne Segal. (Michèle Barrett was present in a personal capacity.) They cover the recent background to socialist-feminist politics, the relationship of feminism to Marxism, the role of feminists in le ft political parties and the labour movement, the issue of racism and the prospects for the immediate future. The discussion was lengthy and what follows is an edited version of the transcript. (shrink)

Natural language is full of patterns that appear to fit with general linguistic rules but are ungrammatical. There has been much debate over how children acquire these “linguistic restrictions,” and whether innate language knowledge is needed. Recently, it has been shown that restrictions in language can be learned asymptotically via probabilistic inference using the minimum description length (MDL) principle. Here, we extend the MDL approach to give a simple and practical methodology for estimating how much linguistic data are required to (...) learn a particular linguistic restriction. Our method provides a new research tool, allowing arguments about natural language learnability to be made explicit and quantified for the first time. We apply this method to a range of classic puzzles in language acquisition. We find some linguistic rules appear easily statistically learnable from language experience only, whereas others appear to require additional learning mechanisms (e.g., additional cues or innate constraints). (shrink)

Identifying patterns in the world requires noticing not only unusual occurrences, but also unusual absences. We examined how people learn from absences, manipulating the extent to which an absence is expected. People can make two types of inferences from the absence of an event: either the event is possible but has not yet occurred, or the event never occurs. A rational analysis using Bayesian inference predicts that inferences from absent data should depend on how much the absence is expected to (...) occur, with less probable absences being more salient. We tested this prediction in two experiments in which we elicited people's judgments about patterns in the data as a function of absence salience. We found that people were able to decide that absences either were mere coincidences or were indicative of a significant pattern in the data in a manner that was consistent with predictions of a simple Bayesian model. (shrink)

Three female physicians were interviewed as part of a comprehensive investigation into the narratives of female and male physicians and nurses, concerning their experience of being in ethically difficult care situations in the care of elderly people. The interviewees expressed great concern for the low status of care for elderly people, and the need to fight for the specialty and for the care and rights of their patients. All the interviewees’ narratives concerned problems relating to perspectives of both action ethics (...) and relational ethics. The main focus was on problems concerning the latter perspective, expressed as profound concern and respect for the individual patient. Secondary emphasis was placed on relationships with relatives and other professionals. The most common themes in an action ethics perspective were too little treatment and the lack of health services for older patients, together with overtreatment and death with dignity. These results were discussed in the light of Løgstrup’s ethics, which emphasize that human life means expressing oneself, in the expectation of being met by others. Both Ricoeur’s concept of an ethics of memory and Aristotle’s virtue ethics are presented in the discussion of too little and too much treatment. (shrink)

Children learn their native language by exposure to their linguistic and communicative environment, but apparently without requiring that their mistakes be corrected. Such learning from “positive evidence” has been viewed as raising “logical” problems for language acquisition. In particular, without correction, how is the child to recover from conjecturing an over-general grammar, which will be consistent with any sentence that the child hears? There have been many proposals concerning how this “logical problem” can be dissolved. In this study, we review (...) recent formal results showing that the learner has sufficient data to learn successfully from positive evidence, if it favors the simplest encoding of the linguistic input. Results include the learnability of linguistic prediction, grammaticality judgments, language production, and form-meaning mappings. The simplicity approach can also be “scaled down” to analyze the learnability of specific linguistic constructions, and it is amenable to empirical testing as a framework for describing human language acquisition. (shrink)

A strength of Jablonka & Lamb's (J&L's) book lies in its accessible as well as thorough treatment of genetic and epigenetic inheritance. The authors also provide a stimulating framework integrating evolutionary research across disciplines. A weakness is its unsystematic treatment of the interaction between behavioral and symbolic inheritance, particularly in their discussion of language.