Philosophy Commons^™

Sport Medicine And The Ethics Of Boxing, Suzanne Leclerc, Chris Herrera

Department of Philosophy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

In the light of medical evidence of the health risks associated with boxing, a watchful agnostic position among sport physicians is no longer justifiable. The normal activity in a boxing match places the athletes at risk of head injury, some of which may be difficult to detect and impossible to repair. This suggests that sport physicians and others expert in the prevention and diagnosis of such injuries should take a public stand against boxing, as other medical associations have. Although there is a need for continuing research into the health risks, doctors can in the interim take steps to increase …

Great Blueness And Other Predicaments (1968) By Arnold Lobel, Gareth B. Matthews

Picture Books

Long ago, there was no color in the world. It was the time of The Great Greyness. Down in the cellar of his house a Wizard mixed up something in a pot and used it to paint the thatched roof of his house. “I call it blue,” he told his neighbors, who begged him to share it. Soon the whole world was blue. It became the time of The Great Blueness. Unfortunately, having blueness everywhere made people sad. So, the Wizard went back down into his cellar and came out with something new .... Philosophy is colorful! Plenty of …

(1998) Reconstructing Childhood, David K. Kennedy

Collected Papers of David Kennedy

Awakening to the voice of the child means that the latter is understood as the bearer of new information for adult self-understanding. As distanced other, the child's status is analogous to what feminist standpoint theorists describe as "valuable 'strangers' to the social order. Like women, persons of color, or others marginalized by Eurocentric and patriarchal personal, interpersonal and social constructs, the child's location in the social and natural world affords her an "epistemic privilege." Since she lives before, or at the margins of the adult instinctual economy, her relationship to that economy is inherently transgressive. What this does for the …

Lulu And The Flying Babies (1988) By Posy Simmonds, Gareth B. Matthews

Picture Books

It was snowing by the time Lulu’s family arrived at the park, so her parents took them to the museum next door. Lulu sulked and protested: “Don’t want to see the pictures!” so her parents left her sitting on a couch. A winged cherub climbed down from a painting hanging above her and flew Lulu into the winter scene of a Flemish painting, then into other paintings where they splashed in the sea, growled at a tiger, rode a horse, and fell off a cliff. Artists, poets, and writers give us ways of escaping our world, but they also give …

Will Philosophy For Children Take Hold In Mainland China? Observations And Thoughts On The July, 1997 Workshop In Kunming, China, Deng Peng, Zhang Shiya, Liao Boqin

Collected Papers of Philip C. Guin

This report on the first philosophy for children workshop in the People’s Republic of China, conducted by Philip C. Guin and Laurance Splitter 25-31 July 1997 at Southern Station Elementary School in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, concludes the workshop "proved a success in every respect."

(1997) Some Reflections On Inquiry, Community And Philosophy, Laurance J. Splitter

Collected Papers of Laurance J. Splitter

Not all communities of inquiry are communities of philosophical inquiry. Still, there is something special and intrinsic about philosophy when it comes to the community of inquiry. Think of Matthew Lipman's oft-repeated claim that philosophy is the discipline that teaches children to think in the disciplines. And remember that one of his (and Dewey's) greatest insights was that children could be members of a community of inquiry. I should like to put these ideas together in the following way: irrespective of whether the inquiry engaged in by a community is philosophical, the community itself is philosophical. In short, every community …

8. Nous (Novel), Matthew Lipman

Later Elementary School Curriculum

Pixie has invented this short novel, which is the sequel to the story she narrated in the novel Pixie. In this story, we are introduced to an intelligent giraffe confronted with a moral dilemma. The Giraffe, whose name is Nous, thinks first of what her moral obligations would be as a person of virtuous character. Brian and Pixie, along with their classmates, try to help her by discussing what a moral education should be. In so doing they help Nous decide what to do, even though it is not a decision they favor. Matthew Lipman's Nous is a wonderful …

9. Deciding What To Do: Instructional Manual To Accompany "Nous", Matthew Lipman

Later Elementary School Curriculum

Deciding What to Do consists of a variety of exercises and discussion plans with which teachers can initiate or flesh out classroom discussion of concepts in the Nous program. The program concentrates on some of the ethical considerations children should take into account deciding what to do when faced with a moral problem.

(1996) Pixie Meets The Pre-Socratics, Philip C. Guin

Collected Papers of Philip C. Guin

There is a relation between the development of early science and philosophy and the cognitive needs of children. Both operate with a paucity of experience, both are hypothetical and conjectural and both have the capacity for critical self-correction—the former in sensitivity to its tradition and the latter, insofar as children have access to a community of inquiry. Pixie, then, is an ideal forum for the introduction of science and philosophy in a manner similar to that in which it occurred in the Greek tradition, providing, along the way, the newness and freshness of discovery and invention.

(1996) Education For Global Citizenship, Philip C. Guin

Collected Papers of Philip C. Guin

There is plenty of enthusiasm for the idea of global citizenship. There is in fact ample support for education to promote global citizenship, judging by large sections of school supply catalogs, their programs, films and books proudly and handsomely displayed. Columbia Teachers College has a program, as does Montclair State University, and our doctoral program at Iberoamericana includes a course entitled Education for Global Citizenship. All the more reason why the words of detractors seem so stark and peevish - especially those of many conservative political opponents who shower disdain on globalisms of any sort, for example, on the 1995 …

19. Sources And References For Pixie, Matthew Lipman

Early Elementary School Curriculum

This sequential bibliography matches the 1981 edition of Pixie page by page. It contains both sources—works that influenced Matthew Lipman in writing the novel, references to philosophical works he and Ann Margaret Sharp recommend to explore the novels’ philosophical themes, and brief commentary on them by Lipman.

(1996) The Practice Of Philosophy In The Classroom, Laurance J. Splitter, Ann Margaret Sharp

Collected Papers of Laurance J. Splitter

Philosophy for Children is at once strongly child-centred and highly teacher-sensitive. It encourages students to delve into, and build upon, ideas, concepts and problems that they themselves choose as both interesting and, in some sense, important. Yet it is the teacher who, at least in the first instance, must encourage her students to talk and to listen, who must weave into a coherent form their disparate thoughts and ideas, and who must exemplify modes of thoughtful and reasonable behaviour.

(1996) John Passmore: On Teaching To Be Critical, Laurance J. Splitter

Collected Papers of Laurance J. Splitter

"What," asks John Passmore, "is it to teach a child to be critical, and how can we tell whether we have been successful in doing so?" Notice the phrasing of Passmore's question: his concern is with being critical--that is, with being a critical thinker qua being a person of a certain kind--rather than with (merely) thinking critically. Part of the answer, then, is implicit in the question itself: to be critical is not a matter of being informed, or of blind habit, or even of skill (although he does not altogether deny the skills component). It is, chiefly, an attitude …

(1996) Young Children's Moves: Emergent Community Of Inquiry In Early Childhood Discourse, David K. Kennedy

Collected Papers of David Kennedy

When children as young as four converse in groups, and when some structure is provided by an at least moderately skilled facilitator of dialogue, that critical, creative, and collaborative kinds of thinking happen more or less spontaneously, and that there is an emergent structure of argument, which forms the horizon of every critical discussion. My assumption is that it is in the nature of language as a logical and communicative structure that when we talk, and especially when we collaborate in talking about one thing over a number of turns, we spontaneously make at least some of the moves of …

Fiona’S Bee (1975) By Beverly Keller, Gareth B. Matthews

Chapter Books

Young Fiona saves her money to buy a dog dish, which she puts on her front porch and fills with water every day, hoping to make friends with a dog who might stop by for a drink, and with its human walker. But when a bee lands in the water and nearly drowns, Fiona's rescue results in her making a whole group of new friends in an unexpected way. Beverly Keller's delightfully offbeat story nudges us to think about what kind of respect we owe to creatures like bees, what kinds of animals can be pets, and what the limits …

Standing Up To Mr. O. (1998) By Claudia Mills, Gareth B. Matthews

Middle Grades Books

Fifth-grade Maggie's refusal to dissect a worm in science class is the first step on a philosophically-complicated path of moral awakening that will lead to conflict with her family, her friends, and her school. Claudia Mills’ middle-grades novel Standing Up to Mr. O. is an ideal text to introduce a discussion of moral issues concerning the treatment of animals. Almost all the points one would want to include in such a discussion are raised here, and they appear in a way that makes them immediately accessible both to teenagers and to their parents and teachers.

(1995) On The Theme Of “Teaching For Higher Order Thinking Skills”, Laurance J. Splitter

Collected Papers of Laurance J. Splitter

In my view, the “lower-order/higher-order" dichotomy has passed its “use by" date. If we examine concepts like “comprehension” and "knowledge" a-Ia Bloom, and even such a focal curriculum concept as “literacy", what we uncover are not single skills which are at some point on a “lower-order/higher-order” scale but, at best, complexes of skills ranging from the more, to the less, basic. To teach for better thinking involves understanding the complexity of “thinking" and of those many skills which comprise it. It involves understanding that the kinds of characteristics offered by theorists of thinking do not pick out a higher – …

(1995) Philosophy For Children Planning Workshop Report, Laurance J. Splitter

Collected Papers of Laurance J. Splitter

On the weekend of October 6-8, 1995, the Centre of Philosophy for Children at ACER conducted a "strategic planning workshop" which brought together 25 philosophers, teachers, principals, psychologists and teacher educators from all Australian states and territories, plus New Zealand. Its purpose was to address a number of key questions relating to the future development of philosophy in Australian schools.

(1995) Who Owns The Flowers? (Philosophical Story), Ann Margaret Sharp

Collected Papers of Ann Margaret Sharp

I don't believe in spanking. Do you? I was only spanked once in my life. I had been returning from school, and spied a garden full of beautiful flowers of many different colours, shapes and sizes. "How pretty they would look on Mama's table," I thought to myself, and before you knew it, I had picked a bunch to bring home to her. I learned very quickly that one should never pick flowers for one's mother. I was shocked by the spanking and there is a sense in which I have never forgiven my mother for it. But it has …

(1995) Review Of The Philosophy Of Childhood By Gareth B. Matthews, David K. Kennedy

Collected Papers of David Kennedy

In this book, Matthews works the vast, vaguely contiguous fields of academic philosophy, developmental psychology, cognitive science, child study, and education in his own unique and asymmetrical way. His project has a Wittgensteinian flavor; he is an expert at cleaning up muddles, or carefully tugging apart things that, after he's done them, we see didn't belong together anyway. The chapter themes are wide ranging-from children doing philosophy to the theories of reigning child epistemologists, to children's art, to children's rights, to children's understanding of death, to the philosophy in some children's literature, to whether children think morally, to the continuity …

Burglar Bill (1979) By Allan And Janet Ahlberg, Gareth B. Matthews

Picture Books

Burglar Bill lives alone with a house full of stolen property. Every night after supper he goes off to work, stealing things. Every dawn he comes home with his sack full of stolen goods and sits down to his breakfast of stolen toast and marmalade and stolen coffee. Some of my favorite children’s stories are written in a style I call “philosophical whimsy.” In the story of Burglar Bill, the whimsy is aimed at encouraging us to think about the life of a full-time thief as if it were an almost boringly normal sort of middleclass life. The story invites …

(1994) Introduction To “The Echo Of The Voice Of The Children” By Catherine Young Silva, Philip C. Guin

Collected Papers of Philip C. Guin

Guin recounts his friendship with Catherine Young Silva, who received her Master's degree in Philosophy for Children, at Montclair State College and later established and directed the Brazilian Center of Philosophy for Children in São Paulo, Brazil. He explains her understanding of the political importance of children's philosophy and his process of editing her curricular philosophical story "Catherine's Story."

Hour Of Letdown (1954) By E.B. White, Gareth B. Matthews

Young Adult Books

A man came into a New York bar with a big, ugly-looking machine and ordered two drinks. The man downed his own drink, then he poured the second whiskey into a small vent in the machine. The bartender ordered the man to remove the machine from his bar, but the man refused, explaining that the machine needed to be able to “let down,” having just won a chess tournament. Nowadays, many of us spend important parts of our lives “interacting” with computer programs. E.B. White’s whimsical story from his 1954 collection The Second Tree from the Corner suggests is that …

(1994) The Growth Of Self-Esteem Within A Community Of Inquiry, Philip C. Guin

Collected Papers of Philip C. Guin

Feeling good about oneself is, today, a fashionable way of describing self-esteem. Collections of more or less discrete feeling states, whether of happiness, confidence, competence, success, well-being and others, supposedly add up to feeling good about oneself. Accordingly, a villain and a saint might implausibly find themselves in company, as belonging to the class of those enjoying self-esteem. That both may be victims of self-deception, pathological cases, is irrelevant, for to the extent that self-esteem is tied to feeling states, virtually anyone may be a candidate. What makes this idea of self-esteem slippery is that one may possess it irrespective …

(1994) Jesse’S Question (Philosophical Story), Ann Margaret Sharp

Collected Papers of Ann Margaret Sharp

I'm still thinking about my question. 'Mum, why do people have babies?'

Mum stops rocking and just stares at me. I'm beginning to think she doesn't understand my words when she says, 'Jesse, what a funny question.'

'I don't think it's funny, Mum. Or silly.'

Mum starts rocking again. 'Maybe people have children because they want to make their love last.'

'There are lots of children who could use that love,' I say. 'Like the children who live on the streets.'

(1994) A Mixed Business (Philosophical Story), Ann Margaret Sharp

Collected Papers of Ann Margaret Sharp

In this story the immigrant boy Geraldo listens to adults in his neighborhood discuss whether or not to demand the his public school be bilingual (Spanish and English) and the meaning of multicultural democracy.

(1994) The Five Communities, David K. Kennedy

Collected Papers of David Kennedy

Those of us who have experienced the joy and terror of the intensive formation of a philosophical community of inquiry (COI) over an extended period, understand intuitively that it is a process of development which has certain characteristic structures and patterns. These can be glossed in a number of ways, all of which will be metaphors, if only because any given moment in the life of the COI is an instant of vertiginous freedom. The five structural dimensions of the COI which I am identifying are gesture, language, mind, love, and interest. I want to call them "communities" because each …

(1994) Jessie Left, David K. Kennedy

Collected Papers of David Kennedy

In this short curricular story that dramatizes David Kennedy's article "The Five Communities" (1994) a young people's community of philosophical inquiry is disrupted when one of their members, Jesse, leaves in anger. The group discusses what this event means for their community and their inquiry.

Now Everybody Really Hates Me (1993) By Jane Read Martin And Patricia Marx, Gareth B. Matthews

Picture Books

Patty Jane has been confined to her room for misbehaving at her brother’s birthday party. She resolves to stay there for the rest of her life, never cleaning it, even if poisonous mushrooms grow on her bed. She conceives an extravagant scheme for walking her dog without leaving her room, and a more extravagant plan to dig a tunnel so she can pull the plug when her brother takes a bath. Patty Jane is never conciliatory or matter-of-fact. Every threat, every promise is an outrageously imaginative idea. Being under the control of others—her parents—she belongs to the great army of …

(1993) The Growth Of Self-Esteem Within A Community Of Inquiry, Philip C. Guin

Collected Papers of Philip C. Guin

Feeling good about oneself is, today, a fashionable way of describing self-esteem. Collections of more or less discrete feeling states, whether of happiness, confidence, competence, success, well-being and others, supposedly add up to feeling good about oneself. Accordingly, a villain and a saint might implausibly find themselves in company, as belonging to the class of those enjoying self-esteem. That both may be victims of self-deception, pathological cases, is irrelevant, for to the extent that self-esteem is tied to feeling states, virtually anyone may be a candidate. What makes this idea of self-esteem slippery is that one may possess it irrespective …