Epistemological contextualism has become one of the most important and widely discussed new proposals in the theory of knowledge. This special issue contributes to the debate by bringing together some of the main participants to provide a state-of-the-art discussion of the proposal. Here we offer a brief overview of the contextualist position, describe some of the main lines of criticism that have been levelled against the view, and present a summary of each of the contributions to this collection.

This paper introduces the articles in this volume, and offers an overview of each piece.

For some time now I have been puzzling over what we really have in mind when we say that the schools should be doing a better job of helping students develop their critical thinking abilities. Although most educators agree that something should be done, there is no consensus on how to go about it. I suspect that this is partly because there is no consensus on what critical thinking is. I offer no definition. But I do have some reflections that, (...) I hope, will contribute to our understanding of critical thinking. (shrink)

THE LAND OF CURIOSITY has evolved over the past several years as a result of discussions I have had with groups of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. It all began many years ago in my daughter's 4th grade class. I wanted the group with whom I met once a week to think about rules. So I wrote a little episode about The Basic Rule. The responses to this episode were used as a basis for another episode, this one dealing with (...) The Golden Rule. Responses to that episode led to yet another one on rules. (shrink)

The ubiquity of camera phones today has made us all photographers, and as these nano-devices attest, the history of photography, perhaps more so than any other art, is also a history of technology, one best revealed in the very vehicle that makes it possible—the camera. Through brief, illustrated chapters on fifty landmark cameras and the photographers who used them, Michael Pritchard offers an entertaining look at photography as practiced by professionals, artists, and amateurs. A History of Photography in Fifty (...) Cameras is organized chronologically, beginning with William Henry Fox Talbot’s wooden “Mousetrap” camera of 1835. Other entries include the Brownie, the Coronet Midget, the Kodak Instamatic 100, and, of course, the Polaroid SX-70. Photographs within each chapter show not only the cameras themselves but also samples of the images made with them. Pritchard uses each camera as a point of entry for talking about the people who used them and the kind of photos they produced, from Weegee and his Speed Graphic to Cartier-Bresson and the Leica’s role in the invention of photojournalism. In the hands of individual photographers, he reveals, cameras came to represent unique styles of depiction. Together, the stories of the fifty cameras gathered here present an approachable and informative take on a medium that continues to fire the imagination, whether we’re perfecting the selfie or longing for the days of Fotomat. (shrink)

I had the pleasure of meeting Lawrence Kohlberg just two months before his tragic and untimely death. He told me that he had prepared some written comments on my article, "Reciprocity," which appeared in Analytic Teaching, Vol. 4, No. 2. I mentioned an article I had written about his work. We agreed to make an exchange. I jokingly said, "Stage 2. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours." I sent him my paper, but he did not send his. At (...) first I amused myself with the thought that Lawrence Kohlberg, of all people, had failed to satisfy even stage 2 moral requirements. However, I then learned that he had suffered a recurrance of a debilitating and depressing disease, and I read the sad announcement of his presumed death in the New York Times, as well as its later confirmation. (shrink)

I have just completed participation in the second year of a philosophy for children program at the Ransom Public Library in Plainwell, Michigan. Both years have been sponsored by the Michigan Council for the Humanities, which has awarded the library two grants to run the program. Director of the program is Jan Park, lead librarian. It was my pleasure to meet with different groups of 4th and 5th graders during this time to discuss Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery and related materials.

We rely on doctors, accountants, engineers, and other professionals to be committed to the basic values of their professions and to exercise their ex­pertise in competent, reliable ways, even when no one is watching them do their work. That is, we expect them to have professional integrity. Children obviously do not yet have professional integrity, even if someday they will become professionals. Nevertheless, the moral development of children who will become professionals plays an important role in the eventual emergence of (...) their professional integrity. We will discuss both what this integrity involves and how the basic moral development of children contributes to its emergence in professional life. (shrink)

Although national surveys consistently show that an overwhelming majority of adults in the United States would like to see some sort of moral education in the schools, it is not clear how much real agreement this indicates. "Whose morality are we talking about?" one might ask. The significance of this question is apparent when we consider the moral diversity among those who ask it. This is not merely a diversity among moral beliefs. This is bound to be present to some (...) degree in any large group of reflective people. Many societies are multicultural. As Amy Gutmann puts it, these societies contain within their borders "many cultures that interact in some significant way with each other." Thus, a multicultural society will, in part, be characterized by different traditions and practices, some of which may reflect fundamental moral and religious differences. (shrink)

This volume brings together papers by some of the leading figures working on virtue-theoretic accounts in both ethics and epistemology. A collection of cutting edge articles by leading figures in the field of virtue theory including Guy Axtell, Julia Driver, Antony Duff and Miranda Fricker. The first book to combine papers on both virtue ethics and virtue epistemology. Deals with key topics in recent epistemological and ethical debate.

This paper discusses the growing prominence of character education and the role moral philosophy can play here. It examines the place of inquiry in character education, and the ways in which moral philosophy can help young people to develop the virtue of reasonableness. Reasonableness, as herein described, takes into account the views and feelings of others, the willingness to allow one’s views to be scrutinized by others, and the acceptance of some degree of uncertainty about whether one’s views are necessarily (...) right. The paper illustrates ways in which philosophical exploration about morality can help children to cultivate reasonableness. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This book symposium features three critical pieces dealing with Duncan Pritchard's book, 'Epistemic Angst'; the symposium also contains Pritchard's replies to his critics.

This collection examines how greed should be understood and appraised. Roundly condemned by virtually all religions, greed receives mixed appraisals in the domains of business and economics. The volume examines these mixed appraisals and how they fare in light of their implications for greed in our everyday world. Greed in children is uniformly criticized by parents, other adults, and even children’s peers. However, in adulthood, greed is commended by some as essential to profit-seeking in business and for offering the greatest (...) promise in promoting economic prosperity for everyone. Those who advocate a more permissive position on greed in the adult world typically concede that some constraints on greed are needed. However, the supporting literature offers little analysis of what greed is. It offers little clarification of what sorts of constraints on greed are needed. Nor is careful attention given to difficulties children might have in making a transition without moral loss from regarding greed as inappropriate to its later qualified acceptance. Through a secular approach, this book attempts to make significant inroads in remedying these shortcomings. (shrink)

Western Michigan University’s Center for the Study of Ethics in Society has always had a “generalist” approach—that is to say, an interdisciplinary orientation toward studying a broad range of ethical issues. This article explains how the center’s “generalist” orientation developed and why it is desirable for promoting public reflection about ethical issues. It focuses on these dimensions: valuing an across-the-curriculum approach to promote understanding of complex ethical issues; adopting a broad, rather than narrow focus, when it comes to ethics; committing (...) to practical ethics, which bridges theory and practice to shed light on issues of practical relevance to all; and decentering philosophy as the arbiter for what counts as “doing ethics.” The article ends with a look at challenges concerning stable funding and administrative support for a center that does not fit neatly into a single academic unit or specialty and shares some lessons learned. (shrink)