In their paper “What is Ethical Enfranchisement? Community Research and the Social Infrastructure of Ethics” Stock, Schlehofer, and Nyland say, “Philosophical knowledge of ethics entails not merely the application of moral theory but the maintenance of social knowledge infrastructures such that the real convictions, attitudes, and persons that frame the public square can be mutually understood and safely deliberated. It is also a public philosophical practice that seeks to address epistemically injustice. In identifying and enfranchising community stakeholders, we have created a pathway to address credibility gaps in the meaning of ethics and to translate the experience of community members into knowledge producing practices.” Read it in P4
In their paper, “Teaching Fairness in Preschool: Evaluating the Steps in an Anti-Bias Education” Carnahan, Trojan, Burkley, and Doyle say, “The purpose of the study was to gain a greater understanding of the role of philosophy-based education in young children's ability to comprehend ethical concepts such as fairness and equity. I'm addition, we wanted to understand how both socioemotional development and language development relate to children's understanding of such concepts. There are several key findings of the present research. First, there was a significant increase in children's comprehension of equity following the learning sessions... Results also reflected a significant positive relationship between children's receptive vocabulary skills (PPT scores) and their skills at being members of their classroom communities (COR-A scores).” Read it in P4
In their paper, “Philosophy through Computation: Two Examples, Lim and Wu say, “Computational simulations can help philosophers, but critical philosophical thinking can help with programming practices. Because programmers are constantly making decisions about how and what to represent along with the ways these representations are to interact with each other, careful reflection is required. Assumptions about peoples, groups, and values will inevitably make their way into computer programs. Programmers should bring philosophically sensitive, ethical considerations to the table when negotiating computational representations and their allied operations because they can have socially disastrous effects.” Read it in P4
In her Note from the Field, Laurie Grady shares, “Philosophy teachers are not therapists, nor are we provocateurs. We don't intentionally agitate students. But students, particularly older ones, are thinking about provocative philosophical issues anyway. Furthermore, a commitment to "the examined life" requires that we consider our human circumstances, our choices, and our place in life. Our questions and answers can often make us uncomfortable, yet having exploratory dialogue with adults can be empowering. Still, the adult in the room shoulders a lot of responsibility. We want to choose stimuli that are rich in complexity, we want our students to be moved enough by the content to buy in and engage, but we need to be ready for where that may lead us.” Read it in P4!
Just a quick recap of some of the brilliant work we published in 2024!
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