Analytic teaching and Philosophical praxis


ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS Volume 40, Issue 2 (2020) 

 

Editor’s Welcome 
      

Doubtless the last year, thanks to Covid-19, has presented us with challenges 
we were unprepared for—disruptions to community and education that have 
strained the patience and resourcefulness of us all. My hope is that this recent 
issue of Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis can serve as a reminder of all the 
work that still needs to be done to help empower children and young adults as 
well as inspire you with innovative suggestions on how to expand your teaching 
toolkit.  

The issue opens with two timely articles that explore the complicated 
prejudices and discrimination young people continue to experience by adults. 
Vitale & Miller’s “Epistemic Violence Against Young Activists” looks at the many 
ways young people are ignored and “quieted” by adults, which becomes especially 
clear against the backdrop of recent youth movements like those advocating for 
gun control, climate reform, and racial equality. Anderson’s article “PFC and 
Voice” continues this theme in exploring how Philosophy for Children (PFC) 
may inadvertently perpetuate the silencing of young people. Both articles 
conclude with concrete suggestions on how PFC can help alert facilitators to the 
kinds of epistemic injustices children often face as well as provide alternate spaces 
for more respectful interactions with young people.  

The next two articles look at how we conceive of communities of inquiry, 
using different methodological approaches to expand facilitators’ practices. 
Weber’s “Phenomenology as a Voice of Childhood” turns to Merleau-Ponty, in 
particular, and his ideas of embodiment to suggest CPI’s would benefit from 
focusing attention on the lived experience and sensory world of participants 
rather than just collaborative reasoning and argumentation.  Castleberry & 
Clark’s “Expanding the Facilitator’s Toolbox” employ Vygotsky’s ideas to provide 
new meta-frameworks and metaphors to enrich how we understand the task of 
facilitating philosophical inquiries as well as strategies to improve facilitation. 

The last three articles move outside the purview of Philosophy for Children 
to engage other issues germane to education. Bobro’s “Dialogue and Writing 
Philosophy” makes a strong case for why philosophy instructors should consider 
assigning the writing of philosophical dialogues instead of, or in addition to, the 
standard philosophy essay. Farfan’s “The Perpetual Crisis” is an instructive 
reminder of how the recent justification of STEM education recycles arguments 
from past philosophers, especially Plato and Rousseau, that build on a sense of 
crisis to enact educational reform. Finally, Svanøe’s “Learning Morality through 
Literary Mimesis” tackles the problem of how literature might complement moral 
education, using the lens of Ricoeur’s notion of mimesis to walk through the 
many challenges that arise when we see literature as a method of moral 
instruction. 

This issue wraps up with two book reviews. Richard Morehouse looks at 
Wendy Turgeon’s Philosophical Adventures with Fairy Tales: new ways to explore 
familiar tales with kids of all ages (2010) while Sergey Borisov highlights the 
timeliness of Maria daVenza Tillmanns’ Why We Are in Need of Tails (2019).     

As always, I hope this current issue of AT&PP finds you well.    
Pax et Bonum,   

Jason J. Howard 
           

CHIEF EDITOR 

Jason J. Howard 

Viterbo University 

 

WEB PAGE MASTER 

Jason Skoog 

Viterbo University 

 

COPY EDITOR 

Jason J. Howard 

Viterbo University 

 

EDITORIAL BOARD 

Sara Cook 

Viterbo University 

 

Susan Gardner 

Capilano University 

 

Susan Hughes 

Viterbo University 

 

David Kennedy 

Montclair State University 

 

Nadia S. Kennedy 

Stony Brook University, SUNY 

 

Richard Morehouse, Emeritus 

Viterbo University 

 

Félix García Moriyón 

Center for Philosophy for Children, 

Madrid, Spain 

 

Joe Oyler 

Maynooth University, Kildare, 

Ireland 

 

Barbara Weber 

University of British Columbia 

 

PUBLISHER 
Viterbo University, La Crosse, Wisconsin 

45601 

Established in 1981 as Analytic Teaching 

at Texas Wesleyan College and 

transferred to Viterbo in 1993. 

Online Copyright 2005. 

Analytic Teaching and Philosophical 

Praxis is a peer-reviewed, online, open 

access journal published annually and 

sometimes biannually. ISSN 2374-8257