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Doing Philosophical Psychology: Helping Adolescents Discover 
their Place in History 

 
 

Richard (Mort) Morehouse  
 
 
 

 
his paper explores one of the elements of doing philosophy with young people. As 
readers of this journal will know, people of all ages, including young children, can do 
philosophy as the work of Matthew Lipman demonstrated. Here I argue that there is 

something unique about the ways that some adolescents and young adults struggle with a set of 
philosophical issues. To explore philosophy with adolescents and young adults is to recognize and to 
build on some of the questions that are at the surface of, or latent within, their struggle as they enter 
adulthood. To do philosophy with emerging adults is to recognize and address these questions. One 
of the important questions is: “what does it mean to be an inheritor of a culture that one did not 
create?” This question and the closely related question, “what does it mean to be an adult?” has been 
explored for millennia, but is experienced uniquely for each individual. Many young people have little 
awareness that they are embarking on a potentially dangerous adventure during which they will come 
face-to-face with issues that will challenge who they are, as they address ways of engaging the culture. 
This encounter will nudge them to explore philosophical ideas, whether this exploration happens in 
formal environments such as classrooms, or informal settings like coffee houses and late-night "bull 
sessions" in dorm rooms, or other hangouts. This question is sometimes introduced as a lighthearted 
and even cynical question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" but often migrates into a 
more serious discussion with a focus on the “to be” part of the question. As the discussion deepens 
beyond the issues of employment or career, the importance of Being comes more into the 
foreground.  
 

These questions on a more serious vein can be stated as “What are my moral and social 
responsibilities to myself and others?” “How do I integrate what I have been as a young person 
growing up with the goals that I see for myself as an adult?” These interconnected questions and an 
exploration of ways to think about them have been explored in Philosophy for millennia and more 
recently in Psychology.  

 

Connecting Psychology and Philosophy 

 In psychology, until recently, struggling with the question of identity had been thought to be 
engaged primarily during adolescence (see, for example, Erikson, 1958). Erik Homberg Erikson, was 
one of the first psychotherapists to give prominence to the issues of identity, though others have 
written about it often writing about the self. This discussion began at least as early as William James 
when he wrote in 1890 about the self (1890; 1892). Many psychologists have continued to explore the 
issue of identity. Carol Gilligan explored the issues of identity and morality in girls and young women 
(Gilligan, 1982; Gilligan, Lyons, & Hanmer, 1990). Dan J. McAdams' Stories We Live By: Personal 

T 



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Myths and The Making Of The Self (1993) also contributes to an exploration of what it means to 
encounter a world and a life story that the person, while being the central character, is not the 
author. More recently, Jeffery Arnett has labeled and extended this period of uncertainty as emerging 
adulthood. He characterized this period of development as the age of instability, the self-focused age, 
the age of feeling in-between, and the age of possibilities (Arnett, 2000; Arnett & Tanner, 2006). 
   

This essay will focus almost exclusively on Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition (1956) as a 
source for the exploration of identity or self. Hannah Arendt looks to the idea of identity by focusing 
on what she calls appearance. Arendt's chapter in The Human Condition (1958) entitled “Action” 
provides a window into Gilligan's understanding of the crisis for girls and young women, as well as a 
bridge to understand young adults more generally.  

 

Arendt begins the chapter by setting up what is necessary to understand the meaning of appearance 
by exploring human plurality.   
 

Human plurality, the basic condition of both action and speech, has the two-fold 
character of equality and distinction. If men were not equal, they could neither 
understand each other and those who came before them nor plan for the future 
and foresee the needs of those who will come after them. If men were not distinct, 
each human being distinguished from any other who is, was, or will ever be, they 
would need neither speech nor action to make themselves understood (p.175).  
 

Arendt goes on to argue that humans reveal their uniqueness, their distinctness, through 
speech and action, both as individuals and in group efforts.1 It is by speaking and acting that we 
distinguish ourselves as more than human beings, but as distinguished as persons with standing in the 
world. She states that it is by words and deeds that we insert ourselves into the world "and this 
insertion is like a second birth, in which we confirm and take upon ourselves the naked fact of our 
physical appearance" (pp. 176-7). The human sense of reality demands this (p.208).  

 

Carol Gilligan writes about identity and appearance in her work with girls and young women 
in a private preparatory school in her book Making Connections: The Relational World of Adolescent Girls 
at The Emma Willard School (Gilligan, Lyons, and Hanmer, 1990).  Gilligan takes Arendt’s idea of 
appearance and sees it reflected specifically in the lives of girls and women as they enter and disrupt a 
male worldview.  

 

To take on the problem of appearance, which is the problem of her development, 
and to connect her life with history in a cultural scale, she must enter – and by 
entering disrupt – a tradition in which "human" has, for the most part, meant male 
(p. 4).  
  
Though the work of Gilligan and her colleagues examines adolescent girls specifically, I think 

much of it applies to boys and young men and young women as well. Adolescence, Gilligan argues, 
poses a problem that is not easily solved. The problem, stated as a question is: “what is my role in the 
dominant civilization in which I am living.” Or stated differently, “how does one articulate and call 
into full existence what has been an experience that one has suffered passively until now?” “How am I 
to participate, how do I distinguish myself, in a world that I have inherited, a world that I have not 
created?” As a young person moves toward admission into their culture, there is tension as to one's 
acceptance into, and potential contribution, to the larger culture and/or rejection of some or most of 



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that culture. This tension may have external or internal manifestations. Implicit in this paraphrase of 
Gilligan is the idea of appearance as stated in the above citation (p. 4).  

 

Reading Gilligan’s passage on appearance led me to re-read Hannah Arendt more closely; 
appearance seemed a strange word as I initially took it to mean one's looks, that is, if one were 
perceived as attractive. Appearance as Hannah Arendt describes it, and as Gilligan uses it in this 
passage, is the way we distinguish ourselves by our words and actions. "This appearance, as 
distinguished from mere bodily existence, rests on initiative, but it is an initiative from which no 
human being can refrain and still be human" (Arendt, 1958, p.176). Importantly, this initiative is 
more salient during our young adult life.  

  
Adolescence is a period during which there is a keen and sometimes surprising recognition of 

the self. William James wrote to his son in the early twentieth century, referring to the moment when 
one recognizes who he is becoming. "At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says, 
'This is the real me'" (cited in Erikson, 1968, p. 19). Arendt in a similar manner writes about 
"inserting one's self into the world as a second birth, a moment of recognition by others.  

 

With word and deed, we insert ourselves into the human world, and this insertion 
is like a second birth, in which we confirm and take upon ourselves the naked fact 
of our original physical appearance. This insertion is not forced upon us by 
necessity, like labor, and it is not prompted by utility, like work. It may be 
stimulated by the presence of others whose company we may wish to join, but it is 
never conditioned by them; its impulse springs from the beginning which came 
into the world when we were born and to which we respond by beginning 
something new on our own initiative … [this beginning] is not the beginning of 
something but of somebody, who is a beginning himself [or herself] (pp. 176-7).   

 

To insert oneself "into the human world is like a second birth". Psychologists, such as Erikson, 
have given special prominence to the time of this second birth; they have suggested that it happens 
during a persons' teens and early twenties. This insertion Arendt calls appearance. It is a part of what 
makes us human, as we struggle to make ourselves distinguished.2   
 

To be distinguished is to be a particular person within a specific time and place, as we insert 
ourselves into the world, or as Gilligan writes rather poetically,  
  

As the river of a girl's life flows into the sea of Western culture, she is in danger of 
drowning or disappearing. …. Thus a struggle often breaks out in girls' lives at the 
edge of adolescence, and the fate of this struggle becomes key to girls' development 
and Western civilization (p. 4).   

  
Arendt's argument regarding appearance is that speech and action are the way we appear in 

the world and is echoed in the above passage. To the extent that they are not allowed to speak and act 
in their voices and as their own person, girls and young women are in danger of drowning, Gilligan 
argues. I think that it may also be true for some, perhaps many, boys and young men.3   

 

Erik Erikson writes about the transition of young people from adolescence to adulthood. 
Implicit in this transition is the personal history of the individual intertwined with the history of the 
civilization they inherit. He characterizes identity formation as employing the processes of reflection 
and observation, both personal and cultural. This process is how an individual judges the self in the 



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light of how she is perceived by others, and by which others judge her in comparison to 
themselves (Erikson, 1968, p. 22). He does not use the same language as Arendt about inserting 
oneself into the world, but perhaps the idea is implicit when Erikson cites George Bernard Shaw as 
Shaw comments on this early life "The truth is that all men are in a false position in society until they 
realize their possibilities and impose them on their neighbors, they are tormented by a continual 
shortcoming in themselves, yet they irritate others by a continual overweening. … everyone is ill at 
ease until he has found his natural place, whether it be above or below his birthplace" (Erikson, 1968, 
p. 143). In a phrase perhaps in line with Gilligan and Arendt, Erikson captures some sense of what it 
means to enter and disrupt when he cites William James in a letter to Oliver Wendell Holmes as 
writing "about 'rebaptizing' himself in their friendship, and this one word says much about what is 
involved in the radical direction of social awareness and social needs of youth" (p. 246).  

 

Carol Gilligan, in a reflection on her work with Lawrence Kohlberg, writes about what she 
learned when working with Erikson. In "Me and Larry" (1997), she writes that Erikson encouraged 
her to think about what it would mean if she took her work in psychology seriously.  

  
Erik exemplified for me the possibility of being in psychology and meaning it –the 
possibility of speaking in a first-person voice. He showed that you cannot take a life 
out of history, that life history can only be understood in history, and that 
statement stayed with me for a long time. In many ways, it was the inspiration for 
my work, and when subsequently I connected my life history with history, I 
discovered that as a woman this connection had very different implications, both 
psychologically and politically (1997, p.2).  
 

The development of identity or appearance is similar in Gilligan, Erikson, and Arendt, that is, 
how do adolescence come to terms with their place in the world; whether that world is the school, or 
community or culture writ large. These questions begin for many as they enter adolescence, and last 
more or less intensely until about 30 years of age. Arnett labels this group of young people as 
emerging adults (Arnett, 2004). His research says that emerging adults include such characteristics as 
having a goal or purpose and being self-directed. A study of which I was apart (Morehouse, Visse, 
Singer-Towns, & Vitek, 2019) shows that self-realization, a part of identity formation, is a dynamic 
and moral process. “Meaning and purposefulness appeared to be defined, in part, by the way, they 
saw themselves and the way they wanted to the seen by others" (2019, p. 6). Attending University was 
a part of the environment and context in which identity formation occurs (Erikson, 1968).   

 

The similarity between identity formation and appearance, while hinted at in the discussion 
so far, is more clearly stated in this passage from Arendt:   

 

The realm of human affairs, strictly speaking, consists of the web of human 
relationships which exists wherever men live together. The disclosure of the "who" 
through speech, and the setting of a new beginning to action always falls into an 
already existing web where their immediate consequences can be felt. Together they 
start a new process which eventually emerges as the unique life story of the 
newcomer, affecting uniquely the life stories of all those with whom [she or] he 
comes into contact (p. 184).  
 

The possibility of speaking in the first person, which sometimes goes underground during 
adolescence,4 is closely related to the idea of appearance as Arendt writes about it. One's life story is 
revealed as one speaks and acts. It is who I am, both as I tell it to myself and others; it is also by acting 



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it in the world that I tell my story (McAdams, 1993: Ludwig, 1997). Other people also tell my story to 
me and others. They observe me as I listen, as I speak and observe, as I act. Our stories come to be 
through our speech and action, but this speech and action are inserted into an ongoing history into 
which we are born. 
   

Although everybody starts his [or her] life by inserting himself [or herself] into the 
human world, nobody is the author of their own life story. That even though we 
initiate our story, we are not the writers of our story (Arendt, p.184). 
   
Stated somewhat different, Susi Ferrarello and Nicolle Zapien (2018) state that "the meanings 

that define our lives are often meaningless, and even evasive, for us. Although these meanings 
represent who we factually are, usually we are not aware of the determining power they have on our 
lives" (p. .96). What makes an event meaningful to the person's life is seeing one's experience (words 
and actions) in a new and often broader context (2018). Though we have a unique life story, we are 
not the authors of our life story. This apparent paradox is resolved as follows: A life story cannot be 
written until a person has died because one's speech initiates other speech and one's actions always 
affect other actions, so our story will be incomplete during our lifetime. This fact does not prevent 
persons from telling their life story as they understand it. Telling our story in the first person may aid 
in forming an identity and contribute to the making of the self (McAdams, 1993: Ferrarello & 
Zapien, 2018; Morehouse et al, 2019). To add to this paradox, it is nonetheless also true that others 
may know me better than I know myself (Ludwig, 1997; Ferrarello & Zapien, 2018). The reasons for 
connecting Arendt with Gilligan, Erikson, and McAdams leads to my experiences with a Lipman 
inspired university class in Theories of Personality and its implications for teaching philosophy to 
undergraduates, as well as providing a framework for the penultimate part of this article: Offering a 
forum wherein adolescents can begin to discover their place in history. 

 
Creating a Class for Self-discovery 

 
My long-standing practice in teaching theories of personality had been to use essays on 

personality from a selection of writings by pioneers in the field such as Sigmund Freud, Anna, Freud, 
Carl Jung, Gordon Allport, Karen Horney, G.H. Mead, and Carl Rogers as a sample of the variety of 
theories we read. Using primary sources was an alternative approach chosen over the traditional 
personality textbook. However, recently, I chose to use a textbook entitled Personality Theory (Engler, 
1999). At about the same time, I read a new book, How Do We Know Who We Are? A Biography of The 
Self  (Ludwig, 1997). That book is a personal reflection by a therapist, Arnold M. Ludwig, pondering 
questions about his own life, as well as the lives of others, and working to construct a biography, that 
is, a biography of the self, not a theory of self. He uses biographies to ask whether it is possible to 
know anyone at all, whether psychological truth is really true, and whether we have the power to 
control our lives (1997, p. 8). These are among the issues Ludwig reflects on by drawing on his 
personal experiences and those of his patients, as well as a lifetime of observations to gain some 
insights into the self.  

  
During the first two weeks of the course, the textbook Personality Theory was read and 

discussed. After completing the textbook, we began reading How Do We Ever Know Who We Are: A 
Biography of the Self (Ludwig, 1999). We read and discussed one chapter per week. I used a laptop 
computer and a projection devise to make the student questions visual and to save the screen content, 
which also included some of the key discussion points. This approach was an approach loosely 
adapted from the pedagogy of Philosophy for Children.  



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Analysis of What Happened in the Class Discussion 

  
The student questions on each chapter were discussed in a consensus determined order, 

following one of the often-used discussion methods employed by practitioners of the Lipman and 
Sharp approach.  

  
Ludwig's first chapter after an introduction, is entitled "The 'real' Marilyn". To understand 

Marilyn Monroe, he read over 50 biographies of the star, including her autobiography, "Marilyn 
Monroe: My story" and asks wryly, "She isn't "Marilyn Monroe, her stage names, or is she?" (p. 21). 
This statement begins a series of explorations, variously entitled: “The spoken word,” “Seeing through 
other eyes,” “Do actions speak louder than words?” and “Composing a composite.”   

 

At the end of the chapter, Ludwig writes "This raises the question whether a person's self can 
exist independent of others' perceptions, or whether it needs others' perceptions to give it dimension 
and form" (p. 32). This question is also central in philosophy as well.  

 

In Chapter six, "The philosopher's stone", a subheading is entitled, “The master or mistress of 
our fate” begins with "One of the most appealing myths we embrace is the notion that we have 
control over our own lives and can construct our own future" (p. 126). A later section presents a 
counter-narrative, "Since consciousness can exist without our believing in a personal self, why do we 
need to be able to believe in a self or for that matter any of our self-enhancing myths at all" (p. 140); 
Ludwig answers that our brain is a problem-solving organ, oriented toward survival.   

 

That's where belief, myth, and faith come in; they help to eliminate the knowledge 
gap. … Myth and metaphor offer substitutes for reality. Belief gives ignorance and 
mystery form, neither of which has survival value, and lets us act without 
continually having to wrestle futilely with the unknown (p.140).   
 

This statement may not be reassuring to emerging adults, but it does "stimulate the grey 
matter." As the vignettes of the selected chapters indicated, Ludwig does not work to reassure but to 
challenge. What follows is a look at some of the student questions with a little commentary.  

 

Following my practice when I taught philosophy for children classes, I asked students: What 
questions or issues stood out for them? What sparked their interest? What issues would they like to 
pursue? Here are their responses:  

1. Don't we figure out who we are by what we reveal about ourselves to others?  
2. What comprises the self –what's included, what's excluded?  
3. How can one part of us protect us from another part of us?   
4. How do we know a self exists?  
5. Does the search for the self, prevent us from finding it?  
6. Is there such a thing as a true self/as opposed to a false self? 
7. Are we all multiple personalities?  
8. How can something be useful and not true? (Id, ego, superego)  
9. What role does society play in our view of our self?  
10. Why does he (Ludwig) go around in circles so much?   
11. How close does Ludwig come to defining the self?  
12. Are we defined by our experiences? If so, do we limit who we can become by our past?  
13. Without memory would we have a personality, or would we just be about survival?  



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14. Can we completely disregard our experiences as they relate to who we are?  
15. Are we one "self" or are we multiple selves?  
16. Memory is always changing (reconstructed) so how can it be an important part of the 
self? (a question constructed by the whole class)  
17. The self has no constant definition between selves, nor is there a constant definition 
within me? (a statement or prompt constructed by the whole class)  

  
  Number ten (10) is the question we chose to discuss by a vote of the students. “Why does he 
go around in circles so much?” was likely chosen as, in an earlier discussion, we talked about what we 
learn by asking a question of the author by looking only at the text before us and because the 
question, in some ways, incorporates some of the points of several other questions. This was a fruitful 
discussion as it allowed us to get a better understanding of how the narrative was constructed and 
how there is a certain circularity to many elements of our own life story. We summarized our tentative 
conclusion on this chapter as: (1) Narrative is an important part of personality; (2) There is something 
constant in us and memory plays a role in that constancy; (3) We are trying to find out what counts as 
evidence that contributions to the construction and understanding of a self.  
  

Each of these tentative conclusions was raised and their meanings and implications were 
sorted out in a lively discussion. An understanding of the role of stories or narratives in our life, in 
our personality, was a not unimportant contribution to self-understanding, as well as to theories of 
personality. Likewise, the role of memory in personality is not self-evident or, if it is self-evident, it is 
understood on a deeper level when discovered during a discussion. The last statement or tentative 
conclusion, the value of and meaning of the nature of evidence, I would argue is essential to 
understanding the world, as well as the self and one's theory of personality (the goal of the class).  

 
“The philosopher's stone” (Chapter 6) was the next chapter selected for this presentation. In 

the introduction to Chapter 6, Ludwig presents a long list of the problems that humans endure, 
ranging in intensity and source of the problem from torture and imprisonment and sexual abuse to 
failing health and brain damage. He then comments on how remarkable it is that a "substantial 
number manage to find meaning in their ordeal and also claim to be better for it" (p. 123). Under the 
heading of "An alchemist view," he argues that it is a mix of values, aspirations, and needs packaged in 
cultural myths and often in religious beliefs, that shape our basic assumptions and generate meaning 
in our lives. In "Master or mistress of our fate," he argues that one of the most prevailing myths that 
allow us to overcome problems is the belief that we are the masters of our destiny and have control 
over our life outcomes. One statement stands out in this part of the chapter, "Because our thoughts 
usually precede or accompany our actions and we often accomplish what we set out to do, we assume 
that we're causing our behavior, not bothering to wonder what biological or environmental forces 
may have influenced our thoughts" (p. 127). In a sub-section entitled "The purpose of purpose," 
Ludwig's point can the summarized in this sentence: "To retain a sense of purpose, we must believe in 
our specialness" (p. 128). He moves on to explore "Loving the bond" in a more expansive section of 
the chapter, building on the idea of the specialness of the individual, to the value of loving others as 
well as being loved by them. "By loving others, we deny the potential meaninglessness of existence and 
add meaning to our lives" (p. 113). In a sectional called "Forever and ever," Ludwig states "While the 
preservation of life is basic, sometimes even more important is the desire to identify with something 
transcendent or to participate in an ongoing and lasting cultural drama, which offers the prospect of 
some form of existence beyond death or everlasting life” (p. 139). The last section of the chapter 
"Why believe?" is succinctly captured in this sentence "By believing in our personal control, the 



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meaningfulness of our life, and the enduring nature of our self, we diminish our sense of 
insignificance and the threat of our eventual extinction" (p. 141)  

 

The students raised the following questions and issues which were placed into three 
categories.   
  

I. Purpose:  
a. It depends on which section of the chapter you read. 
b. Intro – To make our struggle to find meaning look silly?  
c. *To explore our reason(s) for living – What is the carrot that keeps us going?  
d. *Our minds are like our bodies – they both have internal mechanisms for survival. 
e. *Even if our mind responds like the body, the defense mechanism is dependent on 
our reasons to live, for example, Richard Pryor's reason for going on – "we may have to 
shape what's given us.” 

II. An Alchemist brew:  
a. Religion and other myths give us meaning by mediating between society and ourselves. 
b. Master or mistress of fate – all think that we have control over our lives, and gain 
some satisfaction from that feeling. 

III. The purpose of purpose:  
a. Purpose can be seen as the "spin doctor" for your lives – dealing with illness is an 
example.  
b. We all need to have faith in something to deal with the unknown, whatever you chose 
to have faith in becomes your purpose.  

  
Question c, and statements d, and e were combined for this class discussion as indicated by the 
asterisk. This class discussion moved back and forth between personal, historical and fictional 
examples and their implications with considerable references to Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for 
Meaning (2006), which most of the students had previously read (though not connected to this 
course). The previous reading by these students was a helpful anchor for some students, especially as 
few if any students noticed that Ludwig while citing Nietzsche "He who has a why to live for can bear 
with almost any how" reports in a footnote that he pulled the quote from Man's Search for Meaning (p. 
129).   
 

This discussion was an intense, thoughtful, and searching one. The reference to Richard 
Pryor, a stand-up comedian, for those who may not remember, was to a statement he made in an 
interview about his multiple sclerosis that affected his ability to consistently control his arms which he 
used as a part of his act, and was a reason for his successful career.  

 

With regard to the overall structure of the course, a comment on evaluation is probably 
necessary. As one might guess a multiple-choice test or even an essay test on this material would be a 
challenge for an instructor to construct, as well as for the student to write. Term projects were my 
solution. The students were required to write two essays of 4 to 6 pages in length examining a short 
section of the Ludwig book due a week after the class discussion on the chapter previously discussed. 
There were also several term projects based on the Ludwig book.5   

 

Teaching Emerging Adults 

Remembering our own struggles when we are in the middle of teaching is not easy. After years 
of teaching, thinking, and reading, some things appear obvious. We recognize that students might 



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have to struggle to understand a complex topic such as “Who am I?” or “What does it mean to have a 
self?” but we think that these questions are intrinsically interesting to any student. And they are for 
many. But the issue for instructors is to find ways to engage students in a topic by coming vicariously 
in contact with their selves and their world. Ludwig’s none-fiction book is one example. These topics 
may expose elements of the students' beliefs and values that they do not wish to expose.6 

   
At the opposite end of that dilemma is the danger that discussions of these topics do not get 

below the surface and therefore remains inert knowledge, as Alfred North Whitehead would call it. 
This inert knowledge has no life, no usefulness, is not alive. That is among the reasons that narrative 
is important to teaching. 

  
How do we help students "actualize the sheer passive givenness of their being, not in order to 

change it, but in order to make it articulate and call into full existence what otherwise they would 
have suffered passively anyhow" (Arendt, 1958, p. 208)? This is a dilemma, as on one hand, this 
actualization (making articulate and calling into full existence) is one of the key concerns of their 
lives, but to understand that calling out, they must have or develop a sense of a world that they are on 
the verge of inheriting and their place in it. So, they must reconcile what they were with what they 
wish to become (to paraphrase Erikson, 1968). 
 

Works like How Do We Know Who We Are? A Biography of Self (Ludwig, 1997) is, as much of 
the discussion of this article says, one way to help confront our “appearing” (Arendt, 1968; Gilligan et 
al., 1990) in the world. Other non-fiction works that I have used as a means of aiding emerging adult 
in addressing the inheritance of their culture and their response to it are Unflattening (Sousanis, 
2015), which is a visual and verbal meditation in a graphic comic format, and Marshall 
McLuhan’s The Medium Is The Message: An Inventory Of Effects (1967) – which might be among the first 
graphic comic formatted non-fiction books.  Philosophy in The Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its 
Challenges to Western Thought (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999) is a book in which a linguist and a 
philosopher challenge and use cognitive science to rethink some basic understanding of the 
unconscious, and embodied mind, and the role of metaphor that provides a menu from engaging 
themselves in the lived-world. Short stories such as Margaret Attwood’s “Hair Jewelry,” Albert Camus’ 
“Jonas or the artist at work”, Shirley Jackson’s” A pair of silk stockings” have also been used by me as 
works that confront the self as inserted into current and personal history.  

 
Pulling it Together 

In a nutshell, the challenge in understanding young adults requires knowing some psychology 
and some philosophy regardless of which subjects we teach. Helping young adults fully encounter the 
world is possible if we can help them see their reflection, their voices in works of fiction and non-
fiction. A related issue is how to encourage curiosity?  I have struggled with that issue separately 
elsewhere (Morehouse, 2012). The case made here is that Hannah Arendt, as well as Erik Erikson and 
Carol Gilligan, all suggest that adolescents and young adults struggle to be heard in their voices, as 
they become aware and confront a civilization that they are inheriting. This is a two-fold 
process: 1) understanding their inherited culture, and 2) coming to grips with their role in 
assimilating and correcting it. Our additional role is to recognize that this is a gradual and daunting 
undertaking. In this task, we can nudge, support, and encourage their efforts. The example of 
teaching a challenging text that raises self/world engagement such as How Do We Know Who We Are? 
A Biography of the Self (Ludwig, 199) is one of many examples that hopefully add light to our mutual 



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endeavor. 
 

 
Endnotes 
1 … their ability to affect and attain something, to have an impact in the world. It is precisely in this sense that Hannah Arendt 
sees world first emerge in collective action and the accompanying experience of being able to shape something, so that she 
considers subjects who lack this experience to be world-poor if not world-less (Rosa, 2016, p. 161) 
2 While it is true, as those involved in P4C know, all children can do philosophy and by doing philosophy they are active 
participants in the world, the argument here is that there is something about adolescence that allows many at that age to 
see themselves and their relationship to the world in a new way, to appear in a new way. 
3 This is an interesting paradox, for while Gilligan’s argument is one that is important to be addressed from the 
perspective of girls and women, the metaphor of drowning as one enters and challenges the dominant culture resonates, 
as well, especially for males who do not have a place of privilege in that culture. 
4 The “taking one’s voice underground” orientation   can be seen in young women taking the “little girl voice” and young 
boys taking an “I don’t know” attitude on things that affect them directly.  
5Unfortunately, my note on student comments are no longer available and I did not record the session. 
6 I am not making a case for safe spaces or trigger warnings, but rather a comment on ways to draw students out so these 
issues can be explored more in depth. 

References 
 
Arnett, J. J. (2000). Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the 

twenties. American psychologist, 55(5), 469.   
Arnett, J. J., & Tanner, J. L. (Eds.). (2006). Emerging adults in America: Coming of age in the 21st 

century (p. 3). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.  
 Arendt, H. (1958) The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press  
Atwood, M. (1994). Hair jewelry. Dancing Girls and Other Stories, 117.  
Belenky, M.F., Clinchy, B.M., Goldberger, N.R. and Tarule, J.M., 1986. Women's ways of knowing: The 

development of self, voice, and mind (Vol. 15). New York: Basic books.  
Camus, A. (2007). Jonas, or The Artist at Work. Exile and the Kingdom: Stories, 87-124.  
Chopin, K. (2012). A pair of silk stockings. Courier Corporation.  
James, W. (1890) The Principles of Psychology, 2 vols., Dover Publications 1950, vol. 1   
James, W. (1892) Psychology (Briefer Course), University of Notre Dame Press.   
Jackson, S. (2005). The lottery and other stories. MacMillan.  
Ferrarello, S. & Zapien, N. (2018) Ethical Experience: a phenomenology. London: 

Bloomsbury Academic.  
Frankl, V (2006) Man's Search for Meaning. An Introduction to Logotherapy, Beacon Press, Boston, 

MA, 2006. ISBN 978-0-8070-1427-1 (Originally published in 1946)  
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development: Cambridge, MA: 

Harvard University Press.  
Gilligan, C., Lyons, N. P., & Hanmer, T. J., (1990) Making connections: The relational worlds of adolescent 

girls at the Emma Willard School. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  
Lakoff G. & Johnson, (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: the embodies mind and its challenges to western 

thought. New York. Basic Books  
Ludwig, A. M. (1997) How do we know how we are? A biography of the self, New York: Oxford University 

Press.    
Morehouse, R. (2001). Philosophical inquiry in a university classroom: A case study with broader 

implications. 174 –179. In T. Curnow, (Ed.), Thinking through dialogue: Essays on philosophy in 
practice. Surrey, UK: Practical Philosophy Press.  



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Morehouse, R. (2012). Addressing the Problems of “Underprepared” University Students: One 
person’s Perspective. Education Today, 62, 3, pp. 22 – 27   

Morehouse, R., Visse, M., Singer-Towns, B., & Vitek, J. (2019) Juggling the many voices inside: What 
it means to be an emerging adult. International Journal of Psychological Research and Review, 2019, 
2:13 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Juggling-the-Many-Voices-Inside%3A-What-It-
Means-to-Morehouse-Visse/5939edc03e46e4b8b588bf029ec6fe7a02d89b1a  

Oldenburg, Ray (1989). The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, 
General Stores, Bars, Hangouts, and How They Get You Through the Day. New York: Paragon 
House.  

Rosa, H. (2016). Resonance: a sociology of relationship to the world. Medford, MA; Polity Press.  
Taylor, C. (2018). The authentic self. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.  
 
 
Address Correspondences to:  

 
Richard (Mort) Morehouse, Ph. D. 
Professor Emeritus, Viterbo University 
1706 N Salem Road 
La Crosse, WI 54603 
remorehouse@viterbo.edu 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

mailto:remorehouse@viterbo.edu

