This thesis attempts to apply McPeck's critique (one which contests the teaching of critical thinking by using lists of skills assumed to be generic; or applicable to all subjects) to Lipman's program, the "Philosophy for Children". / The hidden question is: "Can Lipman's program withstand McPeck's critique?" Is there anything that can be salvaged? Though McPeck's critique undermines Lipman's claims regarding the use of generic thinking skills as a means of educating a critical thinker, this thesis suggests that the skills that Lipman calls "generic" seem to exist. In addition it is suggested that what is needed is to find out what impedes their transference. / This thesis suggests that McPeck's reflections and critique should send us to prepetual inquiry which is the very heart of "Philosophy for Children" where Lipman's program should be viewed simply as a resting place out of which to jump on to better answers.

No description available.

Responding to growing efforts to bring philosophy into K-12 schools in the U.S., this dissertation takes up pedagogical and political concepts used by Jacques Rancière in order to reflect on the motivating principles and limitations of bringing philosophy to schools. Rancière critiques schooling as a mechanism by which socio-economic inequality is justified and argues that academic philosophy, following the rationalist tradition attributed to Plato, is in fact complicit in this justificatory process. Given his staunch position, it might seem that it is impossible to implement philosophy in schools using Rancièrian principles. I argue that there is a practice of philosophy in schools to which Rancière may be sympathetic on a theoretical level. In order to support my position, the principle aim of this work is to provide evidence that Rancière’s works reflect specific critiques and alternative values of both schooling and philosophy that are also represented in the principled pedagogical practice of community of philosophical inquiry (CPI). I begin to think through the possibility of CPI in new and existing schools, as well the way that the notion of possibility itself figures into this line of inquiry. My thesis is that CPI is the philosophical practice most appropriate for schools given the critiques and alternative values of schooling and philosophy shared by Rancière and CPI, but that Rancière may help to inform the way the practice is implemented.

This thesis is about an investigation of how children with philosophical experience use philosophical discussion as a way of doing research. A Lawrence Stenhouse description of 'research' as "systematic and sustained enquiry made public" (Bridges 1996, p. 2) served as my starting point for what to count as 'research'. As an interpretive case story of children participating in research as co-researchers, this research is about how I engaged in an after-school Discussion Research Group co-research project with seventeen volunteer students from my Philosophy for Children classes. Our co-research was a methodological experiment in merging genres of research (Anderson, 1989) in which we adapted and combined Philosophy for Children and qualitative research techniques in a philosophical exploration of philosophical discussion. Bringing together the children's philosophical expertise and my interest in the use of qualitative research methodologies, I explored how and whether 'to do philosophy' is 'to do research'. / Using an open and systematic inquiry approach, I answer the dissertation research question in three ways: by demonstration, by surfacing philosophical inquiry research acts and by conceptual investigation. In a set of co-researching stories, I use document and verbatim transcribed data obtained from audio and video tapes of forty-eight co-research sessions to demonstrate the co-researcher children at work using their own voices. Using these data I surface philosophical inquiry research acts by identifying philosophical inquiry 'moves' the children use in the research context. And I present a conceptual investigation of research roles as a way of answering how the philosophical work the children co-researchers do can be seen as 'doing research'. / This investigation offers a textured portrayal of children using philosophical discussion as a way of doing research. It presents their work as a complex and comprehensive account of 'philosophical discussion'. It uses children's verbatim data to surface the philosophical in research thereby supporting my assertion that to do philosophy is to do research. It presents a conceptual refinement of a variety of research roles. And it presents a viable example of how philosophical and qualitative research methodologies can work together for mutual benefit.

No description available.

COVID-19 exacerbated a pre-existing and well-documented mental health crisis on college campuses in the United States. During COVID-19, more college students than ever before in recorded history reported feelings of anxiety and depression, among other mental health issues. There are myriad possible causes for the decline in mental health among college students. One clear cause is the introduction of the smartphone, its widespread adoption, and its frequent use by college-age people. Research also revealed that an unprecedented number of college students are completely disconnected from religion and spirituality. Studies demonstrated that cultivating a religious or spiritual life can be beneficial for one’s mental well-being. The efforts on college campuses to provide mental health resources for students would benefit from additional support. This care should be accessible to more students and should combat the unfortunate stigma around receiving help for mental health. Undergraduate introductory philosophy courses taken as a requirement by various majors can serve as responses to this call for additional care. These classes are inherently accessible and can offer students an engaging experience with self-care by implementing exercises inspired by philosophy as the art of living. Although philosophy as the art of living does not necessarily have to replace religion or other forms of mental health care, it can offer an experience that is of therapeutic value in the classroom. This tradition has a rich, ancient history of intending to serve this purpose. The objective of this research was to present and examine self-care exercises from philosophy as the art of living and to evaluate how these can be taught in the college classroom in response to the mental health crisis on college campuses. It also aimed to render the experience of teaching these exercises. The research was executed through a hermeneutical and phenomenological approach. The phenomenological methodology was performed by a teacher in the form of a self-study. It was also conducted with the teacher as a witness to what transpired in introductory philosophy classes with thousands of students in dozens of individual classes in a diverse metropolis. A college introductory philosophy course in this epoch of mental health crisis on campuses should abide by philosophy as the art of living’s imperative to decrease suffering. There is a vital need for additional resources to respond to the decline in mental wellness among students. The results of this research demonstrated that philosophy as the art of living and its emphasis on exercises can be successfully applied to the college classroom. In this research, students were given time on a regular basis during class to be in silence, confront Socratic-style questions that encouraged them to examine and care for themselves, practice self-writing to heighten their ability to think and pursue the aim of self-care, and then read to engage with philosophical texts to support their self-care. Students consistently and rigorously engaged with these exercises. Their time spent in silent practice provided an opportunity for therapeutic, meditative, and peaceful reflection. Educators should consider implementing these exercises in introductory philosophy classes and beyond as ways to offer self-care to students who may be struggling with their mental health, as so many are.

In the interest of fostering deep student transactions with texts, the purpose of this research is to study a particular approach to teaching writing, and to observe and investigate the impact of a dramatic shift in the methods and frequency of assignment of writing in a college-level philosophy class, and the ways in which the students and instructor negotiate this new territory and these different demands over three cohort years, from Fall 2014 to Spring 2017. This dissertation is an empirical study of what happens when an inquiry-based apprenticeship approach to teaching academic writing (Blau 2011) is employed in a required sophomore- level interdisciplinary humanities course in a highly selective college. This classroom research project seeks to undertake an examination of whether students can be successfully inducted into the academic community through a particular assignment in a Philosophy course. This writing assignment, the “commentary,” encourages students to focus on questions and therefore functions as an instance of writing-to-learn, which belongs to a long tradition across disciplines and cultures. This dissertation will also undertake an examination of the potential capacity of the commentary to create an academic discourse community of practice that supports critical reading and interpreting of literary and philosophical texts. The strategy of this new method is to have the students write twice-weekly 300-500 word commentaries of exploratory and sometimes argumentative writing on assigned texts twice a week, posting the writing in an online discussion board. They receive responses immediately, from each other, and get credit for completing the assignment (on time, relevant, and of appropriate length). The instructor never replies to their postings and never grades their postings on a scale or for quality. Students simply earn credit for completing the full number of required commentaries. The research is not experimental, but rather a qualitative observation of the effects of an approach established by the instructor in this class and in other similar classes as an adaptation of a model for learning academic writing through participation in an authentic academic discourse (Blau). The approach represents an enactment of situated learning theory (Lave & Wenger) in a college classroom and is constructed to advance academic learning while providing an opportunity for situated performative assessment indistinct from instruction. The place of the commentary in this course is established in a literary and historical context as it is authorized, valorized, and illuminated by a tradition of writing-to-learn grounded in the ideas of Isocrates, Quintilian, Cicero, and Montaigne. It is also supported by current seminal research in writing instruction, including James Moffett’s theory of abstraction in writing (1983), Sheridan Blau’s pedagogical applications of apprenticeship systems (2011), James Gee’s theories of discourse analysis (2001), and John Dewey’s “How We Think” (1910). Where decorum permits, there will be deeper meditations and excursions into and elaborations on the auto-ethnographic metacognitive writing of Michel de Montaigne, exploring the history of the practice of writing to learn and its relationship to critical thinking and Dewey. My analysis is situated in examining the culture of writing in this class and the markers of growth in thinking in student writing, using tools out of ethnography and the tradition of teacher research. Based on asking the initial question, “What happens when students write regular commentaries on their reading of difficult texts?” analysis of the collected student writing explores students’ attempts to channel curiosity into productive interpretive techniques, embrace uncertainty, make meaning and connections, and grow in the capacity to welcome and seek out productive confusion and doubt. I will focus primarily on whether this assignment contributes to the construction of a class culture whose implicit and explicit rules, conventions, and patterns of interaction are consistent with those that characterize the knowledge-building communities of the kind that colleges and universities aspire to in their departments, organized research units, and professional associations. I am also interested in exploring whether this shift in the culture of writing impacts whether students come to perceive themselves as contributors to the construction of knowledge as members of an academic community.

Karl Popper developed a falsificationist epistemology in which knowledge grows through falsifying, or criticizing, our theories. Since criticism plays such a vital role in Popper’s falsificationist methodology, it seems natural to envisage his heuristic as a helpful resource for developing critical thinking. However, there is much controversy in the literature over the feasibility and utility of his falsificationism as a heuristic. This study argued that Popper’s falsificationism is justified on the grounds that it not only solves, theoretically, the problem of the bounds of reason in the form of comprehensively critical rationalism, but influences, practically, the research work of scientists from diverse fields. It also found that there is cause for cautious optimism about the effectiveness of falsification as a strategy for solving scientific problems. Popper’s falsificationist epistemology carries profound political and educational implications. On a political level, it is necessary to establish and maintain an open society by fostering five core values, viz. freedom, tolerance, respect, rationalism, and equalitarianism, as well as three crucial practices, viz. democracy, state interventionism, and piecemeal social engineering. On an educational level, the overriding aim is to nurture in children the requisite abilities, skills, and dispositions characteristic of critical thinking for full participation in an open democratic society. In order to achieve Popper’s educational ideal, this study proposed implementing Matthew Lipman’s Philosophy for Children (commonly known as P4C) programme in schools, arguing that the programme can fulfil the requirements of Popper’s educational ideal through using community of inquiry as methodology of teaching, philosophy as subject matter for inquiry, logic as both means and ends of inquiry, and Socrates as a model teacher for inquiry. The present study then conducted an experiment to assess the effectiveness of Lipman’s P4C programme in promoting Hong Kong children’s critical thinking. Forty-two Secondary 1 students volunteered for the experiment, from whom 28 students were randomly selected and randomly assigned to two groups of 14 each: one receiving P4C lessons and the other receiving English lessons. The students who were taught P4C were found to perform better in the reasoning test than those who were not, to be capable of discussing philosophical problems in a competent way, and to have a very positive attitude towards doing philosophy in the classroom. It was also found that P4C played a major role in developing the students’ critical thinking. Considering that the construction of children by adults as incompetent in the sense of lacking reason, maturity, or independence reinforces the traditional structure of adult authority over children in society, it runs counter to the goal of fostering critical thinking in children. As a way to return justice to childhood and to effectively promote critical thinking in children, the present study suggested reconstructing the concept of childhood, highlighting the importance of establishing a coherent public policy on promotion of agency in children and also the importance of empowering them to participate actively in research, legal, and educational institutions. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Orientador: Cesar Aparecido Nunes / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-15T05:34:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Silva_JoseCarlosda_D.pdf: 1474150 bytes, checksum: a5bad34823bf0604773c02b5bda16f45 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009 / Resumo: Este trabalho concentra-se no estudo historiográfico do Ensino de Filosofia na organização da cultura do Agente Religioso no Brasil, visando compreender, sobretudo, o seu início, ou seja, como o Ensino de Filosofia foi introduzido e teve seus primeiros passos no alvorecer do Brasil, ainda no período colonial. Para isso, foi necessário elegermos como datas balizantes desse estudo o período de 1549 a 1599. Mil quinhentos e quarenta e nove porque foi nesta data que chegaram ao Brasil os primeiros Jesuítas com o Governador Geral Tomé de Sousa. E mil quinhentos e noventa e nove por ser o ano da publicação definitiva do Ratio Studiorum. As fontes primárias e essenciais usadas para nosso estudo foram algumas cartas encontradas, lidas e analisadas, escritas pelos primeiros padres Jesuítas no Brasil, enviadas do Brasil pelos Jesuítas que aqui viviam, ao Provincial em Roma, arquivadas no Archivium Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI), visitado e freqüentado no próprio lugar onde estão cuidadosamente guardados em Roma. Também nos servimos de obras essenciais para a nossa análise, por privilégio do contato direto com as fontes - Serafim Leite - a História da Companhia de Jesus no Brasil e as Cartas Jesuíticas. Nesta mesma linha, usamos os textos de Alfredo Bosi; Baeta Neves, José Maria de Paiva, Amarilio Ferreira Junior, Marisa Bittar, Ana Palmira Bittencourt Santos Casimiro e Arilda Inês Miranda Ribeiro, dentre outros, que escreveram textos de apurada e consolidada crítica aos trabalhos educativos realizados pelos Jesuítas no Brasil colônia. Verificou-se que o Ensino de Filosofia para o Agente Religioso no Brasil Colônia foi efetivado no seguimento do Ratio Studiorum, maior expressão pedagógica, que perdurou por muito tempo, como a única expressão metodológica e os únicos dispositivos curriculares vigentes nesta área de ensino. As reflexões formuladas, a partir das pesquisas realizadas, buscam responder às questões iniciais e nos remetem a uma contínua retomada do estudo da História da Educação Brasileira no período colonial. No transcorrer da pesquisa, buscamos identificar uma matriz política para compreender a identidade e localização epistemológica da Filosofia na tradição cultural e na própria história da Filosofia no Brasil. Essa matriz identitária sugere uma dimensão de vassalagem epistemológica e institucional, curricular e política. Buscamos elementos para circunscrever essa identidade e apontar tendências ao longo da história e nas contradições atuais, para a superação dessa herança. / Abstract: This work is focused in the historiographic study of the teaching of philosophy, in the organization of the culture of the religious agent in Brazil, aiming to understand over all, its beginning, or how the teaching of Philosophy was introduced and had its first steps at the dawn of Brazil, still in the colonial period. For that purpose, it was necessary to elect as the boarder dates of this study, the period from 1549 to1599. First, fifteen forty nine, because this was the date that the first Jesuits arrived in Brazil, with the general governor Tomé de Souza. And fifteenninety nine for being the year of the definitive publication of the Ratio Studiorum. The primary and essential sources used in this study were some letters found, read and analyzed, which were written by the firsts Jesuit priests in Brazil, those letters were sent from Brazil to the Provincial in Rome, filed in the Archivium Romanorum Societatis Iesu (ARSI), which was visited at the very place where the letters are kept in Rome. We were also provided with essential works for our analysis, by the privilege with direct contact with the sources - Serafim Leite - The story of the company of Jesus in Brazil and the letters from the Jesuits. In the same line we used the texts of Alfredo Bosi, Baeta Neves. , José Maria de Paiva, Amarílio Ferreira Junior, Marisa Bittar, Ana Palmira Bittencourt Santos Casimiro e Arilda Ines Miranda Ribeiro, among others, that had written texts of accurate and consolidate critical to the educative works realized by the Jesuits in the colonial Brazil. It was verified that the teaching of Philosophy to the religious agent in Brazil reassured in the following of the Ratio Studiorum, the main pedagogical expression that last for a very long time, as the only methodological expression and the only effective curricular resources in this area of education. The reflections formulated from the realized researches try to answer the initial questions and take us to a continuous retaken in the studies of the History of Brazilian Education in the colonial period. During the research we tried to identify a political source to understand the identity and the epistemological localization of the Philosophy in the cultural tradition and in the history of Philosophy in Brazil. This identity source suggests a dimension of political and curricular, epistemological and institutional vassalage. We searched elements to circumscribe this identity and to point the trends throughout History and the current contradictions to overcoming this inheritance. / Doutorado / Filosofia e História da Educação / Doutor em Educação

Orientador: Renê José Trentin Silveira / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-19T09:08:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Almeida_EdsondeSouza_M.pdf: 1159868 bytes, checksum: 402e04c8ce4d28f8955c1f8b89e5787d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011 / Resumo: O presente trabalho se propõe a analisar o papel do ensino de Filosofia na formação dos estudantes para o exercício da cidadania, visto ser este preparo a principal justificativa para a recente reincorporação da disciplina em caráter obrigatório no currículo das escolas de Ensino Médio. Para tanto, optamos por uma abordagem histórica da noção de cidadania, partindo da Antiguidade grega, passando pela Época Moderna, com destaque para as formulações de Hobbes e Locke, e culminando com a análise de como ela se manifesta atualmente nas políticas educacionais brasileiras, sobretudo a partir do final dos anos 1990. Esta análise debruçou-se prioritariamente sobre os seguintes documentos oficiais: a Constituição Federal de 1988; a LDBEN (Lei nº 9394/96), que estabelece as novas bases do que seria uma educação para a cidadania; os Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (PCN); as Orientações Educacionais Complementares aos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais (PCN+); as Orientações Curriculares Nacionais, entre outros. Procuramos demonstrar que tais políticas não proporcionam aos educandos uma efetiva emancipação, posto que se baseiam em uma concepção individualista da cidadania, a ?cidadania nova?, proposta pelos ideólogos do neoliberalismo e voltada à satisfação dos interesses e necessidades do capital. Em contraposição a essa concepção, tentamos apresentar um outra, baseada nos pressupostos do materialismo histórico dialético, mais precisamente nas contribuições de Antonio Gramsci, a qual denominamos ?cidadania da práxis?. O ensino de Filosofia, a nosso ver, pode favorecer o preparo do jovem para essa cidadania, o qual, dentro do espaço escolar, deve contar com a participação decisiva do professor, que se destaca como um intelectual próximo das massas e, portanto, como potencial mediador de um processo didático-pedagógico contra-hegemônico, constituído a partir de um novo princípio educativo que não dicotomize trabalho intelectual e trabalho manual, possibilitando às classes subalternas a educação de si mesmas na arte de governar, como propôs Gramsci. Para tanto, o aluno deve se constituir como novo sujeito histórico capaz de elaborar uma concepção de mundo crítica, consciente, de ser participante na construção da história do mundo e de guiar-se a si mesmo, sem aceitar de modo passivo e servil aquilo que constituirá e definirá sua própria personalidade. / Abstract: This paper aims to analyze the role of philosophy teaching in the formation of students for citizenship, therefore this is the main justification for the recent reincorporation of this required subject in the curriculum of secondary schools. To this, we opted for a historical approach to the notion of citizenship, from the Greek antiquity, through the Modern Era, with emphasis on the formulations of Hobbes and Locke, and culminating with an analysis of how it manifests itself today in Brazilian educational policies, especially from the late 1990s. This analysis leaned at primarily on the following official documents: the Constitution of 1988, the LDBEN (Law nº. 9394/96) down new foundations for what would be an education for citizenship: the National Curriculum Parameters (PCN); Supplemental Educational Guidelines for National Curriculum Parameters (PCN+); National Curriculum Guidelines, among others. Demonstrate that such policies do not provide to learners an effective emancipation, since it is based on an individualistic conception of citizenship, the "new citizenship", proposed by the ideologists of neoliberalism and focused to satisfying the interests and needs of the capital. In contraposition to this conception, we have tried to show another one, based on the assumptions of historical and dialectical materialism, more precisely in the contributions of Antonio Gramsci, which we call ?praxis of citizenship?. The teaching of philosophy, in our view, can help prepare the young for such citizenship, which, in the school environment should have the decisive role of the teacher who stands out as an intellectual close to the masses and, therefore, as potential mediator of a didactic and pedagogic process counter-hegemonic, composed, from a new educational principle that don't dichotomized intellectual job and manual labor, enabling the lower classes an education by themselves in the art of government, as propose Gramsci. For this, the student should it be a new historical subject able to develop a criticize conception of the world, conscious, to be part in the production of the history of the world and guide itself, without accepting passively and servile what will constitute its personality. / Mestrado / Filosofia e História da Educação / Mestre em Educação