Imperfect Cognitions

Today's post is by Melissa M. Shew and Kimberly K. Garchar . They present their new book, Philosophy for Girls: An Invitation to the Life of Thought  (OUP 2020). Despite social and institutional improvements, women and girls are routinely discouraged from full participation in intellectual and civic life. Kamala Harris’s recent refrain of “I’m speaking, I’m speaking” in a debate against Vice President Mike Pence evidences the ongoing challenge that women face in having their voices--and therefore their ideas--truly heard. This disrespect of women’s intellectual expertise occurs in nearly all aspects of our lives, so academic philosophy is no different. The chronic erasure of women’s voices in content, meager representation in philosophy syllabi, persistence of all-male panels in philosophy, and dominance in faculty meetings evidence the gender disparity in education. Melissa M. Shew This gap is harmful not just to women who are unable to fulfill their philosophical potential as a ...

This post is by Ji-Young Lee. This year’s Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) @ Bristol conference theme was ‘Public Philosophy’. We hosted a number of talks exploring the conceptual and practical issues related to the idea of philosophy as a ‘public’ endeavour. Four current Philosophy PhD students are responsible for organizing the event: Chengxiao Dang, Chia-Hung Huang, Ji-Young Lee, and Denise Vargiu. We would also like to acknowledge Minorities and Philosophy, The Marc Sanders Foundation, and the University of Bristol Philosophy Department for kindly supporting this event. We commenced our morning session with a talk from Jane Gatley, on justifying philosophy in secondary schools. She discussed how justifying teaching philosophy through the positive benefits associated with the P4C movement risked ‘conflating claims about philosophy with claims about the distinctive P4C pedagogy’. The benefits attached to P4C might have more to do with dialogue and child-centered learning, rat...