Philosophical Scholarship for and with the Whole Public: Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice
Kristopher Phillips, editor-in-chief of Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice, is assistant professor of philosophy at Eastern Michigan University.
Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice (P4), founded in 2019, occupies a unique niche: it supports the growth of philosophical, empirical, and interdisciplinary scholarly research in precollege and public philosophy. Scholarship in these fields, regardless of methodology, does not often neatly fit within the covers of many other traditional philosophy journals.
Although the connection between precollege philosophy and public philosophy may seem tenuous, we understand ‘public philosophy’ to be a broad and inclusive category that captures a wide variety of philosophical approaches, projects, and stakeholders. We maintain that children are partly constitutive of “the public.” As such, we understand philosophical initiatives for young people as one particularly valuable mode of public philosophy.
However, philosophy with young folks ought not be merely subsumed into the broader category of “public philosophy”; indeed, it has its own distinctive methodologies, and pedagogical and scholarly history. Thus, P4 acts as a unique venue serving a broad range of scholars working for and with the public – including its very young members. Given our commitment to bringing philosophy to and doing philosophy with the public, the scholarly articles published in P4 are never housed behind a paywall. It is an open-access journal: the public with whom we engage is welcome to engage with the fruits of our collective efforts.
As P4’s new editor-in-chief, I plan to continue the journal’s mission of supporting diverse and interdisciplinary scholarship in all areas of philosophy as it pertains to the whole public. With this aim in mind, I am excited to announce the publication of Volume 6. It contains articles on ethical enfranchisement, anti-bias education for preschoolers, and ways in which philosophy can enrich computer science curricula. You can read Volume 6 here.
The issue opens with Timothy Stock, Michèle Schlehofer, and Jennifer Nyland’s article, “What is Ethical Enfranchisement? Community Research and the Social Infrastructure of Ethics.” Stock and colleagues argue that ethicists working in public institutions have a special obligation to “ethically enfranchise” those in their communities. Academics who presume that members of the public do not or cannot have moral knowledge because of their identities as members of the public commit an epistemic injustice; members of the public ought to be brought into the sorts of discussions that impact them. Stock and colleagues then outline the REACH Initiative, a framework for developing community ethical enfranchisement they developed Salisbury University. It’s an important reminder that scholarly work can (and should!) have an impact beyond the halls of academia.
In “Teaching Fairness in Preschool: Evaluating the Steps in an Anti-Bias Education,” Sharon Carnahan, Courtney Trohn, Cora Burkely, and Diane Terorde Doyle explore the impact philosophical lessons can have on children’s understanding of equity, fairness, and bias. Their “micro analysis” reveals that students become more aware of skin color and better understand the concept of equity after philosophy learning sessions. The authors also found a significant positive relationship between children’s receptive vocabulary skills and their socioemotional skills demonstrated by classroom community membership. This article marks an exciting addition to the emerging empirical literature on the development of social emotional learning.
In “Philosophy Through Computation: Two Examples,” Daniel Lim and Jaixin Wu detail ways that philosophy programs can collaborate with computer science programs to enrich computer science curricula. Employing two classical philosophical problems (external world skepticism and free-will versus determinism), Lim and Wu’s pedagogical approach introduces philosophy to students while capitalizing on current trends in higher education and the public’s enthusiasm for computer science. Benefits to students include reduced cognitive load, sustained student engagement, memory formation, and the development of good philosophical hygiene. This article illustrates just one of the ways in which an interdisciplinary approach benefits stakeholders from across disciplines.
Notes from the Field, a popular addition to P4, invites practitioners of precollege and public philosophy to their share reflections, questions, and challenges. In “Finding the Right Balance: The Emotional Challenges of Teaching High School Philosophy,” Laurie Grady reminds us that introducing students to emotionally challenging philosophical material is more than merely an academic exercise. She shares a crossroads moment during when she had to decide whether to forge ahead with a unit on existentialism knowing that one of her students had recently faced a serious existential crisis. Grady artfully teases out the responsibilities and limits we have as K-12 teachers, yet her discussion will prove instructive to anyone teaching philosophy regardless of the level. Included as a testament to the value of Grady’s teaching and the impact that philosophical instruction can have on students, the Note concludes with student reflections.
Our book review section includes thoughtful reviews by A. G. Holdier and John Milkovich of, respectively, Scott Hershovitz’s Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy with My Kids, and Jane Gatley’s Why Teach Philosophy in Schools: The Case for Philosophy on the Curriculum. We hope you will contribute to P4. Volume 7 will include a cluster of papers in, or at the intersection of the philosophy of education, social epistemology, and the place of public institutions of education in the community. If you wish to be considered for publication in Volume 7, please submit your work by September 30.
As always, we also welcome scholarly submissions in any area of philosophy for and with the public and philosophy for and with young folks, but specific topics of interest include (but are not limited to):
- Relationship between public philosophy, education, and pre-college philosophy
- Advocating for and/or creative approaches to public and/or precollege philosophy
programming - Interdisciplinary approaches to public and/or precollege philosophy
- Dialogue-based education, social justice, and diversity
- Comparative research on approaches to philosophy and dialogue-based education in K-12 classrooms, prisons, retirement communities, or community-based venues and organizations
- Empirical research on impacts / outcomes of philosophy and dialogue-based education and/or outreach programs
- Book reviews, primarily for newly published, stand-alone monographs and volumes on topics relevant to precollege and public philosophy
- Essays for “Notes from the field.”
We accept submissions on an ongoing basis and offer timely publication with our online-first publishing. For submission guidelines, information on submission requirements, and to see past volumes, please visit P4 at https://www.pdcnet.org/p4.
