scholarly journals Envisioning the Experience of Others: Moral Imagination, Practical Wisdom and the Scope of Empathy

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-159
Author(s):  
Natalie M. Fletcher
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Moral Imagination ◽  
Virtue Theory ◽  
Philosophy For Children ◽  
Educational Initiatives ◽  
To Receive

The concept of empathy has gained appeal in many educational initiatives in recent years, notably in the charitable sector, yet conceptual confusions endure and the challenges associated with educating for empathy tend not to receive the attention they deserve. This article strives to help clarify the concept of empathy for educative purposes by examining one such challenge—conceived as "narrow empathetic scope"—drawing on central ideas from neo-Aristotelian virtue theory. The article explores the ways in which moral imagination, as a precursor to empathy, may be uniquely able to assist with the cultivation of practical wisdom in children since it enables them to visualize contexts they have not yet encountered and broaden the moral lens through which they approach and assess their lived experience. The article will also present the Philosophy for Children model as an effective pedagogical method for cultivating the virtue of empathy through morally imaginative dialogue.

scholarly journals The ethics of narrative art: Philosophy in schools, compassion and learning from stories

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura D'Olimpio ◽  
Andrew Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Education ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Philosophy For Children ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
Narrative Art ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Philosophical Dialogue ◽  
Art Philosophy ◽  
Student Questions

Following neo-Aristotelians Alasdair MacIntyre and Martha Nussbaum, we claim that humans are story-telling animals who learn from the stories of diverse others. Moral agents use rational emotions, such as compassion, which is our focus here, to imaginatively reconstruct others’ thoughts, feelings and goals. In turn, this imaginative reconstruction plays a crucial role in deliberating and discerning how to act. A body of literature has developed in support of the role narrative artworks (i.e. novels and films) can play in allowing us the opportunity to engage imaginatively and sympathetically with diverse characters and scenarios in a safe protected space that is created by the fictional world. By practising what Nussbaum calls a ‘loving attitude’, her version of ethical attention, we can form virtuous habits that lead to phronesis (practical wisdom). In this paper, and taking compassion as an illustrative focus, we examine the ways that students’ moral education might usefully develop from engaging with narrative artworks through Philosophy for Children (P4C), where philosophy is a praxis, conducted in a classroom setting using a Community of Inquiry (CoI). We argue that narrative artworks provide useful stimulus material to engage students, generate student questions, and motivate philosophical dialogue and the formation of good habits, which, in turn, supports the argument for philosophy to be taught in schools.

scholarly journals The practical wisdom of inclusive research

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Nind
Keyword(s):  
Learning Disabilities ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Research Collaboration ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Research Projects

The concept of inclusive research epitomizes the transformation away from research on people, to research with them. Applied particularly, but not exclusively, in the field of learning disabilities, the concept encapsulates the drive to involve people in the design and conduct of research about them, reach and represent their lived experience, respect them and value different ways of knowing. This article discusses some of the challenges that UK inclusive researchers have shared in focus groups aimed at taking stock of this transformative movement and it shares how a local UK research collaboration between academics and people with learning disabilities has addressed some of these challenges. Inclusive research methods of generating and analysing data are examined within the broader context of how research projects and partnerships are enacted. The article concludes that doing research inclusively is gradually transforming through collective practical wisdom and praxis.

Human Agency

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-216
Author(s):  
Susan T. Gardner ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Agency ◽  
Philosophy For Children ◽  
Moral Imperative ◽  
Educational Initiative ◽  
Unique Position ◽  
Educational Initiatives

Let us suppose that we accept that humans can be correctly characterized as agents (and hence held responsible for their actions). Let us further presume that this capacity contrasts with most non-human animals. Thus, since agency is what uniquely constitutes what it is to be human, it must be of supreme importance. If these claims have any merit, it would seem to follow that, if agency can be nurtured through education, then it is an overarching moral imperative that educational initiatives be undertaken to do that. In this paper, it will be argued that agency can indeed be enhanced, and that the worldwide educational initiative called Philosophy for Children (P 4C), and others like it, are in a unique position to do just that, and, therefore, that P4C deserves our praise and support; while denigrations of such efforts for not being “real philosophy” ought to be thoroughly renounced.

scholarly journals Lived experience of women with gestational diabetes mellitus living in China: a qualitative interview study

BMJ Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. e017648 ◽  
Author(s):  
Li Ge ◽  
Kerstin Wikby ◽  
Mikael Rask
Keyword(s):  
Diabetes Mellitus ◽  
Gestational Diabetes ◽  
Gestational Diabetes Mellitus ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Interview Study ◽  
Main Theme ◽  
Snowball Sampling ◽  
Inclusion Criteria ◽  
Qualitative Interview Study ◽  
To Receive

ObjectiveTo explore the lived experience of women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) living in China in order to add knowledge about how the Chinese women suffer from GDM.DesignA qualitative interpretive interview study. Data were collected with a snowball sampling technique. Phenomenological hermeneutics was used as the analysis method based on Ricoeur’s phenomenological hermeneutical interpretation theory.SettingThe study was performed at the participants’ work places, or at the obstetric clinics or wards at two provincial hospitals and one municipal hospital in the southeast of China.ParticipantsInclusion criteria were age ≥18 years, diagnosis of GDM without other pregnancy complications, in 34th gestational weeks—postpartum 4th weeks and speaking Mandarin Chinese without speech impediment. 62 women, who met the inclusion criteria, took part in the study.ResultsThe lived experience of the women with GDM living in China was formulated into a main theme: ‘longing for caring care’. The main theme was derived from four themes: being stricken by GDM, wishing to receive caring GDM care, being left alone to struggle with GDM and trying to adjust and adapt to life with GDM.ConclusionThe eagerness for caring care in China was highlighted. The lack of caring care could be one of the possible reasons why the professional–patient relations were deteriorating in China. It could be useful for health providers and health policymakers to receive education and training about caring care. Using the health metaphor of balance and ‘patient participation’ and ‘patient-centred’ approaches may benefit women with GDM and thus improve the quality of care in China.

scholarly journals Expanding Constituency Support Through Shared Local Roots in U.S. House Primaries

2020 ◽  
pp. 1532673X2095960
Author(s):  
Charles Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Primary Elections ◽  
Point Index ◽  
Local Representation ◽  
Primary Election ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The U.S

This paper addresses the enduring connection of localism and place-based roots shared between many elected leaders and their constituents, which previous work has either ignored or improperly specified. I argue that representatives of the U.S. House with these roots—meaning authentic, lived experience in their districts prior to their officeholding—sustain more supportive constituencies in primary election stage. Using an original 7-point index of local biographical characteristics of incumbents seeking renomination from 2002 to 2018, I find that deeply-rooted incumbents are less than half as likely to receive a primary challenge, and on average perform more than 5 percentage points better in their primary elections when they are challenged. These gains take place even after taking district partisanship, national political conditions, incumbent ideology, and other primary factors into account, and should induce scholars to reconsider the importance of local representation even amidst a nationalizing political culture.

scholarly journals Training Teachers in China to Use the Philosophy for Children Approach and Its Impact on Critical Thinking Skills: A Pilot Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 206
Author(s):  
Caiwei Wu
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Pilot Study ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Critical Thinking Skills ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Philosophy For Children ◽  
Educational Approach ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
To Receive

Philosophy for Children (P4C) is an educational approach that helps children question, reason, construct arguments, and collaborate with others. This approach to teaching is new to Chinese teachers and students who have traditionally relied on rote learning and dissemination of knowledge. Independent thinking and questioning are rarely encouraged. This article reports on a pilot study aimed at training teachers in one school in mainland China to use P4C to promote thinking skills. Six year 7 classes (age 12–13) and their teachers were randomly assigned to receive P4C training (n = 90 pupils) or to a control group (n = 88). The intervention ran for 4 weeks. The study found that teachers appreciated the P4C methods but were concerned about using the method in their regular curriculum. An impact evaluation shows that students who were taught P4C experienced a small improvement in thinking skills, measured using a composite of validated critical thinking tests.

scholarly journals L’invention morale et la sagesse pratique. Une lecture de la petite éthique de Paul Ricoeur

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-51
Author(s):  
Jean-Philippe Pierron
Keyword(s):  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Moral Imagination ◽  
Paul Ricoeur ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Paul Ricœur ◽  
Good Advice

The “small” Ricœurian ethic disrupts the classical presentations of different ethics because of the place it gives to the moral imagination and the tragic. Difficult to classify in the panorama of contemporary ethics, the Ricœurian project values the pluralism of moral traditions as practical preunderstandings while giving practical creativity a prominent place. This tension of traditions and ethical imagination gives his practical wisdom a dynamic and heuristic character. This article shows the fruitfulness of this wisdom in an age of pluralistic and complex societies, and deploys its practical significance. It analyzes, first, cells of good advice, where practical inventiveness is mobilized. Second, through discussion of the work of Ricœur and Nussbaum, it then studies, within the framework of the economy where the role and place given to play is central, the place of imagination in an anthropology of the capable human being.

Waddington, Miriam (née Dworkin) (1917–2004)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Molly Hall
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Poetic Practice ◽  
To Receive ◽  
North End

Canadian poet Miriam Waddington was born in Winnipeg’s Jewish North End neighbourhood in Manitoba, Canada on 23 December 1917. Waddington was honoured with several awards for her writing throughout her career, winning the Borestone Mountain Award for best poem of the year in 1963, 1966, and 1974, and the J. J. Segal Award in 1972; receiving honorary doctorates from Lakehead University in 1975 and York University in 1985; and having her words imprinted on the Canadian $100 note in 2004. Her socialist and Yiddish upbringing inflected the politics of her poetry throughout her life; it was through her parents’ connections that she was able to receive mentorship from respected Yiddish poet Ida Maze, whose influences can be seen in Waddington’s work. Her translations of Yiddish poets were also central to her own poetic practice. Her style was unique for its formal precision in combination with a conversational tone—an innovation of stylistic play uncommon before her time. Her poetic focus on female-lived experience, preoccupation with her Jewish roots, and her Canadian nationality were deftly interwoven with explorations of cultural, national, and personal identity.

scholarly journals When Two Worlds Meet: A Response to Heesters

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacques Quintin
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Good Care ◽  
Sick People ◽  
Experience Of Illness ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Human Condition

This is a commentary on the article of Heesters, “Healthy as a trout – as delicate as a dragon-fly”, in which she describes her experience of illness. Her text shows that there are two worlds that are difficult to reconcile: that of caregivers and sick people. The question is how to reconcile these two worlds of meaning. To receive good care is certainly necessary, but not sufficient to the extent that sick people are also motived by the need to understand their existence that has been disturbed by illness. The contact of the humanities, all those forms of expression that touch on the human condition, is of substantial help to enabling caregivers to accompany sick people so that the latter can put words to their lived experience. The humanities help to reduce the gap between the medical world and the lived experience. And the text of Heesters represents a good example.

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