Naomi Scheman

This paper details the experience of planning, orchestrating, teaching, and participating in a writing-intensive, team-taught, introductory philosophy class designed to expand the diversity of voices included in philosophical study. Accordingly, this article includes the various perspectives of faculty, TAs, and students in the class. Faculty authors discuss the administrative side of the course, including its planning and goals, its texts and structure, its working definition of “philosophy,” its balance of canonical and non-canonical texts, the significant resistance met in getting the course approved, the complex pedagogical difficulties that attend teaching non-canonical texts, the motivation and execution of the course’s writing-intensive dimension, and a summary of student evaluations of the course. The TA authors reflect on the high level of student engagement and interest compared to other introductory philosophy courses, the perception that students found the material highly relevant to their own lives, and the capacity of the material to bring about philosophical insight for the instructors in the class. The student author offers a favorable account of the class and remarks on how the structure of the course aided the accessibility and relevance of the texts.

I argue that naturalizing normativity—articulating norms that are appropriate given what we know about ourselves and the world—can be framed in terms of sustainability, calling for norms that underwrite practices of inquiry that make it more rather than less likely that others, especially those who are variously marginalized and subordinated, will be able to acquire knowledge in the future. The case for a sustainable epistemology, with a commitment to attending especially to those in positions of vulnerability, can be made, I argue, as much on epistemic grounds as on grounds of social justice.

Nicholson's political philosophy is distinctively grounded in history. The Play of Reason: From the Modern to the Postmodern argues that such "grounding" plays as much of the foundational role demanded of philosophy as can coherently be played by anything-and that such a foundation is, pragmatically, enough. I focus on two moves: (1) thinking historically as a model for thinking cross-culturally, and (2) historicizing "all the way down," as a way of exorcising the demand for the ahistorical grounding of epistemology

What are we to make of the Walrus’ sobs and tears and his claim to “deeply sympathize”? Alice, at least, makes something of them: when Tweedledee is done, she says, “I like the Walrus best, … because he was a little sorry for the poor Oysters.” She’s indignant, however, when Tweedledee tells her, “He ate more than the Carpenter, though…. You see he held his handkerchief, so that the Carpenter couldn’t count how many he took; contrariwise.” The Oysters, understandably, take a thoroughly sceptical view of the sobs and tears: “O woeful, weeping Walrus, your tears are all a sham! You’re greedier for Oysters than children are for jam.”