• Why Not lie?
    The Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 18 43-52. 1998.
    This paper proposes that we should aim to refine talk about issues in soap opera as a means of developing moral reasoning skills. I begin with a report of work at schools in New Jersey over 1996-97, during which excerpts of a popular soap opera, 'Party of Five,' were used as the basis of a rigorous philosophical discussion of moral behavior. I then turn to the distinctive role of soap opera as a locus of moral discussion, with an example of a Mexicana telenovela. I suggest that children are alre…Read more
  • Logic in the Classroom
    Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children 8 (2): 14-20. 1989.
  •  26
    Television has been demonized as the cause of the moral decay of our society. Its content is derided as vapid. However, what we watch on television is often philosophically complex. This book examines news, cartoons such as South Park, advertisements, and soap operas and identifies complex moral dilemmas and arguments in them. It argues that we should apply analytical and philosophical skills directly to what we watch and shows how it can be done. In the final chapter, the way in which the news …Read more
  •  2
    This paper deals with the new cult cartoon series, "South Park". While reviled as vulgar and likely to lead children astray, it is in fact a fertile field of ethical and logical argumentation. The paper analyses in detail the argumentation of one epi sode, entitled "An elephant makes love to a pig" and shows how it can be used to teach reasoning skills.
  •  51
    Seeing Reasons: Visual Argumentation in Advertisements (review)
    Argumentation 17 (2): 145-160. 2003.
    It is a commonplace of discussion about the impact of visual media, whether visual images in print, televisual images or the images of the internet, to claim that it functions irrationally. This paper argues against that claim. First, the assumptions about the connection between rationality and linear, written, unemotional prose are unjustified. Secondly, using analytic techniques analogous to those used in identifying argumentation in verbal text, is possible to discern arguments in visual text…Read more
  •  14
    Reflective Reasoning in Groups
    Informal Logic 17 (2). 1995.
    The conception of reflective reasoning, like that of higher order thinking, has been informed by a Cartesian view of the self. Reflection is conceived of as a solipsistic process, in which persons consider their own thoughts in isolation. Higher order thinking has equally been represented as a single thinker considering thoughts at a meta-level. This paper proposes a different conception of reflection and higher order thinking, in which reflective dialogue is seen as the fundamental context in w…Read more
  •  1
    Reasoning and Children
    Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children 13 (2): 2-7. 1997.
  •  1
    Harryspeak and the Conversation of Girls
    Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children 11 (3-4): 29-32. 1994.
  • Find the Poles in 'Blue Poles'
    with Maryanne del Gigante
    Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis 17 (2): 115-122. 1996.
  •  12
    Traditionally reasoning skills have been taught through written examples, often anachronistic or artificial. However, students use television as their major source of information about the world and as the source of basic understanding of the world. Yet we rarely provide students with the skills directly to criticize and analyze television's world view. This paper reports on a project designed to teach reasoning through the critical analysis of real television products. News presentation is show…Read more
  • Conversing Across Communities:: Relativism and Difference
    Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis 17 (2): 67-76. 1996.