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1443Thoughts on Film: Critically engaging with both Adorno and BenjaminEducational Philosophy and Theory 48 (6): 622-637. 2016.There is a traditional debate in analytic aesthetics that surrounds the classification of film as Art. While much philosophy devoted to considering film has now moved beyond this debate and accepts film as a mass art, a sub-category of Art proper, it is worth re-considering the criticism of film pre-Deleuze. Much of the criticism of film as pseudo-art is expressed in moral terms. T. W. Adorno, for example, critiques film as ‘mass-cult’; mass produced culture which presents a ‘flattened’ version …Read more
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958The Ethics of Narrative Art: philosophy in schools, compassion and learning from storiesJournal of Philosophy in Schools 5 (1): 92-110. 2018.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. nove…Read more
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420Trust, Well-being and the Community of Philosophical InquiryHe Kupu 4 (2): 45-57. 2015.Trust is vital for individuals to flourish and have a sense of well-being in their community. A trusting society allows people to feel safe, communicate with each other and engage with those who are different to themselves without feeling fearful. In this paper I employ an Aristotelian framework in order to identify trust as a virtue and I defend the need to cultivate trust in children. I discuss the case study of Buranda State School in Queensland, Australia as an instance of successful school …Read more
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381Philosophy for children meets the art of living: a holistic approach to an education for lifePhilosophical Inquiry in Education 23 (2): 114-124. 2016.This article explores the meeting of two approaches towards philosophy and education: the philosophy for children approach advocated by Lipman and others, and Schmid’s philosophical concept of Lebenskunst. Schmid explores the concept of the beautiful or good life by asking what is necessary for each individual to be able to develop their own art of living and which aspects of life are significant when shaping a good and beautiful life. One element of Schmid’s theory is the practical application …Read more
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106Trust as a virtue in educationEducational Philosophy and Theory 50 (2): 193-202. 2018.As social and political beings, we are able to flourish only if we collaborate with others. Trust, understood as a virtue, incorporates appropriate rational emotional dispositions such as compassion as well as action that is contextual, situated in a time and place. We judge responses as appropriate and characters as trustworthy or untrustworthy based on these factors. To be considered worthy of trust, as an individual or an institution, one must do the right thing at the right time for the righ…Read more
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101Media and Moral Education: a philosophy of critical engagementRoutledge. 2018.Media and Moral Education demonstrates that the study of philosophy can be used to enhance critical thinking skills, which are sorely needed in today’s technological age. It addresses the current oversight of the educational environment not keeping pace with rapid advances in technology, despite the fact that educating students to engage critically and compassionately with others via online media is of the utmost importance. D’Olimpio claims that philosophical thinking skills support the adoptio…Read more
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88Playing with Philosophy: Gestures, Performance, P4C and an Art of LivingEducational Philosophy and Theory 1-10. 2017.It can hardly be denied that play is an important tool for the development and socialisation of children. In this article we argue that, through dramaturgical play in combination with pedagogical tools such as the Community of Inquiry (CoI), in the tradition of Philosophy for Children (P4C), students can creatively think, reflect and be more aware of the impact their gestures (Schmid 2000b) have on others. One of the most fundamental aspects of the embodied human life is human interaction that i…Read more
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75Philosophy in Schools: An Introduction for Philosophers and Teachers. (review)Journal of Philosophy in Schools 3 (1): 104-106. 2016.Philosophy in Schools: An introduction for philosophers and teachers edited by Sara Goering, Nicholas J Shudak and Thomas E Wartenberg. Taylor & Francis, New York, NY. ISBN: 9780415640633. The edited collection Philosophy in Schools: An introduction for philosophers and teachers is exactly that; an introduction to the central ideas of the Philosophy in Schools movement, with tips and strategies as to how to implement Philosophy for Children in your classroom or educational space. With 25 chapter…Read more
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50Should you design the perfect baby?Think 20 (57): 107-117. 2021.ABSTRACTAs our technology rapidly advances, designer babies and other bioethical issues are fast becoming possible. Instead of solely being considered in economic terms, or in terms of accuracy and desirability, ethical questions should also be asked such as ‘is this a good thing to do?’. This article considers whether moral people would ‘design’ and genetically engineer their babies and applies the moral theories of virtue ethics, deontology and utilitarianism to help guide our ethical decision…Read more
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49Philosophy of education in a new key: Exploring new ways of teaching and doing ethics in education in the 21st centuryEducational Philosophy and Theory 54 (8): 1178-1197. 2022.Within the rough ground that is the field of education there is a complex web of ethical obligations: to prepare our students for their future work; to be ethical as educators in our conduct and teaching; to the ethical principles embedded in the contexts in which we work; and given the Southern context of this work, the ethical obligations we have to this land and its First Peoples. We put out a call to colleagues whose work has been concerned with the pedagogies of professional ethics, the eth…Read more
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48Against value in the arts and education (review)British Journal of Educational Studies 1-3. 2017.
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36Philosophy of education in a new key: A ‘Covid Collective’ of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB)Educational Philosophy and Theory 53 (12): 1215-1228. 2021.This article is a collective writing experiment undertaken by philosophers of education affiliated with the PESGB (Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain). When asked to reflect on questions concerning the Philosophy of Education in a New Key in May 2020, it was unsurprising that the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on society and on education were foremost in our minds. We wanted to consider important philosophical and educational questions raised by the pandemic, while acknowledgi…Read more
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32Educating Character Through the Arts (edited book)Routledge. 2022.This volume investigates the role of the arts in character education. Bringing together insights from esteemed philosophers and educationalists, it looks to the arts for insight into human character and explores the arts' relationship to human flourishing and the development of the virtues. Focusing on the moral value of art and considering questions of whether there can be educational value in imaginative and non-narrative art, the nine chapters herein critically examine whether poetry, music, …Read more
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31Ethical debate about the use of animals in science is argued within different ethical frameworks; mainly utilitarianism, deontology, relativism or emotional ethics, with some debaters preferring particular frameworks. Stakeholders to the debate are veterinarians, scientists using animals, animal welfare groups and the general public. To estimate the balance of ethical frameworks used, we ran a discourse analysis of written texts by each stakeholder . The discourse analysis targeted the descripti…Read more
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29Thoughts on Film: Critically engaging with both Adorno and BenjaminEducational Philosophy and Theory 47 (6): 622-637. 2014.There is a traditional debate in analytic aesthetics that surrounds the classification of film as Art. While much philosophy devoted to considering film has now moved beyond this debate and accepts film as a mass art, a subcategory of Art proper, it is worth reconsidering the criticism of film pre-Deleuze. Much of the criticism of film as pseudo-art is expressed in moral terms. Adorno, for example, critiques film as ‘mass-cult’, mass-produced culture which presents a ‘flattened’ version of reali…Read more
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27Aesthetica and eudaimonia: Education for flourishing must include the artsJournal of Philosophy of Education 56 (2): 238-250. 2022.The point of education is to support students to be able to live meaningful, autonomous lives, filled with rich experiences. The arts and aesthetic education are vital to such flourishing lives in that they afford bold, beautiful, moving experiences of awe, wonder and the sublime that are connected to the central human functional capability Nussbaum labels senses, imagination and thought. Everyone ought to have the opportunity to learn about art, to appreciate and create art, to critique art and…Read more
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24Cultural DeCoding: A humanities program for gifted and talented high school students seeking university entranceJournal of Philosophy in Schools 3 (1): 84-103. 2016.This article details Cultural DeCoding, a humanities based high school extension program for gifted and talented Year 11 and 12 students in Western Australia. The brainchild of Dr Annette Pedersen and Dr Angela McCarthy, the program runs for four days across the summer holidays before the start of the school term. The program fills a gap that exists in the education of gifted and talented secondary students who are interested in the humanities. It is comprised of sessions run by academics who fa…Read more
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23Book review- Philosophy in schools: An introduction for philosophers and teachers (review)Journal of Philosophy in Schools 3 (1): 104-106. 2016.Philosophy in Schools: An introduction for philosophers and teachers edited by Sara Goering, Nicholas J Shudak and Thomas E Wartenberg. Taylor & Francis, New York, NY. ISBN: 9780415640633. The edited collection Philosophy in Schools: An introduction for philosophers and teachers is exactly that; an introduction to the central ideas of the Philosophy in Schools movement, with tips and strategies as to how to implement Philosophy for Children in your classroom or educational space. With 25 chapter…Read more
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22Book review- Identity and personhood: Confusions and clarifications across disciplines (review)Journal of Philosophy in Schools 2 (2): 83-84. 2015.Splitter commences this book by telling the reader that it was a pedagogical incident that led him to write it. Presenting a philosophical seminar series on the topic of ‘identity’ to bright undergraduate students in America from a range of disciplines heightened his realisation that we don’t all use the word in the same way to refer to the same thing. We wouldn’t normally think too much about it, assuming that identity, especially one’s own, is an obvious, assumed entity. However, it is not, re…Read more
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22In Australia, the ethics of the use of animals for scientific purposes are assessed by Animal Ethics Committees that are comprised of the four major parties involved in the animal experimentation debate: veterinarians, scientists using animals, animal welfare representatives and members of the public. AECs are required to assess animal experiments as ethical based on a cost/benefit analysis, suggesting the use of consequentialist ethics. However, people are more likely to use a mixture of framew…Read more
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19Empirical evidence advancing the theory of anthropogenic climate change and resultant policy action has been framed through the perspectives of scientists, economists and politicians; the ultimate objective being to minimise the risk of dangerous climate change through the reduction of GHG emissions. However, policies designed to reduce carbon pollution have utilised cost benefit analysis , largely ignoring ethical implications of such actions. This has resulted in a climate debate that sideline…Read more
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19Much of the current philosophy of film literature follows Walter Benjamin’s optimistic account and sees film as a vehicle for screening philosophical thought experiments, and offering new perspectives on issues that have relevance to everyday life. If these kinds of films allow for philosophical thinking, then they are like other so-called ‘high’ artworks in that they encourage social, political and economic critique of social norms. Yet, most popular films that are digested in large quantities …Read more
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18Editorial: Future Education: Schools and UniversitiesJournal of Philosophy in Schools 6 (1): 1-9. 2019.While some may argue that universities are in a state of crisis, others claim that we are living in a post-university era; a time after universities. If there was a battle for the survival of the institution, it is over and done with. The buildings still stand. Students enrol and may attend lectures, though let’s be clear—most do not. But virtually nothing real remains. What some mistakenly take to be a university is, in actuality, an ‘uncanny’ spectral presence; ‘the nagging presence of an abse…Read more
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18Defending Aesthetic EducationBritish Journal of Educational Studies 70 (3): 263-279. 2022.In this paper, I offer a defence of aesthetic education in terms of aesthetic experience, claiming that aesthetic experience and art appreciation is a vital component of a flourishing life. Given schools have an important role to play in helping prepare young people for their adult lives, it is crucial they should consider how best to equip students with the means to achieve a flourishing life. It is on these grounds I defend arts education as compulsory across the curriculum. In order to adopt …Read more
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17Grounds for Respect: Particularism, Universalism and Communal Accountability (review)Achieving Ethical Excellence (Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations) 12 167-176. 2014.
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17Post-postmodernism: a call to optimismEducational Philosophy and Theory 50 (14): 1378-1379. 2018.
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16Reluctant Heroes and Itchy Capes: The Ineluctable Desire to Be the SaviorJournal of Aesthetic Education 53 (4): 71-85. 2019.In "The Imagination of Disaster," written at or close to the height of the Cold War, Sontag ruminates on what America's interest in, if not preoccupation with, science fiction films tell us about ourselves.1 Their popularity cannot be explained in terms of their entertainment value alone; or if it can, then why audiences found such films entertaining is something that itself needs explanation. Almost all films in the hero genre are also science fiction and are concerned with disasters of one kin…Read more
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16Philosophy in the (Gender and the Law) ClassroomAnalytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis 38 (1): 1-16. 2017.This article reflects on the ‘Philosophy and Gender’ project, which introduced the pedagogical technique known as the ‘Community of Inquiry’ into an undergraduate Gender and the Law course at the University of Western Australia. The Community of Inquiry is a pedagogy developed by Matthew Lipman in the discipline of Philosophy that facilitates collaborative and democratic philosophical thinking in the context of teaching philosophy in schools. Our project was to see if this pedagogy could advance…Read more
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14Symposium Introduction: Education Against ExtremismEducational Theory 73 (3): 337-340. 2023.Educating against extremism doesn't just involve seeking to prevent individuals from becoming extremists or radicalized, although that, of course, is a significant concern. There is also an important role for education in teaching the rest of us, the general populace, the best way to react and respond when we learn of a terrorist attack or consider the potential risk of violent extremism in our community, or even worldwide, given we are connected globally via technology. In this article, Laura D…Read more
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13Educating the Rational Emotions: An Affective Response to ExtremismEducational Theory 73 (3): 394-412. 2023.Educating against extremism doesn't just involve seeking to prevent individuals from becoming extremists or radicalized, although that, of course, is a significant concern. There is also an important role for education in teaching the rest of us, the general populace, the best way to react and respond when we learn of a terrorist attack or consider the potential risk of violent extremism in our community, or even worldwide, given we are connected globally via technology. In this article, Laura D…Read more
Birmingham, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
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Philosophy of Education |
Technology Ethics, Misc |
Moral Education |
Aesthetic Education |
Film Theory |
Virtue Ethics |
Teaching Philosophy |
PhilPapers Editorships
Philosophy for Children: Aesthetics |