Ideal Adults, Deficient Children: The Discourse on the Child in Western Philosophy

The child of Western philosophy is conceptualized in a two-fold manner: first, in the work of philosophers ranging from Plato to Rawls, the child is defined through a negation of the positive traits of the adult. The child is not-rational (as the adult is), not moral (as the adult is), not-citizen (as the adult can be). In short, the child is conceptualized as the non-adult, lacking (or possessing in primitive form) the qualities of the adult. Second, given his deficient classification, the child is regarded as a being-to-be-transformed. The child must be corrected and become the adult prior to his inclusion in moral and political realms. This dual conceptualization of the child as a deficient being is informed by a correlative idealization of the adult as a rational, autonomous, moral and political agent. In relation to the ideal adult, the child--both in the canon and, ultimately, in the world--has been produced as a subjected being. Conceptualized and approached as a deficient being, the child is subjected to the corrective strategies of the adult and, further, to a deficient self-identification. In contesting the subjection of the child, Iargue that the canonical uniformity between moral and political existence and adult existence must be deconstructed. It then becomes possible to reconsider moral and political existence apart from adulthood and recognize, perhaps for the first time, the child\u27s moral and political possibilities. Philosophers--both in theory and practice--can begin to ask what children can be apart from their deficient classification and begin to listen for the voices of children in moral and political realms. In doing so, we begin to develop a new conception of the child and the moral and political existence of children

Melarete and peech: preface to an international philosophy with children collaboration

In this paper we discuss two research programs \u2013 MELARETE (Verona, Italy) and Philosophical Ethics in Early Childhood (PEECh) (State College, Pennsylvania, USA) \u2013 and an emerging international research collaboration based on the benefits of practicing philosophy for meaning in early and middle childhood education. We argue for the good of philosophical thinking and its benefits to young students, with a particular focus on ethical development and meaning. We contend that through philosophical pedagogy we can make learning, meaning, vital to students. This is particularly relevant when dealing with questions of ethics and virtue, questions that are close to the lives of children from their earliest years. By discussing these questions and advancing philosophical ethics and virtue programs philosophers can play a central role in the development of responsible and ethical persons in the world. In order to do this, we contend, it is im portant that philosophy be introduced to children from a young age, in the early stages of schooling. Following a discussion of our respective research and education programs in Italy and USA, we discuss our current and ongoing plans for an international research collaboration on ethics and philosophy with children

‘Savage times come again’ : Morel, Wells, and the African Soldier, c.1885-1920

The African soldier trained in western combat was a figure of fear and revulsion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. My article examines representations of African soldiers in nonfictional writings by E.D. Morel about the Congo Free State (1885-1908), the same author’s reportage on African troops in post-First World War Germany, and H.G. Wells’s speculative fiction When the Sleeper Wakes (1899, 1910). In each text racist and anti-colonialist discourses converge in representing the African soldier as the henchman of corrupt imperialism. His alleged propensity for taboo crimes of cannibalism and rape are conceived as threats to white safety and indeed supremacy. By tracing Wells’s connections to the Congo reform campaign and situating his novel between two phases of Morel’s writing career, I interpret When the Sleeper Wakes as neither simply a reflection of past events in Africa or as a prediction of future ones in Europe. It is rather a transcultural text which reveals the impact of European culture upon the ‘Congo atrocities’, and the inscription of this controversy upon European popular cultural forms and social debates