The following appeared in Volume 98, Number 1 (Fall, 1998) of the APA Newsletters

In this edition of the APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy, we present two articles of interest to teachers of philosophy.

The first article is a review essay by Nicholas Burbules on Steven M. Cahn’s anthology, Classic and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Education. Professor Burbles uses Cahn’s anthology as a foil for reflections on the nature and content of the philosophy of education itself. He notes that the term "philosophy of education" is vague, and admits of a variety of content, methodology, and canonical texts. Cahn’s choice of writings for his anthology reflects upon the state of teaching in philosophy of education today, both in and outside of philosophy departments. While agreeing with many of Cahn’s choices, Burbles points out that the question of what is philosophical about their content is left uncertain, and the inclusion of great figures in this history of philosophy whose interest in education as such was slender and who were not great philosophers of education, makes contemporary work in the philosophy of education appear thin. Professor Burbles closes with an appeal to philosophers to make educational issues central to the "applied" areas of philosophy that are pursued in philosophy departments today.

The second article, "Philosophical Literacy: Are There Things Every Philosopher Needs to Know," by William Irwin, considers whether there is a body of knowledge that is universal to the practice of philosophy today, and whether future instructors in philosophy are being prepared adequately to convey that body of knowledge to the next generation. Noting that specialization has vitiated the shared knowledge that all professional philosophers were heretofore presumed to possess, Irwin describes the pedagogical implications of the absence of such literacy. Without trying to supply the content of such philosophical literacy, he appeals to graduate schools to insure the broad training of philosophers.

In the Fall 1997 edition of the Newsletter, we included a review of William L. Reese’s Dictionary of Philosophy of Religion: Eastern and Western Thought, written by Jerome Gellman of Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. Professor Reese thereupon requested space to respond to Professor Gellman, and we are including this response in our News and Notes section following the book reviews. Professor Gellman has already read Professor Reese’s response, and his reflections on his differences with Professor Reese will appear in our next issue.

The mailing addresses of this issue’s contributors are listed at the end of our Newsletter.

We encourage our readers to suggest themselves as reviewers of books and other material that they think may be especially good for classroom use. The names of the books we have received for review are listed at the back of the Newsletter. (Those not asterisked are still available for review.) Please remember that our publication is devoted to pedagogy and not to theoretical discussions of philosophical issues, and that should be borne in mind when reviewing material for our publication.

As always, we encourage our readers to write for our publication. We welcome papers that respond, comment on or take issue with any of the material that appears within our pages. The following guidelines for submissions should be followed:

• The author’s name, the title of the paper and full mailing address should appear on a separate sheet of paper. Nothing that identifies the author or his or her institution should appear within the body or within the footnotes/endnotes of the paper. The title of the paper should appear on the top of the paper itself.

• Four complete copies of the paper should be sent.

• Authors should adhere to the production guidelines that are available from the APA and that are published in the present edition of the APA Newsletters on the front inside cover.

• All material submitted to the Newsletter should be available on Windows-compatible computer disk, but don’t send the disk with the submitted paper. The editors will request the disk when the paper is ready to be published. In writing your paper to disk, please do not use your wordprocessor’s footnote or endnote function; all notes should be added manually at the end of the paper.

• All articles submitted to the Newsletter are blind-reviewed by the members of the editorial committee. They are:

  • Tziporah Kasachkoff, The Graduate Center, CUNY
    (tkasachkoff@gc.cuny.edu), co-editor

  • Eugene Kelly, New York Institute of Technology
    (ekelly@admin.nyit.edu), co-editor

  • David B. Martens, Mount Royal College

  • Neil Rossman, La Guardia Community College, CUNY
    (dinkrmax@aol.com)

  • Andrew Wengraf, (recently retired from Brooklyn College, CUNY)
    (andrew@welch-wengraf.demon.co.uk)

Contributions should be sent to:

Tziporah Kasachkoff
Philosophy Department
Graduate Center, CUNY
25 West 42nd Street
New York City, NY 10036

or to:

Eugene Kelly
Department of Social Science
New York Institute of Technology
Old Westbury, NY 11568