Philosophy of Childhood Today

David Kennedy is professor of educational foundations at Montclair State University.Brock Bahler is visiting assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh.

Although philosophy of childhood has always played some part in philosophical discourse, its emergence as a field of postmodern theory follows the rise, in the late nineteenth century, of psychoanalysis, for which childhood is a key signifier. Then in the mid-twentieth century Philipe Aries's seminal Centuries of Childhood introduced the master-concept of childhood as a social and cultural invention, thereby weakening the strong grip of biological metaphors on imagining childhood. Today, while philosophy of childhood per se is a relatively boundaryless field of inquiry, it is one that has clear distinctions from history, anthropology, sociology, and even psychology of childhood. This volume of essays, which represents the work of a diverse, international set of scholars, explores the shapes and boundaries of the emergent field, and the possibilities for mediating encounters between its multiple sectors, including history of philosophy, philosophy of education, pedagogy, literature and film, psychoanalysis, family studies, developmental theory, ethics, history of subjectivity, history of culture, and evolutionary theory. The result is an engaging introduction to philosophy of childhood for those unfamiliar with this area of scholarship, and a timely compendium and resource for those for whom it is a new disciplinary articulation.

IntroductionDavid Kennedy and Brock BahlerThe Child in Ancient Philosophy1. What Is the Sound of a Child Growing Up? The Question of the ChildThomas J. J. Storme2. Heraclitus and the ChildGiuseppe Ferarro, translated by Stefano Oliverio and Brock Bahler3. Childhood, Philosophy, and the Polis: Exclusion and ResistanceWalter Omar Kohan4. Ethics is for Children: Revisiting Aristotle's Virtue TheoryAndrew KomasinskiThe Child in Continental Philosophy5. The Parent-Child Relation and the Decentered Self: A Phenomenological Basis for an Originary PeaceBrock Bahler6. Lyotard and the Philosopher ChildKarin Fry7. Beyond the Developmental Machine: The Politics of Philosophy for InfancyTyson LewisPhilosophy of Childhood and Education8. Traveling Children: Thinking about Education as DisplacementDaniel Contage9. The Re-childed Teacher: A Philosophical-Educational Perspective on the Child and CultureStefano Oliverio10. Tyrannized Childhood of the Liberator-Philosopher: J. S. Mill and Poetry as Second ChildhoodJoshua M. HallPhilosophy of Childhood and the Arts11. Negotiating the Pseudoenvironments of ChildhoodNatalie M. Fletcher12. Mourning, Melancholia, and the Maintenance of the Lost Child: Questioning Tribunella on the Uses of Trauma in Children's LiteratureJames Stillwaggon13. Childhood between Literature and Philosophy: Readings of Childhood in Manoel De Barros's PoetryBernardina Leal14. Nobody Knows-Infancy and the Experience of Being Not UnableNancy VansieleghemThe Future of Philosophy of Childhood15. The Posthuman Child: iiiKarin Murris