Caricatures, Myths, and White Lies
Walsh, K; Currie, A
Date: 22 July 2015
Journal
Metaphilosophy
Publisher
Wiley
Publisher DOI
Abstract
Pedagogical situations require white lies: in teaching philosophy we make decisions about
what to omit, what to emphasise, and what to distort. We are interested in when it is
permissible to distort the historical record, arguing for a tempered respect for the
historical facts. We focus on the rationalist/empiricist distinction, ...
Pedagogical situations require white lies: in teaching philosophy we make decisions about
what to omit, what to emphasise, and what to distort. We are interested in when it is
permissible to distort the historical record, arguing for a tempered respect for the
historical facts. We focus on the rationalist/empiricist distinction, which still frames
most undergraduate early modern courses despite failing to capture the intellectual
history of that period. We draw an analogy with Michael Strevens’ view on idealisation in
causal explanation to distinguish between myths and caricatures. The former are distortions
of the historical record which undermine students’ understanding of the past, despite
having other pedagogical benefits (being illuminative of some other period, or helping
uptake of philosophical skills and methods). The latter are distortions which either
increase, or are indifferent to, understanding of the past. Myth-making, we argue, is
unjustified.
Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy, and Anthropology
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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