Current renewed interest in the persistently low numbers of women in the philosophy profession offers an opportunity to reflect on what taking diversity seriously should mean for the discipline, and on what should count as measures of success. In this chapter, we argue that although addressing gender inequities in academic philosophy is important, an exclusive focus on gender equity applied to overall numbers of undergraduate students, PhD completions, and number of women in academic positions, risks becoming an “add women and stir” approach, in which conventional assumptions about the nature of the discipline and how success is measured within it remain unchallenged. We suggest that efforts to increase diversity in philosophy require critical consideration of the purpose of a philosophy education and of how it can meet the needs of an increasingly diverse range of students. We also explore how the skills developed by a philosophy education might be more broadly disseminated through a range of social groups and occupations. Although we think that taking inclusion and diversity seriously in the classroom leads to a more pluralist conception of philosophical research, our primary focus in this paper is philosophical pedagogy.
Keywords
Philosophical pedagogy, social inclusion, diversity, gender equity, academic mentoring
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