Just in Time: Moments in Teaching Philosophy

Serious philosophy is not an attempt to construct a system of beliefs but the activity of awakening the conversation passionately pursued. Only if professional philosophy reclaims this paradigm and finds ways to embody it will it achieve an active place in the thought and life of our culture. --James Conlon Stanley Cavell and the Predicament of Philosophy. This book is a collection of serious philosophical essays that aim to awaken readers teachers and students to a desire for conversation passionately pursued. The essays in this volume speak about sex movies poetry and politics in short about those things contemporary Americans passionately discuss. These are the subjects that were taught for forty-three years in James Conlons classroom at Mount Mary University a Catholic urban university for women in Milwaukee Wisconsin. This volume celebrates Conlons work while calling to all who continue to teach and learn about philosophy in contemporary times with the message that relevant philosophy deals with life as it is lived in the moment.