The Role of Epiphanies in Moral Reflection and Narrative Thinking: Connectedness and Good Teaching

In this paper I will explore the implications of an analysis of two kinds of knowledge, the exercise of practical wisdom and the insights associated with narrative knowing, for connected teaching. My aim is to show that both kinds of thinking share important similarities insofar as they include the experience of openness and surprise of epiphanies. Epiphanic experience involves a creative process of discovery that occurs with the emotional recognition of the connection between hitherto separate aspects of experience. In the case of practical wisdom the experience of a general sense of value infuses the perception of the particular situation; in the case of narrative knowing we experience the integration of diverse elements of the plot expressing the meaning of a concatenation of events.