In this paper I explore Goodwin Liu's proposal to ground the pedagogy of service-learning in the epistemology of pragmatism from the perspective of a reflective practitioner. I review Liu's epistemology and his claim that from within it three features common to service-learning--community, diversity, and engagement--become pedagogical virtues. I…

By their very nature, courses that contain a community-based component invite opportunities for the practice of empathy, whereby students come to identify with their community partners (such as the low-income children they tutor, the elders they interview). In fact, the building of empathy through the cross-dialogue often catalyzed by such classes…