Humans are an exceptionally cooperative species, but there is substantial variation in the extent of cooperation across societies. Understanding the sources of this variability may provide insights about the forces that sustain cooperation. We examined the ontogeny of prosocial behavior by studying 326 children 3–14 y of age and 120 adults from six societies (age distributions varied across societies). These six societies span a wide range of extant human variation in culture, geography, and subsistence strategies, including foragers, herders, horticulturalists, and (...) urban dwellers across the Americas, Oceania, and Africa. When delivering benefits to others was personally costly, rates of prosocial behavior dropped across all six societies as children approached middle childhood and then rates of prosociality diverged as children tracked toward the behavior of adults in their own societies. When prosocial acts did not require personal sacrifice, prosocial responses increased steadily as children matured with little variation in behavior across societies. Our results are consistent with theories emphasizing the importance of acquired cultural norms in shaping costly forms of cooperation and creating cross-cultural diversity. (shrink)

This title was first published in 2000. Drawing on exclusive interviews with Karl Popper, this book provides the first comprehensive examination of the educational implications of his philosophy. Critically exploring key elements of Popper's work, his theory of knowledge, psychology of learning and politics, Richard Bailey also extrapolates an approach to teaching and learning in schools and the wider community.

This book provides an authoritative, yet accessible guide to the philosophy of education, its scope, its key thinkers and movements, and its potential ...

Terence Horgan, George Graham and John Tienson argue that some intentional content is constitutively determined by phenomenology alone. We argue that this would require a certain kind of covariation of phenomenal states and intentional states that is not established by Horgan, Tienson and Graham’s arguments. We make the case that there is inadequate reason to think phenomenology determines perceptual belief, and that there is reason to doubt that phenomenology determines any species of non-perceptual intentionality. We also raise worries about the (...) capacity of phenomenology to map onto intentionality in a way that would be appropriate for any determiner of content/fixer of truth conditions. (shrink)

Pandemic plans recommend phases of response to an emergent infectious disease outbreak, and are primarily aimed at preventing and mitigating human-to-human transmission. These plans carry presumptive weight and are increasingly being operationalized at the national, regional and international level with the support of the World Health Organization. The conventional focus of pandemic preparedness for EIDs of zoonotic origin has been on public health and human welfare. However, this focus on human populations has resulted in strategically important disciplinary silos. As the (...) risks of zoonotic diseases have implications that reach across many domains outside traditional public health, including anthropological, environmental, and veterinary fora, a more inclusive ecological perspective is paramount for an effective response to future outbreaks. (shrink)

There has been an exponential growth in research examining the neurological basis of human cognition and learning. Little is known, however, about the extent to which sports coaches are aware of these advances. Consequently, the aim of the present study was to examine the prevalence of pseudoscientific ideas among British and Irish sports coaches. In total, 545 coaches from the United Kingdom and Ireland completed a measure that included questions about how evidence-based theories of the brain might enhance coaching and (...) learning, how they were exposed to these different theories, and their awareness of neuromyths. Results revealed that the coaches believed that an enhanced understanding of the brain helped with their planning and delivery of sports sessions. Goal-setting was the most frequently used strategy. Interestingly, 41.6% of the coaches agreed with statements that promoted neuromyths. The most prevalent neuromyth was “individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style (e.g., auditory, visual, or kinesthetic)”, which 62% of coaches believed. It is apparent that a relatively large percentage of coaches base aspects of their coaching practice on neuromyths and other pseudoscientific ideas. Strategies for addressing this situation are briefly discussed and include changing the content of coach education programs. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between the development of talented young sports people and conceptions of social justice. It is set within the context of recent policy developments in the United Kingdom that place renewed emphasis on talent development (and wider issues of ?gifted and talented education?), and justifies this with explicit reference to social justice. After providing a summary of relevant policy initiatives and their often-unstated presumptions, the paper goes on to examine the different ways in which philosophers have (...) conceptualised the role of luck in human affairs. Luck is a matter of particular interest to social justice theorists, who often frame their discussions in terms of the neutralisation of luck. This presents something of a problem for policy makers, as talent development seems destined to exaggerate the effects of luck, not neutralise them. In other words, it is suggested here that talent development cannot be justified in terms of social justice ? at least the version of social justice advocated my many of the leading theorists ? because it results in the opposite outcome than would be desired. None of this means that talent development is indefensible; it is just indefensible in the terms used in the UK talent development policy. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn is a rarity. Widely regarded as one of the most influential theorists of the physical sciences, he has also, largely through his concept of the ‘paradigm’, had a sustained effect on the social sciences and education. His classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is read and cited by scholars in an astonishing range of disciplines, in part due to its acquired association with progressive social research and practice. This article takes issue with Kuhn’s conceptions of science and its (...) translation into educational practice, and suggests that they do not deserve the warm embrace they have received. It is argued that Kuhn’s popularity among progressive thinkers is somewhat ironic, since his portrayal of ‘normal science education’ is inherently indoctrinatory, presenting insurmountable barriers to acceptance as part of a liberal educational philosophy. (shrink)

This article is based on interviews with former Australian immigration detainees conducted by the author. The interviews explored the experience and understanding of resistance while in detention. The article calls into question Agamben’s twin conclusions that nothing short of a complete re-founding of ontology is required to liberate humanity from biopower and that this refoundation will spring from bare life. Contrary to Agamben’s depiction, the camp proves to be a place of determined and often successful defence of a relation of (...) politics and life based not on the camp and biopower, but on solidarity and freedom. Detainees in Australian immigration detention, like prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps, refused to abandon their politics. Rather than seeking to transform bare life, they rejected it and made their own decision on life and politics. (shrink)

Truth has had a hard time in much recent educational and social scientific writing. Veriphobia, the fear of truth, can be witnessed in the work of postmodernists, radical social constructivists, pragmatists, and others. Although it manifests itself in numerous ways, there remain certain frequently appearing symptoms, and these are examined in this paper. It is suggested that the veriphobic stance is inherently self-contradictory. It is also fatal for serious and meaningful research and inquiry. Once veriphobia has been treated, researchers can (...) stop worrying and start loving truth again. (shrink)

Truth has had a hard time in much recent educational and social scientific writing. Veriphobia, the fear of truth, can be witnessed in the work of postmodernists, radical social constructivists, pragmatists, and others. Although it manifests itself in numerous ways, there remain certain frequently appearing symptoms, and these are examined in this paper. It is suggested that the veriphobic stance is inherently self-contradictory. It is also fatal for serious and meaningful research and inquiry. Once veriphobia has been treated, researchers can (...) stop worrying and start loving truth again. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Recent decades have witnessed a growing interest in the topic of a meaningful life among philosophers, psychologists, and the general public. Yet despite this interest, the thinker who is perhaps most closely associated with meaning and mental health, the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, has been largely overlooked by academic researchers. This article offers some redress to this situation by exploring the status of his central idea, the Will to Meaning, by locating it within contemporary philosophical discussions of Meaning in (...) Life, and examining the coherence of the difference elements of Frankl’s published works. A combination of biographical, historical and philosophical analysis, including reference to the thinkers who helped his ideas, such as Kierkegaard and Scheler, provides a constructively critical account of Frankl’s existential theory of meaning. It is suggested that Frankl’s theory, with amendments, provides a useful contribution to contemporary discussions in the field. (shrink)

Living kidney transplantation offers the best treatment in terms of life-expectancy and quality of life for those with end-stage renal disease. The long-term risks of living donor nephrectomy, although real, are very small, with evidence of good medium-term outcomes. Who should be entitled to donate, and in which circumstances, is nevertheless a live question. We explore the ethical dimensions of a request by an individual to donate both of their kidneys during life: ‘dual living kidney donation’. Our ethical analysis is (...) tethered to a hypothetical case study in which a father asks to donate a kidney to each of his twin boys. We explore the autonomy of the protagonists, alongside different dimensions of the public interest, such as the need to protect not only the recipients, but also the donor and even the wider community. Whilst acknowledging objections to ‘dual-donation’, not least by reference to the harms that the donor might be expected to endure, we suggest there is a prima facie case for permitting this, provided that both donor and recipients are willing and that due attention is paid to such considerations as the autonomy and welfare of all parties, as well as to the wider ramifications of acting on such a request. We argue for broader interpretations of the concepts of autonomy and welfare, recognizing the importance of relationships and the relevance of more than merely physical well-being. Equipped with such a holistic assessment, we suggest there is a prima facie case for allowing ‘dual living kidney donation’. (shrink)

Critics of the conventional theory of biological evolution have asserted that while natural processes might result in some limited diversity, nothing fundamentally new can arise from “random” evolution. In response, biologists like Richard Dawkins have demonstrated that a computer program can generate a specific short phrase via evolution-like iterations starting with random gibberish. While such demonstrations are intriguing, they are flawed in that they have a fixed, prespecified future target, whereas in real biological evolution there is no fixed future (...) target, but only a complicated “fitness landscape.” In this study, a significantly more sophisticated evolutionary scheme is employed to produce text segments reminiscent of a Charles Dickens novel. The aggregate size of these segments is larger than the computer program and the input Dickens text, even when comparing compressed data. (shrink)

On October 26, 1984, Dr. Leonard Bailey and the transplant team of Loma Linda University Medical Center in California operated on a five-pound baby girl born a few weeks earlier with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. In babies born with this defect the left side of the heart is much smaller than the right and is unable to pump sufficient blood to sustain life for more than a few weeks. This rare defect occurs about once in every 12,000 live births; (...) it accounts for about a quarter of all cardiac deaths of newborns. In an operation known as a xenograft, involving cross-species transplantation of an organ, Dr. Bailey removed the defective heart from the baby and replaced it with the heart of a baboon. (shrink)

In a recent contribution to Learning for Democracy, Richard Bailey argues that Thomas Kuhn advocated an indoctrinatory model of science education, which is fundamentally authority-based. While agreeing with Bailey’s conclusion, this article suggests that Kuhn was attempting to solve an important problem which Bailey only touches on – how to ensure that science students do not become hypercritical. It continues by offering a critical rationalist solution to this problem, arguing that paradigms qua exemplars should be historical (...) problem-solving episodes, rather than model solutions to puzzles. (shrink)

The proof theory of many-valued systems has not been investigated to an extent comparable to the work done on axiomatizatbility of many-valued logics. Proof theory requires appropriate formalisms, such as sequent calculus, natural deduction, and tableaux for classical (and intuitionistic) logic. One particular method for systematically obtaining calculi for all finite-valued logics was invented independently by several researchers, with slight variations in design and presentation. The main aim of this report is to develop the proof theory of finite-valued first order (...) logics in a general way, and to present some of the more important results in this area. In Systems covered are the resolution calculus, sequent calculus, tableaux, and natural deduction. This report is actually a template, from which all results can be specialized to particular logics. (shrink)

Logic has pride of place in mathematics and its 20th century offshoot, computer science. Modern symbolic logic was developed, in part, as a way to provide a formal framework for mathematics: Frege, Peano, Whitehead and Russell, as well as Hilbert developed systems of logic to formalize mathematics. These systems were meant to serve either as themselves foundational, or at least as formal analogs of mathematical reasoning amenable to mathematical study, e.g., in Hilbert’s consistency program. Similar efforts continue, but have been (...) expanded by the development of sophisticated methods to study the properties of such systems using proof and model theory. In parallel with this evolution of logical formalisms as tools for articulating mathematical theories (broadly speaking), much progress has been made in the quest for a mechanization of logical inference and the investigation of its theoretical limits, culminating recently in the development of new foundational frameworks for mathematics with sophisticated computer-assisted proof systems. In addition, logical formalisms developed by logicians in mathematical and philosophical contexts have proved immensely useful in describing theories and systems of interest to computer scientists, and to some degree, vice versa. Three examples of the influence of logic in computer science are automated reasoning, computer verification, and type systems for programming languages. (shrink)

This study reconstructs the relationship between philosophy and politics in the way in which Heidegger's failure as a politician influenced the redevelopment of philosophy in the 1930s. The author also explains how Heidegger's failure influenced the content and direction of his later work.

Studies the politics of Heidegger in terms of "thrownness" or "existential contingency". Attempts to think through Heidegger's philosophy in a manner that parallels his own dialogue with other key western thinkers.

Textbook on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and computability theory, based on the Open Logic Project. Covers recursive function theory, arithmetization of syntax, the first and second incompleteness theorem, models of arithmetic, second-order logic, and the lambda calculus.

Despite their differences in origin, the three influential schools of twentieth-century continental cultural criticism--the Frankfurt School, existentialism, and poststructuralism--have long been treated as an ensemble and with critical hesitancy. Examining these schools as responses to the apparent collapse of Western civilization in the twentieth-century and as formidable intellectual challenges to the cultural legacies of the Enlightenment, this book provides a productive base for criticism and broadens our understanding of their histories and reception.

Education should be a continuous process from birth to death. It is essentially a process leading to reconciliation of the human and divine elements in the constitution of a human being. Right relationship between God and man, spirit and matter, the whole and the part, should be a prime objective of educational techniques.

Having visited Ireland regularly during the 1930s, Ludwig Wittgenstein resigned his Cambridge philosophy professorship in 1947 and moved there, living in a fishing village on the Atlantic coast and hotels in Dublin and the Wicklow Mountains. Although Wittgenstein spent some time out of the country, Ireland was effectively his base for three very productive years during which he worked on what would become one of his key books, the posthumously published Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein in Ireland represents the first sustained account (...) of Wittgenstein's time in Ireland, placing it in its historical context. Wall pays a good deal of attention to the representation of the Irish landscape in which the Austrian philosopher found himself able to work; a large part of his writings were produced in the bleak landscapes of Ireland and Norway. (shrink)

Methods available for the axiomatization of arbitrary finite-valued logics can be applied to obtain sound and complete intelim rules for all truth-functional connectives of classical logic including the Sheffer stroke and Peirce’s arrow. The restriction to a single conclusion in standard systems of natural deduction requires the introduction of additional rules to make the resulting systems complete; these rules are nevertheless still simple and correspond straightforwardly to the classical absurdity rule. Omitting these rules results in systems for intuitionistic versions of (...) the connectives in question. (shrink)

This classic, provocative introduction to classical metaphysical questions focuses on appreciating the problems, rather than attempting to proffer answers.