This essay attempts to retrieve the notion of ‘common sense’ within the writings of Descartes and Montaigne. I suggest that both writers represent distinct traditions in which the notion is employed. Descartes represents a modernist tradition in which common sense is understood to be a cognitive faculty, while Montaigne represents a humanist tradition in which common sense is understood as a political virtue. I also suggest that both writers work with the notion as a way of responding to diversity in (...) the world. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the notion of common sense employed by Descartes and Montaigne emerges out of the scholastic tradition and the assertion that both writers are responding to the educational consequences of scholasticism. I also discuss how the reconstruction of Descartes in this paper can provide some ground for raising new questions about the Cartesian project and educational philosophy. Finally, I gesture toward the idea that the humanist tradition with its understanding of common sense as political virtue can provide benefit for contemporary responses to diversity. (shrink)

In this paper I interpret Montaigne’s essay, “On Educating Children”, as a pedagogical text through its performance of a distinct epistolary function, one that addresses the letter-recipient for the purpose of shaping the ideas, actions, and beliefs of that individual. At the same time, I also read “On Educating Children” within the context of the wider project of Montaigne’s Essays, which, as I suggest, is an ethical-aesthetic project of self-fashioning and self-cultivation. The net result is an interpretation of teaching as (...) an ethical-aesthetic practice of the self, one that is in concert with the interpretation of Montaigne’s writing of the Essays as a similar practice of the self. In order to build this case, I employ Michel Foucault’s fourfold schema of ethical subjectivity, mapping that schema onto “On Educating Children”, so as to reveal a unique pedagogy of self-formation—a pedagogy that works as much upon the self of the teacher as it does the self of the student. (shrink)

Reimagining the call to teach: A witness to teachers and teaching, by David T. Hansen, Teachers College Press, 2021, 192 pp., USD29.95 (pbk), ISBN 978-0807765463David Hansen and the call the teach:...

David Hansen and The Call to Teach takes stock of the far-reaching impact of Hansen's teaching and scholarship. The essays in this volume explore the influence Hansen's work has had on our understanding of a whole host of important themes, including the moral dimensions of teaching, educational research, teacher education, and the philosophy of education.

This paper explores Matthew Lipman's notion of the philosophical text as model. I argue that Lipman's account of the philosophical text is one that brings together the expository and narrative textual forms in a distinctive way--not one in which the tension between the expository and the narrative is overcome once and for all, but in such a way that the expository and the narrative are brought into relationship within the very form of narrative itself. Drawing upon Michel Foucault's reading of (...) Descartes "Meditations," I argue that Lipman's philosophical novels serve both a demonstrative and ascetic function, allowing us to situate Lipman's novels in the history of philosophical discourse, as well as point to the task of creating philosophical texts, and curriculum, in the future. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an introduction to the special issue on the Philosophical Novel for Children by pointing to a lacuna in the theoretical field of philosophy for/with children, suggesting that the field is in need of more research on the philosophical novel given its status as the curricular centerpiece of Matthew Lipman’s vision of P4/WC. I describe the genesis of the idea for this special issue, emerging as it did first from a series of questions and experiences which (...) I encountered while working with Lipman’s philosophical novels as a P4/WC practitioner, then through a scholarly exploration of Lipman’s model theory of the philosophical novel for children, and culminating in the presentation of several of the papers published here at a special symposium on the philosophical novel for children at a meeting of the American Philosophical Association. I conclude with a preview of the papers in this special issue, highlighting several shared themes and concerns. (shrink)

"This book should be read by all who are interested in discerning the ethical teaching of representative African-American leaders of the nineteenth century whose voices have been long silenced by racism's insidious effects." Peter J. Paris, Princeton Theological SeminaryLaunching his investigation from H. Richard Niebuhr's enormously influential THE RESPONSIBLE SELF, Darryl Trimiew seeks to clarify and expand the implications of morally responsible behavior. He offers a corrective to Niebuhr's notion of the "fitting response" by taking the view of the (...) marginalized seriously. (shrink)

An analysis of the business ethics of the African-American church during and after Reconstruction reveals that it is a conflicted ethic, oscillating between two poles. The first is the sacralization of the business ethic of Booker T. Washington, in which self-help endeavors which valorize American capitalism but are preferentially oriented to the African-American community are advanced as the best and only options for economic uplift. The second is the “Blackwater” tradition, which rejects any racial discrimination and insists upon social justice. (...) The inability of the Washingtonian business ethic to address the needs of the Black underclass are explored. A new business ethic is called for, which would be committed to meeting the basic needs of the most disadvantaged members of American society and those of the “international poor.”. (shrink)

Christ and Culture remains a useful heuristic device for discerning and interpreting the process of struggle and change produced by the attempts of the church to minister to the world. It is also helpful for ecclesial self-evaluations. While its typologies are conceptually imperfect, they can be used, nevertheless, to disclose important changes in society and within denominations. These attributes can and do help to facilitate the African American church's ongoing liberation efforts and therefore, hopefully, the flourishing of African American communities.

POLITICAL MORAL LEADERSHIP IS GENERATED, SUPPORTED, AND BLOCKED by the political morality of the people. Moral communities must accept the clay feet of their leaders but carefully monitor the moral qualities of their leader's public policy. Currently this proper approach has given way to a skewed commitment to superficial personal morality. In earlier times, leaders were held to standards of personal morality and public policy both alike and different from those expected of leaders today. In this essay, I consider those (...) similarities and differences to suggest a new moral index for public leadership. (shrink)

This essay attempts to retrieve the notion of ‘common sense’ within the writings of Descartes and Montaigne. I suggest that both writers represent distinct traditions in which the notion is employed. Descartes represents a modernist tradition in which common sense is understood to be a cognitive faculty, while Montaigne represents a humanist tradition in which common sense is understood as a political virtue. I also suggest that both writers work with the notion as a way of responding to diversity in (...) the world. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the notion of common sense employed by Descartes and Montaigne emerges out of the scholastic tradition and the assertion that both writers are responding to the educational consequences of scholasticism. I also discuss how the reconstruction of Descartes in this paper can provide some ground for raising new questions about the Cartesian project and educational philosophy. Finally, I gesture toward the idea that the humanist tradition with its understanding of common sense as political virtue can provide benefit for contemporary responses to diversity. (shrink)

In recent years, functional connectivity in the developmental science received increasing attention. Although it has been reported that the anatomical connectivity in the preterm brain develops dramatically during the last months of pregnancy, little is known about how functional and effective connectivity change with maturation. The present study investigated how effective connectivity in premature infants evolves. To assess it, we use EEG measurements and graph-theory methodologies. We recorded data from 25 preterm babies, who underwent long-EEG monitoring at least twice during (...) their stay in the NICU. The recordings took place from 27 weeks postmenstrual age until 42 weeks PMA. Results showed that the EEG-connectivity, assessed using graph-theory indices, moved from a small-world network to a random one, since the clustering coefficient increases and the path length decreases. This shift can be due to the development of the thalamocortical connections and long-range cortical connections. Based on the network indices, we developed different age-prediction models. The best result showed that it is possible to predict the age of the infant with a root mean-squared error equal to 2.11 weeks. These results are similar to the ones reported in the literature for age prediction in preterm babies. (shrink)

Davidson's anomalous monism, his argument for the identity between mental and physical event tokens, has been frequently attacked, usually demanding a higher degree of physicalist commitment. My objection runs in the opposite direction: the identities inferred by Davidson from mental causation, the nomological character of causality and the anomaly of the mental are philosophically problematic and, more dramatically, incompatible with his famous argument against the third dogma of empiricism, the separation of content from conceptual scheme. Given the anomaly of the (...) mental and the absence of psychophysical laws, there are no conceptual resources to relate mental and physical predicates. We fall in the third dogma if we claim that the very same token event is mental and physical. One of the premises must be rejected: I will claim that we do not need a law to subsume cause and effect to be entitled to speak of causation. Davidson has never offered an argument to back this premise. Against such a dogma I will sketch some ideas pointing towards a different conception of causality, singularist and undetachable from explanatory practices. (shrink)

This paper analyses the way in which discourse and argumentation may vary depending on participants’ educational level and gender. Men and women from three different educational levels (literacy, advanced level and university students) participated in discussion groups that debated about women and work, the sharing of housework and the way in which girls and boys are educated. The results showed important differences depending on participants’ educational level and gender. In general, the main differences were related to educational level, while gender (...) tended to interact with educational level, as a moderating factor. (shrink)

BackgroundFor many decades, the debate on children’s competence to give informed consent in medical settings concentrated on ethical and legal aspects, with little empirical underpinnings. Recently, data from empirical research became available to advance the discussion. It was shown that children’s competence to consent to clinical research could be accurately assessed by the modified MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research. Age limits for children to be deemed competent to decide on research participation have been studied: generally children of 11.2 (...) years and above were decision-making competent, while children of 9.6 years and younger were not. Age was pointed out to be the key determining factor in children’s competence. In this article we reflect on policy implications of these findings, considering legal, ethical, developmental and clinical perspectives.DiscussionAlthough assessment of children’s competence has a normative character, ethics, law and clinical practice can benefit from research data. The findings may help to do justice to the capacities children possess and challenges they may face when deciding about treatment and research options. We discuss advantages and drawbacks of standardized competence assessment in children on a case-by-case basis compared to application of a fixed age limit, and conclude that a selective implementation of case-by-case competence assessment in specific populations is preferable. We recommend the implementation of age limits based on empirical evidence. Furthermore, we elaborate on a suitable model for informed consent involving children and parents that would do justice to developmental aspects of children and the specific characteristics of the parent-child dyad.SummaryPrevious research outcomes showed that children’s medical decision-making capacities could be operationalized into a standardized assessment instrument. Recommendations for policies include a dual consent procedure, including both child as well as parents, for children from the age of 12 until they reach majority. For children between 10 and 12 years of age, and in case of children older than 12 years in special research populations of mentally compromised patients, we suggest a case-by-case assessment of children’s competence to consent. Since such a dual consent procedure is fundamentally different from a procedure of parental permission and child assent, and would imply a considerable shift regarding some current legislations, practical implications are elaborated. (shrink)

This work presents the concepts of translation and conservative translation between logics. By using algebraic semantics we introduce several conservative translations involving the classical propositional calculus and the many-valued calculi of Post and Lukasiewicz.

In this paper we consider an intuitionistic variant of the modal logic S4 (which we call IS4). The novelty of this paper is that we place particular importance on the natural deduction formulation of IS4— our formulation has several important metatheoretic properties. In addition, we study models of IS4— not in the framework of Kirpke semantics, but in the more general framework of category theory. This allows not only a more abstract definition of a whole class of models but also (...) a means of modelling proofs as well as provability. (shrink)