Martin Heidegger is, perhaps, the most controversial philosopher of the twentieth-century. Little has been written on him or about his work and its significance for educational thought. This unique collection by a group of international scholars reexamines Heidegger's work and its legacy for educational thought.

In this paper the authors take up James Marshall's work on the individual and autonomy. Their suggestion is that although the liberal notion of the autonomous individual might give us a standard of reference for the freedom of persons, the liberal tradition also circumscribes that freedom by prescribing it both as an attribute of persons and as a necessity for persons to exercise, in the form of choice, even though the range of choice is in fact limited. Starting from an (...) account of James Marshall and Colin Lankshear's respective work on the nature of the individual, and using Heidegger, Nietzsche, Merleau‐Ponty and others, they reintegrate the individual into society as it were, and finally, search for means of escape from the determinism of ‘governmentality’. Drawing on notions such as ‘technologies of the self’, hysteria and excess, integration of body and mind, individual and environment, subject and object, they describe the difficult, hesitant work of bringing existing parameters of thought and behaviour into consciousness. Some consequences for the relations of teachers and students within the school context are suggested. (shrink)

Heidegger argues that modern technology is quantifiably different from all earlier periods because of a shift in ethos from in situ craftwork to globalised production and storage at the behest of consumerism. He argues that this shift in technology has fundamentally shaped our epistemology, and it is almost impossible to comprehend anything outside the technological enframing of knowledge. The exception is when something breaks down, and the fault ‘shows up’ in fresh ways. Stiegler has several important addendums to Heidegger’s thesis. (...) Firstly, that Heidegger fails to fully appreciate the early Greek myth of Prometheus, and the technological depth that fire offers all human societies. Secondly, the fall, or failure, which is doubled in the myth of Prometheus, and shows up in epistemology accordingly. Thirdly the acceleration of technology since the onset of Information Technology, and the way this is disorientating our Being. I argue the fall in both Heidegger and early Stiegler has encaptured their imagination. In later work, Stiegler argues that acceleration is fused with algorithmic pretensions, that are distorting and undermining the creative political imaginary, and making it difficult to revalue the values that underpin the nihilist Anthropocene. The overcoming of the Anthropocene engages politics, economics, power, physics, and ecology. (shrink)

Understanding climate change is becoming an urgent requirement for those in education. The normative values of education have long been closely aligned with the global, modernised world. The industrial model has underpinned the hidden and overt curriculum. Increasingly though, a new eco-centric orientation to economics, technology, and social organisation is beginning to shape up the post-carbon world. Unless education is up to date with the issues of climate change, the estate of education will be unable to meet its task of (...) knowledge transfer. This paper covers the basic science and ethical policy debates, and begins to outline the questions that will necessarily entangle education as we orientate ourselves to the new world that is upon us. (shrink)

This volume contains essays which cover a range of aspects in the debate over genetic testing. It looks at both the advantages and disadvantages involved in knowing or not knowing whether one is a carrier of certain genetic traits.

Globalization -- Globalization and the environment -- Climate change and the crisis of philosophy -- Social conscience and global market -- Categories, environmental indicators, and the enlightenment market -- Environmentalism -- Pessimistic realism and optimistic total management -- Population statistics and modern governmentality -- Pragmatism -- Technological enframing -- Heidegger, the origin and the finitude of civilization -- Technology and the kultur of late modernity -- Embodied subjectivity and the critique of modernity.

In this paper the authors take up James Marshall's work on the individual and autonomy. Their suggestion is that although the liberal notion of the autonomous individual might give us a standard of reference for the freedom of persons, the liberal tradition also circumscribes that freedom by prescribing it both as an attribute of persons and as a necessity for persons to exercise, in the form of choice, even though the range of choice is in fact limited. Starting from an (...) account of James Marshall and Colin Lankshear's respective work on the nature of the individual, and using Heidegger, Nietzsche, Merleau‐Ponty and others, they reintegrate the individual into society as it were, and finally, search for means of escape from the determinism of ‘governmentality’. Drawing on notions such as ‘technologies of the self’, hysteria and excess, integration of body and mind, individual and environment, subject and object, they describe the difficult, hesitant work of bringing existing parameters of thought and behaviour into consciousness. Some consequences for the relations of teachers and students within the school context are suggested. (shrink)

Volume 52, Issue 8, July 2020, Page 834-834.

Education is increasingly vocational and structured to serve the ongoing exponential increase in economic growth. Climate change is an outcome of these same economic values and praxes. Attempts to shift these values and our approach to technology are continually absorbed and overcome by the pressing motif of economic growth. In this article, Ruth Irwin uses Martin Heidegger's concept of the technological enframing of modernity to view economic growth. John Maynard Keynes's notion of economic growth has impacted the pace (...) of consumerism that now permeates every aspect of knowing about the world we live in. Irwin asks us to think through technological enframing anew by looking to an early mechanical Greek artifact, the Antikythera mechanism, which depicts a cyclical notion of time used by ancient cultures to define the rhythm of economic productivity. The earth-centric cosmos embodied by this mechanism helped the Mesopotamian economy stay within the parameters of the local ecology and demonstrates that cyclical economic growth may enable a civilization to maintain a steady state over time and survive for millennia. An earth-centric cosmology creates a different set of values, one that emphasizes the need to regulate the pace of consumerism rather than allowing it free rein “as by an Invisible Hand.” The role of education in this exploration is twofold: first, it is a pivotal site for cultural exploration and transformation; and second, the expectations of the state strictly limit the forms education can take, so that as long as promoting economic growth defines state expectations, education will remain subservient to these values. If we aim to overcome climate change, Irwin concludes, we need to transform the expectations for education from society as well as from teachers. (shrink)

Every body cell of an animal or human being contains the same complete set of genes. In theory any of these cells can be used to start a new embryo. The technique has been employed in the case of frogs. The nucleus is taken out of a body cell of a frog and implanted in an enucleated frog's egg. The resulting egg cell is stimulated to develop into a normal frog, and will be an exact copy of that frog which (...) provided the nucleus with all the genetic information. In normal sexual reproduction, two parents each contribute half their genes, but in the case of cloning, one parent passes on all his or her genes. (shrink)

This paper is a philosophical analysis ofHeidegger and Nietzsche's approach tometaphysics and the associated problem ofnihilism. Heidegger sums up the history ofWestern metaphysics in a way which challengescommon sense approaches to values education.Through close attention to language, Heideggerargues that Nietzsche inverts thePlatonic-Christian tradition but retains theanthropocentric imposition of ‘values’. Ihave used Nietzsche's theory to suggest aslightly different definition of metaphysicsand nihilism which draws attention to theontological parameters of human truths as astruggle between competing sets of conflictingor contradictory values (perspectives) thatopens (...) space for rethinking and re-educatinghuman possibilities. How this openness willshow up in educational theory and practice isonly beginning to be evoked. The twophilosophers indicate an approach to issues ofmorality, decision making and knowledgeproduction which may surprise and disconcerttraditional views. As the forefathers ofpost-structuralist thinking, Nietzsche andHeidegger offer a critique of Humanism whileretaining the Renaissance tradition ofpositioning education as the well spring ofvalues in society. It is through the generationof new knowledges, the development of critiqueand the nurturing of character that societyreformulates itself in relation to the earth.The ethical evaluation of these new forms ofknowledge is crucial to the creative and caringregeneration of the human environment, asopposed to the corrosive adoption ofconsumerism and usury. (shrink)

Exosomatic memory is a crucial phase in the evolution of humanity because it enables learning to take place across groups and generations rather than exclusively through lived experience or one on one transmission. Exosomatic memory is the attribution of knowledge to objects, such as art or writing, which allows epistemology to be transmitted beyond the individual to subsequent generations of people. Exosomatic memory is the key to the transmission of culture and knowledge, beyond the individual who learns exclusively from personal (...) experience. This places technologies such as writing and art in a key position for the education of culture and knowledge. Stiegler develops these ideas, following Martin Heidegger, Leroi-Gourhan and Derrida from the Palaeolithic to the contemporary.Maori use of natural objects as exosomatic transmission of intergenerational learning exceeds the technological enframing of modernity outlined by Heidegger. For indigenous peoples, exosomatic memory is cultural, technological and ecological.Stiegler argues that the impact of cybernetics on knowledge production is accelerating the technological enframing of knowledge (2018). Consequently, information technologies are leaving the human mind behind, in passive receptivity rather than dynamic creativity. The prefrontal cortex is slower than the internet, exacerbating a widening lag in active understanding, in favour of passive absorption. Alienation and epistemological entropy are trapping us in climate change and the anthropocentric Capitalocene. Maori insight may cut the Gordian knot and sidestep the alienation and determinism of technological modernity. (shrink)

In this revised edition with a new preface from the editor, leading scientists explain the nature and goals of `test tube' reproduction and genetic engineering, and their eugenic implications. In contrast to the Warnock report, the extended commentary considers the issues in the context of a social ethic rather than the individualist viewpoint.

As concerns about the negative health effects of unhealthy eating, overweight and obesity have increased, so too have policy efforts to promote healthy eating. Federal, state, and local governments have proposed and implemented a variety of healthy eating policies. Many of these policies are controversial, facing objections that range from the practical (e.g., the policy won’t succeed at improving people’s diets) to the ethical (e.g., the policy is paternalistic or inequitable). Especially controversial have been policies limiting the options offered in (...) the marketplace, limiting access to certain options, or providing disincentives for the purchase of certain options. Examples of such policies include proposed .. (shrink)

Looks at ethical procedure in the choices and decisions made by nurses with regard to such questions as obeying doctors, covering up of a colleague's mistakes, recent developments in foetal surgery and whether the nurse's advocate role is tenable in practice. These questions are taken from the personal case studies recounted by 450 nurses in Britain and North America. The issues are to be found in many hospital situations and are faced in day-to-day practice by student and qualified nurses. A (...) commentary is provided on the ethical principles involved. (shrink)

This collection examines how the field of ethics has developed over the past fifty years, by bringing together those articles that have been seminal in the development of the subject. Each of the six volumes carries an introduction presenting the historical context of the material, and a new index is provided to identify key philosophical themes and trends within the collection. The volumes are organized thematically, and include: * Vol.1: Nature and Scope * Vol. 2: Ethical Issues in Medicine, Technology (...) and the Life Sciences * Vol. 3: Ethical Issues in Medicine, Technology and the Life Sciences II * Vol. 4: Environment * Vol. 5: Business/Economics * Vol. 6: Politics. (shrink)

In this revised edition with a new preface from the editor, leading scientists explain the nature and goals of `test tube' reproduction and genetic engineering, and their eugenic implications. In contrast to the Warnock report, the extended commentary considers the issues in the context of a social ethic rather than the individualist viewpoint.

This collection brings together many of the most influential criticisms of Kantian philosophy, from his own time to the present day. Volume I is historical, including Kant criticism from Schiller to Buchdahl. It contains some previously untranslated material. Volumes II, III and IV include recent essays on Kant, covering the major aspects of his work. Volume II looks at the Critique of Pure Reason , Volume III at Kant's moral and political philosophy, and Volume IV at the Critique of Judgement (...) and the relation of the third Critique to the other two. The volumes will be of great value to anyone with a serious interest in Kant's philosophy. (shrink)

This collection brings together many of the most influential criticisms of Kantian philosophy, from his own time to the present day. Volume I is historical, including Kant criticism from Schiller to Buchdahl. It contains some previously untranslated material. Volumes II, III and IV include recent essays on Kant, covering the major aspects of his work. Volume II looks at the Critique of Pure Reason, Volume III at Kant's moral and political philosophy, and Volume IV at the Critique of Judgement and (...) the relation of the third Critique to the other two. The volumes will be of great value to anyone with a serious interest in Kant's philosophy. (shrink)

This collection brings together many of the most influential criticisms of Kantian philosophy, from his own time to the present day. Volume I is historical, including Kant criticism from Schiller to Buchdahl. It contains some previously untranslated material. Volumes II, III and IV include recent essays on Kant, covering the major aspects of his work. Volume II looks at the Critique of Pure Reason, Volume III at Kant's moral and political philosophy, and Volume IV at the Critique of Judgement and (...) the relation of the third Critique to the other two. The volumes will be of great value to anyone with a serious interest in Kant's philosophy. (shrink)

This collection brings together many of the most influential criticisms of Kantian philosophy, from his own time to the present day. Volume I is historical, including Kant criticism from Schiller to Buchdahl. It contains some previously untranslated material. Volumes II, III and IV include recent essays on Kant, covering the major aspects of his work. Volume II looks at the Critique of Pure Reason, Volume III at Kant's moral and political philosophy, and Volume IV at the Critique of Judgement and (...) the relation of the third Critique to the other two. The volumes will be of great value to anyone with a serious interest in Kant's philosophy. (shrink)

A collection celebrating some of the best essays from the Blackwell journals, Bioethics and Developing World Bioethics. Contributors include Helga Kuhse, Michael Selgelid and Baroness Mary Warnock, former Chair of the British Government’s Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilization and Embryology’s. Traces some of the most important concerns of the 1980s, such as the ethics of euthanasia, reproductive technologies, the allocation of scarce medical resources, surrogate motherhood, through to a range of new issues debated today, particularly in the field of (...) genetics. Includes contributions that are still as hotly debated today as they were 20 years ago and serves as a salutary reminder that free and open discussion is vital to the health of the discipline itself. Includes eight sections comprising some of the journals' best publications in methodological issues, the health care professional-patient relationship, public health ethics, research ethics, genetics, as well as beginning- and end-of-life issues. Will serve the academic bioethicists as well as students of bioethics as an excellent source book. (shrink)

Imagine you were running a medical non-governmental organization (NGO) established to preserve the lives of poverty-stricken people in resource poor countries. Your NGO is also usually among the first to provide emergency assistance in case natural emergencies such as tsunamis strike. However, you did notice that agencies evaluating your efficiency1 give you a below-average ranking. That is a worry to your fundraising staff, mostly because you rely on donations and such ratings are said to impact eventually negatively, on your capacity (...) to raise cash. You investigate what the problem is, and it turns out that the ratings agency is critical of your policy of responding mostly in cases of high-impact disasters such as earthquakes, floods or civil wars, because they invariably require a highly resource intensive intervention. The agency's verdict is that, on the same capital outlay, you could preserve more lives in developing countries if you aimed at establishing medium- to long-term health delivery solutions, including setting up primary health care facilities, beginning vaccination programs, and other such relatively low-cost means. Chartering private jets to fly emergency teams in response to disaster also preserves lives deserving to be rescued, the ratings agency says, but it demonstrably results in a substantially lower number of lives preserved than you could preserve if you dropped such actions in favor of working toward better health care delivery infrastructure in the countries you usually serve. (shrink)

This authoritative Handbook brings together experts with backgrounds in philosophy, sociology, law, public policy and the health professions and reflects the increasing impact of globalization and the dynamic advances in the fields of ...

The demand for bodily parts such as organs is increasing, and individuals in certain circumstances are responding by offering parts of their bodies for sale. Is there anything wrong in this? Kant had arguments to suggest that there is, namely that we have duties towards our own bodies, among which is the duty not to sell parts of them. Kant's reasons for holding this view are examined, and found to depend on a notion of what is intrinsically degrading. Rom Harré's (...) recent revision of Kant's argument, in terms of an obligation to preserve the body's organic integrity, is considered. Harré's view does not rule out all acts of selling, but he too ultimately depends on a test of what is intrinsically degrading. Both his view and Kant's are rejected in favour of a view which argues that it does make sense to speak of duties towards our own bodies, grounded in the duty to promote the flourishing of human beings, including ourselves. This provides a reason for opposing the sale of bodily parts, and the current trend towards the market ethic in health care provision. (shrink)

This article is concerned with developing a philosophical approach to a number of significant changes to academic publishing, and specifically the global journal knowledge system wrought by a range of new digital technologies that herald the third age of the journal as an electronic, interactive and mixed-media form of scientific communication. The paper emerges from an Editors' Collective, a small New Zealand-based organisation comprised of editors and reviewers of academic journals mostly in the fields of education and philosophy. The paper (...) is the result of a collective writing process. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 11.4 (2004) 299-301 [Access article in PDF] The Right Not to Know: A Challenge for Accurate Self-Assessment Ruth F. Chadwick Anderson and Lux present a very interesting and thought-provoking argument for the view that accurate self-assessment is a requirement for personal autonomy. What I want to suggest is that although this may be helpful in the context with which these authors are primarily concerned, (...) namely psychiatry and brain dysfunction, it is of less value to an account of autonomy more widely construed. I want to look at a possible counterexample, taken from another area of medicine, namely genetics.Toward the end of their article Anderson and Lux consider three objections to their position. I shall not discuss them all. My concern is with the third, that inaccurate self-assessment sometimes promotes autonomy, because knowing the truth about one's weaknesses is sometimes very debilitating. It is commonly argued that "you can if you think you can" and vice versa. As they point out, there are some complex issues involved here, in that if the result of the positive thinking is the ability to do the thing in question, then how can the self-assessment be deemed to have been inaccurate in the first place? They go on, however, to say that "it is unclear that inflated self-assessments yield benefits in contexts where what is required is not just effort but competence" (290).Now it has been argued, by some, in the context of genetics, that the proper understanding of autonomy may imply a "right not to know" facts about oneself. In other words, this is not just a matter of accurate or inaccurate assessment of the relevant facts about oneself; rather, what may be involved is a deliberate decision not to have access to facts that may be relevant to that assessment. There are clearly cases in which genetic information appears to be pertinent to an accurate self-assessment, as the following example suggests. Suppose there is information "available", through genetic testing, that would affect one's chances of having children, or of having children without a particular genetic disorder, and, knowing that such information is available, a couple decides not to avail themselves of this. This is clearly an inaccurate self-assessment, but is their autonomy compromised?It might be thought that the reasons for this decision not to know could be relevant. If they have no family history of any particular genetic disorder, it could be regarded as subjectively reasonable to decline such testing as might be offered. Anderson and Lux, however, argue that whether or not a self-assessment is accurate depends on externalities. In other words, A's self-assessment is not to be assessed as accurate, or [End Page 299] not, according to what it is subjectively reasonable to believe; it has to be measured against the facts. The more that the possibilities of genetic testing increase, the more that "facts" of this nature will be available, including in the context of psychiatry.It might be objected that genetic information is not the type of information that is relevant in this context. In so far as it is predictive and probabilistic it is, arguably, different from the type of diagnostic information involved in the cases discussed by Anderson and Lux. It is not the place here, however, to discuss in general terms the thesis of "genetic exceptionalism" with regard to medical information. The important point is refusal of access to information that may be relevant to an accurate self-assessment. Historically, people have been mistaken in their self-assessment because of lack of information—for example, lack of understanding of facts about the reproduction process has led individuals automatically to blame the woman partner of a couple for infertility. And, as Anderson and Lux rightly point out, being autonomous is compatible with making mistakes, and indeed requires the freedom to make mistakes, it would look rather different if a person continued to hold this without any attempt to avail himself of the relevant—and now available—information... (shrink)

Despite the reservations of many, digital spaces are useful and are here to stay. Most of us have witnessed that usefulness in action over the last two years, since the outbreak of COVID-19, and ma...

Public health ethics, like the field of public health it addresses, traditionally has focused more on practice and particular cases than on theory, with the result that some concepts, methods, and boundaries remain largely undefined. This paper attempts to provide a rough conceptual map of the terrain of public health ethics. We begin by briefly defining public health and identifying general features of the field that are particularly relevant for a discussion of public health ethics.Public health is primarily concerned with (...) the health of the entire population, rather than the health of individuals. Its features include an emphasis on the promotion of health and the prevention of disease and disability; the collection and use of epidemiological data, population surveillance, and other forms of empirical quantitative assessment; a recognition of the multidimensional nature of the determinants of health; and a focus on the complex interactions of many factors—biological, behavioral, social, and environmental—in developing effective interventions. (shrink)

In several recent experiments we have found that the eyes are often captured by the appearance of a sudden onset in a display, even though subjects intend to move their eyes elsewhere. Very brief fixations are made on the abrupt onset before the eyes complete their intended movement to the previously defined target. These results indicate concurrent programming of a voluntary saccade to the defined saccade target and an involuntary saccade to the sudden onset. This is inconsistent with the idea (...) that a single salience map determines the location of a saccade in a winner-take-all fashion. Other results indicate that subjects attend to more than one location in a display during saccade preparation, contrary to the claim that covert attentional scanning plays no role in saccade generation. (shrink)

This book examines the ethical concepts which lie at the heart of journalism, including freedom, democracy, truth, objectivity, honesty and privacy. The common concern of the authors is to promote ethical conduct in the practice of journalism, as well as the quality of the information that readers and audience receive from the media.

Identity, Consciousness, and Value, by Peter Unger.