First published in 1982, Means and Ends in Education explores the contrasts between approaches to teaching where teaching is simply a means to some other end; approaches in which the end determines the means; and approaches in which means and ends are integrated and education serves an intrinsic purpose. The book considers the concept of education and evaluates different processes and techniques of teaching and learning. Divided into three parts, it covers instrumentalist approaches, learner-oriented approaches, and liberal approaches to education. (...) It puts forward differing views as to what the term 'education' means to different professions and in different contexts, and how different approaches result in a very different experience for the recipient. It also discusses the extent to which an evaluation of methods of education and an evaluation of the aims of education are linked. Means and Ends in Education will appeal to those with an interest in the philosophy of education. (shrink)

A sign seen in the Philosophy Department of the University of Uppsala reads: A philosopher is one who will deliver a paper on the Hangman's Paradox at a conference on capital punishment. I might take as a supporting example of this tendency to focus on the irrelevant or the inappropriate a real paper to a medico-legal conference on organ transplants which argued that it would be morally justifiable to remove a heart from a healthy would-be heart donor. There are also (...) many amusing and intelligent papers on the ‘survival lottery’—a hypothetical arrangement which would allow individuals to be seized and cannibalised for their organs. These articles are light-hearted exercises in argumentative ingenuity, harmless in themselves, but they are offered in a world in which street children in Brazil are snatched for their kidneys, Chinese political dissidents have their organs seized officially at their place of execution, and poor peasants in Turkey and India sell their own kidneys or those of their relatives, for money. At the same time, the most frequently cited paper on the fraught topic of abortion is one in which pregnancy is compared to the plight of one unwillingly or unintentionally connected to a violinist who temporarily needs the link in order to survive. (shrink)

Conventions on human rights give priority to parents in education but modern states tend to make uniform provision, tending towards a monopoly position. Education itself is not incompatible with liberty but is a condition of it. A three-sided conflict exists, however, between the state, parents and professionals as to who should represent the interests of children. Liberty is best preserved if the conflict is resolved in favour of parents, for only parental decision-making guarantees educational variety and change. In addition, the (...) parental relationship itself generates rights, including one derived from the broader political right to cultural and religious freedom. (shrink)

Tolerance is not neutrality, nor should tolerance in counselling be equated with a spiritual and emotional vacuum. Tolerance applies to style rather than stance, and a counsellor needs a conception of the ideal — broadly speaking, a moral position. Originally proclaimed against religious and political tyranny, the political ideal of tolerance has in the twentieth century become confused with permissiveness, and is thus sometimes charged with generating many of the ills of modern society, including crime and family breakdown. Counselling has (...) become the universal remedy, replacing punishment and compulsion. The counsellor needs (a) a view of human nature (b) a conception of what is good for those possessing that nature. Constants in the first mean there cannot be too much variation in the second. Society is varied and plural, so the counsellor must be non‐judgemental, but while this means accepting the person, it does not necessarily mean endorsing the conduct. A distinction is drawn between therapeutic and philosophical counselling; the latter considers a problem, where the former focusses on the client, but both may fall short of offering a holistic view. Counselling may also exacerbate some of the problems of modern life by too readily accepting the conditions which cause them. Some ethical problems raised by confidentiality and informed consent are discussed. It is concluded that the counsellor must be tolerant, but not morally ambivalent, nor a relativist. (shrink)

Brenda Almond; Dismantling Our Own Foundations: a German perspective on contemporary philosophy of education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 26, Iss.

This article re‐examines a familiar essay of Benjamin’s, ‘The Task of the Translator’, from a Neoplatonic point of view. Beginning with a brief survey of various other Neoplatonic moments in Benjamin’s work (where a greater totality or wholeness is referred to), ‘The Task of the Translator’ is considered as a collection of metaphors on the act of translation – the translation as the ghost of the original, or its blossom, or its mantle. Drawing on varied examples from a diverse canon (...) of Neoplatonists – Plotinus, Pseudo‐Dionysius, Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa, Ibn ‘Arabi – the article shows not just how each of Benjamin’s metaphors has an unexpectedly esoteric genealogy, but also how they conflict with one another to produce a surprisingly apophatic conclusion on the difficulty of translation. (shrink)

I employ these words, I admit, with a glance towards the operations of childbearing–but also with a glance towards those who, in a society from which I do not exclude myself, turn their eyes away when faced by the as yet unnameable which is proclaiming itself and which can do so …only under the species of the nonspecies, in the formless, mute, infant and terrifying form of monstrosity.The question of writing could be opened only if the book was closed. The (...) joyous wandering of the graphein then became wandering without return. (shrink)

The present century has witnessed human crimes on an unprecedented scale. It has also seen the decline of ethics as a major element in higher education and as an academic study forming an important aspect of philosophy.

ABSTRACT There are three kinds of bonds between human beings: biological and natural; legal and artificial; social and voluntary. Marriage can be seen as an artificial and legal means of shifting the loose bonding of the third category of relationship into the deep and inescapable bonding of the first. The desire to create bonds of this type is widespread, but non‐bonding, too, has been recommended either as good in itself—a way of achieving peace of mind or personal emancipation through wider (...) relationships—or as necessary self‐denial for some higher cause. In the latter case, the bonds of family are seen as a positive good, a view shared, though for different reasons, by religious and political conservatives and by revisionist feminists. In contrast to this, three philosophical conceptions which would favour unbonding, or detachment from emotional ties, are categorised here as (a) the Stoic, (b) the Existentialist and (c) the Feminist. Within the Feminist ideal, it is radical, rather than liberal or socialist feminism that has most in common with Stoic or Existentialist ideals. These ideals are considered, together with various alternatives to marriage, and are judged not to override the need for deep personal bonds between human beings. These personal bonds of love and commitment are compared with the alternative bonds of religion and politics and it is concluded that, whatever forms they take, personal bonds have fundamental moral priority in the lives of human beings. (shrink)

Brenda Almond throws down a timely challenge to liberal consensus about personal relationships. She maintains that the traditional family is fragmenting in Western societies, causing serious social problems. She urges that we reconsider our attitudes to sex and reproduction in order to strengthen our most important social institution, the family.

This concise overview of the perception of Islam in eight of the most important German thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries allows a new and fascinating investigation of how these thinkers, within their own bodies of work, often espoused contradicting ideas about Islam and their nearest Muslim neighbors. Exploring a variety of 'neat compartmentalizations' at work in the representations of Islam, as well as distinct vocabularies employed by these key intellectuals, Ian Almond parses these vocabularies to examine the (...) importance of Islam in the very history of German thought. Almond further demonstrates the ways in which German philosophers such as Hegel, Kant, and Marx repeatedly ignored information about the Muslim world that did not harmonize with the particular landscapes they were trying to paint – a fact which in turn makes us reflect on what it means when a society possesses 'knowledge' of a foreign culture. (shrink)

Introduction -- Leibniz, historicism, and the plague of Islam -- Kant, Islam, and the preservation of boundaries -- Herder's Arab fantasies -- Keeping the Turks out of islam : Goethe's Ottoman plan -- Friedrich Schlegel and the emptying of Islam -- Hegel and the disappearance of Islam -- Marx the Moor -- Nietzsche's peace with Islam.

This book examines a series of common metaphors in the works of Derrida and the Sufism of Muhyddin Ibn 'Arabi, considered to be of the most influential figures in Islamic thought. The author addresses the significant absence of attention on the relationship between Islam and Derrida and also provides a deconstructive perspective on Ibn 'Arabi.

Healthcare workers who are on the front line of coronavirus disease 2019 and are also undergoing shift schedules face long work hours with few pauses, experience desynchronization of their circadian rhythm, and an imbalance between work hours effort and reward in saving lives, resulting in an impact on work capacity, aggravated by the lack of personal protective equipment, few resources and precarious infrastructure, and fear of contracting the virus and contaminating family members. Some consequences are sleep deprivation, chronic insomnia, stress-related (...) sleep disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder. These sleep alterations critically affect mental health, precipitating or perpetuating anxiety, stress, and depression, resulting in the inability to regulate positive and negative emotions. Pre-existing sleep disorders are an important risk factor for the development and maintenance of PSTD when individuals are exposed to an important stressor such as a COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, how an individual regulates the emotion associated with worries during daytime functioning impacts nighttime sleep, precipitating and perpetuating difficulties in sleeping. All of these changes in sleep and emotional regulation also alter the immune system. Sleep deprivation is commonly associated with chronic inflammatory diseases, due to the desynchronizations in circadian rhythms, causing possible psychophysiological disorders and impaired neuroimmune-endocrine homeostasis. From this perspective, we clarify in this article how sleep disorders affect the immune system and emotional regulation, explaining their phenomenological and neurobiological mechanisms, and discussing elements of cognitive and behavioral coping for health professionals to adopt and manage a healthier sleep pattern in the COVID-19 outbreak. (shrink)

Originally published in 1986. All students of social science must confront a number of important philosophical issues. This introduction to the philosophy of the social sciences provides coherent answers to questions about empiricism, explanation and rationality. It evaluates contemporary writings on the subject which can be as difficult as they are important to understand. Each chapter has an annotated bibliography to enable students to pursue the issues raised and to assess for themselves the arguments of the authors.

In this paper, I shall be concerned to show: that Winch believes that there can be different conceptions of ‘agreement with reality’; that Wittgenstein agrees with this, but emphasizes the difficulty of understanding such conceptions; that Winch realizes this difficulty, and yet still tries to gain understanding of primitive social institutions in terms of their sense of the significance of human life, in terms of the limiting notions of birth, death and sexual relations; that such a notion of the significance (...) of human life cannot be made sense of without an understanding of the concept of agreement with reality which undergirds it; that Winch's position is internally incoherent. (shrink)

This timely collection of introductory essays provides a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to, and survey of, the major moral debates of today. Wide coverage and introduction to the main issues and arguments of applied ethics Each chapter specially commissioned to introduce newcomers Comprehensive notes and reading guides.

Invited media scholars and journalists examine the general issue of nuclear waste, risk and the sicentific promises that were made, but not kept, about safe disposal. The mass media uncovered and reported on nuclear waste problems at Rocky Flats in Colorado and Hanford in Washington. Two environmental journalists review efforts to expose problems at these sites, how secrecy hampered reporting, and the effects of media coverage on nearby residents. An environmental communications scholar evaluates media coverage, the role of the U.S. (...) Department of Energy, and the impact of secrecy on public risk perceptions and attitudes toward government nuclear waste policies. (shrink)

First, two aspects of the partiality issue are identified: (1) Is it right/reasonable for professionals to favour their clients interests over either those of other individuals or those of society in general? (2) Are special non-universalisable obligations attached to certain professional roles?Second, some comments are made on the notions of partiality and reasonableness. On partiality, the assumption that only two positions are possible – a detached universalism or a partialist egoism – is challenged and it is suggested that partiality, e.g. (...) to family members, lies between these two positions, being neither a form of egoism, nor of impersonal detachment. On reasonableness, it is pointed out that reasonable is an ambiguous concept, eliding the notions of the morally right and the rational. (shrink)

This volume is a lively, wide-ranging introduction to ethics. It provides accessible coverage of the main ethical theories which offer the basis for an exploration of key issues and recent developments in applied ethics. The author's approach differs from other recent introductions, eschewing the utilitarian approach in favor of a rights and virtue ethics alternative.

In this new, revised and expanded edition of her classic introduction, Brenda Almond takes the reader on a progressive exploration through the main areas of contemporary philosophy.

The malign figure of the Antichrist endures in modern culture, whether religious or secular; and the spectral shadow he has cast over the ages continues to exert a strong and powerful fascination. Philip C. Almond tells the story of the son of Satan from his early beginnings to the present day, and explores this false Messiah in theology, literature and the history of ideas. Discussing the origins of the malevolent being who at different times was cursed as Belial, Nero (...) or Damien, the author reveals how Christianity in both East and West has imagined this incarnation of absolute evil destined to appear at the end of time. For the better part of the last two thousand years, Almond suggests, the human battle between right and wrong has been envisaged as a mighty cosmic duel between good and its opposite, culminating in an epic final showdown between Christ and his deadly arch-nemesis. (shrink)

Quantifiers are a test case for an interface between psychological questions, which attempt to specify the numerical content that supports the semantics of quantifiers, and linguistic questions, which uncover the range of possible quantifier meanings allowable within the constraints of the syntax. Here we explore the development of comprehension of most in English, of particular interest as it calls on precise numerical content that, in adults, requires an understanding of large exact numerosities (e.g., 23 blue dots and 17 yellow is (...) an instance of “most of the dots are blue”). In a sample of 100 children 2 to 5 years of age we find that (a) successful most comprehension in cases with two salient subsets is achieved at 3 years, 7 months of age, and (b) most comprehension is independent of knowledge of large exact number words; that is, knowledge of large exact number words is neither necessary, as evidenced by children who understand “most” but not “four,” nor sufficient, as evidenced by children who understand “nine” but not “most.”. (shrink)

This article examines the question of the existence of non-Adamic persons-both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial-in early modern Europe. More particularly it looks at how the existence of non-Adamites seriously called into question the credibility of the central themes of the Christian story of the creation, fall and redemption in Jesus Christ in early modern Europe. It analyses the impact on the Christian view of history caused by the discovery of the inhabitants of the New World, speculations about the polygenetic origins of (...) the human race, and discussions about the plurality of worlds. It concludes with some reflections on the monogenetic and polygenetic accounts of the origin of humans in a post-Darwinian context. (shrink)

Designed to bring the concepts and methods of philosophy to bear on practical concerns, the essays in this volume discuss the environment, personal relationships, war, terrorism and violence, social justice and medicine. Contributors emphasize the metaphysical and ethical dimensions.