In recent years, aggressive and conservative nationalistic forces have been growing stronger worldwide (Rydgren 2018). Increased random terrorist attacks are now occurring in sites previously thoug...

Why does female under- representation emerge during undergraduate education? At the University of Sydney, we surveyed students before and after their first philosophy course. We failed to find any evidence that this course disproportionately discouraged female students from continuing in philosophy relative to male students. Instead, we found evidence of an interaction effect between gender and existing attitudes about philosophy coming into tertiary education that appears at least partially responsible for this poor retention. At the first lecture, disproportionately (...) few female students intended to major. Further, at the first lecture, female students were less interested in philosophy, were less self-confident about philosophy, and were less able to imagine themselves as philosophers. Similarly, female students predicted they would feel more uncomfortable in philosophy classes than male students did. Further study with a control is warranted to determine whether this interaction effect is peculiar to philosophy, or whether it is indicative of a more general gendered trend amongst first year undergraduate students. (shrink)

This paper explores the topic of military ethics, what we mean by that term, what it covers, how it is understood, and how it is taught. It suggests that the unifying factor that makes this a coherent subject beyond individual national interpretations of it is the core idea of military professionalism. The paper draws out the distinction between training and education and draws on research conducted by a number of different people and agencies, including the International Committee of (...) the Red Cross, to establish what factors contribute to effective pedagogy and the inculcation of appropriate attitudes and behaviours. The paper concludes by looking at the way military ethics contributes to military outcomes from protecting civilians and the vulnerable to building resilience in our own military personnel to protect their mental health, through to the strategic costs of losing the moral high ground if behaviour is seen to fall short of that expected from military professionals. (shrink)

Quid est veritas? -- What is science? how we understand the physical world -- What a piece of work is man: the rise of the social sciences -- Educational science and pseudo science -- Multiple intelligences: if everyone's smart, no one is -- My NLP and brain gym hell -- Group work: failing better, together -- I'm with stupid: emotional intelligence -- Buck Rogers and the 21st century curriculum -- Techno, techno, techno, techno: digital natives in flipped classrooms -- (...) The holy trinity of the three-part lesson -- There are no such things as learning styles -- Game over: the gamification of education -- Learning to learn to learn to learn -- The hard smell: smell/ dance/ box/sing yourself smarter/ happier/ healthier -- Thinking hats on! -- School uniform armageddon -- What everyone in education should do next. (shrink)

In _Why Knowledge Matters_, influential scholar E. D. Hirsch, Jr., addresses critical issues in contemporary education reform and shows how cherished truisms about education and child development have led to unintended and negative consequences. Hirsch, author of _The Knowledge Deficit_, draws on recent findings in neuroscience and data from France to provide new evidence for the argument that a carefully planned, knowledge-based elementary curriculum is essential to providing the foundations for children’s life success and ensuring equal opportunity for (...) students of all backgrounds. In the absence of a clear, common curriculum, Hirsch contends that tests are reduced to measuring skills rather than content, and that students from disadvantaged backgrounds cannot develop the knowledge base to support high achievement. Hirsch advocates for updated policies based on a set of ideas that are consistent with current cognitive science, developmental psychology, and social science. The book focuses on six persistent problems of recent US education: the over-testing of students; the scapegoating of teachers; the fadeout of preschool gains; the narrowing of the curriculum; the continued achievement gap between demographic groups; and the reliance on standards that are not linked to a rigorous curriculum. Hirsch examines evidence from the United States and other nations that a coherent, knowledge-based approach to schooling has improved both achievement and equity wherever it has been instituted, supporting the argument that the most significant education reform and force for equality of opportunity and greater social cohesion is the reform of fundamental educational ideas. _Why Knowledge Matters _introduces a new generation of American educators to Hirsch’s astute and passionate analysis. (shrink)

The troubling ethics and politics of philanthropy Is philanthropy, by its very nature, a threat to today’s democracy? Though we may laud wealthy individuals who give away their money for society’s benefit, Just Giving shows how such generosity not only isn’t the unassailable good we think it to be but might also undermine democratic values and set back aspirations of justice. Big philanthropy is often an exercise of power, the conversion of private assets into public influence. And it is a (...) form of power that is largely unaccountable, often perpetual, and lavishly tax-advantaged. The affluent—and their foundations—reap vast benefits even as they influence policy without accountability. And small philanthropy, or ordinary charitable giving, can be problematic as well. Charity, it turns out, does surprisingly little to provide for those in need and sometimes worsens inequality. These outcomes are shaped by the policies that define and structure philanthropy. When, how much, and to whom people give is influenced by laws governing everything from the creation of foundations and nonprofits to generous tax exemptions for donations of money and property. Rob Reich asks: What attitude and what policies should democracies have concerning individuals who give money away for public purposes? Philanthropy currently fails democracy in many ways, but Reich argues that it can be redeemed. Differentiating between individual philanthropy and private foundations, the aims of mass giving should be the decentralization of power in the production of public goods, such as the arts, education, and science. For foundations, the goal should be what Reich terms “discovery,” or long-time-horizon innovations that enhance democratic experimentalism. Philanthropy, when properly structured, can play a crucial role in supporting a strong liberal democracy. Just Giving investigates the ethical and political dimensions of philanthropy and considers how giving might better support democratic values and promote justice. (shrink)

Oftentimes, we have been informed that democracy is the best form of government possible. In African politics, this view has mostly been adopted and pursued as true. Surprisingly, democracy has mostly failed as a system in most parts of the continent—with most democratic governments undermining the mandates of the citizens who are supposed to have placed them in power, and also escalating the already spiralling decline of the continent through bad leadership and corruption. In this article, and with Nigeria as (...) the primary case study, I offer explanations regarding why democracy fails in most African countries. Specifically, I argue that mass miseducation and false self‐interestedness are the main culprits that limit the success of democracy in Africa. I further propose that democracy in Africa can only be salvaged when there is proper moral ideology guiding the informal education of citizens, when citizens are offered proper quality formal education that would grant them the necessary skills and aid them to make informed decisions, and when citizens take a turn from false self‐interestedness to true self‐interestedness (which is fealty to collective interests). (shrink)

"[D]efenders of schooling in its present from claim that its programs are arrived at scientifically and are applicable to everyone. I believe that the programs are not arrived at scientifically and are not applicable to everyone. The present work is an attempt to illustrate those points."--Page 3, Introduction.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Is Beauty an Archaic Spirit in Education?Howard Cannatella (bio)O! Father and mother, if buds are nip'd and blossoms blown away, and if the tender plants are strip'd of their joy in the spring day, by sorrow and care's dismay, how shall the summer arise in joy, or the summer fruit appear?William Blake, "The School Boy"1This article discusses the unfashionable and taboo idea that beauty matters. A sign of (...) the esteem in which beauty is held can be gauged by the fact that so few articles significantly address any conception of beauty in education. Yet outside a purely educational regime, matters are treated somewhat differently albeit confusedly. In contrast to a virtual silence on this issue, a defense of beauty is modestly made in this article—one that claims that education is considerably ineffective without beauty and would be a poorer and unjust system of practice if beauty were merely seen as an irrelevance, a distraction from the serious stuff of management practice. What is broadly pursued is an attempt to portray an educational praxis that involves the suggestion that an active being in the world is someone who shows themselves to be in some exhortation of its beauty. An attempt is made to map out a few of the reasons why the sense of beauty is an important condition of being, a position few educationalists, so the arguments go in this article, can choose to take lightly. In what can be seen at times as a rather tasteless, aggressive, and doctrinaire educational climate, an education that is culturally alive and buzzing with the sounds, smells, images, rhythms, freedoms, play, knowledge, and rationalities that accompany and are inseparable from social and individual existence at intimate levels of being can revitalize teaching practice in more sensitive and magical ways. By exploring some of the reasons why we should not desensitize ourselves to beauty in education, it is possible to counter-argue for a greater retention and conviction of this experience. My supposition is that beauty as a poetic force should be regarded [End Page 94] as one of the defining characteristics central to pedagogic practice. In making this claim I draw upon a few of Charles Dickens's and William Wordsworth's ideas in support of the importance of beauty in education.IEnjoyment is not a psychological state among others, the affective tonality of empiricist psychology, but the very pulsation of the I.Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity2If it is the case that beauty is nothing other than the proper releasing of the human spirit, the grasping of delights, something fundamental to the capacity of our minds and body—"the form under which the intellect prefers to study the world"3 —then, we may wonder, why is current educational practice preoccupied with things of arguably less importance? The thought that "beauty is the basic impulse underlying education"4 —or as Carritt5 puts it, beauty instigates that which is morally worth cultivating, a recognition of something universally valid for humanity—strikes a certain agreement between Emerson, Scarry, and Carritt: namely, that beauty matters educationally. Indeed, Freud6 surmised that civilization could not survive without it, and Plato remarked that education "ought to end in the love of the fine and beautiful."7 Although these remarks may seem platitudinous, they may still nevertheless arouse within us a feeling that beauty is something quite immense, faithful, and necessary. With these ideas in mind, the aim here is to explain how certain aspects of beauty can be important for transcending some of the dystopia affecting educational practices together with some of the reasons why the intimacy of beauty is good for us. When the delicateness of beauty appears to be losing its appeal, it is perhaps no coincidence that a major reason why some students are disenchanted with education is because they fail to see the beauty in it. If beauty in society is losing its grip, what harshness or sadness will result?Let us begin with the obvious observation that a pluralist conception of beauty is a fact of life. If there are different perspectives of beauty, then, as Wittgenstein8 remarked, we... (shrink)

Ever since the publication of MacIntyre's After Virtue, the ‘Enlightenment Project’, where morality was uprooted from its traditional context and where human reason reigned supreme, has been regarded as doomed to failure. This view has been shared by a large number of theologians, but it is based on a misrepresentation of the Enlightenment, one strand of which sought to set limits to human reason. In particular, Immanuel Kant, who is discussed in detail, believed in the principle of perpetual criticism, a (...) method which refused to see human reason as supreme, but which also criticised all other systems of absolute authority. A trust in criticism was part and parcel of ‘growing‐up’: the educational process was thus of crucial importance as children gradually learnt to think for themselves. For Kant, this method was rooted in a theological position, where transcendence or ‘holiness’ functioned as a constant reminder of human finitude, and served to prevent all forms of idolatry. The article concludes with an outline of a theology suitable for grown‐ups, more aware of ideology and power than was Kant, where all truth is seen as relative to an absolute truth, but one which can never be known in full. Such a position, which is seen as profoundly Christological, encourages tolerance and openness, but makes a stand against those who claim a certainty or an authority they can never possess. The church is seen as that body which lives away from human certainties in a life of hope. (shrink)

The GDC’s recent third edition (interim) of The First Five Years places renewed emphasis on the place of professionalism in the undergraduate dental curriculum. This paper provides a brief analysis of the concepts of ethics, professionalism and fitness to practice, and an examination of the GDC’s First Five Years and Standards for Dental Professionals guidance, as well as providing an insight into the innovative ethics strand of the BDS course at the University of Glasgow. It emerges that GDC (...) guidance is flawed inasmuch as it advocates a virtue-based approach to ethics and professionalism, and fails to distinguish clearly between these two concepts. (shrink)

Plato’s Apology of Socrates contains a spirited account of Socrates’ relationship with the city of Athens and its citizens. As Socrates stands on trial for corrupting the youth, surprisingly, he does not defend the substance and the methods of his teaching. Instead, he simply denies that he is a teacher. Many scholars have contended that, in having Socrates deny he is a teacher, Plato is primarily interested in distinguishing him from the sophists. In this article, I argue that, given the (...) historic educational transformation in Socrates’ and Plato’s lifetimes, Socrates’ denial is far more complex and far reaching than the Socrates-versus-the-sophists distinction indicates. Socrates suggests that Athenians have failed to recognize that there were various types among the new educators of fifth century Athens: orators, sophists, natural philosophers and, perhaps, a philosopher like Socrates. Further, the traditional education, which the Athenians believed was threatened by the new educators, was itself fractured. Ultimately, rather than offering a straightforward distinction between philosophizing and teaching, Socrates and the sophists, Plato treats the question of teaching aporectically in Apology; that is, after pointing to various alternatives for understanding the nature of teaching, Plato concludes the work without offering a clear resolution to that question. (shrink)

Elizabeth Anderson and Debra Satz continue in the tradition of Plato with their work on the role of education in a just society. Both argue that a just society depends on education enabling citizens to realize democratic or civic equality and that this equality depends on sufficiency in the distribution of educational goods. I agree that education is important to preparing democratic citizens, but I disagree about the plausibility of sufficiency here, especially in the educational context. My (...) argument is two‐fold: I first reconsider a generic positional goods objection to educational inequality, I then argue that plausible sufficientarian replies to this objection fail insofar as they are premised on an impoverished conception of class and power that treats all statuses more like socio‐cultural traits when they should instead be referencing the material conditions someone has inside a social structure. One cannot bring an individual X into the halls of power and simultaneously have X represent or compensate those who are presently disadvantaged in the way that X had formerly been disadvantaged. In short, we should worry about the realistic possibility of securing and sustaining a civic‐minded elite because elites have the power and motivation to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us. For the sufficientarian story to work, we need more that explains the realistic possibility of a benevolent ruling elite, until then, democratic equality seems to be better realized by aiming for equal educations, adequacy isn't enough. (shrink)

Richard Nisbett's The Geography of Thought is one of several recent works that have highlighted purported differences in thinking patterns between East Asians and Westerners on the basis of empirical research. This has implications for teaching and for other issues such as cultural integration. Based on a framework consisting of three distinct notions of rationality, this paper argues that some of the differences alleged by Nisbett are either not real or exaggerated, and that his geography of thought fails to provide (...) an adequate account of thinking styles across cultures. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for teaching and learning critical thinking that can be drawn from the framework developed. (shrink)

Richard Nisbett's The Geography of Thought is one of several recent works that have highlighted purported differences in thinking patterns between East Asians and Westerners on the basis of empirical research. This has implications for teaching and for other issues such as cultural integration. Based on a framework consisting of three distinct notions of rationality, this paper argues that some of the differences alleged by Nisbett are either not real or exaggerated, and that his geography of thought fails to provide (...) an adequate account of thinking styles across cultures. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for teaching and learning critical thinking that can be drawn from the framework developed. (shrink)

My aim in this article is to defend the view that art is a relevant source of knowledge, including moral knowledge, in the absence of empirical evidence corroborating this view. In the first part, I discuss what is known as the causal question, that is, the question regarding art's impact on spectators. I argue that the alleged failure of art to impact us may be a matter of moral motivation and the particular circumstances of moral reasoning more than the cognitive (...) and ethical character of a work. To support my claim, I rely on contemporary research on moral reasoning. I conclude by sketching a wider context within which we should consider art's impact, stressing the relevance of cognitive sciences and moral psychology. (shrink)

Heidegger’s early works provide his most important contribution to our understanding of being, while his discussion of the effects of technology on that being in his later works is one of his best known contributions. I use his phenomenological approach to understanding the workplace and then, from a range of potential applications, choose to describe the functioning of higher education as a workplace for academic professionals. Heidegger seemingly fails to offer a subtle approach to what is labouring, or to (...) whether there is a substantive difference between labouring and working. To find such approaches I draw upon work of both Marcuse and Arendt which specifically relates to these distinctions. (shrink)

The creation-evolution “controversy” has been with us for more than a century. Here I argue that merely teaching more science will probably not improve the situation; we need to understand the controversy as part of a broader problem with public acceptance of pseudoscience, and respond by teaching how science works as a method. Critical thinking is difficult to teach, but educators can rely on increasing evidence from neurobiology about how the brain learns, or fails to.

Abstract:My aim in this article is to defend the view that art is a relevant source of knowledge, including moral knowledge, in the absence of empirical evidence corroborating this view. In the first part, I discuss what is known as the causal question, that is, the question regarding art’s impact on spectators. I argue that the alleged failure of art to impact us may be a matter of moral motivation and the particular circumstances of moral reasoning more than the cognitive (...) and ethical character of a work. To support my claim, I rely on contemporary research on moral reasoning. I conclude by sketching a wider context within which we should consider art’s impact, stressing the relevance of cognitive sciences and moral psychology. (shrink)

I argue for an approach to Philosophical Fragments that allows it to be philosophical and fragmentary, and that pays particular attention to the fragments, or crumbs, that seem least important. One such overlooked crumb is the theory of merely human education in the book—education that does not enlist God as the teacher, where humans simply try to teach and learn from each other. I argue that Philosophical Fragments defends this theory of education with several reductio ad absurdum (...) proofs that are especially useful because they clarify why merely human education so often fails. Finally I apply the theory of merely human education in Philosophical Fragments to Kierkegaard’s authorship as a whole and argue that it gives us a paradigm for understanding all of Kierkegaard’s texts that is more fundamental than the distinction between direct and indirect communication. (shrink)

Abstract:Therapeutic misconception (TM)—when clinical research participants fail to adequately grasp the difference between participating in a clinical trial and receiving ordinary clinical care—has long been recognized as a significant problem in consent to clinical trials. We suggest that TM does not primarily reflect inadequate disclosure or participants’ incompetence. Instead, TM arises from divergent primary cognitive frames. The researchers’ frame places the clinical trial in the context of scientific designs for assessing intervention efficacy. In contrast, most participants have a cognitive frame (...) that is personal and focused primarily on their medical problems. To illustrate this, we draw on interview material from both clinical researchers and participants in clinical trials. We suggest that reducing TM requires encouraging subjects to adjust their frame, not just add information to their existing frame. What is necessary is ascientific reframingof participation in a clinical trial. (shrink)

Why should engineers behave ethically? Often, an answer to this question is sought in the qualification of engineering as a “profession”, and professional or-ganizations have codes of ethics that members should comply with. In many countries however, engineering is organized differently. In this chapter broader conceptions of “professionalism” are explored, inspired by similar evolutions in other occupational areas. A second part questions the idea that professionalism encompasses ethical responsibilities “beyond ordinary morality”. The thesis will be defended that, although (...) there may be specific rules for “professionals”, the philosophical foundation of professional ethics yet rests on ordinary morality. (shrink)

This article makes a strong case in favour of linking spirituality to management education. The author has used his experiences as a teacher of management studies, as well as the knowledge that he has gathered as a seeker in search of self–revelation to locate the role and signifi cance of spirituality in the managerial context. The analytic–driven search for information and knowledge, the intellect–driven explanations of context and an exposure to lifeskills linked to emotional intelligence are traditional, albeit insuffi (...) cient, inputs to management education. Such an education is incapable of developing well–rounded individuals capable of handling paradoxes, confl icts and something that managers traditionally have very low tolerance for—ambiguity. This necessitates the inclusion of spiritual intelligence described by the author as a search for inner unfoldment, making the transition from self–consciousness to consciousness of the Self. The article draws heavily on the Advaita–Vedanta tradition of Sanatana Dharma to delineate the tools and processes that are integral to the craft of a practicing manager. The act of managing is perceived as a battle where the three armours of analytical, emotional and spiritual intelligence are to be simultaneously deployed by global managers to negotiate the grey and ambiguous waters of global business. It is spiritual intelligence that enables the manager to awaken the fi rm to its true potential, address questions of philosophy and awaken the fi rm to its larger role in terms of corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

Patients increasingly see physicians not as humane caregivers but as unfeeling technicians. The study of philosophy in medical school has been proposed to foster critical thinking about one's assumptions, perspectives and biases, encourage greater tolerance toward the ideas of others, and cultivate empathy. I suggest that the study of ethics and philosophy by medical students has failed to produce the humane physicians we seek because of the way the subject matter is quarantined in American medical education. First, the liberal (...) arts are seen as the province of undergraduate education, and not medical school. Second, philosophy, when taught in medical school, is seen by students as just one subject to be mastered along with many other more important ones, and not as a way to foster critical thinking and empathy. What is needed is a new pedagogy that combines both cognitive and affective elements to implant and nourish the liberal arts in students. Removing the quarantine of philosophy from other facets of medical education is an important first step. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper explores the alarming phenomenon of violent extremism in university campuses. It probes why education fails to prevent violent extremism in this case? Drawing on Robert Cox’s distinction of problem solving and critical theories, the paper examines policy discourses that aim to prevent violent extremism through education. It is observed that dominant policy discourses take up problem solving approaches to prevent/counter violent extremism and fail to take into account the broader structural violence that feeds extremist ideologies. (...) The counter violent extremism policies largely view education as a means to control thinking rather than develop it. Such policies hinder the development of critical consciousness in students that can provide effective defence against extremism. Hence, there is a need to rethink education to counter extremism. Subsequently, the paper shifts its focus to Pakistan, where education has remained a central concern of counter extremism policies since 9/11. Based on 13 expert interviews, I explore higher education practices in Pakistan from practitioners’ perspective. The practitioners point out multiple problems of educational status quo that need to be addressed to counter extremism on campus effectively. (shrink)

This paper presents arguments for two claims. First, post-persons, beings with a moral status superior to that of mere persons, are possible. Second, it would be bad to create such beings. Actions that risk bringing them into existence should be avoided. According to Allen Buchanan, it is possible to enhance moral status up to the level of personhood. But attempts to improve status beyond that fail for want of a target - there is no category of moral status superior to (...) that of personhood. Buchanan presents personhood as a threshold. He allows that persons may succeed in enhancing their cognitive and physical powers but insists that they cannot enhance their moral status. I argue that it is an implication of accounts that make a cognitive capacity, or collection of such capacities, constitutive of moral status, that those who do not satisfy the criteria for a given status find these criteria impossible to adequately describe. This obstacle notwithstanding, I offer an inductive argument for the existence of moral statuses superior to personhood, moral statuses that are necessarily beyond human expressive powers. The second part of this paper presents an argument that it is wrong to risk producing beings with moral status higher than persons. We should look upon moral status enhancement as creating especially morally needy beings. We are subject to no obligation to create them in the first place. We avoid creating their needs by avoiding creating them. (shrink)

The past decade has been marked by a series of global crises, presenting an opportunity to reevaluate the relationship between science and politics. The biological sciences are instrumental in understanding natural phenomena and informing policy decisions. However, scholars argue that current scientific expertise often fails to account for entire populations and long-term impacts, hindering efforts to address issues such as biodiversity loss, global warming, and pandemics. This article explores the structural challenges of integrating an evolutionary perspective, historically opposed to functional (...) determinants of health and disease, into current biological science practices. Using data on Swiss biology professors from 1957, 1980, and 2000, we examine the structural power dynamics that have led to the division between these competing epistemologies, and how this division has influenced resource allocation and career trajectories. Our analysis suggests that this cleavage presents a significant obstacle to achieving fruitful reconciliations, and that increased academicization and internationalization may benefit functional biologists at the expense of evolutionary biologists. While evolutionary biologists have gained symbolic recognition in recent years, this has not translated into valuable expertise in the political domain. (shrink)

The beginning of the current decade witnessed the collapse of many ambitious and costly initiatives in distance learning, but that does not mean that this was just a short-lived fad, and that the march of change was halted. There appeared on stage forces and processes that work more slowly than decisions of university administrators, but that are also much more difficult to ignore or reverse. This article describes these change factors and the how they influence American higher education.

The beginning of the current decade witnessed the collapse of many ambitious and costly initiatives in distance learning, but that does not mean that this was just a short-lived fad, and that the march of change was halted. There appeared on stage forces and processes that work more slowly than decisions of university administrators, but that are also much more difficult to ignore or reverse. This article describes these change factors and the how they influence American higher education.

MOST MODERN PEOPLE think it is obvious why people become modern. For them, a more interesting and important puzzle is why some people fail to embrace modern ideas. Why do people in traditional societies often seem unable or unwilling to aspire to a better life for themselves and their children? Why do they fail to see the benefi ts of education, equal rights, democracy, and a rational approach to decisionmaking? What is the glue that makes them adhere to superstition, (...) religion, and obligations to family and tribe even if it means accepting a life of insecurity and poverty? The “kin infl uence hypothesis” (Newson et al. 2005) suggests an explanation both for why people become modern and for why modern ideas are often slow to be accepted by a population. The hypothesis is based on the understanding gained by social-psychological research of how cultural norms change. It takes a Darwinian approach to explaining human behavior and recognizes that much of the cultural change associated with modernization is a progressive abandonment of values and norms that encourage people to pursue what evolutionary theorists refer to as “reproductive success.”1 The kin infl uence hypothesis proposes that the cascade of cultural changes associated with modernization is the result of the momentous change in the human social environment that occurs early in economic development. For most of human evolutionary history, the norms of all cultures must have prescribed behavior that, on balance, enhanced the genetic fi tness of their members. If this were not the case, then, as Lumsden and Wilson (1981) and Alexander (1979) rightly pointed out, evolutionary biologists would be unable to explain how humans evolved the uniquely human capacity for learning and imitation that makes culture possible. Nor could we explain how an African ape came to be the world’s dominant organism. With economic development, however, people begin to abandon the beliefs and values that encourage fi tness-enhancing behavior.. (shrink)

This paper considers George A. Reisch’s account of the role of Cold War political forces in shaping the apolitical stance that came to dominate philosophy of science in the late 1940s and 1950s. It argues that at least as early as the 1930s, Logical Empiricists such as Rudolf Carnap already held that philosophy of science could not properly have political aims, and further suggests that political forces alone cannot explain this view’s rise to dominance during the Cold War, since political (...) forces cannot explain why a philosophy of science with liberal democratic, anti-communist aims did not flourish. The paper then argues that if professionalization is understood in the right way, it might point toward an explanation of the apolitical stance of Cold War philosophy of science. (shrink)

What is progressive education? -- Origins of progressive education -- Progressive education in action: what really happens -- Broken promises: why progressive education has failed to deliver -- Making progressive education work: perspectives, conclusions, and recommendations.

I begin with an exposition of the two main variants of the Prosentential Theory of Truth (PT), those of Dorothy Grover et al. and Robert Brandom. Three main types of criticisms are then put forward: (1) material criticisms to the effect that (PT) does not adequately explain the linguistic data, (2) an objection to the effect that no variant of (PT) gives a properly unified account of the various occurrences of "true" in English, and, most importantly, (3) a charge that (...) the comparison with proforms is explanatorily idle. The last objection is that, given a complete semantic account of pronouns, proadjectives, antecedents, etc., together with a complete (PT), the essential semantic character of "true" could be deduced, but then, the idleness of the comparison with pronouns would be apparent. It turns out that objections (2) and (3) are related in the following way: the prosentential terminology is held to conceal the lack of unity in (PT), by describing the different data in the same terms ("proform", "antecedent", etc.). But this, I argue, is only a way of truly describing, rather than explaining, the data, these being certain relations of equivalence and consequence between sentences. I consider a language for which (PT) would be not only true, but also explanatory, but note that this language is very different from English. I end by showing that Robert Brandom's case that "is true" is not a predicate fails, and that his motivation for saying so is based on fallacious reasoning (namely, Boghossian's argument against deflationism). (shrink)

Function theorists routinely speculate that a viable function theory will be equally applicable to biological traits and artifacts. However, artifact function has received only the most cursory scrutiny in its own right. Closer scrutiny reveals that only a pluralist theory comprising two distinct notions of function--proper function and system function--will serve as an adequate general theory. The first section describes these two notions of function. The second section shows why both notions are necessary, by showing that attempts to do away (...) with one of them fail. This demonstration draws on examples from the artifactual realm to motivate major points of the argument. The third section is an outline of artifact function. It confirms the conclusions of the second section, and also begins the task of describing some of the special features of artifact function needing accommodation within the general theory. (shrink)

Modern American nursing has an extensive ethical heritage literature that extends from the 1870s to 1965 when the American Nurses Association issued a policy paper that called for moving nursing education out of hospital diploma programs and into colleges and universities. One consequence of this move was the dispersion of nursing libraries and the loss of nursing ethics textbooks, as they were largely not brought over into the college libraries. In addition to approximately 100 nursing ethics textbooks, the nursing (...) ethics heritage literature also includes hundreds of journal articles that are often made less accessible in modern databases that concentrate on the past 20 or 30 years. A second consequence of nursing’s movement into colleges and universities is that ethics was no longer taught by nursing faculty, but becomes separated and placed as a discrete ethics course in departments of philosophy or theology. These courses were medically identified and rarely incorporated authentic nursing content. This shift in nursing education occurs contemporaneously with the rise of the field of bioethics. Bioethics is rapidly embraced by nursing, and as it develops within nursing, it fails to incorporate the rich ethical heritage, history, and literature of nursing prior to the development of the field of bioethics. This creates a radical disjunction in nursing’s ethics; a failure to more adequately explore the moral identity of nursing; the development of an ethics with a lack of fit with nursing’s ethical history, literature, and theory; a neglect of nursing’s ideal of service; a diminution of the scope and richness of nursing ethics as social ethics; and a loss of nursing ethical heritage of social justice activism and education. We must reclaim nursing’s rich and capacious ethics heritage literature; the history of nursing ethics matters profoundly. (shrink)

You have to be careful, very careful, introducing the truth to the Black man who has never previously heard the truth about himself, his own kind, and the white man … The Black brother is so brainw...

The Lukács Circle in Szeged, a spontaneous, unofficial organization of young Hungarian scholars and philosophy teachers, characteristically represented Georg Lukács' influence on young Hungarian intelligentsia in the period of late socialism. In this paper, the author recalls and critically analyses the intellectual milieu and motives that led a considerable part of young Hungarian intelligentsia of that time to make a cult of Lukács' philosophy. The key to the analysis is the ambiguous character of the political feelings and philosophical orientation of (...) many young people in the period of late socialism and the paradoxical non-bourgeois bourgeois character of Lukács' philosophy. Lukács' young followers were dissatisfied with the political conditions of real socialism and with official Marxism. However, they considered themselves Marxists and were convinced by the anti-capitalist, romantic idea of democratic socialism. In the eyes of his young followers, Lukács was a genuine philosopher whose teaching was interwoven by his wide-ranging bourgeois middle-class education, promising both a real philosophical alternative to official Marxism and a high-level philosophical foundation for a non-capitalist but democratic future human history. The author argues that Lukács' philosophy did not satisfy these expectations. In his political philosophy, the philosopher could not move away from the mythological idea concerning the leading role of the communist party and therefore could not elaborate a genuine philosophical foundation for the idea of democratic socialism. Despite the superiority of his philosophy, his methodology and approach to the history of philosophy failed to provide a real philosophical alternative to the Bolshevik tradition of Marxism. (shrink)

In this paper I address the issue of how far libertarianism can serve as the theoretical framework for a political morality excluding serious obligations to the needy. This issue has been raised recently by Gillian Brock who argues that even those adopting a thoroughgoing libertarianism, such as that of Robert Nozick, must recognise significant obligations to the needy as a condition of claiming exclusive property rights. I argue that Brock fails to demonstrate this. After briefly describing Brock's main argument I (...) discuss the acquisition of libertarian property rights, and try to show there are sufficient resources in Nozick's account for him to accept her main conclusion in principle without recognising significant obligations. Then, after some supplementary discussion, I sketch two different lines of argument. One uses the issue of corporate liability. The other focusses on problems with Nozick's "entitlement" principle of rectification. I try to show that even if the libertarian entitlement theory of property rights, their acquisition and transfer, is accepted, this gives no grounds for resisting claims for redistribution based on others' needs. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming our world: today machines not only can mimic human actions but out-perform human agents in many activities, including learning and thinking. AI offers revolutionary solutions and new possibilities in transportation, business, communication, medicine, law, and other domains. While some welcome this brave new world, others fear the threats AI pose to people’s livelihoods, social relations, individuality, freedom, and perhaps even the very survival of the human species. No doubt some of this existential angst is exaggerated, (...) but AI does raise questions for our understanding of the world and ourselves that require serious reflection, including questions about adequacy of education in various aspects. This chapter offers, from the perspectives of John Dewey’s Pragmatism as well as Confucianism, some reflections on the role of the humanities in education in response to the opportunities and challenges of the development and widespread use of AI. It shows that Dewey and Confucius share similar views regarding the humanistic purpose of education and their philosophies of education offer arguments for why humanities education will be relevant, if not more important, when many jobs we are familiar with become obsolete. Their attitudes toward the economic motive in education will help us rethink the meaning of work in a “world without work.” At the same time, they offer a critical evaluation of contemporary humanities education, which have failed to realize their visions of personal cultivation and growth. Among its failings is the continued dichotomy between the humanities and the sciences. In the age of AI, it has become even more vital to integrate them to avoid science and technology from becoming materialistic and anti-human while the humanities become merely literary and without any means to transform the world. (shrink)

Located at the crossroads of the Eastern and Western world, Turkey today is characterized by a demographically versatile and modernizing society as well as a rapidly developing economy. Currently, the country is negotiating its accession to the European Union. This article yields some factual grounding into the ongoing value-related debate concerning Turkey's potential EU-membership. It describes a mixed-methodology study on moral reasoning in Austria and Turkey. In this study, the arguments given by individuals when evaluating ethically problematic situations in business (...) were compared. Although there were major consistencies, a number of differences were found. These differences, however, were not in the substance of arguments used but in their relative frequency. Overall, our findings suggest that young, well-educated urban individuals from Western Christian and Eastern Islamic countries are highly consistent in their moral reasoning. (shrink)

Maintaining education as a pedagogical space for human formation, this book is distinctive in looking at the crisis rather than the success of Chinese education. The editors and contributors, mostly overseas and mainland Chinese scholars, argue that modern Chinese education has been built upon a superficial and instrumental embrace of Western modernity and a fragmented appropriation of Chinese cultural heritage. They call for a rethinking and re-envisioning of Chinese education, grounded in and enriched by various cultural (...) traditions and cross-cultural dialogues. Drawing on Chinese history and culture, Western and Chinese philosophies, curriculum and pedagogical theories, the collected volume analyzes why education as person-making has failed to take root in contemporary China, how the purpose of education has changed during the process of China’s modernization, and what a rediscovery of the meaning of person-making implies for rethinking and re-envisioning Chinese education in the current age of globalization and social change. _Re-envisioning Chinese Education: The meaning of person-making in a new age _discusses among other issues: China’s Historical Encounter with the West and Modern Chinese Education Rediscover Lasting Values: Confucian Cultural Learning Models in the Twenty-first Century Rethinking and Re-envisioning Chinese Didactics: Implications from the German Didaktik Tradition The New Basic Education and the Development of Human Subjectivity: A Chinese Experience This book will be relevant for scholars, researchers, and policy makers everywhere who seek a more balanced, more sophisticated, and philosophically better grounded understanding of Chinese education. (shrink)

The question raised in this chapter is why Aristotle portrays the bad person as being in a miserable state. It is argued that the bad person suffers from a mental conflict, which consists of a clash between two different kinds of desire, and that fulfilling one of the desires violates values that she also desires. But in contrast to the akratic person, the bad person has no proper conception of the good. Nevertheless, although the bad person may succeed in achieving (...) what she thinks is good, she feels miserable not only on account of failing to fulfil her desire for the truly good life, but also on account of doing things that she finds degrading for her. (shrink)

Daniel Heller contends that public education is in a downward spiral because we have failed to notice the erosion of the basic curricular dimensions which support the preparation of students as active participants in our ever-changing world. While many books explain procedural knowledge such as how to differentiate instruction, how to create standards-based curriculum, or how to write a constructivist lesson—Curriculum on the Edge of Survival discusses the "what" and "why" rather than the how. What is the purpose of (...) schools in a free, democratic society, and why is the answer to that question crucial in deciding the most fundamental questions about curriculum? (shrink)

Daniel Heller contends that public education is in a downward spiral because we have failed to notice the erosion of the basic curricular dimensions which support the preparation of students as active participants in our ever-changing world. While many books explain procedural knowledge such as how to differentiate instruction, how to create standards-based curriculum, or how to write a constructivist lesson, the second edition of Curriculum on the Edge of Survival discusses the "what" and "why" rather than the how. (...) What is the purpose of schools in a free, democratic society, and why is the answer to that question crucial in deciding the most fundamental questions about curriculum? (shrink)

The hierarchical human-centric paradigm has been criticized by various movements of posthuman philosophy because this paradigm forgets and dismisses nonhuman beings and entities: animals, n...