This handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the core areas of philosophy of education combined with an up-to-date selection of the central themes. It includes 95 newly commissioned articles that focus on and advance key arguments; each essay incorporates essential background material serving to clarify the history and logic of the relevant topic, examining the status quo of the discipline with respect to the topic, and discussing the possible futures of the field. The book provides a state-of-the-art overview of philosophy (...) of education, covering a range of topics: Voices from the present and the past deals with 36 major figures that philosophers of education rely on; Schools of thought addresses 14 stances including Eastern, Indigenous, and African philosophies of education as well as religiously inspired philosophies of education such as Jewish and Islamic; Revisiting enduring educational debates scrutinizes 25 issues heavily debated in the past and the present, for example care and justice, democracy, and the curriculum; New areas and developments addresses 17 emerging issues that have garnered considerable attention like neuroscience, videogames, and radicalization. The collection is relevant for lecturers teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of education as well as for colleagues in teacher training. Moreover, it helps junior researchers in philosophy of education to situate the problems they are addressing within the wider field of philosophy of education and offers a valuable update for experienced scholars dealing with issues in the sub-discipline. Combined with different conceptions of the purpose of philosophy, it discusses various aspects, using diverse perspectives to do so. Contributing Editors: Section 1: Voices from the Present and the Past: Nuraan Davids Section 2: Schools of Thought: Christiane Thompson and Joris Vlieghe Section 3: Revisiting Enduring Debates: Ann Chinnery, Naomi Hodgson, and Viktor Johansson Section 4: New Areas and Developments: Kai Horsthemke, Dirk Willem Postma, and Claudia Ruitenberg. (shrink)

The present study examined British children’s and adolescents’ individual and perceived group evaluations of a challenger when a member of one’s own group excludes a British national or an immigrant newcomer to the school from participating in a group activity. Participants included British children and adolescents, who were inducted into their group and heard hypothetical scenarios in which a member of their own group expressed a desire to exclude the newcomer from joining their activity. Subsequently, participants heard that another member (...) of the ingroup challenged the exclusionary act by stating that they should be inclusive. Children’s and adolescents’ individual evaluations of the bystander who challenged the social exclusion of an immigrant peer were more positive than their perceived group evaluations, recognizing that groups are often exclusionary. Only adolescents but not children differed in their individual and perceived group evaluations in the social exclusion of British peers. When the newcomer was an immigrant peer, adolescents were more likely to evaluate the challenger positively in both their individual and perceived group evaluations compared to children. Further, children, compared to adolescents, were more likely to reason about social and group norms to justify their evaluations only when the excluded peer was an immigrant but not when the excluded peer was British. Adolescents were more likely to reason about fairness, rights, and equality. The findings indicate that exclusionary group norms surrounding immigrants begin in childhood. Interventions that focus on changing group norms to be more inclusive could be effective in reducing prejudicial attitudes toward immigrants in childhood. (shrink)

Lisa Tessman (2016: 164) recounts the case of a Jewish mother, running from Nazis, who faced a terrible choice. She could (a) drown her infant, or (b) accept the virtual certainty that her baby’s cries would doom the refugee group she was fleeing with. Given those options, (b) is worse. If the whole group is discovered, many will die, including the infant. Still, preemptively drowning a baby—indeed one’s own baby—is a terrible act. To make sense of cases like this, Tessman (...) turns to the concept of moral failure: an act that violates an important moral value such that the loss cannot be fully redeemed by gains elsewhere. I will argue that criminal justice needs a moral framework like Tessman’s. It needs to make sense of the fact that some options are genuinely better than others, without letting honorifics like ‘justice’ obscure the equally important fact the best available option might be terrible. More specifically, I will argue that when punishment involves prison, as it often does, it is a moral failure. It can be justified only in the sense that preemptively drowning an infant can be justified: like the fleeing mother, society might on some terrible occasions find itself with no better alternative. (shrink)

This study examines a recent claim that it was the Umayyad caliph ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz who instituted the requirement that non-Muslims living under Muslim rule adopt distinctive dress and behavior. After showing that the evidence for the origins of the ghiyār is neither as unanimous nor as consistent as was suggested, it is argued that the ghiyār cannot be securely attributed to ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and that the problem of its origins therefore remains in question.

B Corporations are for-profit companies meeting specific social and environmental standards. This exploratory study into B Corporations aims to enhance the understanding of the certification on organizational performance. As previous research indicates that third party labels impact financial performance and that positive corporate social performance can lead to positive financial performance, this paper first seeks to determine whether B Corporation Certification positively impacts companies’ financial performance. Second, following previous B Corporation literature, this research tests whether certification leads to positive non-financial (...) results in the form of strategic advantages. Finally, it asks whether Certification negatively impacts organizations’ plans to develop internationally and/or by going public. While this study’s results provide little support that B Corporation Certification impacts organizations’ financial performance or growth, they do indicate that B Corporations experience positive non-financial strategic results post certification. The results of this study may be used to infer or test conclusions about socially responsible labels more broadly in the future. (shrink)

Imagine a moral agent with the native capacity to act rightly in every kind of circumstance. She will never, that is, find herself thrust into conditions she isn’t equipped to handle. Relationships turned tricky, evolving challenges of parenthood, or living in the midst of a global pandemic—she is never mistaken about what must be done, nor does she lack the skills to do it. When we are thrust into a new kind of circumstance, by contrast, we often need time to (...) practice discernment, new forms of compassion, different kinds of courage, or whatever else conditions call for. Unfortunately, such practice usually takes the form of on-the-job training—it is hard to cultivate the skills of an excellent parent, for example, until we actually are parents. Even more unfortunately, on-the-job training basically guarantees mistakes. This paper focuses on errors that (a) cause harm to others, and that (b) we make non-culpably because our skills are (understandably) not yet up to snuff. It argues that agent regret—the attitude singled out for non-culpable failures by much moral philosophy—is inapt in such cases. Rather, we need an attitude I will call stoic determination. (shrink)

Traditionally, the Christian doctrine of heaven has implied that the human agents that exist there will be exceptionally moral. More than this, there appears to be a consensus that heavenly agents are so morally upright as to be considered morally perfect. However, there has been some kickback to this idea of moral perfection, and whether it is a possibility for contingently existing agents. The primary goal of this thesis is to defend the view that moral perfection in heaven is possible (...) if understood from an Aristotelian or neo-Aristotelian virtue account. My secondary goals are to show that the process of perfecting agents requires some form of temporal extension, does not require a traditional form of character development to maintain the agent’s free will, and allows for the possibility of moral growth after the status of perfection has been attained. (shrink)

This case study describes the design, learning experiences, and student outcomes in one Instructional Design course with an explicit focus on globally competent teaching. We make the argument that forefronting global competence in an Instructional Design course, prior to social studies methods, is a necessary precursor to accelerate students’ progress on a pathway towards teaching for global competence. In support of this argument, we (a) describe the ways in which an Instructional Design course in one university forefronted global competence; (b) (...) explain the short- and long-term outcomes of this design; and (c) highlight four students to illustrate how the Instructional Design course helped to move students along a pathway towards global competence. We nest our approach within a globally competent teaching framework. (shrink)

The theory of we-mode cognition seeks to expand our understanding of the cognition involved in joint action, and therein claims to explain how we can have non-theoretical and non-simulative access to the minds of others (Gallotti and Frith Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17: 160-165, 2013a, Gallotti and Frith Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17: 304-305, 2013b). A basic tenet of this theory is that each individual jointly intends to accomplish some outcome together, requiring the adoption of a “first-person plural perspective” (Gallotti (...) and Frith 2013a, p.160) that is neither strictly individualistic – in the sense that a we-mode state is enabled by the joint involvement of (an)other(s) – nor strictly pluralistic – in the sense that the involved individuals, rather than a ‘group’, are the bearers of the relevant joint intention(s). Whilst I concur with the idea that, in certain circumstances, we cognise from an irreducible ‘first-person plural perspective’, Gallotti & Frith’s existing proposal of we-mode cognition is in need of theoretical clarification. In this paper, I deliver such clarification so that the theory of we-mode cognition is re-defined as: (a). sensitive to the phenomenological transformation that is induced by the embodied co-presence of others, and (b). limited to cases in which one intentionally attends to the capacities of one’s co-participant in joint action. (shrink)

This book is a fresh study of the fourth century B.C. Greek adventurer, writer, and student of Socrates, Xenophon. An innovating author of many guises, an important source for the history of his time, a wit and a philosopher, he no longer enjoys the reputation he once did. Suggesting that such a radical de-valuation is more a reflection on nineteenth- and twentieth-century attitudes and scholarship than on the worth of Xenophon, the author in this book attempts to reassert Xenophon’s rightful (...) position by offering a close, literary-historical reading of all of Xenophon’s writings and by focusing in this process on the alluring reticence and ironic subtlety many have often failed to appreciate before offering what turn out to be their too hasty criticisms. It is hoped that this study will help to bring about the realization that Xenophon, when properly read and read without preconceptions, may yet prove an invaluable guide to the development of Greek thought in general and the world of fourth-century Greece in particular. Xenophon emerges as one of the last great representatives of that civilization which reached its height in Athens, and it is in this context that he is best understood, not, as so often previously, against the Peloponnesian and especially Spartan background where he had friends and where he spent a long exile. (shrink)

The popularization of neuroscientific ideas about learning—sometimes legitimate, sometimes merely commercial—poses a real challenge for classroom teachers who want to understand how children learn. Until teacher preparation programs are reconceived to incorporate relevant research from the neuro- and cognitive sciences, teachers need translation and guidance to effectively use information about the brain and cognition. Absent such guidance, teachers, schools, and school districts may waste time and money pursuing so called brain-based interventions that lack a firm basis in research. Meanwhile, the (...) success of our schools will continue to be narrowly defined by achievement standards that ignore knowledge of the neural and cognitive processes of learning. To achieve the goals of neuroeducation, its proponents must address unique ethical issues that neuroeducation raises for five different groups of individuals: a) practicing teachers, b) neuroscience researchers whose work could inform education, c) publishers and the popular media, d) educational policy-makers, and e) university-level teacher educators. We suggest ways in which these ethical challenges can be met and provide a model for teacher preparation that will enable teachers themselves to translate findings from the neuro-and cognitive sciences and use legitimate research to inform how they design and deliver effective instruction. (shrink)

The world of work over the past 3 years has been characterized by a great reset due to the COVID-19 pandemic, giving an even more central role to scholarly discussions of ethics and the future of work. Such discussions have the potential to inform whether, when, and which work is viewed and experienced as meaningful. Yet, thus far, debates concerning ethics, meaningful work, and the future of work have largely pursued separate trajectories. Not only is bridging these research spheres important (...) for the advancement of meaningful work as a field of study but doing so can potentially inform the organizations and societies of the future. In proposing this Special Issue, we were inspired to address these intersections, and we are grateful to have this platform for advancing an integrative conversation, together with the authors of the seven selected scholarly contributions. Each article in this issue takes a unique approach to addressing these topics, with some emphasizing ethics while others focus on the future aspects of meaningful work. Taken together, the papers indicate future research directions with regard to: (a) the meaning of meaningful work, (b) the future of meaningful work, and (c) how we can study the ethics of meaningful work in the future. We hope these insights will spark further relevant scholarly and practitioner conversations. (shrink)

The essays in this book - all of them published here for the first time - provide a long-overdue critical discussion of Jürgen Habermas's cascade of ideas. These are topped off by a freshet of original Habermas: in the final essay, he replies to the criticism developed in the preceding contributions and to other recent assessments of his work, provides an important clarification of his earlier views, and reveals the direction of his current thought.Each essay probes a particular theme in (...) Habermas's work, and each presents both an exposition and a critique. Among the subjects covered are Habermas's theory of knowledge-constitutive interests, his account of language and truth, his "overcoming" of hermeneutics, the concept of universal pragmatics, the orientation of his thought relative to the Marxist tradition, and his project of analyzing the crisis tendencies of capitalism within the context of evolutionary theory.The contributors are philosophers and social theorists of international standing, most of them affiliated with German, English, and American universities. They are Agnes Heller, Rudiger Bubner, Thomas McCarthy, Henning Ottmann, Mary Hesse, Steven Lukes, Anthony Giddens, Michael Schmid, Andrew Arato, and the editors. The editors have also contributed a substantial introduction outlining the central contours of Habermas's work and summarizing the main arguments of the essays.John B. Thompson is a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and David Held is Lecturer in Politics, University of York. (shrink)

This article aims to explore a ‘lived discipleship’ by determining whether and how contemporary communities of faith could implement the norms and principles reflected in the Emmaus narrative of Luke 24:13–35 within a plausible epistemological framework that might facilitate a fresh understanding of Christian followership as discipleship. This was done through an empirical case study using two focus groups as co-researchers, in order to actively listen to their respective understandings of lived theology in their unique South African contexts. The (...) two focus groups consisted of (1) a contemporary Christian grouping of Afrikaans-speaking, active churchgoers situated in Hazeldean, a suburb in Pretoria East, Tshwane, Gauteng and (2) a contemporary Christian grouping of African, active churchgoers situated in Ivory Park, a suburb in Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, Gauteng. This article concluded that Luke 24:13–35 nudged the co-researchers to re-evaluate their contemporary understanding of discipleship and moved them to additional and new perspectives in terms of practical expressions thereof that can be best described as ‘lived followership’. A shift from perceiving Jesus in terms of an ‘act to follow’ by gaining the correct knowledge, to following Jesus as ‘a performative act’, a shift from ‘theoretical knowledge’ to ‘heart knowledge’. Contribution: This article is a part of the Festschrift for Prof. Stephan Joubert. This article plays into similar creative interdisciplinary relationship as seen in the work of Prof. Joubert, by looking at the relationship between New Testament and Practical Theology in order to improve practices of faith that is rooted in a biblical understanding of Jesus. (shrink)

Caesarean delivery is a common and life-saving intervention. However, it involves an overall increased risk for short-term and long-term complications for both mother and child compared with vaginal delivery. From a medical point of view, healthcare professionals should, therefore, not recommend caesarean sections without any anticipated medical benefit. Consequently, caesarean sections requested by women for maternal reasons can cause conflict between professional recommendations and maternal autonomy. How can we assure ethically justified decisions in the case of caesarean sections on maternal (...) request in healthcare systems that also respect patients’ autonomy and aspire for shared decisions? In the maternal–professional relationship, which can be characterised in terms of reciprocal obligations and rights, women may not be entitled to demand a C-section. Nevertheless, women have a right to respect for their deliberative capacity in the decision-making process. How should we deal with a situation of non-agreement between a woman and healthcare professional when the woman requests a caesarean section in the absence of obvious medical indications? In this paper, we illustrate how the maternal–professional relationship is embedded in a nexus of power, trust and risk that reinforces a structural inferiority for women. To accommodate for beneficial use of power, these decision processes need to be trustworthy. We propose a framework, inspired by Lukes’ three-dimensional notion of power, which serves to facilitate trust and allows for beneficial power in shared processes of decision-making about the delivery mode for women requesting planned C-sections. (shrink)

Against those contemporary patterns of thought that segregate thinking and doing, or “theory” and “practice,” this essay urges that Scripture works with a more integrated and communal understanding of human life, and thus of Christian faith. Accordingly, practices like hospitality and table fellowship in Luke or the kiss of greeting in 1 Peter are not faith's accessories; rather, they actually generate the realities they are thought to represent. They restructure relationships and prompt transformed patterns of human life. They not (...) only serve to exemplify the good news, but are themselves the good news. (shrink)

The interpreter must keep constantly in mind the fact that Luke did not intend to write a constitution for the emerging church but rather a narrative of its beginnings which stressed equally both continuity and change.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 139-147 [Access article in PDF] A Mahayana Theology of Salvation History John P. Keenan Middlebury College Salvation history is a Western theological strategy based on biblical ideas about how God acts in history to bring about the salvation/deliverance of God's people. It begins with the scriptural accounts of creation as the inception of God's plan. It moves to describe Israel's deliverance from slavery in Egypt (...) and goes on to depict the guidance the Lord Yahweh provides for his people throughout their journeys and despite their trials and reverses.Israel may be idealized in scripture as God's domain, sovereign among the nations, but in fact it was a small country sandwiched between the two superpowers of the day—Egypt and Assyria (or Babylon), and subject to the rise and fall of those empires. 1 The New Testament goes on to describe God's plan in sending his son Jesus to effect salvation and unite all people in him (Eph. 1:1-16). The passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus comprise the central drama, in which we all are invited to participate. The author of Luke/Acts gives an account of how God moves through the teachings and the life and death of Jesus to establish his Church and how that Church evolves from a small and marginal community to enter and permeate the very heart of the Empire at Rome. The story continues in postscriptural Christian history, from Constantine's vision at Milvian Bridge to the Christianization of Europe, and further to the missionary endeavors to convert all peoples to the path of the Gospel. In the twentieth century, Liberation theology is heir to these notions, insisting that conversion means not simply becoming Christian, but the furtherance of justice and peace among all peoples, even non-Christians.A Mahayana reading of this schema is not at first glance very promising. Mahayana knows nothing of God, much less of God acting in history. Nor, indeed, of history itself as a purposeful unfolding of events. Indian thought is known for its ahistoricity. No histories were produced in ancient India at all. No Herodotus, no Thucydides. The first Buddhist histories were written not in India but in Tibet, some thousand years after the birth of the Buddha Sakyamuni. Indian traditions in their focus on the eternal truth (sanatana dharma) turned away from the concrete flow of events and from any recording of their progression. [End Page 139]The task before us is challenging. To tackle it best, I will divide this essay into three parts, and thus attempt to argue for a Mahayana reading of salvation history. The first part will treat Mahayana philosophy and argue that despite its Indian lack of historical consciousness, it does possess the tools for writing history. Its teaching that all events are empty (sunyata) is coterminous with its teaching that all events arise in dependence upon a host of causes and conditions (pratitya-samutpada). In a word, emptiness itself entails a radical insight into the contingent and conventional historicity of events (dharmas). Beyond this, since all events are seen as empty of any abiding core essence, Mahayana deconstructs the very idea of an eternal world truth over and apart from the everyday world of events. It proclaims, rather, that to an awakened person, all is "worldly convention-only" (samvrti-matra). 2 This focus on the radical conventionality of events can serve, I would argue, as a needed corrective to a literalistic reading of salvation history. Looked at from this perspective, the story of the New Testament writers can perhaps become more apparent—how they are writing of God's design, purpose, and plan in order to counter the regnant patterns of Greek and Roman arrogance, and to substitute insight into the mystery of our being and of our being here.The second part of this article will address the Western doctrine of salvation history, focusing on the New Testament, particularly Pauline theology as expressed in one passage from Ephesians about how salvation is attained through Jesus as the unfolding plan of God's purpose... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cur Deus Verba: Why the Word Became Words by Jeremy HolmesJames B. ProthroCur Deus Verba: Why the Word Became Words by Jeremy Holmes (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2021), 284 pp.This book's title plays on the incarnational analogy, and its argument begins and ends with God's purposes to draw humanity into communion with himself through revelation. In both aspects, Holmes echoes Dei Verbum (DV, §§2, 13). However, rather than pursuing (...) a revelation-historical organization or beginning with Scripture's texts to derive conclusions about its nature and purpose, the book takes a "top-down" (13) approach to bibliology. In this way, its strength is the theological framing or refraining it gives to common questions.The first three chapters culminate, he claims, in a "definition of Scripture" (11). Beginning with the Trinity and creation, Holmes argues that all things have their being by participating in the inner life (the Word) of the Father, thus reflecting him, and that the Spirit drives creatures "toward the pattern of the Son" (33). God desires creatures to be good and causes of goodness in others, patterned after and in the Son through the Spirit's impulse to return them to God. In the Incarnation, God "reconciles nature with grace" (39) and in Christ perfects these desires. In Christ, man is now "included in the life of the Trinity" (37) and an agent of revelation, reflects God perfectly, and in love sends the Spirit to return humans to God through himself. This leads to reflections on Scripture directly. "Scripture is meant to impress the interior life of the Church on each generation; put another way, it is meant to impress Christ the Head on the members of his Mystical Body" (69). This brings Holmes to the topics of inspiration and canon. In order for human texts to impress Christ on his members, to communicate the divine through human means, "God himself" must be "addressing the [End Page 393] heart of the believer" (72). He makes a case for canon by pointing to the communal nature of humans. Tradition and canon, by which truth as a common good is formulated for a society, order and inform the society regarding its purpose, history, and character. "Tradition," then, "is good for man as man" (57) even in natural society, and all the more so in the supernatural society, the Church. The "texts that embody and transmit the tradition" (63) give continuity and life to the organism that is the Church, while within that tradition these texts can function as a sort of "guide rail" and a "mirror" of its identity (67).This overall view of Scripture lends perspective to particular topics (chs. 4-12). Turning to Scripture's authorship and inspiration, Holmes emphasizes again that God means humans to be real causes of revelation as God "attaches his voice" to their writing (82, 91, and throughout). This may, in differing circumstances, involve endowing them with particular and even unusual graces, many of which God grants to others who hand on revelation (such as Augustine), but in the case of the biblical authors the ("only") difference is that God "intended" biblical texts like Luke "to sound not only Luke's voice but God's voice as well" (91). His "general account of the fact of biblical difficulties" (202), then, depicts the human "author's soul" as "like the body of an instrument, determining the overtones of everything he writes" (208). God writes the notes to be played and selects the instruments, and God "asserts what the human author asserts" (210). But the particularities of an author's soul (and upbringing, assumptions, etc.) can be seen in anything from grammatical infelicities in Paul to the author's assumptions about a geocentric solar system, the goodness of killing the Canaanites, or Qoheleth's unawareness of an afterlife. God attaches his voice to their writing, and these instruments play "only God's note" (219), but God "does not affirm or deny" the assumptions or unasserted views of the author when writing (209). Scripture's purpose is not merely to impart doctrine but to conform one to Christ, and difficult passages are inspired in part for us to... (shrink)

Although this book contains a facsimile of the second London edition of Collins’ Inquiry, the main author is O’Higgins, for his Introduction and Notes seem more important than the 18th-century pamphlet. Collins was a country squire, friend of John Locke, an Anglican Deist, and a convinced determinist in his explanation of volition. His education was spotty: Eton, a year at Cambridge and unfinished studies in law. A general study of Collins’ life and writings was published by O’Higgins in (...) 1970, yet he does not seem aware of another modern printing of the Inquiry, edited by R. Wellek. The Introduction covers the background very thoroughly. It also sketches the situation in which the Inquiry was produced. The editor’s Notes are scholarly and helpful. Collins’ view was that no act of will is uncaused but the necessity to which man’s will is subject is not physical but moral. Much of Collins’ argument is well constructed but he does not seem fully to understand some of his adversaries, such as Bishop John Bramhall. On the whole this book is a useful introduction to a key controversy in British and continental thought of the 17th and 18th centuries.—V.J.B. (shrink)