Seeking beauty in education -- The meanings of beauty: a brief history -- Beauty as educational experience -- Beauty, education and the good society -- Beauty and creativity: examples from an arts curriculum -- Beauty in science and maths education -- Awakening beauty in education.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"An Option for Art But Not an Option for Life":Beauty as an Educational ImperativeJoe Winston (bio)IntroductionIn a recent meeting of the academic staff in the university department where I work, we were asked to state our current research interests. Responses progressed around the circle and everyone listened quietly and respectfully until I stated that my interest was beauty, to which there was general laughter—complicit, not derisory, as if (...) everyone laughing presumed it was a joke. In the same week, I heard a story from a colleague who works in another institution. She had been interviewing a prospective female candidate for their postgraduate teacher training course with a deputy principal from a local school. When it came to a decision, the latter had not been in favor of offering the young woman a place; she was "too beautiful," she thought, to the extent that she would "be a distraction" in the classroom.I offer these stories as illustrative of a fact little discussed—that beauty is a problem in educational discourse, seen as either wildly irrelevant or discordant with the job of teaching. Yet it was not always the case. Beauty has in the past been understood as one of the highest aims of education. For Schiller, it fulfilled a core human need, and he wrote in the second of his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man that "it is only through Beauty that man makes his way to Freedom."1 Matthew Arnold argued that it was in beauty that the "human race finds its ideal."2 Emerson saw beauty as "the form under which the intellect likes to study the world,"3 and Iris Murdoch argued that it should be at the base of any education in the virtues, citing Plato's argument that beauty is the one spiritual quality that we love by instinct.4 These figures could hardly be described as philosophical lightweights, yet their sentiments and the complex arguments through which they expressed [End Page 71] them have for years been neglected; only recently has this begun to change. Elaine Scarry, in particular, has written an influential book on the topic, taking up the argument of Iris Murdoch and developing a strong case for the educational power of beauty, allying it strikingly with an education in social justice.5 Two recent articles in this journal have also heralded a re-evaluation of beauty as a concept of profound significance for both the arts and education. Stuart Richmond sees in the development of our capacities to create and appreciate beauty "a way to bring us back into contact with what is sensual and intrinsically worthwhile,"6 and Howard Cannatella argues passionately "that something of the indelible quality of poiesis and delight in beauty should be the focus of specific educational concern, a factor at its core."7This article is an attempt to add further substance to the claim that-beauty should be one of our core educational values. In doing so, it develops the ideas that connect these perspectives: that beauty's power is instinctive, that it delights, that it is of deep human value. As do Murdoch and Scarry in their different ways, I will argue that beauty is powerfully formative and intrinsically associated with virtue, an idea developed in the final section of the article. First, however, I wish to consider what happened to beauty and why it became a neglected concept not only in education but also in the arts.What Happened to Beauty?Language and world refer to each other and presuppose each other for their mutual intelligibility. In this count, human learning becomes the process of aligning language and world.8In considering beauty, we begin inevitably with the word itself and with its usage. Like all evaluative concepts captured through language, beauty is a historical and cultural entity and, as such, it has both gathered and discarded meanings with the passage of time. Consequently, its nature is elusive and open to revision and debate. Is it characterized by perfect harmony and balance, as the classical world would have it, or by the soaring solidity of a medieval Gothic cathedral? Do we associate it with goodness... (shrink)

Shakespeare wrote plays and young children are geniuses at playing. In March 2008 the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) launched Stand Up for Shakespeare, its manifesto for the teaching of Shakespeare in schools. Of its three stated principles—“Do it on your feet; see it live; start it earlier”—it is perhaps the third that is the most tantalizing. The company’s education department has done much over recent years to introduce key stage 2 children to a variety of his plays but has paid (...) less attention to children’s early years. In association with the University of Warwick, the company therefore commissioned a pilot project to introduce children as young as four and five years old to Shakespeare in order to .. (shrink)

In this review of Matthew DeCoursey’s book on the aesthetics of drama education, I acknowledge the originality and usefulness of the theoretical framework he provides and attempt to summarize its key features. In applying them to an example of my own practice, I make use of the conceptual terminology DeCoursey has introduced and argue that it is both effective and illuminating to the practitioner. In tracing the trajectory of DeCoursey’s subsequent analysis of key theorists in the field, the study of (...) scripted drama, and the extensive use of drama across the curriculum, I attempt to do justice to the strengths of his argument, as well as pointing out what I perceive as some of its inherent weaknesses. I conclude by indicating some gaps in his attention to both historical and current practices in the field while still commending the book for its much-needed contribution. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Only a Promise of Happiness: The Place of Beauty in a World of ArtJoe WinstonOnly a Promise of Happiness: The Place of Beauty in a World of Art, by Alexander Nehamas. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007, 186 pp., $29.95 cloth.We cannot doubt that, since the turn of the new millennium, there has been something of what Michael Bérubé has called a "Return to Beauty" in cultural and (...) literary scholarship.1 Bérubé locates the beginning of this return in an article written by Marjorie Perloff for the Chronicle of Higher Education in December 4, 1998, and in an opinion that he shares with Rita Felski, he sees it as a misguided attack on cultural studies.2 It is clear that when Elaine Scarry spoke disparagingly of "the enemies of beauty" in her influential book On Beauty and Being Just, she had the more extreme relativists of cultural studies in her sights.3 Far from being a short-lived spat, however, the renewed scholarly interest in beauty has grown, moved on a pace, and shows no sign of intellectual exhaustion; and most of this work has not, as Bérubé would have us believe, directed itself against postmodern aesthetics. Wendy Steiner, in The Trouble with Beauty, took Modernism and the art of the twentieth-century avant-garde as her target;4 whereas John Armstrong's The Secret Power of Beauty provided a sustained and accessible look at the history of aesthetic thought and reminded us of the significance of beauty in our lives, as both a concept and as a value.5 Arthur Danto's The Abuse of Beauty traced, like Steiner, the rejection of beauty to the rise of Modernism. Significantly, he did not attack Modernist art but recognized how it drove a wedge between beauty and the arts, showing us in the process that art need not be beautiful to be of value. In reassessing Modernism's rejection of beauty, however, Danto concluded by arguing forcefully that if beauty need not be excluded from art, it cannot be excluded from everyday living: "Beauty is an option for art but not a necessary condition. But it is not an option for life. It is a necessary condition for life as we would want to live it"6When a scholar with the reputation of Alexander Nehamas turns his attention to beauty, then we know it is still on the agenda in a big way. As with John Armstrong's work, one of the many delights of this book is its clarity of expression and the accessibility of its prose. In no way is Nehamas ever talking down to or patronizing the reader, however. He takes us on a philosophical journey that is rigorously argued and backed up by a wide selection of examples drawn chiefly from the world of art, which is indeed the subject of the writer's attention. If he has cultural studies in his sights, then he is very quiet about it. In fact, the canonical writers of cultural studies, whether they be Foucault, Bourdieu, Williams, or Gramsci, are entirely absent from the text. Instead, the central role goes to Plato—on whom Nehamas has written in two previous publications7—with important [End Page 124] contributions from Schopenhauer, Kant, Nietszche, and Clive Bell, not to mention Proust and Thomas Mann or the artworks themselves. This has a strong whiff of the canon about it perhaps; be that as it may, only a reviewer with a very large ideological drum to beat could remain deaf to the argument itself. For these individuals are all supportive of Nehamas's own thinking and of the argument he has himself developed, which, I think, is not only important to the world of art and art education but, more broadly, to the aesthetics of contemporary schooling itself.Before beginning to look at this argument in detail, it is worth noting that Nehamas has something telling to say about the principles and role of the reviewing process, something that cannot but make me feel wryly self-conscious as I begin it here. A review, he tells us, is a kind of advertisement to help... (shrink)

This research aimed to assess the nature and level of pupils? educational aspirations and to elucidate the factors that influence these aspirations. A sample of five inner city comprehensive secondary schools were selected by their local authority because of poor pupil attendance, below?average examination results and low rates of continuing in full?time education after the age of 16. Schools were all ethnically mixed and coeducational. Over 800 pupils aged 12?14 completed a questionnaire assessing pupils? experience of home, school and their (...) peers. A sub?sample of 48 pupils, selected by teachers to reflect ethnicity and ability levels in individual schools, also participated in detailed focus group interviews. There were no significant differences in aspirations by gender or year group, but differences between ethnic groups were marked. Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani groups had significantly higher educational aspirations than the White British group, who had the lowest aspirations. The results suggest the high aspirations of Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani pupils are mediated through strong academic self?concept, positive peer support, a commitment to schooling and high educational aspirations in the home. They also suggest that low educational aspirations may have different mediating influences in different ethnic groups. The low aspirations of White British pupils seem to relate most strongly to poor academic self?concept and low educational aspirations in the home, while for Black Caribbean pupils disaffection, negative peers and low commitment to schooling appear more relevant. Interviews with pupils corroborated the above findings and further illuminated the factors students described as important in their educational aspirations. The results are discussed in relation to theories of aspiration which stress its nature as a cultural capacity. (shrink)

Over its short history, the young field of “neuroethics” has enjoyed remarkable public support within neuroscience. For instance, since 2006 the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience has h...

Does metacognition--the capacity to self-evaluate one's cognitive performance--derive from a mindreading capacity, or does it rely on informational processes? Joëlle Proust draws on psychology and neuroscience to defend the second claim. She argues that metacognition need not involve metarepresentations, and is essentially related to mental agency.

: Most of the world now accepts the idea, first proposed four decades ago, that death means "brain death." But the idea has always been open to criticism because it doesn't square with all of our intuitions about death. In fact, none of the possible definitions of death quite works. Death, perhaps surprisingly, eludes definition, and "brain death" can be accepted only as a refinement of what is in fact a fuzzy concept.

Most of the world now accepts the idea, first proposed four decades ago, that death means “brain death.” But the idea has always been open to criticism because it doesn't square with all of our intuitions about death. In fact, none of the possible definitions of death quite works. Death, perhaps surprisingly, eludes definition, and “brain death” can be accepted only as a refinement of what is in fact a fuzzy concept.

CHAPTER I THE FRAMEWORK OF SELF-PERFECTION 1. Buddhism and Ethics Anyone who has read even a very little in the early Buddhist Scriptures is aware that from ...

"Audaces fortuna invat. Dynamin sophian kyle baraka. Many or few, always bold"--Front cover.

The equipoise requirement in clinical research demands that, if patients are to be randomly assigned to one of two interventions in a clinical trial, there must be genuine doubt about which is better. This reflects the traditional view that physicians must never knowingly compromise the care of their patients, even for the sake of future patients. Equipoise has proven to be deeply problematic, especially in the Third World. Some recent critics have argued against equipoise on the grounds that clinical research (...) is fundamentally distinct from clinical care, and thus should be governed by different norms. I argue against this "difference position," and instead take issue with the traditional, exclusively patient-centered account of physicians' obligations that equipoise presupposes. In place of this traditional view, I propose a Kantian test for the reasonable partiality that physicians should show their patients, focusing on its application in clinical research and medical education. (shrink)

In their thoughtful and rigorous article, Peterson and colleagues extend an account of supported decision-making that was originally developed for people with static cognitive impairments, t...

This illuminating collection of essays encompasses conceptions of responsibility around the globe, as discussed by leading scholars in the fields of philosophy, ...

When an agent learns of an expert's credence in a proposition about which they are an expert, the agent should defer to the expert and adopt that credence as their own. This is a popular thought about how agents ought to respond to (ideal) experts. In a Bayesian framework, it is often modelled by endowing the agent with a set of priors that achieves this result. But this model faces a number of challenges, especially when applied to non-ideal agents (who (...) nevertheless interact with ideal experts). I outline these problems, and use them as desiderata for the development of a new model. Taking inspiration from Richard Jeffrey's development of Jeffrey conditioning, I develop a model in which expert reports are taken as exogenous constraints on the agent's posterior probabilities. I show how this model can handle a much wider class of expert reports (for example reports of conditional probabilities), and can be naturally extended to cover propositions for which the agent has no prior. (shrink)

In both the literal and metaphorical senses, it seemed as if 1970s America was running out of gas.

What is the proper role for scientists in policymaking? This paper explores various roles that scientists can play, with an eye to questions that these roles raise about value-neutrality and technocracy. Where much philosophical literature is concerned with the conduct of research or the transmission of research results to policymakers, I am interested in various non-research roles that scientists take on in policymaking. These include raising the alarm on issues, framing and conceptualising problems, formulating potential policies, assessing policy options for (...) expected efficacy, and more. I consider examples from climate change and Covid-19 policymaking. My intention is to encourage philosophers to expand their interest in values in science out from the conduct of research to the wide array of roles that scientists play in policymaking. The paper is therefore an overview of the landscape of potential research questions, rather than a presentation of a single argument. (shrink)

Microbes in the gastrointestinal tract are under selective pressure to manipulate host eating behavior to increase their fitness, sometimes at the expense of host fitness. Microbes may do this through two potential strategies: (i) generating cravings for foods that they specialize on or foods that suppress their competitors, or (ii) inducing dysphoria until we eat foods that enhance their fitness. We review several potential mechanisms for microbial control over eating behavior including microbial influence on reward and satiety pathways, production of (...) toxins that alter mood, changes to receptors including taste receptors, and hijacking of the vagus nerve, the neural axis between the gut and the brain. We also review the evidence for alternative explanations for cravings and unhealthy eating behavior. Because microbiota are easily manipulatable by prebiotics, probiotics, antibiotics, fecal transplants, and dietary changes, altering our microbiota offers a tractable approach to otherwise intractable problems of obesity and unhealthy eating. (shrink)

Roderich Tumulka’s GRWf theory offers a simple, realist and relativistic solution to the measurement problem of quantum mechanics. It is achieved by the introduction of a stochastic dynamical collapse of the wavefunction. An issue with dynamical collapse theories is that they involve an amendment to the Schrodinger equation; amending the dynamics of such a tried and tested theory is seen by some as problematic. This paper proposes an alteration to GRWf that avoids the need to amend the Schrodinger equation via (...) what might be seen as a primary set of solutions to the Schrodinger equation that satisfy a normalisation condition over space and time. The traditional Born-normalised solutions are shown to be conditionalisations of these primary solutions. (shrink)

Religion is an important element of end-of-life care on the paediatric intensive care unit with religious belief providing support for many families and for some staff. However, religious claims used by families to challenge cessation of aggressive therapies considered futile and burdensome by a wide range of medical and lay people can cause considerable problems and be very difficult to resolve. While it is vital to support families in such difficult times, we are increasingly concerned that deeply held belief in (...) religion can lead to children being potentially subjected to burdensome care in expectation of ‘miraculous’ intervention. We reviewed cases involving end-of-life decisions over a 3-year period. In 186 of 203 cases in which withdrawal or limitation of invasive therapy was recommended, agreement was achieved. However, in the 17 remaining cases extended discussions with medical teams and local support mechanisms did not lead to resolution. Of these cases, 11 (65%) involved explicit religious claims that intensive care should not be stopped due to expectation of divine intervention and complete cure together with conviction that overly pessimistic medical predictions were wrong. The distribution of the religions included Protestant, Muslim, Jewish and Roman Catholic groups. Five of the 11 cases were resolved after meeting religious community leaders; one child had intensive care withdrawn following a High Court order, and in the remaining five, all Christian, no resolution was possible due to expressed expectations that a ‘miracle’ would happen. (shrink)

In our paper, we distinguish between two forms of memory knowledge: experiential memory knowledge and stored memory knowledge. We argue that, mutatis mutandis, the case that Pritchard makes for epistemological disjunctivism regarding perceptual knowledge can be made for epistemological disjunctivism regarding experiential memory knowledge. At the same time, we argue against a disjunctivist account of stored memory knowledge.

The pace of change and, indeed, the sheer number of clinical ethics committees has accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Committees were formed to support healthcare professionals and to operationalise, interpret and compensate for gaps in national and professional guidance. But as the role of clinical ethics support becomes more prominent and visible, it becomes ever more important to address gaps in the support structure and misconceptions as to role and remit. The recent case of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (...) NHS Foundation Trust v MX, FX and X, [21]–[23] and [58]) has highlighted the importance of patient/family representation at clinical ethics committee meetings. The court viewed these meetings as making decisions about such treatment. We argue that this misunderstands the role of ethics support, with treatment decisions remaining with the clinical team and those providing their consent. The considered review by clinical ethics committees of the moral issues surrounding complex treatment decisions is not a matter of determining a single ethical course of action. In this article, we consider current legal understandings of clinical ethics committees, explore current concepts of ethics support and suggest how they may evolve, considering the various mechanisms of the inclusion of patients and their representatives in ethics meetings which is not standard in the UK. (shrink)

The relationship between humanity and the soil is an increasingly important topic in social theory. However, conceptualisations of the soil developed by anticolonial thinkers at the high point of the movement for self-determination between the 1940s and the 1970s have remained largely ignored. This is a shame, not least because theorists like Eric Williams, Walter Rodney, Suzanne Césaire and Amílcar Cabral were concerned with the soil. Building on recent work on human-soil relations and decolonial ecology, we argue that these four (...) thinkers conceptualised the connection between soil, empire, and anticolonial revolt. Williams and Rodney ground understanding of soil degradation in global relations of economic power, while Césaire and Cabral reconceptualise postcolonial nationhood in terms of the mutability and diversity of the soil. The article concludes by suggesting that these two anticolonial counterpoints, global connectivity and more-than-human identification, anticipate and deepen contemporary attempts to decolonise ecological thinking. (shrink)

Since the publication of David Lewis’ Counterfactuals, the standard line on subjunctive conditionals with impossible antecedents (or counterpossibles) has been that they are vacuously true. That is, a conditional of the form ‘If p were the case, q would be the case’ is trivially true whenever the antecedent, p, is impossible. The primary justification is that Lewis’ semantics best approximates the English subjunctive conditional, and that a vacuous treatment of counterpossibles is a consequence of that very elegant theory. Another justification (...) derives from the classical lore than if an impossibility were true, then anything goes. In this paper we defend non-vacuism, the view that counterpossibles are sometimes non-vacuously true and sometimes non-vacuously false. We do so while retaining a Lewisian semantics, which is to say, the approach we favor does not require us to abandon classical logic or a similarity semantics. It does however require us to countenance impossible worlds. An impossible worlds treatment of counterpossibles is suggested (but not defended) by Lewis (Counterfactuals. Blackwell, Oxford, 1973), and developed by Nolan (Notre Dame J Formal Logic 38:325–527, 1997), Kment (Mind 115:261–310, 2006a: Philos Perspect 20:237–302, 2006b), and Vander Laan (In: Jackson F, Priest G (eds) Lewisian themes. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004). We follow this tradition, and develop an account of comparative similarity for impossible worlds. (shrink)

Corporate philanthropy describes the action when a corporation voluntarily donates a portion of its resources to a societal cause. Although the thought of philanthropy invokes feelings of altruism, there are many objectives for corporate giving beyond altruism. Meeting strategic corporate objectives can be an important if not primary goal of philanthropy. The purpose of this paper is to share insights from a strategic corporate philanthropic initiative aimed at increasing the pool of frontline customer contact employees who are performance-ready, while supporting (...) curriculum development and infrastructure improvement for selected university business programs, creating a win-win situation for the company and the universities. This paper will address three objectives. First, we will examine the evolution of strategic philanthropy from the traditional view to its current position as a strategic option. Second, we will address the recruitment of front line talent needs (customer facing jobs in sales, customer service, and marketing) based on the profit maximization model of strategic philanthropy. Finally, we will offer conclusions and issues for future research. (shrink)

There are many cases in which, by making some great sacrifice, you could bring about either a good outcome or a very good outcome. In some of these cases, it seems wrong for you to bring about the good outcome, since you could bring about the very good outcome with no additional sacrifice. It also seems permissible for you not to make the sacrifice, and bring about neither outcome. But together, these claims seem to imply that you ought to bring (...) about neither outcome rather than the good outcome. And that seems very counterintuitive. In this paper, I develop this problem, propose a solution, and then draw out some implications both for how we should understand supererogation and for how we should approach charitable giving. (shrink)

Throughout history up until present, many cultures have traditionally experienced the effects of verifiable healings, along with hexes, curses, witchcraft, voodoo, and other mysterious phenomena. These effects-many of which were elicited by unscientific means-were brought about by the beliefs and lore of the society. Even today, pharmaceutical companies use double- and triple-blind randomized studies in an attempt to exclude of the power of the mind over the body. In You Are the Placebo, Dr. Joe Dispenza explores the history, the science, (...) and the practical applications of the so-called placebo effect. Citing many amazing individual cases studies, this compelling book will empower you to personally use "the expectation of a particular outcome" to alter your internal states-as well as external reality-solely through the action of your mind. It offers the necessary understandings to change old beliefs and perceptions into new ones. In addition, it teaches a model of personal transformation that correlates with the placebo effect-without the need for any external influences ("placebos" such as sugar pills, saline injections, and so on). You Are the Placebo combines the latest research in neuroscience, biology, psychology, hypnosis, behavioral conditioning, and quantum physics to demystify the workings of the placebo effect. and show how the seemingly impossible can become possible. (shrink)

By pairing translations of _Gorgias_ and _Rhetoric_, along with an outstanding introductory essay, Joe Sachs demonstrates Aristotles response to Plato. If in the _Gorgias_ Plato probes the question of what is problematic in rhetoric, in _Rhetoric_, Aristotle continues the thread by looking at what makes rhetoric useful. By juxtaposing the two texts, an interesting "conversation" is illuminated—one which students of philosophy and rhetoric will find key in their analytical pursuits. Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of (...) the original text, with the notes and a glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Aristotle and Plato’s immediate audience. (shrink)

In a time of increasing polarization, how can we address sensitive topics and ensure that university classrooms remain places of healthy discussions and ethical deliberations? This paper addresses this important question by drawing on unique qualitative data from our students’ accounts of their experience in an organizational ethics course. We developed the course using a novel pedagogical strategy centered around the creation of an artistic portfolio. We find that student engagement in an alternative individual space, such as the artistic portfolio, (...) supports them in developing (inter)personal skills in preparation for constructive participation in sensitive discussions and ethical deliberation in the classroom. Additionally, engagement with the artistic portfolio provides them with an alternative means for alleviating tension that arises from these discussions and a space for expressing their opinions. Our findings highlight the role of the portfolio as an individual safe haven that supports teachers in facilitating a positive classroom atmosphere and guides students through challenging discussions and deliberations intrinsic to responsible management education. Considering these new insights, we advocate for a shift from a collective to an individual perspective on safety in academia. This transition liberates the classroom from the constraints and limitations often associated with the establishment of collective safe spaces. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Shagrir and Sprevak explore the apparent necessity of representation for the individuation of digits in computational systems.1 1 I will first offer a response to Sprevak’s argument that does not mention Shagrir’s original formulation, which was more complex. I then extend my initial response to cover Shagrir’s argument, thus demonstrating that it is possible to individuate digits in non-representational computing mechanisms. I also consider the implications that the non-representational individuation of digits would have for the broader theory of computing (...) mechanisms. 1 The Received View: No Computation without Representation 2 Computing Mechanisms and Functional Individuation 3 Against Computational Externalism 4 Implications for the Mechanistic Account. (shrink)

Derrida’s description of the aporia of decision-making is herein used to demonstrate how ethico-political concerns can already be found within the articulation of time and space as they are experienced by mortal beings, broadly understood.