The major stakeholder classes in education have three distinct ways by which they judge the quality of knowledge claims. At times this can cause considerable distraction or mis-communication among stakeholders.

Matthew Lipman befriended me at an APA meeting in 1974. Through more than twenty years of phone calls, I got to chat with, consult with, and learn from Matt the details and challenges of developing philosophy for children. He acknowledged that I convinced him that the program needed “branding,” lest anyone present similar-sounding programs—some of which might be good and others not. He got a snippet of a video of my teaching troubled sixth-graders with his book Harry Stottlemeier’s Discovery on (...) the Today Show with Bryant Gumbel. That did much to shape my future, as did branding for sustaining Matt’s program. Lipman and I spoke by phone several times every year from 1976 until the mid-1990s. (shrink)

This paper warns against destructive effects of subjectivist thinking. Subjectivist accounts, as Alan Sokal exposed, promote a distorted view of scientific practice. For example, Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity relied on data produced by Fizeau, a physicist trained in classical mechanics. Einstein's use of Fizeau's results shows that the ontological foundation of uncontroversial data transcends conventional speculations. Einstein's employment of Fizeau's results mitigates against ideas such as paradigm shifts and revolutionary science. Instead, the ontology of shared horizons of fact (...) remains largely unadulterated. The descriptions scientists use accommodate received view shifts, but the horizon of fact remains unimpeachably the same. The apt performance of science shows what it means to move further away from error. The only direction away from error is toward truth. To deny the reality of this directionality flies in the face of common sense and prudent science. (shrink)

This paper warns against destructive effects of subjectivist thinking. Subjectivist accounts, as Alan Sokal exposed, promote a distorted view of scientific practice. For example, Einstein's 1905 special theory of relativity relied on data produced by Fizeau, a physicist trained in classical mechanics. Einstein's use of Fizeau's results shows that the ontological foundation of uncontroversial data transcends conventional speculations. Einstein's employment of Fizeau's results mitigates against ideas such as paradigm shifts and revolutionary science. Instead, the ontology of shared horizons of fact (...) remains largely unadulterated. The descriptions scientists use accommodate received view shifts, but the horizon of fact remains unimpeachably the same. The apt performance of science shows what it means to move further away from error. The only direction away from error is toward truth. To deny the reality of this directionality flies in the face of common sense and prudent science. (shrink)

In this review of Mark Weinstein’s Logic, Truth, and Inquiry, a book in which Weinstein explains his conception of the Method of Emerging Truth (MET), the reviewer, Paul Wagner, appreciates Weinstein’s assertion that “The MET attempts to characterize the process of truth emerging as evidence of the epistemic adequacy of the warrants that support theoretical explanations and govern theory driven inferences.” While he finds several things to question in Weinstein’s explanation of this conception, the reviewer, nonetheless, concludes that (...) “This is a book I heartily recommend to every reader especially those interested in critical thinking but whose academic preparation and home is outside philosophy or logic.”. (shrink)

In Science and the Riddle of Consciousness, Professor Foss has written not just one book but sketched two in outline. Ostensively his task is to show how one might study matters of consciousness in a scientifically responsible manner. He does not claim, however, that consciousness is something that can be understood in wholly empirical fashion. Several times Foss acknowledges that his approach may not lay bare all there is to know about consciousness. His quest is not a metaphysical journey. The (...) alert reader, however, may find such disavowals somewhat disingenuous. (shrink)

Spatial asymmetries are an intriguing feature of directed attention. Recent observations indicate an influence of temperament upon the direction of these asymmetries. It is unknown whether this influence generalises to visual orienting behaviour. The aim of the current study was therefore to explore the relationship between temperament and measures of spatial orienting as a function of target hemifield. An exogenous cueing task was administered to 92 healthy participants. Temperament was assessed using Carver and White's (1994) Behavioural Inhibition System and Behavioural (...) Activation System (BIS/BAS) scales. Individuals with high sensitivity to punishment and low sensitivity to reward showed a leftward asymmetry of directed attention when there was no informative spatial cue provided. This asymmetry was not present when targets were preceded by spatial cues that were either valid or invalid. The findings support the notion that individual variations in temperament influence spatial asymmetries in visual orienting, but only when lateral targets are preceded by a non-directional (neutral) cue. The results are discussed in terms of hemispheric asymmetries and dopamine activity. (shrink)

Israel Scheffler's ground-breaking essay, On Human Potential, deserves to be more widely known among educational policy analysts, especially in light of the popularity in educationist circles of W.E. Deming's organizational philosophy known as Total Quality Management . In what follows,I argue that the heuristical value of Deming's perscriptions are entailed in Scheffler's On Human Potential. More importantly, I argue, where Deming's work falls short, especially in being naive about the human condition, Scheffler's analysis provides a foundation for management theory in (...) education that insures the flourishing of an optimal number of contributing participants. In fashioning these ideas, Scheffler brings pioneering thinking to the emerging fields of management studies generally and educational policy specifically. (shrink)

In its first part the article examines visions of the family during 1968 and the succeeding years. It concentrates in particular on alternative visions of the family, both at a theoretical level (as with David Cooper's Death of the Family), and at the level of social history, with the rise and fall of the commune movement. It does so with reference to a methodology which concentrates on relationships, principally those between the individual and the family, between family and between the (...) family and the state. In the second part it surveys the widespread changes that have beset family relations and family life in the advanced capitalist societies since 1968: the lowering of fertility rates, the gradual decline of marriage, the significant changes in the position of women in the family, the increase in individualisation, as manifested in the growth of single-member households. The article then seeks to explore the relationship, if any, between the movement of 1968 and these transformations in the family. It examines both conservative and progressive interpretations, and suggests that paradoxically the movement left few sediments in the relationship between family and civil society but rather more in that between the state and the family. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

This article investigates the challenge of developing a robot capable of determining if a social situation demands trust. Solving this challenge may allow a robot to react when a person over or under trusts the system. Prior work in this area has focused on understanding the factors that influence a person’s trust of a robot. In contrast, by using game-theoretic representations to frame the problem, we are able to develop a set of conditions for determining if an interactive situation demands (...) trust. In two separate experiments, human subjects were asked to evaluate either written narratives or mazes in terms of whether or not they require trust. The results indicate a _Φ_1= +0.592 and _Φ_2 = +0.406 correlation respectively between the subjects’ evaluations and the condition’s predictions. This is a strong correlation for a study involving human subjects. (shrink)

This article investigates the challenge of developing a robot capable of determining if a social situation demands trust. Solving this challenge may allow a robot to react when a person over or under trusts the system. Prior work in this area has focused on understanding the factors that influence a person’s trust of a robot (Hancock, et al., 2011). In contrast, by using game-theoretic representations to frame the problem, we are able to develop a set of conditions for determining if (...) an interactive situation demands trust. In two separate experiments, human subjects were asked to evaluate either written narratives or mazes in terms of whether or not they require trust. The results indicate aΦ1= +0.592 andΦ2= +0.406 correlation respectively between the subjects’ evaluations and the condition’s predictions. This is a strong correlation for a study involving human subjects. (shrink)

This article investigates the challenge of developing a robot capable of determining if a social situation demands trust. Solving this challenge may allow a robot to react when a person over or under trusts the system. Prior work in this area has focused on understanding the factors that influence a person’s trust of a robot (Hancock, et al., 2011). In contrast, by using game-theoretic representations to frame the problem, we are able to develop a set of conditions for determining if (...) an interactive situation demands trust. In two separate experiments, human subjects were asked to evaluate either written narratives or mazes in terms of whether or not they require trust. The results indicate aΦ1= +0.592 andΦ2= +0.406 correlation respectively between the subjects’ evaluations and the condition’s predictions. This is a strong correlation for a study involving human subjects. (shrink)

This article searches in this pages that follow to reflect on the uptake of symbols and meanings of texts from the perspective of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur. For this, as foundation brings up the discussion of the elements that make up its hermeneutic phenomenology of associative manner, aiming, in turn, to go beyond the task of capturing the meaning of texts and symbols. Thus, the research notes that the philosopher seems to want to apply a legitimate effort in (...) understanding ourselves and, above all, in the world. However, this perspective, it is not easy to see relations between understanding and explanation, since his own notion of text has a certain recovery of the meeting remain regarding how to cope with such relationships. Finally, this article argues through existential notions, the ricouerian hermeneutical defense of philosophy as enlightening function, then going to be an attempt at expression and proclamation of the sense of the unsaid. (shrink)

Tradução do texto apresentado por Paul B. Preciado a Sociedade Psicanalitica.

This paper studies Paul Cohen’s philosophy of mathematics and mathematical practice as expressed in his writing on set-theoretic consistency proofs using his method of forcing. Since Cohen did not consider himself a philosopher and was somewhat reluctant about philosophy, the analysis uses semiotic and literary textual methodologies rather than mainstream philosophical ones. Specifically, I follow some ideas of Lévi-Strauss’s structural semiotics and some literary narratological methodologies. I show how Cohen’s reflections and rhetoric attempt to bridge what he experiences as (...) an uncomfortable tension between reality and the formal by means of his notion of intuition. (shrink)

In this compelling narrative of antisemitism in German thought, Paul Rose proposes a fresh view of the topic. Beginning with an examination of the attitudes of Martin Luther, he challenges distinctions between theologically derived (medieval) and secular, "racial" (modern) antisemitism, arguing that there is an unbroken chain of antisemitic feeling between the two periods. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton (...) University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

In this compelling narrative of antisemitism in German thought, Paul Rose proposes a fresh view of the topic. Beginning with an examination of the attitudes of Martin Luther, he challenges distinctions between theologically derived (medieval) and secular, "racial" (modern) antisemitism, arguing that there is an unbroken chain of antisemitic feeling between the two periods. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton (...) University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

The decision to split the Historischer und kritischer Nietzsche-Kommentar of the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften on the four essays of the Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen into two volumes, dealing with the first and second and with the third and fourth essays, respectively, points to the extent and depth of commentary required to gain access to these early, and sometimes overlooked, works by Nietzsche. One recalls that, originally, Nietzsche had planned not just four but thirteen essays, although he never got beyond completing four (...) and planning a fifth one, titled “We Philologists” —a project that, at the suggestion of Heinrich Köselitz, he set aside for... (shrink)

Georges Seurat, one of the most popular and admired of post-Impressionist painters, has been the focus of much attention in recent years. This book by Paul Smith views the artist in a new context and explodes some of the myths that have grown up about him. Challenging the assumption that Seurat's work was scientific or that it expressed a serious commitment to anarchism, Smith instead traces the painters involvement with the various factions of the avant-garde and shows that he (...) was perhaps the earliest exponent of Idealism in modern art. Smith studies contemporary interpretations of Impressionism and analyzes how the groups surrounding Seurat constructed meaning from his art. From this investigation he creates a portrait of Seurat as one who was willing to accept, even encourage, interpretations of his art that he may not have intended. Smith shows, for example, that the "scientific" account of Seurat's color first developed by Félix Fénéon actually represents the theory and practice of Pissaro. He examines Seurat's involvement with anarchist critics and concludes that he merely posed as a painter with left-wing sympathies in order to benefit from the publicity these writers gave him. He explains that Seurat was sympathetic to Symbolism from its very inception and that he and his early Symbolist critics developed a theory of his art that was founded on Schopenhauer and Wagner's ideas on art. And he explores the ways that Seurat focused on the musicality of art and on incorporating certain "musical" features in his work. Beautifully illustrated and engagingly written, this book presents a convincing new interpretation of the work of a major artist. (shrink)

This paper explores the topic of meaning and its relation to symbolism through a contrastive reading of Whitehead’s 1927 Barbour-Page Lectures alongside the contemporary anthropologist Roy Wagner’s Symbols that Stand for Themselves. Despite their adoption of different registers of inquiry, a complementary relation may be posited between the two approaches. In particular, Whitehead’s emphasis on the foundational nature of symbolic reference within experience and its extendedness beyond merely human contexts may be grafted productively onto Wagner’s discussion of the (...) “orders of trope’”and “figure-ground reversal” within the formation of meaning in language. The argument is exemplified through reference to two contexts within Western culture where the play of symbol and meaning is strikingly evident—the Christian Eucharist and the contemporary sociological pervasiveness of motifs of screens and screening. (shrink)

This paper explores the topic of meaning and its relation to symbolism through a contrastive reading of Whitehead’s 1927 Barbour-Page Lectures alongside the contemporary anthropologist Roy Wagner’s Symbols that Stand for Themselves. Despite their adoption of different registers of inquiry, a complementary relation may be posited between the two approaches. In particular, Whitehead’s emphasis on the foundational nature of symbolic reference within experience and its extendedness beyond merely human contexts may be grafted productively onto Wagner’s discussion of the (...) “orders of trope’”and “figure-ground reversal” within the formation of meaning in language. The argument is exemplified through reference to two contexts within Western culture where the play of symbol and meaning is strikingly evident—the Christian Eucharist and the contemporary sociological pervasiveness of motifs of screens and screening. (shrink)

Experiments in Love and Death is about the depth and complexity of the ethical issues that arise in illness and medicine. In his concept of 'microethics' Paul Komesaroff provides an alternative to the abstract debates about principles and consequences that have long dominated ethical thought. He shows how ethical decisions are everywhere: in small decisions, in facial expressions, in almost inconspicuous acts of recognition and trust. Through powerful descriptions of case studies and clear and concise explanations of contemporary philosophical (...) theory the book brings discussions about ethics in medicine back to where they belong-to the level of the everyday experience where people actually live, suffer and hope. A fresh and evocative look at the changing world of ethics as it applies to health and illness, this is an important book for all those touched by illness or suffering. About the author Paul Komesaroff is a physician and philosopher at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His books include Objectivity, Science and Society, Troubled Bodies, Sexuality and Medicine (ed. with Philipa Rothfield and John Wiltshire) and Pathways to Reconciliation (ed. with Philipa Rothfield and Cleo Fleming). (shrink)

In this chapter a new problem about rule-following is outlined, one that is distinct both from Kripke’s and Wright’s versions of the problem. This new problem cannot be correctly responsed to, as Kripke’s can, by invoking Wright’s Intentional Account of rule-following. The upshot might be called, following Kant, an antinomy of pure reason: we both must — and cannot — make sense of someone’s following a rule. The chapter explores various ways out of this antinomy without here endorsing any of (...) them. (shrink)

Intense public interest in scientific claims about COVID-19, concerning its origins, modes of spread, evolution, and preventive and therapeutic strategies, has focused attention on the values to which scientists are assumed to be committed and the relationship between science and other public discourses. A much discussed claim, which has stimulated several inquiries and generated far-reaching political and economic consequences, has been that SARS-CoV-2 was deliberately engineered at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and then, either inadvertently or otherwise, released to the (...) public by a laboratory worker. This has been pursued despite a clear refutation, through comprehensive genomic analysis, of the hypothesis that the virus was deliberately engineered and the failure of detailed investigations to identify any evidence in support of a laboratory leak. At the same time a substantial, established body of knowledge about the many factors underlying the emergence of novel zoonotic diseases has been largely ignored—including climate change and other mechanisms of environmental destruction, tourism, patterns of trade, and cultural influences. The existence and conduct of these debates have raised questions about the vulnerability of science to manipulation for political purposes. Scientific discourses are vulnerable because: (i) claims can be made with no more than probabilistic force; (ii) alleged “facts” are always subject to interpretation, which depends on social, ethical, and epistemological assumptions; and (iii) science and scientists are not inherently committed to any single set of values and historically have served diverse, and sometimes perverse, social and political interests. In the face of this complexity, the COVID-19 experience highlights the need for processes of ethical scrutiny of the scientific enterprise and its strategic deployment. To ensure reliability of truth claims and protection from corrupting influences robust ethical discourses are required that are independent of, and at times even contrary to, those of science itself. (shrink)

In the latest edition of their popular overview text, Erickson and Murphy continue to provide a comprehensive, affordable, and accessible introduction to anthropological theory from antiquity to the present.