This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction I Peters on Ritual in Education II R. S. Peters on Ritual and Imitation: An Assessment Future Directions References.

Covers such topics as epistemology and education, feminist philosophy of education, race and education, school dress codes, and sex education. The use of film, literature, art, case studies, and other disciplines or situations/events provide illustrations of human experiences which work as gateways to questions philosophers try to address.

This article proposes an approach to educational distribution that attempts to minimise enduring tensions among conflicting values. At the foundation of this approach is a threshold of educational adequacy based on what is needed for citizens to participate in a democratic society. This threshold is justified because it minimises conflict with parental rights and because it better manages ‘the bottomless pit’ problem of educational distribution. This threshold is then modified to stipulate that, after the threshold has been reached, public resources (...) should be distributed equally across students from all backgrounds. While this modification is essential to sending messages of equal citizenship, it also leaves a ‘moral residue’ because it allows wealthy parents to invest greater private resources in their children, thus preserving their children's competitive advantage. Minimising this harm requires policy mechanisms outside of schools that more aggressively break the link between educational outcomes, success in market competition, and social goods. Something ‘external’ to educational institutions is necessary, then, for the achievement of educational justice. (shrink)

A controversy rages over the question of how should controversial topics be taught. Recent work has advanced the “epistemic criterion” as the resolution to this controversy. According to the epistemic criterion, a matter should be taught as controversial when contrary views can be entertained on the matter without the views being contrary to reason. When an issue is noncontroversial, according to the epistemic criterion, the correct position can be taught “directively,” with the teacher endorsing that position. When there is a (...) legitimate controversy, the view should be taught “nondirectively,” with the teacher remaining neutral. In response, Bryan Warnick and Spencer Smith argue that the proponents of the epistemic criterion fail to recognize the multidimensional nature of what it means to learn to be rational. Recognizing this complexity undermines the link between the epistemic status of the controversy and directiveness of one's teaching, suggesting more flexibility in how teachers approach controversial issues. It also implies the need for a new category of teaching, which Warnick and Smith call “soft-directive” teaching. (shrink)

If we are to posit, as do many liberal theorists, that autonomy is an educational goal that the state should endorse across cultural difference, key questions remain: What type of autonomy should we strive for, exactly, and how should this goal be achieved? Many liberal philosophers of education have argued that autonomy should enable cultural choice and that the development of autonomy requires students to be exposed to different beliefs and traditions. Shelley Burtt has challenged this dominant position, however, insisting (...) that autonomy (properly understood) can be developed within a “comprehensive education” that does not seek to sympathetically expose students to cultural difference. In this essay, Bryan Warnick responds that Burtt's arguments are inconsistent and lack cultural imagination, and that her underlying concept of autonomy is inadequate, primarily because it lacks a compelling picture of cultural self-criticism. There is a lack of appreciation, he argues, for how frameworks of cultural comparison are necessary in the development of this self-criticism. At the same time, Warnick argues that there is much to be learned from Burtt's analysis about the tough choices that need to be made as liberals seek to champion autonomy as an educational end across cultural difference. (shrink)

It is likely that the process of global climate change will continue to accelerate. There is a lack of political will to confront the problem and the consequences for humanity — including widespread suffering and institutional destabilization — will be disastrous. How should educators respond to a catastrophic future? Here, Bryan Warnick argues that two criteria should guide the educational response. The response should not (1) undermine efforts to find an “unprecedented solution” to climate change, or (2) leave (...) students unprepared to adapt to a global catastrophe. Using these criteria, he analyzes several possible ways to help students adapt to disaster, including teaching survivalism, encouraging forms of emotional resilience (like the Stoic apatheia), and helping students to appreciate the current moment. These adaptive responses seem to violate the first criterion. At the same time, an educational response focused entirely on climate activism seems to violate the second criterion. Warnick ends by exploring ways to accommodate the need for both adaptation and social engagement, finding promise in the idea of a tragic activism. (shrink)

In the United States, targeted school shootings have become a distinct genre of violence. In this essay, Bryan Warnick, Sang Hyun Kim, and Shannon Robinson examine the social meanings that exist in American society that might contribute to this phenomenon, focusing on the question: “Why are schools conceptualized as appropriate places to enact this form of gun violence?” The authors analyze the social meaning of American schooling by using empirical data, everyday observations, films, and poetry, and then connect (...) these points of meaning to stories of individual school shooters. Through this analysis, three aspects of school stand out. First, schools are places of both real and symbolic violence, where force and power often rule the day. Second, schools are places connected to expectations of hope and refuge, friendship and romance, and when these expectations are not met, bitter resentment flows against schools. Third, suburban schools are seen as places of expressive individualism, which, in rare cases, is manifest in terms of “expressive violence.” Together, these points of meaning can make schools, for some youth, seem like appropriate places to express violent intentions. The essay concludes by speculating about how this analysis can be applied to prevent school shootings. (shrink)

This essay is an attempt to understand how technological metaphors, particularly computer metaphors, are relevant to moral education. After discussing various types of technological metaphors, it is argued that technological metaphors enter moral thought through their functional descriptions. The computer metaphor is then explored by turning to the hacker ethic. Analysis of this ethic reveals parallels between the experience of computer programming and the moral standards of those who are enmeshed in computer technology. This parallel suggests that the hacker ethic (...) is being pushed by a computer metaphor and its functional descriptions in a direction of individualism and systems thinking. After examining some possible implications of the computer metaphor, this essay offers suggestions concerning how technological metaphors may be critiqued. (shrink)

In this essay Bryan Warnick examines two recent analyses of the practice of paying students for grades, with a focus on educational justice. Philosopher Derrick Darby argues against cash-for-grades programs on the grounds that such programs leave educational inequality intact. Warnick contends that Darby's arguments are incomplete. Increasing levels of educational “adequacy” is morally desirable, Warnick argues, even if inequality remains unchanged. There is also an obligation to engage in “localized practice reforms” that benefit small groups (...) of disadvantaged students, even if such reforms do not change the structural problems that lead to inequality. At the same time, engaging in a close analysis of “cash” as an incentive does reveal specific reasons why the inequality that persists under cash-for-grades might be particularly troublesome. In contrast to Darby, Alexander Sidorkin argues that paying students for learning is not only allowed, but ethically obligatory. Schooling, for Sidorkin, is a form of labor and labor demands fair compensation. Warnick challenges the idea that schooling is a form of exploited labor by looking across a range of issues, including the nonpecuniary benefits of schooling. At the same time, it seems that schooling could become a form of exploited labor, given current trends. Overall, the justice of cash incentive programs remains an open question. The essay concludes with a discussion about how we can move forward with a philosophical analysis of cash-for-grades programs. (shrink)

In this essay Bryan Warnick explores how rights to religious expression should be understood for students in public schools. Warnick frames student religious rights as a debate between the conflicting values associated with the Free Exercise Clause and the values associated with the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. He then asks how the special characteristics of the school environment should guide us in prioritizing those values. The overall weight of the considerations, particularly concerns about civic (...) education, leads to a two-pronged approach to religious rights. The first prong involves a robust protection of student religious exercise; the second involves an equally robust regime of school disassociation from student religious exercises. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Achilles and Hector: The Homeric HeroBryan R. WarnickAchilles and Hector: The Homeric Hero, by Seth Benardete. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, 2005, 140 pp., $17.00 cloth, $10.00 paper.Seth Benardete (1930-2001) was one of the twentieth century's premiere scholars of the classical world. His prominence was largely due to his technical excellence in both ancient philosophy and classical philology, a rare combination that allowed him to become, as (...) Harvey Mansfield has written, "Our greatest student of the relation between poetry and philosophy."1 He wrote groundbreaking discussions of Greek literature (especially the tragedies) and the Platonic dialogues. His work culminated in his study of The Odyssey, The Bow and the Lyre (1997), a book that compared the plot of epic poetry to the development of a Platonic dialogue.Before Benardete achieved lasting fame, however, he was a doctoral student at the University of Chicago, working with Leo Strauss and the Committee on Social Thought and developing friendships with people like Allan Bloom. The writing of his dissertation is the stuff of scholarly legend. According to the story, it developed from a pile of nonsensical notes on the Iliad to a work of budding genius in four weeks. This dissertation, "Achilles and Hector: The Homeric Hero," was published in St. John's Review in 1985, and it has now been reprinted so that we can examine for ourselves the significance of Benardete's early work.As the title suggests, Benardete's dissertation looks at the theme of heroism in Homer, focusing on the Iliad. He examines the relationships between the poem's smallest parts and its largest themes. The book is divided into two sections. In the first section, Benardete grapples with how the small components of the Iliad, the epithets and similes, work together meaningfully to inform the larger heroic themes of the epic. The second section examines Homer's view of the tragic hero through an analysis of the plot. The analytic skill exhibited in both sections is fascinating: some parts of the study are brilliant, others strained, but none are boring.Benardete's purpose in the first section, he says, is to "vindicate the epithets" (135). This vindication is necessary because, as scholarship on the oral nature of the Homeric epics has developed, the significance of the smaller components has seemed to diminish. The epithets and similes have come to be seen as mere crutches for the oral poet; they are linguistic tools whose characteristics allow them to be plugged into Homer's unrelenting dactylic hexameter whenever a particular rhythmic pattern is needed. The poet uses the epithet of "swift-footed" Achilles, then, not so much because he particularly wants to say something meaningful about Achilles' swiftness, but because the particular rhythmic pattern of the epithet is a handy way to complete a line of poetry. The meaning of things like the epithets in any particular moment, it has seemed to many, should therefore be taken with a grain [End Page 115] of salt. In contrast, Benardete wants to argue that each particular use of an epithet has a significant meaning that informs, and even constructs, the epic's larger themes (for Benardete's purposes, the theme of heroism).Benardete's success in this goal is somewhat uneven, as even he later came to realize. A few of his conclusions appear rather stretched and neglect to consider the whole in the analysis of the parts. For example, Benardete looks at the Trojan epithets megathymoi ("great spirited") and hippodamoi ("tamers of horses") and finds them to be two manifestations of a constant Trojan character. One epithet is for the activities of war (megathymoi), the other one for peace (hippodamoi). But for Benardete, they both say the same thing about the constantly emotional, almost animalistic nature of Homer's Trojans, who are perfectly defined by passionate warfare: "The Trojans are more readily affected than the Achaeans, who can remove their armor and be different in peace than in war: but the Trojans cannot so easily shake off their temper" (21). While certainly interesting, such an analysis neglects to take into account prominent scenes like the one in which Astyanax, Hector... (shrink)

Hollywood films partially construct how Americans think about education. Recent work on the representation of schools in American cinema has highlighted the role of class difference in shaping school film genres. It has also advanced the idea that a nuanced understanding of American individualism helps to explain why the different class genres are shaped as they are. This article attempts to refine this theoretical approach by focusing on the paradox of individualism, which suggests that individualism must always be dependent on (...) community. We examine 5 films (Rushmore 1988, The Breakfast Club 1985, Mona Lisa Smile 2003, School of Rock 2003, and Stand and Deliver 1988) and argue that, although the values of individualism are certainly celebrated, these films also show, perhaps unwittingly, that the achievements of individualism require robust student communities. We describe how student communities function in these films, what achievements they make possible, and what obstacles they face. (shrink)

Semantics for Reasons is a book about what we mean when we talk about reasons. It not only brings together the theory of reasons and natural language semantics in original ways but also sketches out a litany of implications for metaethics and the philosophy of normativity. In their account of how the language of reasons works, Bryan R. Weaver and Kevin Scharp propose and defend a view called Question Under Discussion Reasons Contextualism. They use this view to argue for (...) a series of novel positions on the ontology of reasons, indexical facts, the reasons-to-be-rational debate, moral reasons, and the reasons-first approach. (shrink)

It appears that spouses have less reason to hold each other to a norm of monogamy than to reject the norm. The norm of monogamy involves a restriction of spouses' aeeess to two things of value: sex and erotic love. This restriction initially appears unwarranted but can be justified. There is reason for spouses to aeeept the norm of monogamy if their marriage satisfies three conditions. Otherwise, there is reason to permit non-monogamy. Some spouses have reason to accept the norm (...) of monogamy because this will avoid reasonable hurt and prevent diversion of resourees needed to sustain the marriage. Other spouses have reason to permit non-monogamy to allow the spouses access to aspects of a well-rounded life. The choice to be either monogamous or non-monogamous ean also be non-instrumentally valuable if chosen for the right reasons. (shrink)

How secular is contemporary society? Are pockets of sectarianism embedded in societies of developed countries? This timely book examines the interweaving of politics and religion, and of tradition and innovation in a variety of cultural settings. Eminent scholars from four continents examine here current turmoil in religious beliefs, practices, and organization--not only in the Western world, but in South America, Africa, South Asia, New Zealand, and Japan. They scrutinize evidence of religious change, decline, and revival; investigate challenges posed by new (...) religious movements; and locate religious change and conflict in the context of broader shifts in consciousness and culture. Contributors include Richard Fenn, Phillip E. Hammond, David Martin, Philip Rieff, Roland Robertson, and Mark Schibley. With its focus on the interplay of secularization, rationalism, and sectarianism, this work offers a fitting tribute to Bryan Wilson, who has made so many contributions to the sociological understanding of these phenomena. (shrink)

Especially since his “Reconceiving the University as an Institution and the Lecture as a Genre,” Alasdair MacIntyre has repeatedly returned to the subject of reconceiving university education, proposing a vision of what a university is and what a university education should be that differs widely from contemporary institutions and practices, and offering strong criticisms of the contemporary research university. He has argued provocatively that in its present form, the contemporary research university is not a university at all because it does (...) not carry out the purpose of a university. MacIntyre has also argued that philosophical practice always takes place within some tradition or other, and has identified as his own the broader Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition in which philosophy is to be understood as a craft. In this essay I examine and develop the relationship between MacIntyre’s critique of the contemporary research university, and his conception of philosophy as a craft practiced within a tradition. (shrink)

In this article, we defend the semantic theory, Question Under Discussion (QUD) Contextualism about Reasons that we develop in our monograph Semantics for Reasons against a series of objections that focus on whether our semantics can deliver predictions for some common examples, how we defend the semantic theory, and how we assess it compared to its competitors.

Most empirical work in human categorization has studied learning in either fully supervised or fully unsupervised scenarios. Most real-world learning scenarios, however, are semi-supervised: Learners receive a great deal of unlabeled information from the world, coupled with occasional experiences in which items are directly labeled by a knowledgeable source. A large body of work in machine learning has investigated how learning can exploit both labeled and unlabeled data provided to a learner. Using equivalences between models found in human categorization and (...) machine learning research, we explain how these semi-supervised techniques can be applied to human learning. A series of experiments are described which show that semi-supervised learning models prove useful for explaining human behavior when exposed to both labeled and unlabeled data. We then discuss some machine learning models that do not have familiar human categorization counterparts. Finally, we discuss some challenges yet to be addressed in the use of semi-supervised models for modeling human categorization. (shrink)

In a spontaneously wide-ranging conversation one winter evening in Japan, sociologist of religion Bryan Wilson and Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda recognized the importance of explaining and learning about their respective worldviews. Human Values in a Changing World is the record of their further exchanges on how they see the religious response to the human condition. Their contrasting approaches - one, as an academic, and the other, as a lay Buddhist - allow for a constructive critique of preconceptions otherwise unexamined (...) in their own cultural contexts. "There is an intimate connection between faith and the fruits of commitment," Wilson says at one point. To which Ikeda responds that while the benefits of faith to momentary happiness are perhaps not the core value of a religion, they can inspire and lead people to become aware of that core value or fundamental truth. The two men's observations on the origins of religious sensibilities move from the spiritual and the moral to the politics of private and public life. Although published some years ago, Human Values in a Changing World addresses topics and issues which are of perennial importance to human flourishing, including: sexual morality, the limits of tolerance and religious freedom, the future of the family, the belief in an afterlife, and the idea of sin. (shrink)

Businesses increasingly rely on algorithms that are data-trained sets of decision rules (i.e., the output of the processes often called “machine learning”) and implement decisions with little or no human intermediation. In this article, we provide a philosophical foundation for the claim that algorithmic decision-making gives rise to a “right to explanation.” It is often said that, in the digital era, informed consent is dead. This negative view originates from a rigid understanding that presumes informed consent is a static and (...) complete transaction. Such a view is insufficient, especially when data are used in a secondary, noncontextual, and unpredictable manner—which is the inescapable nature of advanced artificial intelligence systems. We submit that an alternative view of informed consent—as an assurance of trust for incomplete transactions—allows for an understanding of why the rationale of informed consent already entails a right to ex post explanation. (shrink)

When I reflect on reading Bryan Warnick's Imitation and Education, I am appreciative that I was given the opportunity not only to read it but also to think about its issues as thoroughly as I have in the process of writing this essay. I share Warnick's surprise that, prior to his book, no one had attempted to explore the relationship between imitation and education in a philosophically meaningful manner. Before reading his book, I did not realize that (...) imitation was such a philosophically rich topic, especially once you consider its educational implications. In particular, I was oblivious to the connection between various conceptions of the self and imitation. I had no idea that different interpretations of the .. (shrink)

To contribute to the continuing challenge of explaining how managers identify stakeholders and assess their salience, in this article, we chronicle the history, assess the impact, and evaluate the possibilities opened by Mitchell, Agle, and Wood (MAW-1997). We do so through two types of qualitative analysis, and also through utilizing a quantitative network analysis tool. The first qualitative analysis categorizes the major contributions of the most influential papers succeeding MAW-1997; the second identifies and compares the relevant issues with MAW-1997 at (...) the time of initial publication and today. We apply main path analysis, a quantitative tool, to map how this scholarly domain has evolved. These three analyses robustly depict the impact of MAW-1997 and the ensuing scholarly conversation, and they enable us to illustrate the current state and trajectory of stakeholder identification and salience scholarship. We close by discussing pressing topics related to the broader body of stakeholder theory literature. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Overview Ralph Waldo Emerson John Dewey Richard Rorty Martha Nussbaum Conclusion.

Background: The development of implicit tests for measuring biases and behavioral predispositions is a recent development within psychology. While such tests are usually researched within a social-cognitive paradigm, behavioral researchers have also begun to view these tests as potential tests of conditioning histories, including in the sexual domain. Objective: The objective of this paper is to illustrate the utility of a behavioral approach to implicit testing and means by which implicit tests can be built to the standards of behavioral psychologists. (...) Design: Research findings illustrating the short history of implicit testing within the experimental analysis of behavior are reviewed. Relevant parallel and overlapping research findings from the field of social cognition and on the Implicit Association Test are also outlined. Results: New preliminary data obtained with both normal and sex offender populations are described in order to illustrate how behavior-analytically conceived implicit tests may have potential as investigative tools for assessing histories of sexual arousal conditioning and derived stimulus associations. Conclusion: It is concluded that popular implicit tests are likely sensitive to conditioned and derived stimulus associations in the history of the test-taker rather than ‘unconscious cognitions’, per se. Keywords: implicit association test; function acquisition speed test; relational frame theory; stimulus equivalence; sex offenders; sexual interests (Published: 15 March 2012) Citation: Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology 2012, 2 : 17335 - DOI: 10.3402/snp.v2i0.17335. (shrink)

The US neutrino community gathered at the Workshop on the Intermediate Neutrino Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory February 4-6, 2015 to explore opportunities in neutrino physics over the next five to ten years. Scientists from particle, astroparticle and nuclear physics participated in the workshop. The workshop examined promising opportunities for neutrino physics in the intermediate term, including possible new small to mid-scale experiments, US contributions to large experiments, upgrades to existing experiments, R&D plans and theory. The workshop was organized into (...) two sets of parallel working group sessions, divided by physics topics and technology. Physics working groups covered topics on Sterile Neutrinos, Neutrino Mixing, Neutrino Interactions, Neutrino Properties and Astrophysical Neutrinos. Technology sessions were organized into Theory, Short-Baseline Accelerator Neutrinos, Reactor Neutrinos, Detector R&D and Source, Cyclotron and Meson Decay at Rest sessions.This report summarizes discussion and conclusions from the workshop. (shrink)