School bullying continues to plague students around the globe. Bullying research to date has largely employed empirical methodologies, including both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Using a philosophical lens, this paper seeks to better understand the intentionality of bullying by considering the satisfaction derived in the tears of another. Specifically, current bullying research takes seriously the notion that bullying is primarily a problem between a bully and a victim (i.e. that the bully does not like the victim). In this paper I (...) suggest that the bully is bullshitting us and her/his project is far bigger than the victim s/he targets. In the final analysis bullying prevention, as well as education itself, requires us to take seriously not only the activities of students, but the desires (i.e. the ?I likes?) that help us understand when we are being bullshitted and when we are not. (shrink)

To date, research on bullying has largely employed empirical methodologies, including quantitative and qualitative approaches. Through this research we have come to understand bullying as both a dyadic and peer group phenomenon, primarily situated in the heads of those involved, or in a lack of skill or expertise, or in the delinquency of a bully who needs to be reformed. This research has largely directed its strategies toward problem students using individual and peer group approaches. And yet school bullying continues (...) to be a crucial educational issue affecting millions of students each year. In this project I introduce a missing philosophical perspective. Analyzing the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer I am led to conclude that typical anti-bullying strategies at times simply train bullies to be better at bullying. Gadamer invites us to think about bullying in new ways. While certainly involving the thinking and skills of the bully and the victim, Gadamer contends that bullying does not fundamentally result from a problem within the participants, but is fostered by certain spaces between them; terrains that cultivate specific experiences of an. (shrink)

Research indicates that upwards of 80% of our students experience the devastation of bullying during their school years. To date, research on bullying has mainly employed empirical methodologies, including quantitative and qualitative approaches. This research has largely concluded that bullying is situated in a lack of skill, understanding, or self-control and involves intentional action directed toward status dominance. Based upon these assumptions current anti-bullying strategies focus on training students toward more appropriate avenues of status acquisition and social interaction. Against the (...) backdrop of an actual bullying encounter this paper employs a psychoanalytic philosophical lens to offer a fresh perspective on this enduring educational issue. Employing the philosophical work of Adam Phillips, Jessica Benjamin, and Emmanuel Ghent I ask the question: What is the desire to bully a desire for? Here I consider what is sought and what is at stake in the typical bullying encounter. Through careful analysis I argue that the domination represented in bullying is not simply situated in a lack of social skills or in disregulated aggression––skill deficiencies that require training. Instead, or perhaps in addition to these possibilities, I contend that bullying is foundationally a move toward establishing identity, a self. On this view bullying becomes an activity of self construction through attempted omnipotence. I argue that the status dominance inherent in bullying should be seen not as an end (a tool to secure resources or privilege), but as a means to something more foundational. I conclude that status dominance becomes a means toward the end of providing a secure place for the self to stand. Hence, instead of advocating that we train students to get along better this paper outlines the futility, as well as the insatiability of bullying, opening up new territory focused upon a re-construction of the bully through the relational bonding and differentiation available in the concrete Other. (shrink)

"This book takes a new angle on a much-studied phenomenon, focusing on the role of domination and identity construction, understanding and self-knowledge, moral transformation and the social community, systems of training and hierarchy used ...

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)

Nothing seems to follow strictly from 'X believes that p'. But if we reinterpret it to mean: 'X can consistently be described as consistently believing p'--which roughly renders, I think, Hintikka's notion of "defensibility"--we can get on with the subject, freed from the inhibitions of descriptive adequacy. But defensibility is neither necessary nor sufficient for truth: it tells us little, therefore, about the concept of belief on which it is based. It cannot, in particular, specify necessary conditions for the consistent (...) ascription of belief--as opposed to rational belief. If there are no such conditions, all belief ascriptions must be treated as atomic: which is implausible. If there are some, they must be settled on before an account of consistency can be complete. The reason is simple: it is that we have beliefs about our own beliefs. A set of first order beliefs is consistent if they can all be true together; but it is a lesson of Moore's paradox that consistency of second-order beliefs requires additional constraints. If someone both believes that p and that he does not believe that p, the propositions he believes might all be true together, yet he is inconsistent. And the characterization of second order consistency will remain incomplete, so long as nothing is said about the consistency of first order belief ascriptions. Suppose someone says and believes: "I am inconsistent: I believe both p and ~p." This is "indefensible": but is it insight, or nonsense? Breast-beating of this sort is guaranteed success: something he believes is bound to be false. But that remains diagnostically frustrating: is he inconsistent because what he said is true, or on the contrary because it is inconsistent? (shrink)

We shall construct a smooth category of mice and embeddings in the core model for measures of order 0. The existence of such a category implies that the global principle □ holds in K. We then prove a much stronger, the so-called condensation-coherent version of global □. The key tool of the whole construction is a new criterion on preserving soundness under condensation.

Despite tensions between Tillich's category of belief-ful realism and a view of science that embraces metaphysical and epistemological realism, a constructive relationship can be developed between the two. Both are based on common understandings about reality. Belief-ful or theonomous realism, thus, affirms scientific realism. On the other hand, scientific realism is open to the ecstatic, self-transcending elements of belief-ful realism. Finally, Tillich's formulation of the relationship between culture and religion can be reformulated specifically to include scientific and technological culture.

Ainslie’s Picoeconomics presents an ingenious theory, based on a remarkably simple basic law about the rate of discounting the value of future prospects, which explains a vast number of psychological phenomena. Hyperbolic discount rates result in changes in the ranking of interests as they get closer in time. Thus quasi-homuncular “interests” situated at different times compete within the person. In this paper I first defend the generality of scope of Ainslie’s model, which ranges over several personal and subpersonal levels of (...) psychological analysis. I raise a problem which results from the temporal relativity of assessments of value, and affects the possibility of objective values. Finally, I offer one example of a form of time-related irrationality on which Ainslie’s scheme does not seem to have a grip, namely one which relates not to a situation’s relative position in time, but to its temporal (‘progressive’ or ‘perfect’) temporal aspect. (shrink)

The plot of the Cratylus, like that of the Protagoras, involves a striking contrast between the position which Socrates first appears to be defending, and the position he is maintaining at the end. And the intermediate sections share this mobility. No statement about the doctrine of the Cratylus can be truer than its contradiction, unless it is grounded in a recognition of this primary fact. Accordingly, a brief charting of the dialogue, in what I take to be its major divisions, (...) will be my first task. (shrink)

The many difficulties the book contains are not due to its translator; Miss Freeman's well-marshalled English seldom leaves us in search of the intended sense. They are due rather to the complex character of the author's mind and to the exigencies of the thesis he is defending. One encounters flights of imagination in which lyrical transports alternate or combine with bold dialectical constructions offered as sober interpretations, and multiple quotations from ancient thinkers and modern critics, confusingly blended with our author's (...) own comments. Signor Untersteiner displays an ability like that of the anatomist Cuvier, and can reassemble the entire structure of a lost sophistic writing from a single bone. He exhumes from the works of many other writers--Thucydides, Plato, Theophrastus, Demosthenes, Sextus Empiricus, Cicero--major conceptions, chapters, or whole treatises, mistakenly incorporated there by later editors, or borrowed without acknowledgment; these and sundry anonymous writings on relevant themes he confidently assigns to this or that beneficiary among the sophists. As the inevitable consequence of this process other thinkers, notably Socrates and Plato, are sadly diminished. Socrates becomes, indeed, almost a superfluity, in whose absence the history of Greek thought would have remained unimpaired. Plato's works serve as happy hunting-grounds for supposed incorporations of sophistic insights; for the rest, he is shown as stone-and-gravel blind to the merits of these rival thinkers. Now, some discounting of Plato's satirical portrayal of the sophists may be admitted as legitimate and necessary. Untersteiner, however, has so far exceeded his allowance here as to reach the counter-absurdity, of which his interpretation of Thrasymachus in the ne plus ultra: to a proper reading, we are told, Thrasymachus is far from being a cynical denier of the claims of moral obligation. On the contrary, he is a broken-hearted idealist, and in calling justice "the advantage of the stronger" he is offering not his own conception of justice but, out of his bitter disillusion, describing what men in their tragic folly have made of that noble virtue. (shrink)

Introduction -- Tales of dominion -- The plow and the gun -- Picturing the West, 1883-1893 -- American idol, 1898 -- The end of nature -- African romance -- The dark continent -- When cowboys go to heaven -- Transplanting Africa -- Of ape-men, sex, and cannibal kings -- Adventures in monkeyland -- Nature, the film -- The world scrubbed clean.

As the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology works to encourage greater genuine dialogue among proponents of disparate philosophical positions and traditions related to psychology, I am pleased for the second time in three years to have the opportunity to publish another set of commentaries on a paper previously published in Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology , together with the author's reply. I am also delighted to know that the future of the Journal has been placed in the wise (...) and energetic care of Thomas Teo, but more of that in the announcement to follow. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

It would be hard to find a more effective visual source for understanding the political ideology that underscores Dante's relationship to Boniface VIII in the Divina Commedia than the frescoes that line the walls of the Oratorio di San Silvestro in the Basilica of the Santi Quattro Coronati in Rome. These frescoes, which depict episodes from the life of St. Sylvester and his relationship to the emperor Constantine, express as their clear subtext the thirteenth-century papacy's view of the proper relationship (...) between ecclesiastical and secular power . Their vivid dramatization of these events synthesizes and, more importantly, interprets two well-known literary sources: the life of St. Sylvester that was thought to have been composed by Eusebius of Caesarea and the text of the Donation of Constantine, the Constitutum Constantini. The account of the life of St. Sylvester that is contained in the Golden Legend also provides a readily accessible point of reference for the cycle, since it is roughly contemporaneous with it and is itself a compilation based on these earlier texts. (shrink)

The inner ecology: Buddhist ethics and practice -- A Buddhist perspective on animal rights -- Pollution and the environment: some radically new ancient views -- Animals for dinner: a Karmic tale -- Our relationship with nature: a Buddhist exploration -- Environmental issues: a Buddhist perspective -- Human spiritual potential and the environmental crisi -- The need for ethical guidelines to protect us from the very real dangers of a technological world -- Looking at hi-tech through the lens of the five (...) moral precepts -- Science and Buddhism: a critical comparison -- Genetic engineering: a Buddhist assessment -- Redesigning the world: ethical questions about genetic engineering -- Some ethical challenges posed by the Internet and digital social media: a Buddhist perspective -- Where are we going - digitally? (shrink)

Nothing seems to follow strictly from 'X believes that p'. But if we reinterpret it to mean: 'X can consistently be described as consistently believing p'--which roughly renders, I think, Hintikka's notion of "defensibility"--we can get on with the subject, freed from the inhibitions of descriptive adequacy. But defensibility is neither necessary nor sufficient for truth: it tells us little, therefore, about the concept of belief on which it is based. It cannot, in particular, specify necessary conditions for the consistent (...) ascription of belief--as opposed to rational belief. If there are no such conditions, all belief ascriptions must be treated as atomic: which is implausible. If there are some, they must be settled on before an account of consistency can be complete. The reason is simple: it is that we have beliefs about our own beliefs. A set of first order beliefs is consistent if they can all be true together; but it is a lesson of Moore's paradox that consistency of second-order beliefs requires additional constraints. If someone both believes that p and that he does not believe that p, the propositions he believes might all be true together, yet he is inconsistent. And the characterization of second order consistency will remain incomplete, so long as nothing is said about the consistency of first order belief ascriptions. Suppose someone says and believes: "I am inconsistent: I believe both p and ~p." This is "indefensible": but is it insight, or nonsense? Breast-beating of this sort is guaranteed success: something he believes is bound to be false. But that remains diagnostically frustrating: is he inconsistent because what he said is true, or on the contrary because it is inconsistent? (shrink)

Addresses the implications of a document found in the Archivio di Stato di Siena which affirms a connection between Farinata degli Uberti, a Florentine conspicuously encountered by Dante the pilgrim in Inferno 10, and the Sienese Ghibellines with whom he and his fellow Florentine Ghibellines joined, in an alliance which produced the Sienese victory at the battle of Montaperti in 1260.