This book presents fourteen new essays by international scholars about the intersections between pragmatism, education, and philosophy with children. Pragmatism from its beginnings has sought a revolution in learning, and is itself a special kind of philosophy of education. What can the applications of pragmatism to pedagogy around the world teach us today?

In this study the authors follow with extreme clarity what could be understood as the political ideology and the philosophy of language of Richard Rorty, from the perspective of the understanding assumed by this North American philosopher as to public democratic practices. His philosophy is es..

This chapter contains sections titled: Marxism Criticism Pragmatism and Practice Neo‐pragmatism and Neo‐critical Theory.

There are two critical positions as to the rational certainty of knowledge. Habermas proposes a pragmatic position that contextualizes the sense of truth and its significant order, that is, truth is validated through a significant produced socially incommunicative interaction. Rorty considers an a..

O texto fala a respeito do debate entre Searle e Rorty sobre “irracionalismo” de Rorty. Ele tenta mostrar que a posição de Rorty está fora do campo “realismo versus anti-realismo” e o “irracionalismo” não é um bom adjetivo. Searle estaria sobre uma linha incorreta em sua abordagem do tema da verdade em Rorty.

Resumo: O texto trata da evolução da ideia de "bom professor" no contexto da modernidade e da época contemporânea. Considera, então, três fases histórico-filosóficas: o professor segundo o discurso pedagógico humanista; o professor segundo o discurso pedagógico da era "sociedade do trabalho" e o professor segundo o discurso pedagógico "tecnicista". Palavras-chave: professor; filosofia; história; infância; pedagogia. Abstract: This paper deals with the idea of "good teacher" in the context of modernity and contemporary age. Three historico-philosophical phases are taken here under (...) consideration: the teacher in the pedagogical discourse of humanism; the teacher in the pedagogical discourse of the "laboring society" and, finally, the teacher accordingly to the pedagogical discourse of "technicism". (shrink)

The author makes a brief analysis of Richard Rorty’s non-pragmatic theory of truth. Beyond the true-false dualism, Rorty considers truth and non-truth as a problem to be resolved in the linguistic context of social and political actions. Truth then is contingent and metamorphic; it must always..

This paper analyses the relations between Pragmatism and Brazilian culture, nowadays defined as a plural culture. It shows that the introduction of Pragmatism into Brazilian educational movements in the past actually made such culture much more receptive to pragmatist ideas. After discussing the concepts of truth and minimalism on Richard Rorty’s Philosophical Papers, the authors conclude that Brazilian education today is receptive to the conception in which new narratives can be used as a powerful instrument to change the world.

The article talks about debate between Searle and Rorty on a "irrationalism" of Rorty. The text tries to show that the Rorty's position is out of the field "Realism versus Anti Realism" and the "irracionalism" is not a good adjective. Searle would be on a incorrect line in his account of the Rorty's theme of truth.O texto fala a respeito do debate entre Searle e Rorty sobre "irracionalismo" de Rorty. Ele tenta mostrar que a posição de Rorty está fora do (...) campo "realismo versus anti-realismo" e o "irracionalismo" não é um bom adjetivo. Searle estaria sobre uma linha incorreta em sua abordagem do tema da verdade em Rorty. (shrink)

This distinctive collection by scholars from around the world focuses upon the cultural, educational, and political significance of Richard Rorty's thought. The nine essays which comprise the collection examine a variety of related themes: Rorty's neopragmatism, his view of philosophy, his philosophy of education and culture, Rorty's comparison between Dewey and Foucault, his relation to postmodern theory, and, also his form of political liberalism.

Living Reference Work. Continuously updated edition.

Discusses the role of education in liberating the oppressed people of the Third World.

In this book, we come to understand the author's pedagogical thinking even better, through the critical seriousness, humanistic objectivity, and engaged ...

Johann Gottfried Herder, like his contemporaries, reflected on language and in 1772 published the Treatise on the Origin of Language, which in the previous year had earned the distinction of the Berlin Academy for best essay. However, even today, much of his thought is unknown, ignoring the fact that some of the modern approaches of contemporary philosophy, philosophical anthropology or even sociobiology are already stated there, namely in the narratives resulting from the enunciation of the four natural laws. More than (...) justifying the origin of language, the philosopher’s essay also allows us to understand human nature, inserting its genesis at the heart of philosophical anthropology and contradicting, if not even confronting in this way, the divine tradition of this attribution. Thus, at first, a generic analysis of the work will be carried out, highlighting the fundamental theses that will allow the establishment of a dialogue with some of the contemporary philosophical approaches. Then, admitting the possibility of a scenario of technological singularity, as stated by Irving John Good, Vernor Vinge or Ray Kurzweil, to verify the plausibility and validity of Herder’s theses regarding the scope of language and human nature and how this could constitute a frontier of resistance. (shrink)

O presente trabalho objetiva fazer uma análise sobre algumas das principais temáticas elaboradas pelo pensador argentino Luis Alberto Warat, quais sejam: o antropofagismo waratiano, o reencontro com a subjetividade perdida e a carnavalização. Para isso, analisou- se uma das obras mais caras do pensamento waratiano: A ciência jurídica e seus dois maridos. Buscou-se através da análise empreendida, elaborar uma crítica sobre paradigmas tradicionais de ciência, incluindo aqui, a própria Ciência do Direito. Sobreleva-se o caráter de indisciplina das atividades artístico-literárias para (...) insinuar as falhas históricas das disciplinas bem instituídas, do pensamento e da cultura dominantes. Visa-se, portanto, maior interação entre aquilo que se entende como ciência e a subjetividade humana como um todo. (shrink)

Preface R. Baine Harris Most Western scholars are not aware of the complexity, richness, and antiquity of Indian Philosophy. It is one of the oldest, ...

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions represented a milestone in the attempt to understand scientific development based on empirical observations. However, in the next decades after the publication of his book, history, psychology, and sociology became increasingly marginal in Kuhn’s discussions. In his last articles, Kuhn even suggested that philosophers should pay less attention to empirical data and focus more on “first principles.” The purpose of this article is, first, to describe this radical transformation in Kuhn’s methodological approach, from his initial (...) naturalism to his later and more strict philosophical stance. Next, I present some of the alleged justifications for explaining this transition, such as his interest in problems more firmly attached to the philosophical tradition and a desire for greater acceptance within this community. Although these factors certainly played a role in explaining Kuhn’s change, I also believe that an important theoretical component exerts a fundamental function in this transition: the idea that scientific development is a kind of evolutionary process, which is better understood through the use of abstract theoretical models, instead of sparse observations of scientific activity. (shrink)

This paper discusses “impartiality thought experiments”, i.e., thought experiments that attempt to generate intuitions which are unaffected by personal characteristics such as age, gender or race. We focus on the most prominent impartiality thought experiment, the Veil of Ignorance (VOI), and show that both in its original Rawlsian version and in a more generic version, empirical investigations can be normatively relevant in two ways: First, on the assumption that the VOI is effective and robust, if subjects dominantly favor a certain (...) normative judgment behind the VOI this provides evidence in favor of that judgment; if, on the other hand, they do not dominantly favor a judgment this reduces our justification for it. Second, empirical investigations can also contribute to assessing the effectiveness and robustness of the VOI in the first place, thereby supporting or undermining its applications across the board. (shrink)

This article endeavours to prove that there were creation myths of human beings or certain things, but there were seldom creation myths of ontological cosmology in ancient China. This will be warranted through the distinction between the concepts of ‘to create’ and ‘to beget’, the distinction between ‘Cosmology I of creationism’ and ‘Cosmology II of begetting’, and the relationship between the One and Many. The only exception is the myth of Nüwa 女娲 as the creator of human beings, but not (...) the creator of the cosmos. Therefore, in ancient Chinese tradition, there were mainly myths of begetting rather than myths of complete creation in the sense similar to creatio ex nihilo.Contribution: Previous research frequently underscores the profound differences between ‘Cosmology I of creationism’ and ‘Cosmology II of begetting’. Based on the discussion of concepts of ‘to create’ [zao 造] and ‘to beget’ [sheng 生], this article argues that, there were mainly myths of begetting rather than myths of complete creation in the sense similar to creatio ex nihilo. (shrink)

Em Pedagogia da esperança, escrito em 1992, Paulo Freire faz uma reflexão sobre Pedagogia do oprimido, publicado em 1968, durante o seu exílio no Chile. Nesse reencontro, analisa suas experiências pedagógicas em quase três décadas nos mais diferentes países. Um relato valioso, elaborado com cientificidade, humildade e coerência, que recusa o determinismo e mostra a história humana como um feixe de possibilidades. O livro conta ainda com a colaboração de Ana Maria Araújo Freire, através das notas explicativas, e prefácio (...) de Leonardo Boff. (shrink)

O livro apresenta o Método Paulo Freire, a mais importante proposta pedagógica pensada a partir da realidade do Terceiro Mundo. Apesar dos mais de vinte anos que o separam da primeira edição, o Método mantém atual a avaliação do papel da educação, o vigor de suas perspectivas e sua aplicabilidade.

The standard approach to the core phenomenology of thought insertion characterizes it in terms of a normal sense of thought ownership coupled with an abnormal sense of thought agency. Recently, Fernández (2010) has argued that there are crucial problems with this approach and has proposed instead that what goes wrong fundamentally in such a phenomenology is a sense of thought commitment, characterized in terms of thought endorsement. In this paper, we argue that even though Fernández raises new issues that enrich (...) the topic, his proposal cannot rival the version of the standard approach we shall defend. (shrink)

According to enactivism all living systems, from single cell organisms to human beings, are ontologically endowed with some form of teleological and sense-making agency. Furthermore, enactivists maintain that: there is no fixed pregiven world and as a consequence all organisms “bring forth” their own unique “worlds” through processes of sense-making. The first half of the paper takes these two ontological claims as its central focus and aims to clarify and make explicit the arguments and motivations underlying them. Our analysis here (...) highlights three distinct but connected problems for enactivism: these arguments do not and cannot guarantee that there is no pregiven world, instead, they end up generating a contradiction whereby a pregiven world seems to in fact be tacitly presupposed by virtue of a reliance on a tacit epistemic perspectivalism which is also inherently representationalist and as a consequence makes it difficult to satisfactorily account for the ontological plurality of worlds. Taking these considerations on board, the second half of the paper then aims to develop a more robust ontologically grounded enactivism. Drawing from biosemiotic enactivism, science and technology studies and anthropology, the paper aims to present an account which both rejects a pregiven world and coherently accounts for how organisms bring forth ontologically multiple worlds. (shrink)

The preeminent explicator of mathematical logic to non-mathematicians, John Allen Paulos is familiar to general readers not only from his bestselling books but also from his media appearances, including The David Letterman Show and National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" and "Science Friday," as well as articles in _Newsweek, Nature, Discover, Business Week, the New York Times Book Review, The Nation, New York Review of Books,_ and _The London Review of Books._ Paulos originally wrote this charming little book on (...) analytic logic, its mathematics, and its puzzles in 1985. And as in his later books, he uses jokes, stories, parables, and anecdotes to elucidate difficult concepts, in this case, some of the fundamental problems in modern philosophy. (shrink)

Algunas de las preguntas fundamentales de la filosofía del arte son: 1) ¿Qué es una obra de arte?, 2) ¿Qué es Arte?, 3) ¿Qué es el arte? Responderlas es determinar el sentido del arte. Este tipo de preguntas están planteadas bajo la fórmula ¿Qué es X?, es decir, preguntas en las cuales en lo simple esta lo complejo, preguntas en donde lo simple no quiere decir que sean sencillas; son preguntas que traen dentro de si su naturaleza y carácter metafísico-ontológico-gnoseológico, (...) y hasta axiológico. No es el propósito de este trabajo hacer frente o resolver estos problemas, sino proporcionar una aproximación al concepto de “obra de arte” en la época actual y como podría entenderse en relación a ciertos problemas ontológicos y epistemológicos actuales. -/- [Extended Version of: Vélez León, Paulo (2006). «Aproximaciones a la ¿obra de arte?». En Políticas al borde. Una investigación sobre el arte contemporáneo cuencano en los discursos políticos actuales, editado por Paulo Vélez León y Hernán Pacucuru. Cuenca: Universidad de Cuenca/Bienal Internacional de Cuenca, 2006, pp. 1-12]. (shrink)

Experimental results in reference to Brazilian children and adults are presented in the context of current discussions about essentialism and folkbiology. Using an adoption paradigm, we replicate the basic findings of a previous article in this journal concerning the early emergence in children of a birth-parent bias. This cognitive bias supports the claim that causal essentialism cross-culturally constrains the reasoning about the origin, development and maintenance of the characteristics and identity of living kinds. We also report some intriguing differences with (...) earlier findings that speak to theoretical and methodological issues of cultural relativity. (shrink)

Composta por textos históricos, filosóficos, antropológicos, sociológicos, clínicos, enfim, de diferentes abordagens relacionadas à área. O livro procura, em especial, dar prosseguimento às questões suscitadas pelos pensadores Michel Foucault e Franco Basaglia, visando a provocar um debate acerca dos modos de subjetivação vigentes em nossa sociedade, assim como propor alternativas aos processos de patologização da experiência trágica da loucura. Destaque para um documento histórico sobre a visita que Olavo Bilac fez à seção de crianças do Hospício Nacional de Alienados, em (...) 1905. Obra de fundamental importância, de conteúdo indispensável para estudiosos e leigos no assunto. (shrink)

This article examines the evaluative nature of the folk concepts of weakness and strength of will and hypothesizes that their evaluative nature is strongly connected to the folk concepts of blame and credit. We probed how people apply the concepts of weakness and strength of will to prototypical and non-prototypical scenarios. While regarding prototypical scenarios the great majority applied these concepts according to the predictions following from traditional philosophical analyses. When presented with non-prototypical scenarios, people were divided. Some, against traditional (...) analyses, did not apply these concepts, which we explain in terms of a clash of evaluations involving different sorts of blame and credit. Others applied them according to traditional analyses, which we explain in terms of a disposition to be reflective and clearly set apart the different sorts of blame and credit involved. Still others applied them in an inverse way, seemingly bypassing the traditional components resolution and be.. (shrink)