Distinct among contemporary philosophical studies focused on education, this book engages the history of phenomenological thought as it moves from philosophy proper (the European phenomenological-hermeneutic tradition) through curriculum studies. It thus presents the "best of both worlds" for the reader; there is a "play" or movement from philosophy proper to educational philosophy and then back again in order to locate and explicate what is intimated, suggested, and in some cases, left "unsaid" by educational philosophers. This amounts to a work on (...) education-philosophy that elucidates, through various permutations within the unique foci of each essay, the general phenomenological theme of the fundamental ontology of the human being as primordial learner. Reflecting his experience as scholar, teacher, and perennial learner, the author suggests how research in phenomenology might prove beneficial to the enhancement of both the theoretical and practical aspects of education; readers are invited to envision education as far more than merely a means by which to organize an effective learning experience in which knowledge is assimilated and skill sets are efficiently imparted, but rather as a holistic and integrated process in which knowing, acting, and valuing are original ways of Being-in-the-world. (shrink)

The scholarship of New Directions in Curriculum as Phenomenological Text manifests through close readings and interpretations of curriculum theorists and Continental philosophers, presented in the form of 'speculative philosophical essays,' an important form of curriculum thinking-writing all but lost to the general contemporary field of research.

This article takes a critical look into Heidegger’s reading of Nietzschean metaphysics in the context of art and finds certain discrepancies in Heidegger’s texts. Heidegger’s claim is that Nietzsche has had some difficulty in discussing the problem of truth, being, and becoming in terms of how the Western tradition of philosophy has understood it. In the context of art, Magrini traces the path that Heidegger took in understanding Nietzsche’s notion of nihilism and finds that Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche is (...) actually an attempt to elevate the latter as a timely philosophical force whose thought moves away from the rote and dogmatic tradition of Western philosophy. Magrini is also able to point out that Heidegger’s reading moves through the usual rational and structured philosophy via a sensuous use of metaphors that is much closer to life, which is a noticeable change in the writing style of Heidegger from his Nachlass lectures and his posthumous work the Beiträge zur Philosophie. Despite some misgivings, Magrini lauds Heidegger’s work as a strict close reading of Nietzsche that brings out the best of the thinker’s radical thoughts. (shrink)

Incorporating Gadamer and other thinkers from the continental tradition, this essay is a close and detailed hermeneutic, phenomenological, and ontological study of the dialectic practice of Plato’s Socrates—it radicalizes and refutes the Socrates-as-teacher model that educators from scholar academic ideology embrace.

Reading Heidegger’s Being and Time, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” and the 1934-35 lecture courses Hölderlin’s Hymns“Germania” and “The Rhine,” the aim of this essay is twofold. First, the essay attempts to elucidate the manner in which the work of art functions as a superlative event of “ truth -happening”, which facilitates the movement of Dasein into the truth of Being as a legitimate member of a community, serving as, “the origin of a people’s authentic historical existence.”1 Second, (...) it explains why this notion of art as the historical manifestation of Being is crucial to understanding the shift, or “ turn,” in Heidegger’s philosophy of the 1930s and 1940s, i.e., it examines the philosophical problems Heidegger rectified when moving from Being and Time, and the conceptual-linguistic constraints of metaphysics and the subject-centered model of Dasein, to the later works on art and poetry. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis review essay of Shawn Loht’s new book, Phenomenology of Film: A Heideggerian Account of the Film Experience, not only offers an ontological reading of the filmic experience inspired by Heidegger’s philosophy but also contributes substantially to the ongoing debate of whether or not film is a medium that is legitimately philosophical. In addition to confronting unique ideas about film that emerge from Loht’s analysis of Heidegger’s phenomenological ontology of Dasein, including a reading of later Heidegger of the “Turn,” this (...) essay also seeks to think with and then beyond Loht in a way that might inspire readers to further pursue these issues in relation to a potentially reconceived understanding of the practice of film-as-philosophy. (shrink)

James T. Hong’s experimental documentary, The Denazification of MH is neither anapology for Heidegger’s involvement with National Socialism nor a condemnation of thatinvolvement. Rather, the film is a critical philosophical confrontation with Heidegger’s thought and the issue of his involvement withNational Socialism. The film addresses the perennial concern as old as philosophy itself: therelationship between the philosopher’s life and his philosophy. While the film does notadopt a definitive position regarding Heidegger, Nazism, and the issue of personalresponsibility, it does suggest (...) an affirmative response to the question posed by bothLevinas and Blanchot regarding the possibility of philosophizing after Auschwitz.Considering Heidegger’s influence on contemporary philosophy and literary studies,inspiring such films as The Denazification of MH and The Ister , it appears as though it is not only possible, but necessary, to carefully andcritically approach Heidegger in the effort to continue to philosophize in the wake of themost catastrophic event of the 20thcentury, the Holocaust. In his thoroughly researched biography of Martin Heidegger, Rudiger Strafaski states the following regarding thepotential of Heidegger himself to do philosophy in the wake of the German death camps, amatter about which Heidegger remained conspicuously silent. (shrink)

Politics of the Soul in the Alcibiades is an important book that develops an interpretation of the essence of the political (politics of the soul) as eluci-dated through the analysis of Socrates' practice of "self-cultivation" or care for the soul. In the process, it also confronts the issue of the problematic relationship between philosopher and statesman that is present to Plato's dialogues. The analysis contributes the following to ongoing scholarship: (1) It offers a detailed and critical discussion of the neglected (...) and oft times ma-ligned dialogue the Alcibiades; (2) It contributes to the reinterpretation of the traditional view of the Socratic method arguing for elenchus as an expres-sion and instantiation of the normative politics it seeks to define; (3) In de-veloping a unique account of Socratic participatory democracy, it has the subordinate aim of demonstrating the value of Socratic practice over our own impoverished practice of impoverished political discourse. The text is suita-ble for scholars working in the fields of philosophy, ancient Greek philoso-phy, and classical studies. It would serve as an excellent secondary text for graduate level courses reading Plato's dialogues because it contains an ex-tensive and sustained discussion of Socratic method. In addition to graduate students, it is appropriate for college students pursuing courses in philoso-phy in their 3rd or 4th year of study. Laypersons who are intellectually curious about philosophy, particularly those interested in Socrates, will be attracted to this text. (shrink)

The qualities of great works of art, their profundity, their insight into the human condition, are epitomised in Brakhage's films, which are, I argue, from the beginning related to and inseparable from a philosophical attitude toward existence. His films emerge out of an authentic 'existential' mode of attunement, a mind-set wherein the potential for human transcendence is framed and filmed within its intractable relationship to death, the most extreme possibility of non-existence. Brakhage not only views existence in a philosophical manner, (...) beyond this, he engages in philosophical inquiry in a fundamental way through the medium of film. The films arise from and respond to what Karl Jaspers views as the ultimate source of philosophy, namely, 'the will to authentic communication,' which embraces 'wonder leading to knowledge, doubt leading to certainty, forsakenness leading to the self.' This amounts to the philosophical struggle to arrive at a sense of metaphysical coherence and existential familiarity, i.e., the precarious undertsanding of belonging to the world in communion with others. This essay seeks to elucidate and detail, through a series of interpretive gestures, the philosophical themes present to Brakhage's silent films by way of a reading that emerges from the phenomenological-ontological tradition in philosophy. In doing so, I hope to interpret Brakhage's filmic art as conveying a legitimate source of human understanding, which contributes to our interpreting and discoursing about the world and our lives in new and revelatory ways. (shrink)

Aporias of Translation is a significant scholarly achievement focused on the intersection of literature, philosophy, and poetry in relation to educational issues. The book invites readers on a jour...

Democratic deliberation places the burden of self‐governance on its citizens to provide mutual justifying reasons (Gutmann & Thompson, 1996). This article concerns the limiting effect that group identity has on the efficacy of democratic deliberation for equality in education. Under conditions of a powerful majority, deliberation can be repressive and discriminatory. Issues of white flight and race‐based admissions serve to illustrate the bias of which deliberation is capable when it fails to substantively take group identity into account. As forms of (...) Gilbert's (1994) plural subjects, identity group members holding the group identity can experience agency as the freedom to believe together with members of their group. I argue that attending to how group members acquire group beliefs through trust is a reasonable accommodation of group identity in deliberation. (shrink)

Structural realism is considered by many realists and antirealists alike as the most defensible form of scientific realism. There are now many forms of structural realism and an extensive literature about them. There are interesting connections with debates in metaphysics, philosophy of physics and philosophy of mathematics. This entry is intended to be a comprehensive survey of the field.

Moral philosophy is the study of what morality is and what it requires of us. As Socrates said, it's about "how we ought to live"-and why. It would be helpful if we could begin with a simple, uncontroversial definition of what morality is. Unfortunately, we cannot. There are many rival theories, each expounding a different conception of what it means to live morally, and any definition that goes beyond Socrates's simple formula-tion is bound to offend at least one of them. (...) This should make us cautious, but it need not paralyze us. In this chapter, I will describe the "minimum conception" of morality. (shrink)

"The lectures that follow were delivered at the Lowell Institute in Boston in November and December, 1906, and in January, 1907, at Columbia University, in New York."-Preface, pg. 3.

One of the most influential men of his time, philosopher, psychologist, educator, and author William James (1842-1910) helped lead the transition from a predominantly European-centered nineteenth-century philosophy to a new "pragmatic" American philosophy. Helping to pave the way was his seminal book Pragmatism (1907), in which he included a chapter on "Truth," an essay which provoked severe criticism. In response, he wrote the present work, an attempt to bring together all he had ever written on the theory of knowledge, (...) including an article on the function of cognition, later polemic and expository contributions, and some replies to previous criticism. The result was a full and definitive expression of the pragmatist "epistemology" from James' point of view. In the book, he urges the reader to "turn away from abstractions, verbal solutions, fixed principles, and pretended absolutes and look for concreteness and facts, action and power," arguing that "the ultimate test for us of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires." For students, scholars--anyone interested in William James or the history of American philosophical thought--this book offers an in-depth exposition of the influential ideas of one of the greatest American thinkers. Unabridged republication of the edition originally published by Longmans, Green and Co., New York and London, 1909. (shrink)

We have several intuitive paradigms of defeating evidence. For example, let E be the fact that Ernie tells me that the notorious pet Precious is a bird. This supports the premise F, that Precious can fly. However, Orna gives me *opposing* evidence. She says that Precious is a dog. Alternatively, defeating evidence might not oppose Ernie's testimony in that direct way. There might be other ways for it to weaken the support that Ernie's testimony gives me for believing F, without (...) the new evidence itself intuitively constituting reasons to believe one way or the other about Precious's flight ability. An example: Ursula tells me that Ernie has no idea what Precious's species is; he's just guessing. She may not herself want to or be in a position to weigh in about Precious's real species or flight ability. I call defeating evidence of this sort *undermining evidence. (shrink)

Two books bound together, from the religious period of one of the most renowned and representative thinkers. Written for laymen, thus easy to understand, it is penetrating and brilliant as well. Illuminations of age-old religious questions from a pragmatic perspective, written in a luminous style.

Consider the following facts about the average, philosophically untrained moral relativist: (1.1) The average moral relativist denies the existence of “absolute moral truths.” (1.2) The average moral relativist often expresses her commitment to moral relativism with slogans like ‘What’s true (or right) for you may not be what’s true (or right) for me’ or ‘What’s true (or right) for your culture may not be what’s true (or right) for my culture.’ (1.3) The average moral relativist endorses relativistic views of morality (...) without endorsing relativistic views about science or mathematics. (1.4) The average moral relativist takes moral relativism to be non-relatively true and does not think there is anything contradictory about doing so. (1.5) The average moral relativist adopts an egalitarian attitude toward a wide range of moral values, practices and beliefs, claiming they are all equally legitimate or correct. (1.6) The average moral relativist often admonishes others to be more tolerant of those who engage in alternative ethical practices and to refrain from making negative moral judgments about them. (1.7) The average moral relativist sometimes makes negative moral judgments about the behavior of others—e.g., by harshly judging moral absolutists to be intolerant—but is less inclined to do so when the relativist’s metaethical views are salient in a context of judgment. (1.8) The average moral relativist takes anthropological evidence concerning the worldwide diversity of ethical views and practices to support moral relativism. (shrink)

Noted psychologist and philosopher develops his own brand of pragmatism, based on theories of C. S. Peirce. Emphasis on "radical empiricism," versus the transcendental and rationalist tradition. One of the most important books in American philosophy. Note.

Experimental philosophy brings empirical methods to philosophy. These methods are used to probe how people think about philosophically interesting things such as knowledge, morality, and freedom. This paper explores the contribution that qualitative methods have to make in this enterprise. I argue that qualitative methods have the potential to make a much greater contribution than they have so far. Along the way, I acknowledge a few types of resistance that proponents of qualitative methods in experimental philosophy might encounter, and provide (...) reasons to think they are ill-founded. (shrink)

From the bestselling author of Assholes: A Theory, a book that--in the tradition of Shopclass as Soulcraft, Barbarian Days and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance--uses the experience and the ethos of surfing to explore key concepts in philosophy. The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once declared "the ideal limit of aquatic sports...is waterskiing." The avid surfer and lavishly credentialed academic philosopher Aaron James vigorously disagrees, and in Surfing with Sartre he intends to expound the thinking surfer's view of (...) the matter, in the process elucidating such philosophical categories as freedom, being, phenomenology, morality, epistemology, and even the emerging values of what he terms "leisure capitalism." In developing his unique surfer-philosophical worldview, he draws from his own experience of surfing and from surf culture and lingo, and includes many relevant details from the lives of the philosophers, from Aristotle to Wittgenstein, with whose thought he engages. In the process, he'll speak to readers in search of personal and social meaning in our current anxious moment, by way of doing real, authentic philosophy. (shrink)

Louis Agassiz.--Address at the Emerson Centenary in Concord.--Robert Gould Shaw.--Francis Boott.--Thomas Davidson: a knight-errant of the intellectual life.--Herbert Spencer's autobiography.--Frederick Myers' services to psychology.--Final impressions of a psychical researcher.--On some mental effects of the earthquake.--The energies of men.--The moral equivalent of war.--Remarks at the peace banquet.--The social value of the college-bred.--The university and the individual: The Ph.D. octopus. The true Harvard. Stanford's ideal destiny.--A pluralistic mystic.

An approach to argument macrostructure -- The dialectical nature of argument -- Toulmin's problematic notion of warrant -- The linked-convergent distinction, a first approximation -- Argument structure and disciplinary perspective : the linked-convergent versus multiple-co-ordinatively compound distinctions -- The linked-convergent distinction, refining the criterion -- Argument structure and enthymemes -- From analysis to evaluation.

Recent empirical work on folk moral objectivism has attempted to examine the extent to which folk morality presumes that moral judgments are objectively true or false. Some researchers report findings that they take to indicate folk commitment to objectivism (Goodwin & Darley, 2008, 2010, 2012; Nichols & Folds-Bennett, 2003; Wainryb et al., 2004), while others report findings that may reveal a more variable commitment to objectivism (Beebe, 2014; Beebe et al., 2015; Beebe & Sackris, 2016; Sarkissian, et al., 2011; Wright, (...) 2018; Wright, Grandjean, & McWhite, 2013; Wright, McWhite, & Grandjean, 2014). However, the various probes that have been used to examine folk moral objectivism almost always fail to be good direct measures of objectivism. Some critics (Beebe, 2015; Pölzler, 2017, 2018) have suggested that the problems with existing probes are serious enough that they should be viewed as largely incapable of shedding any light on folk metaethical commitments. Building upon the work of Justin Khoo and Joshua Knobe (2018), I argue that many of the existing probes can be seen as good measures of the extent to which people think that the truth of one moral judgment excludes the possibility that a judgment made by a disagreeing party is also true and that the best explanation of the findings obtained using these measures is significant folk support for indexical moral relativism—the view that the content of moral judgments is context-sensitive. If my thesis is correct, many contemporary moral philosophers are deeply mistaken about the metaethical contours of folk morality in one very important respect. (shrink)

Yoga is hugely popular around the world today, yet until now little has been known of its roots. This book collects, for the first time, core teachings of yoga in their original form, translated and edited by two of the world's foremost scholars of the subject. It includes a wide range of texts from different schools of yoga, languages and eras: among others, key passages from the early Upanisads and the Mahabharata, and from the Tantric, Buddhist and Jaina traditions, with (...) many pieces in scholarly translation for the first time. Covering yoga's varying definitions across systems, models of the esoteric and physical bodies, and its most important practices, such as posture, breath control, sensory withdrawal and meditation, Roots of Yoga is a unique and essential source of knowledge. (shrink)

Background -- The moral manualists -- Initiating reform : Odon Lottin -- Retrieving Scripture and charity : Fritz Tillman and Gérard Gilleman -- Synthesis : Bernard Häring -- The neo-manualists -- New foundations for moral reasoning, 1970-89 -- New foundations for a theological anthropology, 1980-2000 -- Toward a global discourse on suffering and solidarity -- Afterword: The encyclicals of Pope Benedict XVI.

In this study we evaluated heart rate variability changes in a pianist, playing in a laboratory, to investigate whether HRV changes are guided by music temporal features or by technical difficulty and/or subjective factors. The pianist was equipped with a wearable telemetry device for ECG recording during the execution of 4 classical and 5 jazz pieces. From ECG we derived the RR intervals series, and, for each piece, analyzed HRV in the time and frequency domains and performed non-linear analysis. We (...) also studied the correlation between the time course of music volume envelope and tachogram. Results showed a general reduction of parasympathetic and an increase of sympathetic activity, with the greatest changes during the classical pieces execution, the pianist appraised as more demanding than the jazz ones. The most marked changes occurred during the most technically/emotionally demanding piece, and correlation analysis revealed a negative association between music volume envelope time course and tachogram only for this piece, suggesting a modulation of the limbic system on the synchronization between heart rhythm and music temporal features. Classical music was also associated with the increase of entropy with respect to rest, indicating its effectiveness in driving flexible, healthy, heart dynamics. In conclusion, HRV seems modulated not only by the music temporal features, but also by the pianist’s emotional involvement, which is greatly influenced, in a non-trivial manner, by the technical demands and musician expertise. (shrink)

In 1896 William James published an essay entitled The Will to Believe, in which he defended the legitimacy of religious faith against the attacks of such champions of scientific method as W.K. Clifford and Thomas Huxley. James's work quickly became one of the most important writings in the philosophy of religious belief. James Wernham analyses James's arguments, discusses his relation to Pascal and Renouvier, and considers the interpretations, and misinterpretations, of James's major critics. Wernham shows (...) convincingly that James was unaware of many destructive ambiguitities in his own doctrines and arguments, although clear and consistent in his view that our obligation to believe in theism is not a moral but a prudential obligation -- a foolish-not-to-believe doctrine, rather than a not-immoral-to-believe one. Wernham also shows that the doctrine is best read as affirming the wisdom of gambling that God exists, a notion which James failed to distinguish from believing and which, among other things, he explicitly identified with faith. James's pragmatism, a theory concerning the meaning of truth, is shown to be quite distinct from the doctrine of The Will to Believe. In concentrating on a careful analysis of this doctrine of the will-to-believe, Wernham not only makes a major contribution to understanding James's philosophy, but also clarifies issues in the philosophy of religion and in the analysis of belief and faith. (shrink)

Episodic memory is usually regarded in a Conceptualist light, in the sense of its being dependent upon the grasp of concepts directly relevant to the act of episodic recollection itself, such as a concept of past times and of the self as an experiencer. Given this view, its development is typically timed as being in the early school‐age years (Perner, 2001;Tulving, 2005). We present a minimalist, Non‐Conceptualist approach in opposition to this view, but one that also exists in clear contrast (...) to the kind of minimalism (‘episodic‐like’) espoused byClayton and Dickinson (1998)with regard to memory in food‐caching birds. While emphasising the nonconceptual elements of episodic memory (in common with the ‘episodic‐like’ approach) we also insist on the essentially phenomenological nature of the memory (as does the Conceptualist approach). We propose the third year of life as a plausible onset period. Our view is rooted in Kantian assumptions about the spatiotemporal content of experience (and thus of re‐experience) and about the synthetic unity of experience—and thus of re‐experience. We answer two objections to this position. (shrink)

This new critical edition is an examination of William James's Essays in Radical Empiricism in light of the scientific naturalism prominent in James's Principles of Psychology (1890) and the subsequent development of Darwinian, functional psychology and functionalism in psychology, the philosophy psychology and the philosophy of mind.

Emotion regulation has the odd distinction of being a wildly popular construct whose scientific existence is in considerable doubt. In this article, we discuss the confusion about whether emotion generation and emotion regulation can and should be distinguished from one another. We describe a continuum of perspectives on emotion, and highlight how different (often mutually incompatible) perspectives on emotion lead to different views about whether emotion generation and emotion regulation can be usefully distinguished. We argue that making differences in perspective (...) explicit serves the function of allowing researchers with different theoretical commitments to collaborate productively despite seemingly insurmountable differences in terminology and methods. (shrink)

Anthology of readings in moral philosophy.

James Tully: To Think and Act Differently collects classic, contemporary, and previously unpublished examples of public philosophy in action from across James Tully's four decades of scholarship. The book provides readers with a perspicuous representation of public philosophy as an ongoing experiment with reconstructing the practice of political theory as a democratizing and diversifying dialogue between scholars and citizens. This volume offers an overview of this participatory mode of political philosophy and political change by reconstructing the arc of (...) Tully's intellectual trajectory in contexts, illuminating moments of clarification and transformation, and the ways it continues to shed new insights into the challenges of citizenship in the present. Topics discussed include approaches to the history of political though, constitutionalism, democratic theory, comparative political theory, intercultural dialogue and translation; Indigenous political thought; settler colonialism and empire; climate change and sustainability; modernity; nonviolence; and mutual aid. It will be of interest to scholars of political philosophy, political theory, constitutional law, Indigenous studies, intellectual history, and ecological humanities. It will be of interest to scholars of political philosophy, political theory, constitutional law, Indigenous studies, intellectual history, and ecological humanities. (shrink)

James McCosh, the Scottish philosopher, graduated from the University of Glasgow, spent some time as a minister in the Church of Scotland but then returned to philosophy and spent most of his career at Princeton University. The eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment had many influential philosophers at its core. In this book, first published in 1875, McCosh outlines the theories of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophers and identifies Scottish philosophy as a distinct school of thought. He summarises both the merits and the (...) possible criticisms of each philosopher's work and also gives detailed biographical information. Among the philosophers discussed are the influential David Hume, Thomas Reid and Adam Smith. The final chapter focuses on Sir William Hamilton, a philosopher who greatly influenced McCosh. (shrink)