British neo-Marxism is a novel theory that emerged and developed in the UK during the period from 1950s to 1980s. It encompasses issues of history, culture, politics, society, technology, and outer space as it continues to broaden alternate critical research approaches. It carries on the intellectual tradition of British Marxism and is guided by the guiding role of Marx’s thought. British neo-Marxism has contributed to the formation of multiple neo-Marxist thinking paradigms with unique British characteristics, and its theatrical implications (...) concern the new historicism focused on cultural criticism, the neo-rationalist thinking of changing social orders, and the neo-humanistic thinking aiming to fulfill the reform of social institutions. Its innovation in the systemization of thinking paradigms is doubtless an effect of the paradigm shift in the way of thinking of humankind to change the social order. Our study of British neo-Marxism is of important theoretical significance and practical value for both the enhancement of research on Marxist philosophy, and the innovation in the Marxist thinking paradigm. (shrink)

This volume reflects the development and theoretical foundation of a new paradigm for critical thinking based on inquiry. The field of critical thinking, as manifested in the Informal Logic movement, developed primarily as a response to the inadequacies of formalism to represent actual argumentative practice and to provide useful argumentative skills to students. Because of this, the primary focus of the field has been on informal arguments rather than formal reasoning. Yet the formalist history of the field (...) is still evident in its emphasis, with respect to both theory and pedagogy, on the structure and evaluation of individual, de-contextualized arguments. It is our view that such a view of critical thinking is excessively narrow and limited, failing to provide an understanding of argumentation as largely a matter of comparative evaluation of a variety of contending positions and arguments with the goal of reaching a reasoned judgment on an issue. As a consequence, traditional critical thinking instruction is problematic in failing to provide the reasoning skills that students need in order to accomplish this goal. Instead, the goal of critical thinking instruction has been seen largely as a defensive one: of learning to not fall prey to invalid, inadequate, or fallacious arguments. (shrink)

The many critical approaches to an ‘ethnicity framework’ have fallen short of a very possible conclusion—that the language of ethnicity provides, for the most part, a poor paradigm with which to work. In the present paper we seek not only to re-state some key weaknesses of this paradigm but also to suggest that these weaknesses are more general in an over-ethnicised sociology. There are numerous critiques of particular models or elements of ethnicity thinking, including critiques of primordialist (...) approaches , of multiculturalism , and of the over-objectification of groups . The major critiques constitute a strong case against ‘thinking with ethnicity’; the broader weaknesses are more general in contemporary ‘identitarian’ sociology. From this position we turn to the question of offering an alternative approach in a sociology which emphasizes agency, and is grounded in an analysis of actors in material situations. This is allied to the concept of ideational resources, social categories and identities upon which actors draw, and a middle-range view of causality and tendency in social change. Ideas of ancestral belonging are among those ideational resources, and these ideas and assumptions are played out in a context of material and political change. The subject of study is not ethnicity, but power, resources, social relations and institutions informed by cultural identities and ideas of ancestry. The strategy of the paper will be first to re-state the deficiencies of ‘ethnicity thinking’ and second to offer an alternative framework for thinking about social action and social structure. (shrink)

in the present work we analyze the new concepts and theories related to the activity of Design Management, which focus on the experiences of people and the particular characteristics of each one of them. Specifically, from an Industrial Design perspective, the scope and relationships between these conceptual definitions —now made visible— that always belonged to the field of design of the discipline will be studied, trying to identify how they influence innovation and product development. Finally, it will conclude about its (...) strategic relevance for public and private organizations, and the incorporation to the set of professional activitie. (shrink)

This essay discusses the use of analogies drawn from the Holocaust in cultural representations and critical scholarship on dementia. The paper starts with a discussion of references to the death camp in cultural narratives about dementia, specifically Annie Ernaux’s account of her mother’s dementia in I Remain in Darkness. It goes on to develop a critique of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s work on biopolitics and “bare life,” focusing specifically on the linguistic foundations of his thinking. This underpins a consideration (...) of the limitations of his philosophy and ontologically derived notions of weakness and passivity in imagining life with dementia as a potential site of agency or as the locus for transformative ideas about care, community, and non-instrumentalist conceptions of human value. (shrink)

La 4e de couverture indique : "The author introduces the reader to reasoning in law through the possilities, boundaries and traps of assuming personal responsibility and impersonal pattern adoption that have arisen in the history of human thought and in the various legal cultures. He discloses actual processes hidden by the veil of patterns followed in thinking, processes that we encounter both in our conceptual-logical quests for certainties and in the undertaking of fertilising ambiguity. When trying to identify definitions (...) lurking behind the human construct of facts, nitons, norms, logic, and thinking, or behind the practice of giving meanings, he discovers tradition in our presuppositions, and our world-view and moral stance in our tacit agreements. Recognising the importance of the role communication plays in shaping society, he describes our existence and institutions as self-regulating processes. Since law is a wholly social venture, we not only take part in its oeuvre with our entire personality, but are also collectively responsible for its destiny. In the final analysis, anything can be qualified as 'legal' or 'non-legal' in one or another recognised sense in which law can originate, but, as a relative totality, it can only be qualified as 'more legal' or 'less legal' in any combination of the above senses. Being formed in an uninterrupted process, neither the totality nor particular pieces of law can be taken as complete or unchangeably identical with itself. Therefore law can only be identified through its motions and computable states of 'transforming into' or 'withdrawing from' the distinctive domain of the law. Thereby both society at large and its legal professionals actually contribute to -by shaping incessantly- what presents itself as ready-to-take, according to the law's official ideology. For our initation, play, role-undertaking and human responsibility lurk behind the law's formal mask in the backstage. Or, this equals to realise that all we have become subjects from mere objects, actors from mere addressees. And despite the variety of civilisational overcoasts, the entire culture of law is still exclusively inherent in us who experience it day to day. We bear it and shape it. Everything coventional in it is convenctionalised by us. It has no further existence or effect bexond this. And with its existence inherent in us, we cannot convey the responsibility to be born for it on somebody else either. It is ours in its totality so much that it cannot be torn out of our days or acts. It will thus turn into what we guard it to become. Therefore we must take care of it at all times since we are, in many ways, taking care of our own". (shrink)

Looking at Hobbes ' theory of thinking as calculation and truth by convention shows that a certain type of scientism of the mind leads to fundamental problems. If truth is the artefact of social conventions about signs, and if thinking is nothing but the syntactical transformations of sign, a theory of thinking must have both: a strong concept of natural computation and a social theory of establishing sign-conventions. Hobbes does not, like modern physicalist theories of the mind, (...) have both. (shrink)

The idea that human cognitive capacities are explainable by computational models is often conjoined with the idea that, while the states postulated by such models are in fact realized by brain states, there are no type-type correlations between the states postulated by computational models and brain states (a corollary of token physicalism). I argue that these ideas are not jointly tenable. I discuss the kinds of empirical evidence available to cognitive scientists for (dis)confirming computational models of cognition and argue that (...) none of these kinds of evidence can be relevant to a choice among competing computational models unless there are in fact type-type correlations between the states postulated by computational models and brain states. Thus, I conclude, research into the computational procedures employed in human cognition must be conducted hand-in-hand with research into the brain processes which realize those procedures. (shrink)

An early embryo becomes a blastula at the moment that its constituent cells become organised into a simple epithelium. Epithelial folding and compartmentation are essential elements of animal development. All the different cell types ‐ epithelial and other ones ‐ of which a differentiated organism consists differ in their plasmamembrane‐cytoskeletal complex but they are assumed to have an identical genome. The hypothesis is put forward that, perhaps, the basic mechanism underlying differentiation can be defined as the generation of cells which (...) have an identical genome but which differ in their plasmamembrane‐cytoskeletal complex and which, because of these differences, can engage in differential protein synthesis‐physiology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rembrandt’s Art: A Paradigm for Critical Thinking and AestheticsMark S. Conn (bio)IntroductionThe purpose of art is to lay bare the questions, which have been hidden by the answers.—James BaldwinPhilosophers have asked, How do we know the world? Over centuries, many visual artists have responded to this question by provoking us to see the world differently—through their own eyes. Rembrandt, by no small measure, is one of those (...) artists. While many people have attempted to understand and interpret the art of this quintessential master, few have used his art as a tool to teach critical thinking. The challenge, then, is to set forth a paradigm, using Rembrandt’s art as the vehicle, to teach critical thinking skills. These skills can be applied across the curriculum without losing an appreciation for the aesthetic characteristics of his art.Several sections in this article begin with a foundational discussion of the connection between art and the general curriculum, including how the effectiveness of that curriculum may then be measured. Continuing with a working definition of critical thinking, I demonstrate how Rembrandt’s work relates particularly well to the social studies curriculum. Definitions of critical thinking skills are discussed just prior to introducing the paradigm. A discussion of the paradigm’s relationship to aesthetics and necessary concepts is followed by the conclusion, which contains the graphic illustration of the paradigm. [End Page 68]Foundational DiscussionIn order to create a paradigm that encompasses Rembrandt’s art, critical thinking, and aesthetics, it is important to understand the connection that art has to the curriculum. By examining the way in which this relationship has evolved and is measured, we discover its foundation. It also produces a rationale for the paradigm.For decades the educational community has debated the validity of including arts in the curriculum. There are those who believe that in order to justify inclusion in the curriculum, there needs to be evidence that art has a quantifiable impact upon learning. Others believe that there is a need to teach art for art’s sake.1 Elliot Eisner stated, “More often than we would like, arts educators receive requests to justify their professional existence or existence of the arts in our schools on the basis of their contribution to non-art outcomes.”2 According to Eisner’s research, there have been no studies that show a statistically significant relationship between the arts and academic success.3 Additionally, in their final report evaluators from Transforming Education Through the Arts Challenge (TETAC) concluded that “Analysis of site-specific data found no significant relationship between program implementation and performance on reading and math tests.”4 There are many sources that can be cited that report the same findings. In assessing these kinds of findings we find the conclusions to be approximately the same.If we look at the U.S. Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, which each year releases “The Nation’s Report Card,” we find a tremendous amount of data.5 However, most of what we find is data that is analyzed scientifically, with a long but incomplete list of incomplete variables. Therefore, it is difficult to come to any consensus about which programs, in which states, are successful and why. All we actually see is who is supposedly doing better in various curriculum areas based upon standardized tests that vary from state to state. Consider an example of current thinking regarding curriculum and testing from an article by Diane Ravitch, former assistant U.S. secretary of education, and Deborah Meir, senior scholar at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education:Both of us acknowledged that our choices involve risks. A national curriculum might be unwieldy and superficial (“a mile wide and an inch deep—ironically the charge directed at our current incoherent and fragmented curriculum”) as well as politically compromised, while a local one might reflect the low expectations of the local community as local foolishness and local biases (some schools, for example, might teach intelligent design). We agreed that the measurement of “results”—what constitutes intellectual achievement—has been badly distorted by current local and state tests, which undermine high-quality tasks and make... (shrink)

This text departs from a contradictory claim in deaf studies and sound studies: both disciplines describe a hierarchical regime of the sensible – visuocentrism and audiocentrism – which they try to counter with conceptualisations as “acoustemology” or “deaf gain.” However, as we argue, they both thereby erect what they claim to overcome: a sensual regime that privileges one sense over another and a restricted conception of subjectivity deriving from it. First, we draw a philosophical line in the critique of sensual (...) regimes. Then we propose a figure for the transcendence of the separation of the sensible: in re-reading of the myth of Odysseus and the sirens, we engage various examples from literature, art, and acoustics to describe sirens as a mythological and technical archetype of the transcendence of the sensual regime, as well as reified subjectivity. The question, then, is not how to escape the sirens, but how they can be approached. It is necessary, we argue, for sound studies to develop a critical self-consciousness of its own restricted concepts in order to move from sonic thinking towards a sirenic thinking. (shrink)

Harris seeks to diagnose the ailment that infects contemporary thinking and prevents adequate measures from being taken to counter the dangerous effect of the ...

The idea that human cognitive capacities are explainable by computational models is often conjoined with the idea that, while the states postulated by such models are in fact realized by brain states, there are no type-type correlations between the states postulated by computational models and brain states (a corollary of token physicalism). I argue that these ideas are not jointly tenable. I discuss the kinds of empirical evidence available to cognitive scientists for (dis)confirming computational models of cognition and argue that (...) none of these kinds of evidence can be relevant to a choice among competing computational models unless there are in fact type-type correlations between the states postulated by computational models and brain states. Thus, I conclude, research into the computational procedures employed in human cognition must be conducted hand-in-hand with research into the brain processes which realize those procedures. (shrink)

In his recent bookThe Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen suggests that political philosophy should move beyond the dominant, Rawls-inspired, methodological paradigm – what Sen calls ‘transcendental institutionalism’ – towards a more practically oriented approach to justice: ‘realization-focused comparison’. In this article, I argue that Sen's call for a paradigm shift in thinking about justice is unwarranted. I show that his criticisms of the Rawlsian approach are either based on misunderstandings, or correct but of little consequence, and conclude (...) that the Rawlsian approach already delivers much of what Sen himself wants from a theory of justice. (shrink)

Legal thinking in the hermeneutic paradigm.

In Paradigms and Barriers Howard Margolis offers an innovative interpretation of Thomas S. Kuhn's landmark idea of "paradigm shifts," applying insights from cognitive psychology to the history and philosophy of science. Building upon the arguments in his acclaimed Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition, Margolis suggests that the breaking down of particular habits of mind—of critical "barriers"—is key to understanding the processes through which one model or concept is supplanted by another. Margolis focuses on those revolutionary paradigm shifts— such (...) as the switch from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican worldview—where challenges to entrenched habits of mind are marked by incomprehension or indifference to a new paradigm. Margolis argues that the critical problem for a revolutionary shift in thinking lies in the robustness of the habits of mind that reject the new ideas, relative to the habits of mind that accept the new ideas. Margolis applies his theory to famous cases in the history of science, offering detailed explanations for the transition from Ptolemaic to cosmological astronomy, the emergence of probability, the overthrow of phlogiston, and the emergence of the central role of experiment in the seventeenth century. He in turn uses these historical examples to address larger issues, especially the nature of belief formation and contemporary debates about the nature of science and the evolution of scientific ideas. Howard Margolis is a professor in the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies and in the College at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Selfishness, Altruism, and Rationality and Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition, both published by the University of Chicago Press. (shrink)

What role do metaphors play in philosophical language? Are they impediments to clear thinking that should be eradicated in the interests of terminological exactness? Or can they be used by philosophers to indicate the attitudes that regulate an epoch?

The Beiträge zur Philosophie mandates a paradigm shift in Heidegger scholarship. In the face of (1) widespread disarray in the current model, the new paradigm (2) abandons Sein as a name for die Sache selbst, (3) understands Welt/Lichtung/Da as that which gives being, (4) interprets Dasein as apriori openedness rather than as being-there, (5) understands the Kehre as the interface of Geworfenheit and Entwurf, not as a shift in Heidegger's thinking, (6) interprets Ereignis as the opening of (...) the Da rather than as appropriation, and (7) understands human finitude as what gives all forms of being and all epochs in the history of being. The conclusion alludes to the function of Mitdasein (co-openness) as die Sache selbst. (shrink)

Kuhn's distinction of within- and between-paradigm thinking can be extended using his notion of a problem-field. Hull's notion of populational variation applies within paradigms; his type specimen approach allows one to analyze disagreement and identify the problem-field. Categories of questions or problem frames can also partition debate, establishing interparadigm variation. A case where multiple simultaneous paradigms compete highlights the role of empirical domains. The Ox-Phos Controversy in bioenergetics (1961-1977) serves as a case study. Conclusions are framed as strategies (...) for scientists. (shrink)

This book offers a critical introduction to the work of American philosopher D. G. Leahy (1937-2014). Leahy's fundamental thinking can be characterized as an absolute creativity in which all creating is 'live' -- a happening occurring now that manifests a supersaturated polyontological actuality that is essentially created by the logic that characterizes it. Leahy leaves behind the categorial presuppositions of modern thought, eclipsing both Cartesian and Hegelian subjectivities and introducing instead an essentially new form of thinking founded in (...) a nondual logic of creation. The new thinking delineates the absolute unicity of existence as a creative interactivity beyond all traditional dichotomies (such as one vs. many, unity vs. plurality, identity vs. change): a fully "digitized" actuality that is nothing but newness, which inherently implies nothing but change. Through this new form of thinking, change itself is revealed to be the very essence of reality and mind. Any reader looking for a quantum leap beyond the thrall of modern and postmodern fixations is invited to hear and apprehend this new thinking that refuses to be conditioned by paradigms, categories, species, genera, walls, bridges, boundaries, or abstractions: an essentially free thinking that embodies creative novelty itself. (shrink)

There is more than one way to think. Most people are familiar with the systematic, rule-based thinking that one finds in a mathematical proof or a computer program. But such thinking does not produce breakthroughs in mathematics and science nor is it the kind of thinking that results in significant learning. Deep thinking is a different and more basic way of using the mind. It results in the discontinuous "aha!" experience, which is the essence of creativity. (...) It is at the heart of every paradigm shift or reframing of a problematic situation. The identification of deep thinking as the default state of the mind has the potential to reframe our current approach to technological change, education, and the nature of mathematics and science. For example, there is an unbridgeable gap between deep thinking and computer simulations of thinking. Many people suspect that such a gap exists, but find it difficult to make this intuition precise. This book identifies the way in which the authentic intelligence of deep thinking differs from the artificial intelligence of "big data" and "analytics." Deep thinking is the essential ingredient in every significant learning experience, which leads to a new way to think about education. It is also essential to the construction of conceptual systems that are at the heart of mathematics and science, and of the technologies that shape the modern world. Deep thinking can be found whenever one conceptual system morphs into another. The sources of this study include the cognitive development of numbers in children, neuropsychology, the study of creativity, and the historical development of mathematics and science. The approach is unusual and original. It comes out of the author's lengthy experience as a mathematician, teacher, and writer of books about mathematics and science, such as How Mathematicians Think: Using Ambiguity, Contradiction, and Paradox to Create Mathematics and The Blind Spot: Science and the Crisis of Uncertainty. (shrink)

There are many calls for a definitions personhood, but also many logical and Wittgensteinian reasons to think fulfilling this is unimportant or impossible. I argue that we can consider many contexts as language-games and consider the person as the key player in each. We can then examine the attributes, presuppositions and implications of personhood in those contexts. I use law and therapeutic psychology as two examples of such contexts or language-games. Each correlates with one of the classic “theories” of ethics-deontology (...) and consequentialism. But each is a large enough cluster to consider them as paradigms in a sense related to Thomas Kuhn's notion in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Showing the presuppositions about and “takes” on personhood together with the connections involved in the paradigms deepens the dilemmas we already know to be present. (shrink)

In challenging the prevailing paradigm for understanding how the human mind works, Patterns, Thinking, and Cognition is certain to stimulate fruitful debate.

Paradigm Found brings together papers by renowned researchers from across Europe, Asia and America to discuss a selection of pressing issues in current archaeological theory and method. The book also reviews the effects and potential of various theoretical stances in the context of prehistoric archaeology. The 23 papers provide a discussion of the issues currently re-appearing in the focal point of theoretical debates in archaeology such as the role of the discipline in the present-day society, problems of interpretation in (...) archaeology, approaches to the study of social evolution, as well as current insights into issues in classification and construction of typologies. Taking a fresh, and often provocative, look at the challenges contemporary archaeology is facing, the contributors evaluate the effects of past developments and discuss the impact they are likely to have on future directions in archaeology as an internationally connected discipline. In its final part the volume reflects on current thinking on prehistory, using case-studies from a number of European regions and the Mediterranean, from the Neolithic to the Roman Period. The volume represents a tribute to the lifetime achievements of Professor Ev_en Neustupn_, a distinguished Czech archaeologist who contributed to the advancement of prehistoric studies in Europe and to archaeological theory and method in particular. (shrink)

I don’t believe in the foundation of our current scientific-philosophical paradigm. What does that matter? It matters because I have dug deep, especially into the body-mind issue, and found that it is something wrong with our paradigm. There is an anomaly. I haven’t realized, though, that this anomaly may be my own construction. I have been frustrated and have been acting out on the frustration. I’m sorry for that. I think, though, that a paradigm shift may be (...) near. There are many important things that need to be approached in new ways from the academies. -/- . (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to compare Heidegger’s philosophy of science with Thomas Kuhn’s. With this comparison I want to pursue two goals: 1) using Kuhn’s arsenal of conceptual tools, to make Heidegger’s position appear in a clearer fashion; and 2) to show that Heidegger’s and Kuhn’s positions are not so different as one might expect. I will, thus, suggest that these philosophies can be compatible. I will show that, even if there are differences, there are many similarities as (...) well. I will address three issues: 1) the differences and similarities between Kuhn’s notion of paradigm and Heidegger’s notion of world; 2) the analogous concepts of “normal science” and “calculating thinking”; and 3) the source of intelligibility in both authors. Here, I believe, is where the main difference between both thinkers lays. (shrink)

This paper identifies the ethical issues involved with women's advertising, and argues that ads can be successful in generating sales without portraying women as things or as mere sex objects, and without perpetuating various weakness stereotypes. A paradigm shift in advertising appears to be at hand. This new model replaces images of women as submissive or constantly in a need of alteration, with a move to reinstate beauty as a natural thing, not an unattainable ideal. This paper also reviews (...) general ethical issues of the advertising industry, including: (1) that advertising equates the pursuit of material gain with human happiness; (2) that advertising pushes its own values, artificial or false as they may be, as to what is "good" for the consumer; (3) that advertising plays on physical appetites and the body; (4) that advertising strives to bypass rational thinking, by desensitizing the viewer and playing on group dynamics. (shrink)

Critics of Western medicine have long heralded a “new paradigm” opposed to the reigning materialistic worldview of biomedical science and allopathy. This new paradigm has undergone several name changes (e.g., holistic, alternative, complementary, integrative) and presumably advances a radically new worldview. On closer inspection, it looks more like the opposite pole of the same dualistic worldview and not a radical break with the past. A truly new paradigm prepared to jettison tacit conceptual assumptions would have significant implications (...) for medical research, provided that institutional and professional constraints not inhibit the studies to follow. A research agenda is proposed comprising possible jumping-off points for investigators comfortable with working around the reigning assumptions both of current medical thinking and of a rapidly institutionalizing integrative-medicine worldview. These include proposed medical research on spirituality, alien abductions, hierophanies, thought forms, placebo pharmacology, radionics, arcane medical wisdom, prenatal ensoulment, and musical genetics. (shrink)

SS ideology was the expression of an apparently philosophical self-containing system of thought, articulated around a systematic body of knowledge claiming to integrate humanity inside a global vision of Being. Using ontology and anthropology as foundations, SS thinking developed essentially in the field of ethics. It portrayed itself as a global approach to society and civilization, based on eugenics and ethnic cleansing. It accomplished the fusion of the modern biological paradigm with the cultural shock brought about by World (...) War I and promoted total war for the sake of total health. And since institutional philosophy largely ignores SS theory and praxis, Holocaust memorial institutions may represent an alternative for the development of understanding and reflection. Within the context of Nazism, SS thinking did much to work out the theory for which the Holocaust would be the ultimate accomplishment. It intended to provide the Holocaust with legitimacy, from the viewpoints of ontology, anthropology, politics, and ethics, whence the importance of studying the theoretical framework that gave sense to the most terrible form of SS praxis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Thinking with Heidegger:Rethinking Environmental Theory and PracticeKevin Michael DeLuca (bio)Environmentalism is tired. It is a movement both institutionalized and insipid. The vast majority of Americans claim to be environmentalists while buying ever more SUVs, leaf-blowers, and uncountable plastic consumer goods. Indeed, environmentalism itself has become just another practice of consumerism, a matter of buying Audubon memberships, Ansel Adams calendars, and 'biodegradable' plastic bags with one's Sierra Club credit (...) card. As a practice of everyday life, environmentalism has devolved into another lifestyle choice.On the political front, carbon-copy blow-dried presidential candidates proclaim their allegiance to the environment, an allegiance that is more a sign of fealty to opinion polls than a concern with environmental issues. In the world of real-politic, environmental regulations are gutted as corporations write legislation for the politicians they have bought. Outspent and outmaneuvered, mainstream environmental groups preach at the altar of broken promises about the potential of lobbying and insider access while awaiting the blandishments of the next candidate. As [End Page 67] a political practice, mainstream environmentalism has degenerated into a marginal special-interest group.On the intellectual front, a confusing array of reform environmentalists, deep ecologists, social ecologists, ecofeminists, wilderness advocates, social justice activists, social constructionists, and Christian ecologists offer a cacophony of competing paradigms and programs while exchanging charges and countercharges of wrong-headedness and infidelity. If on the level of practice an exhausted environmentalism has achieved both institutionalism and irrelevance, intellectually environmentalism has reached several stasis points. This is crucial, for at a level that is unusual for social movements, environmentalism has always highlighted the importance of how we think about the environment, that ideas of nature are powerful because practices follow from ideas. In other words, how we think about nature guides how we act toward nature. In the midst of this melee I want to suggest we reconsider the work of Martin Heidegger.I want to think Heidegger in distress: in the distress of machination; in the distress of the technological enframing of the earth; in the distress of the environmental crisis. In rejecting a Heideggerian hermeneutics, a piety to textual exegesis, I hope to stress Heidegger in order to stress environmental theory. With few exceptions,1 two insufficient responses typify the reception of Heidegger in environmental thinking. One is to champion Heidegger as some proto-environmentalist. Certainly, quotes from such works as Being and Time, Contributions to Philosophy: From Enowning, "The Question Concerning Technology," "Building Dwelling Thinking," and "The Age of the World Picture" inspire such a reading. Such readings, however, present a simplified Heidegger. For example, a poor reading of an essay such as "The Question Concerning Technology" produces the conclusion that Heidegger was anti-technology.2 These misreadings are not merely accidental but a result of the goal of the citation. The challenge of Heidegger is not engaged to develop environmental theory; rather, Heidegger is cited to lend some borrowed legitimacy to the fledgling enterprise. The most prominent example of this move occurs in Devall and Sessions' Deep Ecology, wherein Heidegger joins a potpourri of thinkers, including Dogen, Job, St. Francis of Assisi, Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Thoreau, Chief Seattle, Herman Melville, John Muir, Aldous Huxley, Gandhi, Rainer Maria Rilke, Aldo Leopold, Robinson Jeffers, Mary Austin, Rachel Carson, Barry Commoner, Stanley Diamond, and [End Page 68] David Brower from a host of traditions, including Taoism, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Christianity, Native American thought, Romanticism, and ecological science (1985, 79–108). The result is confusion, at best.On the other hand, in a second response Heidegger serves as a kind of bogeyman, a Nazi used to tar the more radical environmental groups. The syllogism is simple and simplistic: Deep Ecologists are bio/ecocentric; Deep Ecologists quote Heidegger; Heidegger was a Nazi; Therefore, Deep Ecologists are Nazis/fascists. (To push this thinking to its logical extreme, then, all nonanthropocentric thinking is fascist.) Both responses may be useful for polemics but serve to prevent a possibly productive exploration of Heidegger for the engagement of the difficult problems that have stumped environmentalism on multiple levels.Violating HeideggerAs a prefatory word, even a cursory glance at Heidegger's work reveals him to be a thinker who... (shrink)

The paper explores the links between philosophy and learning with a view to highlight some of the today’s most influential philosophical “paradigms” of education. The concepts of “paradigm” and “philosophical paradigm of education” are discussed – and nuanced - based on some explicit references to them in the current philosophical and pedagogical literature. While taking into account all the different ways in which philosophy may be inquired with regard to its influence on education, the paper focuses merely on (...) philosophical contributions to the understanding of specific issues such as the human potential for learning; the concepts of cognition and learning; epistemological and value assumptions in teaching and learning; and psycho-social aspects exploring the relationshipsbetween the self and the “other” via communication and other forms of social interaction. While assuming that the relationships between philosophy and education are not unidirectional (in the sense that not only philosophy impacts on education, but also vice-versa, education issues may trigger philosophical reflection and debates), the paper analyses how different contemporary influential philosophical orientations (i.e. Pragmatism and Neo-pragmatism; The Critical Theory; Post-modern and Relativistic approaches; Constructivism) paved their way into educational thinking, policy making and teaching and learning practices. Whereas acknowledging that philosophy is not the only strong “foundation” for education, the paper stresses nevertheless the benefits of a reflective attitude ineducation with regard to its main (philosophical) assumptions. Choices in education are not always following a reflective pattern and changes are very often introduced because they are fashionable. Recurrent interrogations on important philosophical assumptions of educational theories, policies and practices may yet bring about a better balance between “innovation” and “tradition” and/or between “change” and “stability” while avoiding the many pitfalls of new andattractive, yet ephemeral, education fashions. (shrink)

Within the scope of multifactor approach, the ways and peculiarities of nonlinear paradigm formation and its establishment, as well as, multidimensional nature and essence of things in a single research field of the interdisciplinary science that is directly based on the perception of multidimensional integrity of the real world were significantly reconsidered. The idea of multifactorness is deployed as the scientific and logical basis for the methodology of scientific and philosophical research. In the course of investigation, it was revealed (...) that the contemporary level of understanding the notional diversity of "multidimensionality" concentrates within the conceptual structures of nonlinear thinking style considering the principle of oriental world-perception and world-understanding. (shrink)

Evolutionary psychology is put forward by its defenders as an extension of evolutionary biology, bringing psychology within the integrated causal chain of the hard sciences. It is extolled as a new paradigm for integrating psychology with the rest of science. We argue that such claims misrepresent the methods and explanations of evolutionary biology, and present a distorted view of the consequences that might be drawn from evolutionary biology for views of human nature. General theses about adaptation in biology are (...) empty schemata, not laws of nature allowing the subsumption of mind under biology. Functional thinking is an indispensable tool for psychology, mostly of value in abstractive unification and as a heuristic, but it gains little from association with evolutionary notions of selection. Thus, we argue, the cherished integrative causal model evaporates, and evolutionary phraseology serves no more than rhetorical purposes. Moreover, the universality of human nature and the evolutionary irrelevance of individual variation are presented as biological truths that psychologists should respect in their approach to mind. On closer inspection, this turns out to be rather dubious biology. Psychology might conceivably be better off as a continuation of biology by different means, but evolutionary psychology does not provide the conceptual integration leading to such a happy union. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to investigate possibilities for conceptions of critical thinking beyond the established educational framework that emphasizes skills. Distancing ourselves from the older rationalist framework, we explain that what we think wrong with the skills perspective is, amongst other things, its absolutization of performativity and outcomes. In reviewing the relevant discourse, we accept that it is possible for the skills paradigm to be change‐friendly and context‐sensitive but we argue that it is oblivious to other, (...) non‐purposive kinds of rationality that are indispensable to critical thought. Our suggestion is that there is an aporetic element in critical thought that is missing from contemporary educational positions. We consider some other efforts to redeem the surplus of criticality that performativity fails to take into account and conclude that the aporetic element that we highlight accommodates better than other theories do the significance of thematizing the taken‐for‐granted instead of focusing on problem solving. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Thinking with Heidegger:Rethinking Environmental Theory and PracticeKevin Michael DeLuca (bio)Environmentalism is tired. It is a movement both institutionalized and insipid. The vast majority of Americans claim to be environmentalists while buying ever more SUVs, leaf-blowers, and uncountable plastic consumer goods. Indeed, environmentalism itself has become just another practice of consumerism, a matter of buying Audubon memberships, Ansel Adams calendars, and 'biodegradable' plastic bags with one's Sierra Club credit (...) card. As a practice of everyday life, environmentalism has devolved into another lifestyle choice.On the political front, carbon-copy blow-dried presidential candidates proclaim their allegiance to the environment, an allegiance that is more a sign of fealty to opinion polls than a concern with environmental issues. In the world of real-politic, environmental regulations are gutted as corporations write legislation for the politicians they have bought. Outspent and outmaneuvered, mainstream environmental groups preach at the altar of broken promises about the potential of lobbying and insider access while awaiting the blandishments of the next candidate. As [End Page 67] a political practice, mainstream environmentalism has degenerated into a marginal special-interest group.On the intellectual front, a confusing array of reform environmentalists, deep ecologists, social ecologists, ecofeminists, wilderness advocates, social justice activists, social constructionists, and Christian ecologists offer a cacophony of competing paradigms and programs while exchanging charges and countercharges of wrong-headedness and infidelity. If on the level of practice an exhausted environmentalism has achieved both institutionalism and irrelevance, intellectually environmentalism has reached several stasis points. This is crucial, for at a level that is unusual for social movements, environmentalism has always highlighted the importance of how we think about the environment, that ideas of nature are powerful because practices follow from ideas. In other words, how we think about nature guides how we act toward nature. In the midst of this melee I want to suggest we reconsider the work of Martin Heidegger.I want to think Heidegger in distress: in the distress of machination; in the distress of the technological enframing of the earth; in the distress of the environmental crisis. In rejecting a Heideggerian hermeneutics, a piety to textual exegesis, I hope to stress Heidegger in order to stress environmental theory. With few exceptions,1 two insufficient responses typify the reception of Heidegger in environmental thinking. One is to champion Heidegger as some proto-environmentalist. Certainly, quotes from such works as Being and Time, Contributions to Philosophy: From Enowning, "The Question Concerning Technology," "Building Dwelling Thinking," and "The Age of the World Picture" inspire such a reading. Such readings, however, present a simplified Heidegger. For example, a poor reading of an essay such as "The Question Concerning Technology" produces the conclusion that Heidegger was anti-technology.2 These misreadings are not merely accidental but a result of the goal of the citation. The challenge of Heidegger is not engaged to develop environmental theory; rather, Heidegger is cited to lend some borrowed legitimacy to the fledgling enterprise. The most prominent example of this move occurs in Devall and Sessions' Deep Ecology, wherein Heidegger joins a potpourri of thinkers, including Dogen, Job, St. Francis of Assisi, Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Thoreau, Chief Seattle, Herman Melville, John Muir, Aldous Huxley, Gandhi, Rainer Maria Rilke, Aldo Leopold, Robinson Jeffers, Mary Austin, Rachel Carson, Barry Commoner, Stanley Diamond, and [End Page 68] David Brower from a host of traditions, including Taoism, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Christianity, Native American thought, Romanticism, and ecological science (1985, 79–108). The result is confusion, at best.On the other hand, in a second response Heidegger serves as a kind of bogeyman, a Nazi used to tar the more radical environmental groups. The syllogism is simple and simplistic: Deep Ecologists are bio/ecocentric; Deep Ecologists quote Heidegger; Heidegger was a Nazi; Therefore, Deep Ecologists are Nazis/fascists. (To push this thinking to its logical extreme, then, all nonanthropocentric thinking is fascist.) Both responses may be useful for polemics but serve to prevent a possibly productive exploration of Heidegger for the engagement of the difficult problems that have stumped environmentalism on multiple levels.Violating HeideggerAs a prefatory word, even a cursory glance at Heidegger's work reveals him to be a thinker who... (shrink)

In the past decades, an enormous amount of precious information has been collected about molecular and genetic characteristics of cancer. This knowledge is mainly based on a reductionistic approach, meanwhile cancer is widely recognized to be a ‘system biology disease’. The behavior of complex physiological processes cannot be understood simply by knowing how the parts work in isolation. There is not solely a matter how to integrate all available knowledge in such a way that we can still deal with complexity, (...) but we must be aware that a deeply transformation of the currently accepted oncologic paradigm is urgently needed. We have to think in terms of biological networks: understanding of complex functions may in fact be impossible without taking into consideration influences outside of the genome. Systems Biology involves connecting experimental unsupervised multivariate data to mathematical and computational approach than can simulate biologic systems for hypothesis testing or that can account for what it is not known from high-throughput data sets. Metabolomics could establish the requested link between genotype and phenotype, providing informations that ensure an integrated understanding of pathogenic mechanisms and metabolic phenotypes and provide a screening tool for new targeted drug. (shrink)

Many cognitive psychologists have come to regard graded belief as fundamental to our understanding of how humans reason and many have also come to think of probability theory as providing at least part of the norms of correct reasoning. David Over has characterized this development as the emergence of a new paradigm in the Kuhnian sense. The target article argues that the choice of this term was unwarranted and also that it has done more harm than good. This commentary (...) argues that there is nothing in Thomas Kuhn’s work to suggest that he would object to Over’s terminological choice and that there is no evidence that the choice has caused any harm. (shrink)

There are many algorithm texts that provide lots of well-polished code and proofs of correctness. Instead, this book presents insights, notations, and analogies to help the novice describe and think about algorithms like an expert. By looking at both the big picture and easy step-by-step methods for developing algorithms, the author helps students avoid the common pitfalls. He stresses paradigms such as loop invariants and recursion to unify a huge range of algorithms into a few meta-algorithms. Part of the goal (...) is to teach the students to think abstractly. Without getting bogged with formal proofs, the book fosters a deeper understanding of how and why each algorithm works. These insights are presented in a slow and clear manner accessible to second- or third-year students of computer science, preparing them to find their own innovative ways to solve problems. (shrink)