Set within the socio‐political context of standards‐based education reform, this article explores the constitutive role of teaching standards in the production of the practice and identity of the ‘accomplished’ teacher. It contrasts two idioms for thinking about and studying these standards, the representational and the performative. Utilising the material‐semiotic approach of actor‐network theory, it addresses the issue of how the representational idiom of teaching standards has become so authoritative that it readily eclipses other ways to think and ‘do’ them. In (...) tracing the development of a specific set of teaching standards as part of a national research project, the argument is made that standards should be understood as performative knowledge and identity practices. And, accounting them should also be performative. Accordingly, attention is given to key locales in which this development is taking place. Teaching standards emerge as ontologically variable and it is struggles around this variability that can create conditions for a renewed practice and politics of education reform. (shrink)

The classical principle of double effect offers permissibility conditions for actions foreseen to lead to evil outcomes. I shall argue that certain kinds of closeness cases, as well as general heuristic considerations about the order of explanation, lead us to replace the intensional concept of intention with the extensional concept of accomplishment in double effect.

The concepts of knowledge and accomplishment are duals. There are many parallels between them. In this paper I discuss the "AA" thesis, which is dual to the well known KK thesis. The KK thesis claims that if someone knows something, then she knows that she knows it. This is generally thought to be false, and there are powerful reasons for rejecting it. The AA thesis claims that if someone accomplishes something, then she accomplishes that she accomplishes it. I argue (...) that this, too, is false, and that the reasons it is false parallel reasons for the falsity of the KK thesis. (shrink)

The concepts of knowledge and of accomplishment have many similarities. In fact they are duals, in a sense that I explain. Similar issues arise about both of them, deriving from the functions they serve in everyday evaluation of inquiry and action.

Focusing on one of the most studied dimensions of Social Psychology, i.e., intergroup relations, this study analyzes its discursive accomplishment in a specific group-based intervention, i.e., the talk and work of an Italian group home, i.e., a small alternative care facility hosting a group of out-of-home children. Particularly, we focused on the fictionally called “Nuns’ Home,” a group home previously investigated for its ethnocentric bias, and its intergroup relations with “inside” and “outside” groups, such as schools, biological families, and (...) social services. By combining a qualitative and quantitative approach in analyzing one audio-recorded ethnographic interview with the whole team of professionals, we aimed at accounting for the multitude of internal and external stakeholders that participants refer to, analyzing the discursive accomplishment of ingroup and outgroup in talk-in-interaction and investigating ingroup bias and group qualification. To do so, we detected social categorization markers and qualifying devices that participants rely on when referring to groups. Results show that, among the numerous groups recognized, participants co-construct intergroup relations and ingroup bias implying negative assessment over external groups. Being different from traditional laboratory studies illustrating substantial contraposition between ingroup and outgroup, our qualitative analysis reveals the multitude of groups by which the ingroup is formed and their internal fragmentation. To conclude, we discussed the implications of qualitatively studying intergroup relations in group homes and indicated future lines of research. (shrink)

In her recent much-debated manifesto for Socratic education, Martha Nussbaum (2010) makes two statements seemingly dissonant with each other: on the one hand, she recognizes in Dewey "a thinker who brought Socrates into virtually every American classroom" (p. 64); on the other hand, she points out that "Dewey, however, never addressed systematically the question of how Socratic critical reasoning might be taught to children of various ages" (p. 73). The latter remark works as a sort of springboard to the introduction (...) of Matthew Lipman's curriculum as a "source of practical guidance" for teachers "who want to teach Socratically" (p. 73).We could rephrase such a double position in the evaluation of Dewey's .. (shrink)

This is an existential-phenomenological reading of Max Weber's "Class, Status, Party" that seeks a fuller understanding of meaning accomplishment in a stratified World. I appropriate stratification as a single meaning structure ontically defined by domination, intersubjectivity, and life-chances and ontologically determined by the power-to-be, There-being-with-others, and potentiality. I then discuss the significance of these structures in finite transcendence and describe ways they factually unfold in World achievement. I conclude with logotherapeutic reflections concerning meaning accomplishment in a stratified World (...) and a summary of key questions facing existential-phenomenology in light of the likelihood that There-being must embrace, indeed, live, the inherent equality of Being among Daseins to accomplish its authenticity. (shrink)

This article investigates how talk show interviews are brought to an end. The closing process of televised talk shows is analysed and compared with Clayman's characterization of news interview closings. The study concludes that closings in both genres share features relating to the structural organization and the participants' behaviour which can be accounted for in terms of the institutional context in which the speech events take place. Nevertheless, the particular closing structure of each type of institutionally situated talk, as well (...) as its content and style, is genre-specific and shaped by the specific goal pursued in each speech event and by the relationship between the parties to the encounter. Thus, unlike news interviews, the entertainment purpose of talk show interviews ultimately justifies the complexity of the closing structure, its interpersonal content and informal style. The presence of a studio audience also influences the closing format. (shrink)

Set within the socio-political context of standards-based education reform, this article explores the constitutive role of teaching standards in the production of the practice and identity of the ‘accomplished’ teacher. It contrasts two idioms for thinking about and studying these standards, the representational and the performative. Utilising the material-semiotic approach of actor-network theory, it addresses the issue of how the representational idiom of teaching standards has become so authoritative that it readily eclipses other ways to think and ‘do’ them. In (...) tracing the development of a specific set of teaching standards as part of a national research project, the argument is made that standards should be understood as performative knowledge and identity practices. And, accounting them should also be performative. Accordingly, attention is given to key locales in which this development is taking place. Teaching standards emerge as ontologically variable and it is struggles around this variability that can create conditions for a renewed practice and politics of education reform. (shrink)

Pour la plupart, les membres du cercle de Vienne se sentaient investis d’une mission philosophique et aussi culturelle: poursuivre la tradition française des Lumières et l’adapter aux exigences du temps. Si l’on se demande dans quelle mesure l’objectif a été atteint, la réponse est double. Quand ils ont cherché à élaborer une encyclopédie empiriste, à savoir l’Encyclopédie internationale de la science unifiée, qui serait comme l’équivalent de la Grande Encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert, l’échec a été flagrant. À cela, il (...) y a des raisons externes, comme la seconde guerre mondiale, ou la mort d’Otto Neurath, le principal éditeur et aussi le moteur de toute l’entreprise. Mais cela tient aussi à des facteurs internes, comme l’insistance de Neurath sur un Index verborum prohibitorum, qui a empêché certaines contributions importantes d’aboutir. Si maintenant l’on élargit l’horizon pour considérer le mouvement dans son ensemble, un bon point de départ se trouve dans la critique très polémique formulée par Max Horkheimer en 1937. L’examen des arguments avancés montre que les positions défendues par l’empirisme logique étaient beaucoup plus solides que ne l’imaginaient Horkheimer et l’École de Francfort: la prise en compte des faits et théories scientifiques est et reste un ingrédient important de toute politique éclairée. (shrink)

Two recent books on populism represent more than any other the new mainstream in populism studies. Through a reconstruction of the main arguments advanced by Jan-Werner Müller, on the one hand, and Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, on the other, this article aims to highlight both the significant accomplishments as well as the main limitations of this orientation. Special attention is given to the way in which the two projects deal with the relationship between populism and democracy. In this (...) respect, substantial differences emerge between them, largely due to the different scope of each intervention: Müller articulates a polemical argument, while Mudde and Kaltwasser seem to encompass a more nuanced research agenda. And yet, despite all their differences, the two books share a common definitional basis when they identify moralization and moralism as the kernel of populist ideology. It is here, however, that the shaky basis of the new mainstream is revealed. Apart from betraying substantive continuities with a discredited Cold War pluralism, this moralistic stress seems ultimately inadequate to function as the central criterion for the differential identification of populism. (shrink)

Pour la plupart, les membres du cercle de Vienne se sentaient investis d’une mission philosophique et aussi culturelle: poursuivre la tradition française des Lumières et l’adapter aux exigences du temps. Si l’on se demande dans quelle mesure l’objectif a été atteint, la réponse est double. Quand ils ont cherché à élaborer une encyclopédie empiriste, à savoir l’Encyclopédie internationale de la science unifiée, qui serait comme l’équivalent de la Grande Encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert, l’échec a été flagrant. À cela, il (...) y a des raisons externes, comme la seconde guerre mondiale, ou la mort d’Otto Neurath, le principal éditeur et aussi le moteur de toute l’entreprise. Mais cela tient aussi à des facteurs internes, comme l’insistance de Neurath sur un Index verborum prohibitorum, qui a empêché certaines contributions importantes d’aboutir. Si maintenant l’on élargit l’horizon pour considérer le mouvement dans son ensemble, un bon point de départ se trouve dans la critique très polémique formulée par Max Horkheimer en 1937. L’examen des arguments avancés montre que les positions défendues par l’empirisme logique étaient beaucoup plus solides que ne l’imaginaient Horkheimer et l’École de Francfort: la prise en compte des faits et théories scientifiques est et reste un ingrédient important de toute politique éclairée. (shrink)

Business & Society’s 60th anniversary affords an opportunity to reflect on the journal’s achievements in the context of the wider field. We analyze editorial commentaries to map the evolving mission of the journal, assess the achievement of the journal’s mission through a thematic analysis of published articles, and examine Business & Society’s distinctiveness relative to peer journals using a machine learning approach. Our analysis highlights subtle shifts in Business & Society’s mission and content over time, reflecting variation in the relative (...) emphasis on scholarly quality versus policy/practice relevance, and building the journal and its academic community versus addressing issues of concern to wider society. While Business & Society’s intended missions have been substantially and sequentially achieved, an increased emphasis on the society-business nexus and a critical approach to interdisciplinarity could further enhance Business & Society’s leading role within business and society research and attract new generations of contributors and readers. (shrink)

Much recent literature plumbs the question of the origins and trajectories of “place,” or the cultural development of space-specific repertoires of action and meaning. This article examines divergence in two “places” that were once quite similar but are now quite far apart, culturally and politically speaking. Vermont, once considered the “most Republican” state in the United States, is now generally considered one of its most politically and culturally liberal. New Hampshire, by contrast, has remained politically and socially quite conservative. Contrasting (...) legacies of tourist promotion, political mobilization, and public policy help explain the divergence between states. We hypothesize that emerging stereotypes about a “place” serve to draw sympathetic residents and visitors to that place, thus reinforcing the salience of those stereotypes and contributing to their reality over time. We term this latter process idio-cultural migration and argue its centrality to ongoing debates about the accomplishment of place. We also elaborate on several means by which such place “reputations” are created, transmitted, and maintained. (shrink)

The first note examines current assumptions about the medieval origins of the sand-glass and underlines the defective nature of our knowledge. The second note suggests a possible etymology for an unusual fifteenth-century English term for the instrument. The third note assembles such evidence as can be found on the price of sand-glasses and the structure of the trade that produced them.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Clearing Some Definitional Ground: Standards as Epistemic Objects What Counts as a Standard?: Orthodoxies and other Stories Travelling with Actor‐Network Theory: ‘It's Practice All theWay Down’6 The Project in Question: Data and Method Assemblage7 Teaching and Standards of Teaching: Performative Tales from the Field Assembling the Accomplished Teacher: Whose Assemblage Counts? The Critical Contribution of Actor‐Network Theory: Performative Politics Notes References.

In an essay on performance-enhancing drugs, author Chuck Klosterman (2007) argues that the category of enhancers extends from hallucinogens used to inspire music to steroids used to strengthen athletes—and he criticizes those who would excuse one means of enhancement while railing against the other as a form of cheating: After the summer of 1964, the Beatles started taking serious drugs, and those drugs altered their musical performance. Though it may not have been their overt intent, the Beatles took performance-enhancing drugs. (...) And . . . absolutely no one holds it against them. No one views “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver” as “less authentic” albums, despite the fact that they would not (and probably could .. (shrink)

Brutus wanted to kill Caesar. He believed that Caesar was an ordinary mortal, and that, given this, stabbing him (by which we mean plunging a knife into his heart) was a way of killing him. He thought that he could stab Caesar, for he remembered that he had a knife and saw that Caesar was standing next to him on his left, in the Forum. So Brutus was motivated to stab the man to his left. He did so, thereby killing (...) Caesar. (shrink)

Accounts of video game play developed from an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic perspective remain relatively scarce. This study collects together an emerging, if scattered, body of research which focuses on the material, practical “work” of video game players. The study offers an example-driven explication of an EMCA perspective on video game play phenomena. The materials are arranged as a “tactical zoom.” We start very much “outside” the game, beginning with a wide view of how massive-multiplayer online games are played within (...) dedicated gaming spaces; here, we find multiple players, machines, and many different sorts of activities going on. Still remaining somewhat distanced from the play of the game itself, we then take a closer look at the players themselves by examining a notionally simpler setting involving pairs taking part in a football game at a games console. As we draw closer to the technical details of play, we narrow our focus further still to examine a player and spectator situated “at the screen” but jointly analyzing play as the player competes in an online first-person shooter. Finally, we go “inside” the game entirely and look at the conduct of avatars on-screen via screen recordings of a massively multiplayer online game. Having worked through specific examples, we provide an elaboration of a selection of core topics of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis that is used to situate some of the unstated orientations in the presentation of data fragments. In this way, recurrent issues raised in the fragments are shown as coherent, interconnected phenomena. In closing, we suggest caution regarding the way game play phenomena have been analyzed in this study, while remarking on challenges present for the development of further EMCA-oriented research on video game play. (shrink)

Accounts of video game play developed from an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic perspective remain relatively scarce. This study collects together an emerging, if scattered, body of research which focuses on the material, practical “work” of video game players. The study offers an example-driven explication of an EMCA perspective on video game play phenomena. The materials are arranged as a “tactical zoom.” We start very much “outside” the game, beginning with a wide view of how massive-multiplayer online games are played within (...) dedicated gaming spaces; here, we find multiple players, machines, and many different sorts of activities going on. Still remaining somewhat distanced from the play of the game itself, we then take a closer look at the players themselves by examining a notionally simpler setting involving pairs taking part in a football game at a games console. As we draw closer to the technical details of play, we narrow our focus further still to examine a player and spectator situated “at the screen” but jointly analyzing play as the player competes in an online first-person shooter. Finally, we go “inside” the game entirely and look at the conduct of avatars on-screen via screen recordings of a massively multiplayer online game. Having worked through specific examples, we provide an elaboration of a selection of core topics of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis that is used to situate some of the unstated orientations in the presentation of data fragments. In this way, recurrent issues raised in the fragments are shown as coherent, interconnected phenomena. In closing, we suggest caution regarding the way game play phenomena have been analyzed in this study, while remarking on challenges present for the development of further EMCA-oriented research on video game play. (shrink)

In “Flourish,” Martin Seligman maintained that the elements of well-being consist of “PERMA: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment.” Although the question of what constitutes human flourishing or psychological well-being has remained a topic of continued debate among scholars, it has recently been argued in the literature that a paradigmatic or prototypical case of human psychological well-being would largely manifest most or all of the aforementioned PERMA factors. Further, in “A Neuroscientific Perspective on Music Therapy,” Stefan Koelsch also (...) suggested that “Music therapy can have effects that improve the psychological and physiological health of individuals,” so it seems plausible that engaging in practices of music can positively contribute to one living a more optimally flourishing life with greater psychological well-being. However, recent studies on music practice and participation have not yet been reviewed and integrated under the PERMA framework from positive psychology to further explore and explicate this possibility. This article therefore contributes to extant work by reviewing recent research on psychological well-being and music to offer support for the claim that music practice and participation can positively contribute to one living a flourishing life by positively influencing their emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. (shrink)

This is an existential-phenomenological reading of Max Weber’s “Class, Status, Party” that seeks a fuller understanding of meaning accomplishment in a stratified World. I appropriate stratification as a single meaning structure ontically defined by domination, intersubjectivity, and life-chances and ontologically determined by the power-to-be (Seinkönnen), There-being-with-others (Mitdasein), and potentiality (Möglichkeit). I then discuss the significance of these structures in finite transcendence (There-being, Dasein) and describe ways they factually unfold in World achievement. I conclude with logotherapeutic reflections concerning meaning (...) class='Hi'>accomplishment in a stratified World and a summary of key questions facing existential-phenomenology in light of the likelihood that There-being must embrace, indeed, live, the inherent equality of Being (Gleichheit des Seins) among Daseins to accomplish its authenticity. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to emphasize the notion of accomplishment in Levinas, partly building on the unpublished works of the author, where it appears as a keyword of his philosophy. It is a matter of highlighting the double filiation of this term, as an extension of the Husserlian notion of intuitive fullfilment to the entire existence and as a resumption of the hermeneutical and theological notion of figural interpretation. By showing how Levinas applies the structure symbol-accomplishment (...) to the existence, envisaged in its double dynamism of position and participation, this article intends to emphazise the importance—but also the difficulties—of the notion of history in his philosophy. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to emphasize the notion of accomplishment in Levinas, partly building on the unpublished works of the author, where it appears as a keyword of his philosophy. It is a matter of highlighting the double filiation of this term, as an extension of the Husserlian notion of intuitive fullfilment to the entire existence and as a resumption of the hermeneutical and theological notion of figural interpretation. By showing how Levinas applies the structure symbol-accomplishment (...) to the existence, envisaged in its double dynamism of position and participation, this article intends to emphazise the importance—but also the difficulties—of the notion of history in his philosophy. (shrink)

Newman’s Anglican sermon—“The Danger of Accomplishments”— warned his Oxford audience of the dangers both of higher education and of a life of luxury. Yet how can this sermon’s rejection of flowery literature that entertains and arouses pleasant feelings in its readers be reconciled with Newman’s later advocacy in his The Idea of a University that classical literature is an important aspect of a liberal education?

In this paper, we respond to a critique by Erik Thorstensen of the ‘Deepening Ethical Engagement and Participation in Emerging Nanotechnologies’ project concerning its ‘realist’ treatment of narrative, its restricted analytical framework and resources, its apparent confusion in focus and its unjustified contextualisation and overextension of its findings. We show that these criticisms are based on fairly serious misunderstandings of the DEEPEN project, its interdisciplinary approachand its conceptual context. Having responded to Thorstensen’s criticisms, we take the opportunity to clarify and (...) develop our approach to narrative. We articulate the need for novel, theoretically robust approaches to the formation of public attitudes which transcend the limitations of both survey-based approaches—which remain wedded to methodological individualism and which presume that individuals hold distinct and relatively stable attitudes and preferences—and interactionist approaches to public talk, which focus too strongly on individuals-in-interaction as reasoning agents and which ignore the constitutive role of culture and discourse in the formation of public opinion. We suggest that our use of narrative can help to better understand the process through which public attitudes to emerging technology develop out of interactive an engagement with wider cultural arguments and accounts of science and technology. We finish by pointing to parallel developments in social thought—from Charles Taylor’s treatment of social imaginaries to recent developments in post-Bourdieuian cultural sociology—as related projects in understanding the cultural resources and grammars that provide the conceptual infrastructure for modern social life. (shrink)

Editor's Intro to the journal issue. Wittgenstein's methods are more important than his solutions or views on particular problems. He also attacks processes which give rise to philosophical problems, such as Cartesian dualism and Platonism and other more narrow pictures or assumptions. His recommendations that progress be based on what we get from juxtaposing examples with philosophical temptations are still being absorbed by the discipline. This is more the case now, fifteen years aftr I wrote this introduction.

Maritain Society Group Meeting, Eastern APA, 2006.

STS represents a significant reform effort in science/technology education in grades kindergarten through the undergraduate collegiate years. It focuses on use of constructivism as a way of learning and a broader view of science, and as a way of assessing learning for real understanding. Basic to STS is teaching and the assessment of learning in multiple domains, namely, concepts, processes, the application of both to new situations, the nature and history of science, creativity skills, and attitude. When education occurs in (...) STS classrooms, students grow significantly in all domains and more so than in traditional classrooms. (shrink)

Philosophical tradition contains two major lines of thought concerning the relative difficulty of the notions of objectivity and subjectivity. One tradition, which we might characterize as.

. In order to survive as a species and grow in complexity, humanity must adopt a new image of what it means to be human, rediscover a reward system beyond the merely material, and see that young people find joy in challenges and in cooperating with others.