Only when students feel engaged both socially and academically can schools and teachers lay the groundwork to motivate achievement. This volume, the fifth in the _Harvard Education Letter _Spotlight series, brings together fifteen seminal articles that examine research and practice on these complex and interrelated issues. Foreword by Sam M. Intrator, associate professor of education and of the Program in Urban Studies at Smith College and codirector of Smith’s Urban Education Initiative. Contributors include: Michael Bitz, James Paul Gee, Pedro A. (...) Noguera, Laura Pappano, George Sugai, and Richard Weissbourd. (shrink)

It is often assumed that concepts from the formal sciences, such as mathematics and logic, have to be treated differently from concepts from non-formal sciences. This is especially relevant in cases of concept defectiveness, as in the empirical sciences defectiveness is an essential component of lager disruptive or transformative processes such as concept change or concept fragmentation. However, it is still unclear what role defectiveness plays for concepts in the formal sciences. On the one hand, a common view sees formal (...) concepts to be protected against defects because of their precise and stable nature. On the other, studies going back as far as Lakatos (1963) showcase the changeability of such concepts. -/- In this paper, I will investigate if and how defectiveness based on the occurrence of inconsistencies can appear with formal concepts. To make the case as strong as possible, I employ a strict notion of formal concept that assumes the concept to have a fixed and definite extension. I will show that there are indeed certain types of defectiveness that cannot occur with such concepts; but that there are other types of defectiveness that do occur. This means that while formal concepts have to be treated differently than non-formal concepts, questions about defectiveness---as raised in the conceptual engineering debate and philosophy of science---can still be applied to them. I will highlight this point by showing how formal sciences have special strategies available to them that allow them to resolve defectiveness of their concepts in a flexible and informative manner. (shrink)

The book deepens our understanding of Arendt's conception of the role of violence in her political theory. But it also uses her work as a provocation to think about how we might engage with, build on, or criticize contemporary ideas of the political that have drawn on Arendtian themes-notably via the notion of "agonal" or "agonistic" politics as theorized in recent years by thinkers such as Chantal Mouffe and Bonnie Honig-and how we can read Arendt in different ways to challenge (...) or further our understanding of the political. (shrink)

Certains affirment tomber amoureux en ligne. Mais est-ce de l’amour véritable? L’amour, soutient-on, est le désir du bien de l’autre. Il nécessite l’amour de soi, il amène à vouloir être près de l’être aimé, il exige une reconnaissance mutuelle et vise une personne concrète et autre que soi. On le décrit également comme étant inconditionnel, durable, voire incontrôlable (c’est lui qui nous contrôle), toujours pauvre et irrationnel. Que signifient et qu’impliquent ces caractéristiques? Surtout, les retrouve-t-on toutes dans les relations d’amour (...) virtuelles? Plus encore, quelle vision de l’amour le virtuel pousse-t-il à adopter? (shrink)

In the first edition of The Gay Science (GS), Nietzsche proposes that we treat knowledge as unconditionally valuable and life as a tragic quest for truth. In the second edition of GS, he seems to retract this proposal, suggesting that we substitute “incipit parodia” for “incipit tragœdia.” But Nietzsche does not say what he means by “parody,” or what role he believes it should play in our evaluative lives. This article proposes that by introducing parody into GS, Nietzsche intends not (...) only to correct the original text by mocking his earlier treatment of science as tragic, but also to designate parody as a basis for new tasks, duties, and values beyond what science can offer. This article speculates that parodic value creation might consist in the imitation of behaviors and practices associated with preexisting values without the reproduction of the beliefs and feelings corresponding to those practices. (shrink)

Experience offers a reading experience like no other. A heat-sensitive cover by Olafur Eliasson reveals words, colors, and a drawing when touched by human hands. Endpapers designed by Carsten Holler are printed in ink containing carefully calibrated quantities of the synthesized human pheromones estratetraenol and androstadienone, evoking the suggestibility of human desire. The margins and edges of the book are designed by Tauba Auerbach in complementary colors that create a dynamically shifting effect when the book is shifted or closed. When (...) the book is opened, bookmarks cascade from the center, emerging from spider web prints by Tomas Saraceno. Experience produces experience while bringing the concept itself into relief as an object of contemplation. The sensory experience of the book as a physical object resonates with the intellectual experience of the book as a container of ideas. Experience convenes a conversation with artists, musicians, philosophers, anthropologists, historians, and neuroscientists, each of whom explores aspects of sensorial and cultural realms of experience. The texts include new essays written for this volume and classic texts by such figures as William James and Michel Foucault -- Provided by the publisher. (shrink)

Inspired by Voltaire's advice that a text needs to be concise to have real influence, this anthology contains fiery extracts by forty eighteenth-century authors, from the most famous philosophers of the age to those whose brilliant writings are less well-known. These passages are immensely diverse in style and topic, but all have in common a passionate commitment to equality, freedom, and tolerance. Each text resonates powerfully with the issues our world faces today. Tolerance was first published by the Société française (...) d'étude du dix-huitième siècle (the French Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies) in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo assassinations in January 2015 as an act of solidarity and as a response to the surge of interest in Enlightenment values. With the support of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, it has now been translated by over 100 students and tutors of French at Oxford University."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Le « Bulletin bibliographique de philosophie politique et sociale » est réalisé pour la revue Philosophique par une équipe de rédactrices et de rédacteurs. Il est coordonné par Caroline Guibet Lafaye (CNRS) et Fabien Ferri (Université de Franche-Comté) au sein de Centre de Documentation et de Bibliographie Philosophiques de l’Université de Franche-Comté (UR 2274 CDBP–Logiques de l’Agir), et propose de brèves recensions d’ouvrages récemment parus, réparties dans diverses rubriques thématiques....

The idea that plants have minds can sound improbable, but some widely respected contemporary scientists and philosophers find it plausible. It turns out to be rather tricky to vindicate the presumption that plants do not have minds, for doing so requires getting clear about what plants can do and what exactly a mind is. By connecting the most compelling empirical work on plant behavior with philosophical reflection on the concept of minds, _Plant Minds _aims to help non-experts begin to think (...) clearly about whether plants have minds. Relying on current consensus ideas about minds and plants, Chauncey Maher first presents the best case for thinking that plants do _not_ have minds. Along the way, however, he unearths an idea at the root of that case, the idea that having a mind requires the capacity to represent the world. In the last chapter, he defends a relatively new and insightful theory of mind that rejects that assumption, making room for the possibility that plants do have minds, primarily because they are alive. (shrink)

Énoncer que la civilisation traverse, en ce moment, une crise extrêmement grave est devenu un lieu commun ; cependant, cela demeure une source d'interrogations pour prétendre à en sortir. Cette situation de crise laisse craindre ou espérer un changement profond. Elle est aussi celle des mots et celle des images, aucun domaine n'échappe à la crise. Et si les frontières de l'oeuvre d'art ne sont pas clairement définies, celles du sujet ne le sont pas davantage. Les frontières mêmes du sujet (...) sont malléables, dépendantes des contrées extérieures auxquelles il se frotte sans cesse. Aussi, le sujet lui-même est un sujet en mouvement dans une société toujours plus rapide, plus performante, plus financiarisée. Cependant, l'agitation ou le frémissement qui habite le sujet n'a pas pour seule origine un univers sociétal économique, les espaces ou objets esthétiques, naturels ou méditatifs influent également. Ainsi, en tant que créateur ou spectateur, le sujet se confronte à l'oeuvre d'art. S'il peut être touché, provoqué parfois, par l'extérieur, il est aussi travaillé de l'intérieur. Les arts et la littérature sont ici convoqués pour penser le rapport du sujet à son identité et au monde ; des études de cas porteront donc sur les démarches des artistes. En effet, en quoi les arts visuels et les récits contribuent-ils à la construction du sujet? En quoi la rencontre avec l'oeuvre agit-elle sur l'identité du sujet? Comment le sujet est-il « à l'oeuvre » lorsqu'il entreprend de rencontrer ou de créer des oeuvres? (shrink)

Examination of moral issue in contemporary life ethical questions for Christians.

In this volume, Maher contextualizes the work of a group of contemporary analytic philosophers—The Pittsburgh School—whose work is characterized by an interest in the history of philosophy and a commitment to normative functionalism, or the insight that to identify something as a manifestation of conceptual capacities is to place it in a space of norms. Wilfrid Sellars claimed that humans are distinctive because they occupy a norm-governed "space of reasons." Along with Sellars, Robert Brandom and John McDowell have tried to (...) work out the implications of that idea for understanding knowledge, thought, norms, language, and intentional action. The aim of this book is to introduce their shared views on those topics, while also charting a few key disputes between them. (shrink)

This article addresses the question of fundamental entities in set theory. It takes up J. Hamkins’ claim that models of set theory are such fundamental entities and investigates it using the methodology of P. Maddy’s naturalism, Second Philosophy. In accordance with this methodology, I investigate the historical case study of the use of models in the introduction of forcing, compare this case to contemporary practice and give a systematic account of how set-theoretic practice can be said to introduce models as (...) new entities. In conclusion, I argue for a view that takes both sets and models to be fundamental entities in set theory. (shrink)

In this essay, we draw on John Haugeland’s work in order to argue that Burge is wrong to think that exercises of perceptual constancy mechanisms suffice for perceptual representation. Although Haugeland did not live to read or respond to Burge’s Origins of Objectivity, we think that his work contains resources that can be developed into a critique of the very foundation of Burge’s approach. Specifically, we identify two related problems for Burge. First, if (what Burge calls) mere sensory responses are (...) not representational, then neither are exercises of constancy mechanisms, since the differences between them do not suffice to imply that one is representational and the other is not. Second, taken by themselves, exercises of constancy mechanisms are only derivatively representational, so merely understanding how they work is not sufficient for understanding what is required for something, in itself, to be representational (and thereby provide a full solution to the problem of perceptual representation). (shrink)

The practice of relationship itself is seen to be the central vehicle through which human beings learn and understand themselves, others, and the world around them. The politics of sexual difference insists that the flourishing of sexual difference in both women and men, girls and boys, relies, ultimately, on both sexes taking up the challenge to rethink themselves and the world. This chapter explores the emergence of a whole new philosophical idea, brought into being by Luce Irigaray in the context (...) of the women's movements of the 1960s and 1970s in Europe. It then outlines how this idea was developed in Italy and Spain to restore the work of the mother to the origins of what we understand as education and philosophy, emphasising the need to bring relationship itself as the vehicle for this process onto centre stage and keep it there. (shrink)

Almost a quarter-century after the Carnegie report, Scholarship Reconsidered, the scholarship of teaching remains a contested idea, celebrated by some and critiqued by others. This new book is particularly relevant now however as it explores the notion of the scholarship of teaching through the lens of authenticity, a complex, intriguing and particularly striking and distinctively helpful notion which has caught the attention of several authors in adult and higher education. However, those writing about authenticity do not always make explicit what (...) it is that they mean by this notion, nor are they clear about the philosophical foundations underpinning it. In developing the notion of the scholarship of teaching as an 'authentic practice', the author draws on several complementary philosophical ideas to explore the nature of this practice, why it is imperative for universities to engage in it, what meaningful engagement wold look like and the conditions under which it might qualify as 'authentic'. Core constructs employed include practice virtue communicative action 'being', 'power', critical reflection and transformationThe scholarship of teaching is described as a practice sustained through critical reflection and critical self-reflection. Being a scholar of teaching is viewed as an ongoing transformative learning process, a process of becoming authentic, the latter ultimately aimed at both helping students to become authentic and creating a better world in which to teach, learn and live. Although explored as a practice in its own right, the scholarship of teaching is seen to be strengthened by being situated within a wider integrated notion of academic practice. The book combines the author's previous research on authenticity with earlier work on the meaning of the scholarship of teaching, offering a provocative, fresh and timely perspective on the scholarship of teaching and professional learning in our times but also providing guidance on how to create a better world in which to learn, teach and live. (shrink)

Mathematics stand in a privileged relationship with aesthetics: a relationship that follows two main directions. The first concerns the introduction of mathematical considerations into aesthetic discourse. For instance, it is common to mention the mathematical architecture of certain artistic productions. The second leads from aesthetics to mathematics. In this case, the question is that of the role and meaning that aesthetic considerations may assume in mathematics. It is indeed a widely held view among mathematicians, of whatever socio-historical context, not only (...) to see their discipline as presenting a strong aesthetic dimension, but also to consider that this dimension plays a fundamental role in the process of developing and understanding mathematics. The main ambition of this paper is to show how Nelson Goodman’s aesthetics can be used to justify this point of view and to propose a thesis concerning the aesthetic functioning of mathematics. This first result allows to resituate Goodman’s aesthetics within a very classical tradition that will be described. Finally, the underlying ambition is to show the keys provided by Goodman’s theory for the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate some aspects of what Husserl means by “Apriori” in the light of recent considerations concerning the nature of necessary truth. I shall first discuss some of the results of the dispute between Carnap and Quine about analytic sentences. These results bring to the fore linguistic aspects of the problem of necessary truth. It can be shown, I believe, that Husserl’s position is substantially in accord with the basic agreements issuing from the Carnap-Quine (...) controversy. In Husserl’s view this clarification of the analytic-synthetic distinction opens up a whole new area of investigation, an area in which phenomenology would be able to locate important necessities and universalities. I have selected an instance of the explication of such an essential necessity, and I shall relate this explication to current views of necessary truth. My position will be that Husserl is in general agreement with contemporary linguistic philosophy as regards the area toward which philosophical attention should be directed, but that Husserl fails to provide a method for such investigation. The appropriate method is that of the linguistic philosophers, and I shall close with a few comments on the way in which Husserl’s phenomenology may be construed as implicitly linguistic. (shrink)

Als wahrscheinlich älteste vollständige Überlieferung des Buddhismus reflektiert der Pali-Kanon in literarisch-narrativer Form die Auseinandersetzung mit religiös,Anderen' aus emischer Perspektive. Die Suttas berichten nicht nur, wie der Buddha Mitglieder seines Ordens belehrt, sondern auch, wie er Vertretern anderer religiöser Gruppierungen begegnet und mit ihnen diskutiert haben soll. Caroline Widmer untersucht, inwiefern in diesen Begegnungen religiöse Abgrenzung im Sinne eines Otherings literarisch dargestellt wird, und behandelt diese religionswissenschaftliche Fragestellung im Bereich des Buddhismus erstmals durch eine literaturwissenschaftlich angelegte Analyse der narrativen (...) Gestaltung der Pali-Suttas. Die Texte spiegeln jedoch nicht wie oftmals angenommen in erster Linie Toleranz oder Offenheit gegenüber anderen religiösen Ansichten wider; vielmehr sind durch einen hohen Grad an Selbstdarstellung und einem exklusiven Anspruch auf Wahrheitsbesitz geprägt. Erzählerisch wird diese Spannung so aufgelöst, dass der,Andere' das,Eigene' annimmt und dadurch seine,Andersheit' verliert. Die Untersuchung eröffnet einen neuen Zugang zu religionsgeschichtlichen Quellen, erlaubt detaillierte Einblicke in diesen systemspezifischen Prozess des Selfings und erläutert seine Funktion innerhalb der buddhistischen Überlieferung. (shrink)

Caroline New is an energetic activist who has interpolated critical realist ideas into the front-line of political activism. In this wide-ranging interview, she begins by reflecting on her life and how she became a realist and her account is illustrated with personal anecdotes recalling memories of well-known philosophers and activists from the time. She discusses how her position set her apart from other feminists and she examines the interacting threads of longstanding debates on the political left, as well as (...) longstanding debates within critical realist circles, such as the relative importance of quantitative methods in social research and the scope for agency as a source of intentional change. Finally she brings some of her ideas to bear on contemporary issues. This engaging interview notably provides some of the social context in which critical realism developed, while also pointing towards its future potential. (shrink)

Caroline New is an energetic activist who has interpolated critical realist ideas into the front-line of political activism. In this wide-ranging interview, she begins by reflecting on her life and how she became a realist and her account is illustrated with personal anecdotes recalling memories of well-known philosophers and activists from the time. She discusses how her position set her apart from other feminists and she examines the interacting threads of longstanding debates on the political left, as well as (...) longstanding debates within critical realist circles, such as the relative importance of quantitative methods in social research and the scope for agency as a source of intentional change. Finally she brings some of her ideas to bear on contemporary issues. This engaging interview notably provides some of the social context in which critical realism developed, while also pointing towards its future potential. (shrink)

Introduction : anthropological conversations across disciplines -- The presence of the past in culture : anthropology and history -- Space, place and culture : anthropology and geography -- Writing culture : anthropology and literature -- The science in culture : anthropology and biology -- The individual and culture : anthropology and psychology -- Culture and population : anthropology and demography.