Sociology has largely followed Durkheim’s lead in ignoring the question: why do people die by suicide? This negation prioritizes a positivist, structuralist approach and stymies sociology’s contribution by closing off a wide range of tools sociologists might employ. An interpretivist turn in suicide studies accompanied by the growing adoption of qualitative methodology has opened up an array of opportunities to produce insights lost in a Durkheimian approach, but has yet to confront their own weaknesses. This paper shows we need not (...) abandon either tradition, advocating for a third path that integrates the strengths of both approaches. (shrink)

While Euthyphro and Apology are widely taught, they do not offer a complete picture of the variety of ways in which Socrates interacts with his interlocutors in Plato’s dialogues. Perhaps the most important point we wish to bring home is that most, if not all, of Socrates’ discussions are carefully calibrated according to a certain social awareness. Through careful analysis of sections of the dialogues, we argue that aspects of discussions between Socrates and his interlocutors should serve as lessons for (...) students and instructors. Students should see that learning to philosophize is a matter of skill development, Instructors should see that one ought to be cognizant of students’ abilities, as well as other relevant information. The upshot of paying attention to Socrates’ interactions is to augment instructors’ and students’ understanding, facilitating the cultivation and development of philosophical skills. (shrink)

This paper argues that a well known passage from Plato’s Meno exemplifies how to employ scaffolded learning in the philosophy classroom. It explores scaffolded learning by fully defining it, explaining it, and gesturing at some ways in which scaffolding has been implemented. We then offer our own model of scaffolded learning in terms of four phases and eight stages, and explicate our model using a well known example from Plato’s Meno as an exemplar. We believe that any practical concerns one (...) might have against the employment of scaffolded learning in the philosophy classroom ought not serve as an impediment to adopting our model. (shrink)

We regularly teach for the Wyoming High School Institute (“HSI”), a three-week college experience for rising high school juniors. The purpose of HSI is to introduce pre-college students to subjects not regularly taught in the secondary school curriculum. In our course, we introduce moral philosophy through the use of feature films. More narrowly, we challenge the students to examine moral reasoning through analysis of the moral reasoning of characters in these films. Our pedagogical approach is based in the methods of (...) Socrates and in the technique of “scaffolding.” We attempt to show how our approach can be incorporated into any pre-college philosophy classroom. (shrink)

Aristotle contends that in perception the sense organ is “made like” its object, but only “in a certain way.” Much controversy has surrounded these remarks, primarily about how to understand being “made like.” One camp has understood this to require literal exemplification, such that the sense organs manifest the sensible qualities of their objects. Others have understood likeness to require no physical alteration at all in the sense organs.I accept as a starting point in this paper that understanding perceptual likeness (...) in terms of exemplification is a non-starter. By doing so, however, I also reject the easiest and most direct understanding of what it means for the sense organs to be “made like” their objects. Others who have shared this assumption have suggested that likeness consists in “isomorphism.” Unfortunately, they have not adequately explicated how this notion is to be understood, with the result that Aristotle’s theory of perception remains crucially underdeveloped. I argue that the key is to understand the form of isomorphism at work in Aristotle’s account of thinking. (shrink)

‘Scaffolded learning’ describes a cluster of instructional techniques designed to move students from a novice position toward greater understanding, such that they become independent learners. Our Socratic Model of Scaffolded Learning includes two phases not normally included in discussions of scaffolded learning, the preparatory and problematizing phases. Our article will illuminate this blind spot by arguing that these crucial preliminary elements ought to be considered an integral part of a scaffolding model. If instructors are cognizant of the starting position of (...) students, then students are more likely to develop a proper sense of autonomy. We turn, then, to examples from Socrates, the archetypal teacher, that cast light on the importance of preparation and problematizing for the student. Finally, we address the concern that integrating these preliminary elements into scaffolded learning would unnecessarily complicate a useful and effective pedagogical method. Ultimately, if it is effective and autonomous learners we wish to cultivate in the classroom, then something like SMSL must include preliminary elements that calibrate the instructor’s approach to the members of the class. After all, the unexamined student is not worth teaching. (shrink)

The information explosion and digital modes of learning often combine to inform the quest for the best ways of transforming information in digital form for pedagogical purposes. This quest has become more urgent and pervasive with the ‘turn’ to online learning in the context of COVID-19. This can result in linear, asynchronous, transmission-based modes of teaching and learning which commodify, package and deliver knowledge for individual ‘customers’. The primary concerns in such models are often technical and economic – technology as (...) a cost-effective ‘solution’ to educational challenges. In this paper I argue for the importance of dialogic learning space in teaching and learning by means of Information and Communication Technologies, whether in the form of fully online learning, blended learning or face-to-face encounters using ICT affordances. Although the 20th Century theorists Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) and Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) produced their seminal works before the advent of ICTs, they were both concerned with the quality and authenticity of human engagement with texts and with other persons and contexts. Besides a shared interest in dialogue as an ontological feature of human life and being, they both used spatiotemporal concepts for understanding and interpreting texts. The article draws on Gadamer’s notions of dialogue and horizon, and Bakhtin’s notions of dialogue and chronotope, to conceptualize dialogic possibilities for online education. Its purpose is to provide a framework, grounded in Bakhtin’s and Gadamer’s ideas, for a dialogic approach to online teaching and learning in higher education. (shrink)

Jesus of Nazareth, like Socrates, left nothing behind written by himself. Yet, the records of his teaching indicate a rich interest in dialogic pedagogy, reflected in his use of the parable, primarily an oral genre, as a dialogic provocation. Working at the interface of pedagogy, theology and philosophy, this article explores the parable of the Good Samaritan from the perspective of dialogic pedagogy. It employs an analytical approach termed diacognition, developed from the notions of dialogue, position and cognition, to analyse (...) the moves within the parable and the teaching situation in which it is located. The article explores how Jesus engages the dialogue of and around the parable to position and reposition his interlocutor, provoking a re-cognition of what it means to love one’s neighbour. It concludes by reflecting on the implications of this analysis for the relation of meaning to knowing and doing. (shrink)

Dialogue is a seminal concept within the work of the Brazilian adult education theorist, Paulo Freire, and the Russian literary critic and philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin. While there are commonalities in their understanding of dialogue, they differ in their treatment of dialectic. This paper addresses commonalities and dissonances within a Bakhtin-Freire dialogue on the notions of dialogue and dialectic. It then teases out some of the implications for education theory and practice in relation to two South African contexts of learning that (...) facilitate the access to education of disadvantaged groups, one in higher education and the other in early childhood education. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between online dispute resolution (ODR) and trust. We discuss what trust is, why trust is important, and how trust develops. Our claim is that efforts to implement online dispute resolution on a site or service in a manner that promotes trust need to consider ODR as just one tool in a broader toolbox of trust-building tools and techniques. These techniques are amongst others marketing, education, trust seals, and transparency. By evaluating ODR in its proper context (...) as one component of a larger trust strategy, we can more accurately set expectations for its results and position our projects for success. (shrink)

The article presents proofs of the context freeness of a family of typelogical grammars, namely all grammars that are based on a uni- ormultimodal logic of pure residuation, possibly enriched with thestructural rules of Permutation and Expansion for binary modes.