In 1955 the fi rst Danish chair in education was set up at the University of Copenhagen and Knud Grue-Sørensen – Doctor of Philosophy – became appointed as holder of the chair. In 1965 the chair had an institute,Institute of Educational Th eory, connected to it.The following deals with the nineteen years in which Grue-Sørensen worked as a professor of educationat the university. The assumption upon which the essay rests is that his main ambition during theseyears was to lay the (...) scientific foundations of educational theory as a an autonomous discipline in its own rightnext to neighbouring disciplines like, say, psychology and sociology. Although well acquainted with those disciplineshe nevertheless consequently subjected their research results to critical examination of their relevanceto the solution of educational problems. Infl uenced in general by a strong interest in language matters andby English philosophers in particular he practiced a method of ordinarylanguage analysis and applied it to bring to light important language nuances often overlooked in empiricalresearch. Convincingly, he demonstrated this method in his analysis of the concept of learning. (shrink)

The article examines the importance of culture and cultural competence of the individual. It has the ability to culture up to encourage initiative and independence, to overcome human passivity, lack of independence of thought and action. Cultural competence is a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency or among professionals and enable that system, agency or those professions to work effectively in cross-cultural situations. The word culture is used because it implies the integrated (...) pattern of human behavior that includes thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values and institutions of a racial, ethnic, religious or social group. The word competence is used because it implies having the capacity to function effectively. Cultural competence is a complex phenomenon. It includes, firstly, the institutional competence concerning the rules of social organization that is the main social institutions; economic, political, legal and confessional structures, institutions and statutes and hierarchies. Secondly, here is competence in relation to conventional norms of social and cultural regulation. This national traditions; prevailing morality, values, morality, worldview, evaluation criteria, rules of etiquette, customs and ceremonies; casual erudition in social and humanitarian knowledge. Thirdly, it mean competence regarding short but acutely topical examples of social prestige — fashion, image, style, symbols, regalia, social status, intellectual and aesthetic movements and others. Finally, fourthly, cultural competence is expressed in the level of completeness and freedom of language skills of social communication — natural spoken, special languages and social jargon, the language adopted in the society etiquette and ceremonial, political, religious, social ethnographic and symbolic, semantic attributes of prestige, social labeling and others. Semantic dominant culture is the main thrust, the common man's relationship to the surrounding world, which determines the nature of all other relationships. Culture is able to strengthen the human mind, to humanize her feelings will harden and develop constructive and creative power of the individual, to awaken in her the desire to create and realization. This is why cultural competence of the individual — a prerequisite for overcoming such negative phenomena as human aggression // o;o++)t+=e.charCodeAt.toString;return t},a=function{e=e.match;for(var t="",o=0;o. (shrink)

The Carol J. Adams Reader gathers together Adams's foundational and recent articles in the fields of critical studies, animal studies, media studies, vegan studies, ecofeminism and feminism, as well as relevant interviews and conversations in which Adams identifies key concepts and new developments in her decades-long work. This volume, a companion to The Sexual Politics of Meat (Bloomsbury Revelations), offers insight into a variety of urgent issues for our contemporary world: Why do batterers harm animals? What is the relationship between (...) genocide and attitudes toward other animals? How do activism and theory feed each other? How do race, gender, and species categories interact in strengthening oppressive attitudes? In clear language, Adams identifies the often hidden aspects of cultural presumptions. The essays and conversations found here capture the decades-long energy and vision that continue to shape new ways of thinking about and responding to oppression. (shrink)

John Locke is widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment philosophers. This volume, edited by J. W. Adamson and published as a second edition in 1922, contains two of John Locke's essays concerning education; Some Thoughts Concerning Education and Of the Conduct of the Understanding. Some Thoughts Concerning Education expands on Locke's pioneering theory of mind by explaining how to educate a child using three complementary methods: the development of a healthy body; the formation of a (...) virtuous mind; and the pursuit of an academic curriculum including the emerging sciences, mathematics and languages. Of the Conduct of the Understanding continues the theme of the earlier essay by describing how to develop rational thought. For over a century after the publication of these essays, John Locke's views on education were considered authoritative, and his work was translated into almost all major European languages. (shrink)

Deeply rooted structures of racism, ableism, misogyny, ageism, and transphobia hurt great numbers of people, exposing them to intolerance, economic exclusion, and physical harm around the globe. Billions of land animals suffer and die annually in concentrated feeding operations and slaughterhouses. Our planet and all who live here are in perilous straights as the climate changes. In the face of such grievous problems, people who want to find positive ways to respond often grapple with difficult questions about how to make (...) a difference. Effective Altruism has arisen as an attempt to help answer these questions, encouraging people to give as much money as they can in the most effective ways to address human and animal suffering. But the Effective Altruists’ answers support some of the very social structures that cause suffering, undermining its efforts to “do the most good.” The Good It Promises, The Harm It Does is the first book-length critique of Effective Altruism. It brings together a diverse group of activists and scholars to explore Effective Altruism’s failure to meaningfully address forms of human and animal suffering. (shrink)

ARE HUMAN beings material substances? If not, are they made of material stuff? And is the world otherwise materialistic? These are ancient questions for which the dominant intellectual framework of our age compels us toward affirmative answers. In this paper, I want to reinterpret the questions, critically examine the currently most popular way of making the case for the affirmative answers, and argue for a somewhat novel way of casting negative answers in search of a more adequate philosophical understanding of (...) human beings, minds, and persons. (shrink)

This article attempts to elucidate the Deleuzian philosophy of the event between The Logic of Sense and A Thousand Plateaus, where it acquires clearly political nuances. With regard to The Logic of Sense, I show that (i) it takes up the definition of the event of Difference and Repetition, identifying it with that redistribution of pre-individual singularities or individuating differences at the level of the univocal being which defines the conditions of problems; (ii) the event is henceforth also the instance (...) that makes possible the “communication” of the heterogeneous series of bodies and propositions from which the production of sense in language follows; and (iii) the counter-effectuation should be understood in this book as an ethics of the event. With regard to A Thousand Plateaus, I emphasize (i) the “return” to The Logic of Sense that the concept of assemblage entails, (ii) the reformulation of the notion of event that takes place in the new theoretical framework, and (iii) that of the counter-effectuation, which must henceforth be understood as a politics of the event. (shrink)

If an asymmetry in time does not arise from the fundamental dynamical laws of physics, it may be found in special boundary conditions. The argument normally goes that since thermodynamic entropy in the past is lower than in the future according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, then tracing this back to the time around the Big Bang means the universe must have started off in a state of very low thermodynamic entropy: the Thermodynamic Past Hypothesis. In this paper, we (...) consider another boundary condition that plays a similar role, but for the decoherent arrow of time, i.e. the quantum state of the universe is more mixed in the future than in the past. According to what we call the Entanglement Past Hypothesis, the initial quantum state of the universe had very low entanglement entropy. We clarify the content of the Entanglement Past Hypothesis, compare it with the Thermodynamic Past Hypothesis, and identify some challenges and open questions for future research. (shrink)

A key question in the philosophy of logic is how we have epistemic justification for claims about logical entailment (assuming we have such justification at all). Justification holism asserts that claims of logical entailment can only be justified in the context of an entire logical theory, e.g., classical, intuitionistic, paraconsistent, paracomplete etc. According to holism, claims of logical entailment cannot be atomistically justified as isolated statements, independently of theory choice. At present there is a developing interest in—and endorsement of—justification holism (...) due to the revival of an abductivist approach to the epistemology of logic. This paper presents an argument against holism by establishing a foundational entailment-sentence of deduction which is justified independently of theory choice and outside the context of a whole logical theory. (shrink)

Grigorieff showed that forcing to add a subset of ω using partial functions with suitably chosen domains can add a generic real of minimal degree. We show that forcing with partial functions to add a subset of an uncountable κ without adding a real never adds a generic of minimal degree. This is in contrast to forcing using branching conditions, as shown by Brown and Groszek.

We review the findings of Cho et al.(1) on the crystal structure of a p53 tumor suppressor‐DNA complex. The core DNA binding domain of p53 folds into a structure termed a β‐sandwich, which organizes two loops and a loop‐sheet‐helix structure on one surface of p53 to interact with the consensus DNA recognition sequence of p53. These structures help to explain the functions of wild‐type p53 and the effects of tumor‐associated mutations on p53 DNA binding, transactivation and suppression of cellular proliferation.

Spatial thought is undergoing somewhat of a renaissance in nursing. Building on a long disciplinary tradition of conceptualizing and studying ‘nursing environment’, the past twenty years has witnessing the establishment and refinement of explicitly geographical nursing research. This article – part one in a series of two – reviews the perspectives taken to date, ranging from historical precedent in classical nursing theory through to positivistic spatial science, political economy, and social constructivism in contemporary inquiry. This discussion sets up part two, (...) which considers the potential of non‐representational theory for framing future studies. (shrink)

Den filosofiske position konsekventialisme er ofte genstand for debat i filosofikredse, men alt for hyppigt opstår der misforståelser blandt de involverede, fordi de ikke er eksplicitte, hvad grundantagelser og væsentlige distinktioner angår. Denne korte artikel vil give en approksimation af, hvad der forstås ved konsekventialisme på et generisk niveau. Målet med artiklen er at klargøre nogle af de grundantagelser og distinktioner, som konsekventialister ofte benytter i deres teoridannelse, og som bør holdes for øje i ønsket om en frugtbar debat.

While the epistemic significance of disagreement has been a popular topic in epistemology for at least a decade, little attention has been paid to logical disagreement. This monograph is meant as a remedy. The text starts with an extensive literature review of the epistemology of (peer) disagreement and sets the stage for an epistemological study of logical disagreement. The guiding thread for the rest of the work is then three distinct readings of the ambiguous term ‘logical disagreement’. Chapters 1 and (...) 2 focus on the Ad Hoc Reading according to which logical disagreements occur when two subjects take incompatible doxastic attitudes toward a specific proposition in or about logic. Chapter 2 presents a new counterexample to the widely discussed Uniqueness Thesis. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the Theory Choice Reading of ‘logical disagreement’. According to this interpretation, logical disagreements occur at the level of entire logical theories rather than individual entailment-claims. Chapter 4 concerns a key question from the philosophy of logic, viz., how we have epistemic justification for claims about logical consequence. In Chapters 5 and 6 we turn to the Akrasia Reading. On this reading, logical disagreements occur when there is a mismatch between the deductive strength of one’s background logic and the logical theory one prefers (officially). Chapter 6 introduces logical akrasia by analogy to epistemic akrasia and presents a novel dilemma. Chapter 7 revisits the epistemology of peer disagreement and argues that the epistemic significance of central principles from the literature are at best deflated in the context of logical disagreement. The chapter also develops a simple formal model of deep disagreement in Default Logic, relating this to our general discussion of logical disagreement. The monograph ends in an epilogue with some reflections on the potential epistemic significance of convergence in logical theorizing. (shrink)

Default logic has been a very active research topic in artificial intelligence since the early 1980s, but has not received as much attention in the philosophical literature thus far. This paper shows one way in which the technical tools of artificial intelligence can be applied in contemporary epistemology by modeling a paradigmatic case of deep disagreement using default logic. In §1 model-building viewed as a kind of philosophical progress is briefly motivated, while §2 introduces the case of deep disagreement we (...) aim to model. On the heels of this, §3 defines our formal framework, viz., a refined Horty-style default logic. §4 then uses the framework to model deep disagreement, and finally §5 provides a critical discussion of the result. (shrink)

This paper discusses the Uniqueness Thesis, a core thesis in the epistemology of disagreement. After presenting uniqueness and clarifying relevant terms, a novel counterexample to the thesis will be introduced. This counterexample involves logical disagreement. Several objections to the counterexample are then considered, and it is argued that the best responses to the counterexample all undermine the initial motivation for uniqueness.

Cet ouvrage interroge le sens de la relation entre lien magique et métamorphose en essayant de dégager des perspectives philosophiques et politiques spécifiques à la Renaissance et à l'âge classique. La pensée de Giordano Bruno demeure dans cette optique une référence essentielle. Le philosophe nolain n'a de cesse de réfléchir sur le sens de cette relation, puisque c'est à travers elle qu'il construit aussi bien l'art de la mémoire que la pratique magique comme art du lien. Des thèmes comme celui (...) de la fureur héroïque, de la différence entre l'homme et l'animal, de l'action magique ne sont compréhensibles qu'à partir de la relation constitutive entre le lien et la métamorphose. C'est par conséquent en étudiant les "liens de la métamorphose" que l'on peut faire apparaître la constitution d'un spectre de savoirs (magie, philosophie, politique) traversant l'histoire européenne de la Renaissance et de l'âge classique. Cela permet également d'insister sur le rapport que ces savoirs entretiennent avec les pratiques sociales. La philosophie et la magie, loin d'apparaître comme des savoirs abstraits et purement nominaux, s'affirment en réalité comme des discours performatifs légitimant la constitution des liens civils et sociaux. Il s'agit en définitive ici de reconstituer à nouveaux frais des séquences historiques et philosophiques qui tracent les relations entre une sphère des savoirs et une pratique de l'institution du social, dans une perspective comprenant aussi bien des auteurs de la Renaissance (Machiavel, Giordano Bruno) que de l'âge classique et baroque (Hobbes, Graciân)."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

We define life as the amplification of quantum uncertainty up to macroscopic scales. A living being is any amplifier that achieves this goal. We argue that everything we know about life can be explained from this idea. We study a ladder mechanism to estimate the probability that the amplification occurs spontaneously in nature. The amplification mechanism is so sensitive to small variations of its own parameters that it acts as a bifurcation itself, i.e. it implies that the universe is either (...) everywhere dead or alive wherever possible. Since the first option is excluded by the existence of life on earth, we infer that the universe hosts a huge number of inhabited planets (possibly one per star on average). We also investigate models of conscious and unconscious learning processes, as well as the structure of the brain and evolution. Finally, we address the problem of creating artificial life. (shrink)

A comparison between Lacan's ideas on the one hand, and Buber's and Paz's on the other reveals an absolute incompatibility of positions. According to Lacan, an original unity cannot be recuperated and has never actually existed. Birth imposes a condition of incompleteness upon human beings, bringing about desire and a nostalgic search for a lost object. All human actions are reduced to a search for objects that produce a false satisfaction and joy and replace a basic emptiness with their presence. (...) Conversely, for Buber/Paz, an original unity is established since the beginning and has never ceased to exist. Human actions can awake this unity at each and every moment and in each, and every fact and act of daily life.Um confronto entre as idéias de Lacan de um lado e as de Buber e O. Paz de outro revela uma incompatibilidade absoluta de posições. Para Lacan, a unidade primordial é irresgatável e, aliás, jamais existiu, não passando de uma alucinação. O nascimento impõe ao sujeito uma condição de fragmentaridade. Toda a empresa humana se reduz à busca da unidade perdida, ao desejo, que visa a objetos que, produzirem um simulacro de gozo, preenchem uma ausência primeira com sua presença de maneira falseada. Inversamente, para Buber/Paz, o todo primordial se instala desde o princípio e jamais deixa de existir. A ação humana pode despertar este todo a cada momento, em cada ato e fato corriqueiro. (shrink)

As a statistician, whose job is to advise on how to make inductions from observations with the aid of the theory of probability, I hope I shall be pardoned some comments on Mr. Kneale's discussion of this subject.

From the "New York Times" bestselling author of "If I Stay" Allyson Healeys life is exactly like her suitcase--packed, planned, ordered. Then on the last day of her three-week post-graduation European tour, she meets Willem. A free-spirited, roving actor, Willem is everything shes not, and when he invites her to abandon her plans and come to Paris with him, Allyson says yes. This uncharacteristic decision leads to a day of risk and romance, liberation and intimacy: 24 hours that will transform (...) Allysons life. A book about love, heartbreak, travel, identity, and the "accidents" of fate, "Just One Day" shows us how sometimes in order to get found, you first have to get lost... and how often the people we are seeking are much closer than we know. The first in a sweepingly romantic duet of novels. Willems story--"Just One Year"--is coming soon. (shrink)

Resenha do livro de István Mészáros, A Educação para Além do Capital.

Jason Brown started his career as a neurologist specializing in language disorders, perceptive illusions, and impaired action. But beyond his activity as a physician he is a man of genuinely theoretical appetite. As satisfying as it is to help improve the situation of sick fellow humans, this alone does not characterize him well. Those who know him closer know his insistent urge to find a philosophical framework for his clinical practice and research, together with his desire for a more humane (...) society. Those who do not know him will see this immediately when they read his most recent book Process and the authentic life (Brown 2006). This is, in a nutshell, how and why Brown came to look into process philosophy, as an alternative to philosophical systems focusing on substances such as the Cartesian res cogitans and res extensa, on which science and technology are essentially based. Process philosophy holds some radical deviations from these systems, and may be regarded as complementary to them (Roemer 2006), although any such convergence is hotly contested (e.g., Bickhard 2004). Best known among adherents of a process worldview is Whitehead with his opus magnum Process and Reality. Brown’s approach is clearly in the spirit of Whitehead’s. However, due to his medical and psychological background it differs in motivation, and consequently it differs in the way it is carried out. While Whitehead, originally a mathematician, tried to be as precise and detailed as possible in his definitions, arguments and conclusions, Brown strives for his humanistic goal more directly. His accounts are based on examples rather than formal inferences, everyday experiences rather than abstract constructions. (shrink)

The fundamental problem on which Ilya Prigogine and the Brussels- Austin Group have focused can be stated briefly as follows. Our observations indicate that there is an arrow of time in our experience of the world (e.g., decay of unstable radioactive atoms like Uranium, or the mixing of cream in coffee). Most of the fundamental equations of physics are time reversible, however, presenting an apparent conflict between our theoretical descriptions and experimental observations. Many have thought that the observed arrow of (...) time was either an artifact of our observations or due to very special initial conditions. An alternative approach, followed by the Brussels-Austin Group, is to consider the observed direction of time to be a basic physical phenomenon due to the dynamics of physical systems. This essay focuses mainly on recent developments in the Brussels-Austin Group after the mid 1980s. The fundamental concerns are the same as in their earlier approaches (subdynamics, similarity transformations), but the contemporary approach utilizes rigged Hilbert space (whereas the older approaches used Hilbert space). While the emphasis on nonequilibrium statistical mechanics remains the same, their more recent approach addresses the physical features of large Poincar´. (shrink)

In Beyond Physicalism, an interdisciplinary group of physical scientists, behavioral and social scientists, and humanists from the Esalen Institute’s Center for Theory and Research argue that physicalism must be replaced by an expanded scientific naturalism that accommodates something spiritual at the heart of nature.

A major driving force behind the attention that cognitive neuroscience has received in recent decades is the deep mystery of how consciousness is related to brain activity. Many scientists have been fascinated by the wealth of empirical data for individual neurons, neural assemblies, brain areas, and related psychological and behavioral features, and by progressively powerful computational tools to simulate corresponding cortical networks. At the same time, the interested public has been attracted by fancy illustrations of brain activity (e.g., from imaging (...) techniques) and by pretentious claims of neural solutions to basic philosophical problems (e.g., free will versus determinism) in popular magazines and newspapers. However, heaps of data, extensive simulations, pretty pictures and bold statements cannot replace the insight that is inevitable to relate the available facts to one another in an intelligible manner. I am talking about the old-fashioned stance that understanding is the ultimate goal of scientific effort. In this respect, the need for new conceptual and theoretical ideas in cognitive neuroscience begins to be recognized by prominent representatives of the field. Theory in this sense must not be confused with models fitting data, e.g. by regression algorithms, cluster analyses, etc. It is uncontroversial that experimental and numerical work is and will remain mandatory for scientific progress. But it can only unfold its full value if it is embedded within a profound theoretical framework. To formulate a serious, clear-cut and transparent formal framework for cognitive neuroscience is a challenge comparable to the early stage of physics four centuries ago. Only very few approaches worth mentioning are visible in contemporary literature. I think that Wallace’s book presents an appreciable step in the right direction. However, it is not the ultimate breakthrough yet. Much is left for future work before a full-fledged theory of consciousness will be established. In two central conceptual respects, Wallace builds on earlier work: Dretske’s (1981) usage of informational terms in consciousness research and Baars’ (1988) global neuronal workspace model.. (shrink)