Elliot R. Wolfson is Professor of Religious Studies and the Marsha and Jay Glazer Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Elliot Eisner has spent the last 40 years researching, thinking and writing about some of the key and enduring issues in Arts Education, Curriculum Studies and Qualitative Research. He has contributed over 20 books and 500 articles to the field. In this book, Professor Eisner has compiled a career-long collection of his finest pieces-extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings and major theoretical contributions-so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Starting with a specially written (...) Introduction, which gives an overview of Professor Eisner's career and contextualizes his selection, the chapters cover a wide range of issues, including: · Children and art · The use of educational connoisseurship · Aesthetic modes of knowing · Absolutism and relativism in curriculum theory · Education reform and the ecology of schooling · The future of education research This is a must-have book for anyone wishing to know more about the development of Arts Education, Curriculum Studies and Qualitative Research over the last four decades, and about Elliot Eisner's contribution to these exciting fields. This book is part of the World Library of Educationalists series, which celebrates the contributions made to education by leading figures. Each scholar has selected his or her own key writings from across numerous books and journal articles, and often spread across two or more decades to be presented in a single volume. Through these books, readers can chase up the themes and strands that have been lodged in a lifetime's work, and so follow the development of these scholars' contributions to the field, as well as the development of the fields themselves. Other scholars included in the series: Richard Aldrich, Stephen J. Ball, John Elliott, Howard Gardner, John Gilbert, Ivor F. Goodson, David Hargreaves, David Labaree, E.C. Wragg, John White. (shrink)

Contents: Ethical principals for environmental protection / Robert Goodin -- Political representation for future generations / Gregory S. Kavka and Virginia L. Warren -- On the survival of humanity / Jan Narveson -- On deep versus shallow theories of environmental pollution / C.A. Hooker -- Preservation of wilderness and the good life / Janna L. Thompson -- The rights of the nonhuman world / Mary Anne Warren -- Are values in nature subjective or objective? / Holmes Rolston III - Duties (...) concerning islands / Mary Midgley -- Gaia and the forms of life / Stephen R.L. Clark -- Western traditions and environmental ethics / Robin Attfield -- Traditional American Indian and traditional western European attitudes toward nature / J. Baird Callicott -- Roles and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action / Richard Routley. [Book Synopsis]. (shrink)

Children are not simply molded by the environment; through constant inference and interpretation, they actively shape their own social world. This book is about that process. Elliot Turiel's work focuses on the development of moral judgment in children and adolescents and, more generally, on their evolving understanding of the conventions of social systems. His research suggests that social judgements are ordered, systematic, subtly discriminative, and related to behavior. His theory of the ways in which children generate social knowledge through (...) their social experiences will be of interest to a wide range of researchers and students in child development and education. (shrink)

This paper explicates Descartes’s theory of intuition (intuitus). Departing from certain commentators, I argue that intuition, for Descartes, is a form of clear and distinct intellectual perception. Because it is clear and distinct, it is indubitable, infallible, and provides a grade of certain knowledge he calls ‘cognitio’. I pay special attention to why he treats intuition as a form of perception, and what he means when he says it is “clear and distinct”. Finally, I situate Descartes in relation to his (...) Scholastic predecessors on one hand and current theories on the other. His view anticipates the contemporary “perceptual model of intuition”, though it is much bolder with its promise of certainty. (shrink)

Creativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality, the vehicle of self-expression, and the engine of progress in every human endeavor. It also raises a wealth of neglected and yet evocative philosophical questions: What is the role of consciousness in the creative process? How does the audience for a work for art influence its creation? How can creativity emerge through childhood pretending? Do great works of literature give us insight into human nature? Can a computer program really be (...) creative? How do we define creativity in the first place? Is it a virtue? What is the difference between creativity in science and art? Can creativity be taught? The new essays that comprise The Philosophy of Creativity take up these and other key questions and, in doing so, illustrate the value of interdisciplinary exchange. Written by leading philosophers and psychologists involved in studying creativity, the essays integrate philosophical insights with empirical research. CONTENTS I. Introduction Introducing The Philosophy of Creativity Elliot Samuel Paul and Scott Barry Kaufman II. The Concept of Creativity 1. An Experiential Account of Creativity Bence Nanay III. Aesthetics & Philosophy of Art 2. Creativity and Insight Gregory Currie 3. The Creative Audience: Some Ways in which Readers, Viewers and/or Listeners Use their Imaginations to Engage Fictional Artworks Noël Carroll 4. The Products of Musical Creativity Christopher Peacocke IV. Ethics & Value Theory 5. Performing Oneself Owen Flanagan 6. Creativity as a Virtue of Character Matthew Kieran V. Philosophy of Mind & Cognitive Science 7. Creativity and Not So Dumb Luck Simon Blackburn 8. The Role of Imagination in Creativity Dustin Stokes 9. Creativity, Consciousness, and Free Will: Evidence from Psychology Experiments Roy F. Baumeister, Brandon J. Schmeichel, and C. Nathan DeWall 10. The Origins of Creativity Elizabeth Picciuto and Peter Carruthers 11. Creativity and Artificial Intelligence: a Contradiction in Terms? Margaret Boden VI. Philosophy of Science 12. Hierarchies of Creative Domains: Disciplinary Constraints on Blind-Variation and Selective-Retention Dean Keith Simonton VII. Philosophy of Education (& Education of Philosophy) 13. Educating for Creativity Berys Gaut 14. Philosophical Heuristics Alan Hájek. (shrink)

Creativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality, the vehicle of self-expression, and the engine of progress in every human endeavor. It also raises a wealth of neglected and yet evocative philosophical questions. The Philosophy of Creativity takes up these questions and, in doing so, illustrates the value of interdisciplinary exchange.

Efficiency as quantified and promoted by cost-effectiveness analysis sometimes conflicts with equity and other ethical values, such as the “rule of rescue” or rights-based ethical values. We describe the utilitarian foundations of cost-effectiveness analysis and compare it with alternative ethical principles. We find that while fallible, utilitarianism is usually superior to the alternatives. This is primarily because efficiency – the maximization of health benefits under a budget constraint – is itself an important ethical value. Other ethical frames may be irrelevant, (...) incompatible with each other, or have unacceptable implications. When alternatives to efficiency are considered for precedence, we propose that it is critical to quantify the trade-offs, in particular, the lost health benefits associated with divergence from strict efficiency criteria. Using an example from HIV prevention in a high-prevalence African country, we show that favoring a rights-based decision could result in 92–118 added HIV infections per $100,000 of spending, compared to one based on cost-effectiveness. (shrink)

Clear and distinct perception is the centrepiece of Descartes’s philosophy — it is the source of all certainty — but what does he mean by ‘clear’ and ‘distinct’? According to the prevailing approach, what it means for a perception to be clear is that its content has a certain objective property, like truth. I argue instead that clarity is at least partly a subjective, phenomenal quality whereby a content is presented as true to the perceiving subject. Clarity comes in degrees. (...) Any weak degree of clarity, available to the senses, can be merely subjective, since what it presents as true may not actually be true. But complete clarity, available to intellectual perception, has an objective dimension, since what it presents as true is always some truth, some bit of reality. Further, I argue that the other perceptual qualities that Descartes identifies — obscurity, confusion, and distinctness — are all defined in terms of clarity. Of particular note is the fact that distinctness is not a positive feature to be added to clarity: a distinct perception is just a completely clear perception. (shrink)

Descartes is widely portrayed as the arch proponent of “the epistemological transparency of thought” (or simply, “Transparency”). The most promising version of this view—Transparency-through-Introspection—says that introspecting (i.e., inwardly attending to) a thought guarantees certain knowledge of that thought. But Descartes rejects this view and provides numerous counterexamples to it. I argue that, instead, Descartes’s theory of self-knowledge is just an application of his general theory of knowledge. According to his general theory, certain knowledge is acquired only through clear and distinct (...) intellection. Thus, in his view, certain knowledge of one’s thoughts is acquired only through clear and distinct intellection of one’s thoughts. Introspection is a form of intellection and it can be clear and distinct. Ordinarily, however, introspection isn’t clear and distinct but is instead confused with dubitable perceptions of bodies. To make introspection clear and distinct, we need to “sharply separate” it from all perceptions of bodies by doubting all perceptions of bodies. Without such radical doubt, introspection remains confused and we lack certain knowledge not just of the specific features of our thoughts, but even of the minimal claim that a thought exists. Far from being the high priest of Transparency, Descartes is radically opposed to it. (shrink)

Three kinds of things may be creative: persons, processes, and products. The standard definition of creativity, used nearly by consensus in psychological research, focuses specifically on products and says that a product is creative if and only if it is new and valuable. We argue that at least one further condition is necessary for a product to be creative: it must have been produced by the right kind of process. We argue furthermore that this point has an interesting epistemological implication: (...) when you judge a product to be creative--attributing creativity--you are not just judging it to be new and valuable. Even if you did not witness how it was produced, you are also making a judgement about how it was produced. (shrink)

Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, the Sol and Anne Dorff Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Rector of American Jewish University in Los Angeles, is one of today's leading Jewish ethicists. Writing extensively on the intersection of law, morality, science, religion, and medicine, Dorff offers an authoritative and non-Orthodox interpretation of Jewish law. As a leader in the Rabbinical Assembly's Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, he has shaped the religious practices of Conservative Jews. In serving on national advisory committees and (...) task forces, he has helped to articulate a distinctive Jewish voice on contested bioethical and biomedical issues. An analytic philosopher by training, Dorff has endorsed pluralism, arguing that Jewishness best flourishes in the context of American pluralism, and he has worked closely with non-Jews to advance religious pluralism in America. (shrink)

This six-volume set contains virtually all of the published work of Cairnes; it brings together, for the first time, all of his major works and almost all his uncollected articles, pamphlets and published letters. It is an essential resource for those studying the man himself, the tradition of Classical economy, and Irish intellectual history in the nineteenth century.

I submit that the intimations of "inner meanings" as presented in this novel should be reread as a transpositions from the language of sexual intercourse to the language of idealized consciousness, that is, from physical sensation to felt thought. Consider the imagery employed when Mrs. Dalloway reminds herself of her experiences of love: It was a sudden revelation, a tinge like a blush which one tried to check and then, as it spread, one yielded to its expansion, and rushed to (...) the farthest verge and there quivered and felt the world come closer, swollen with some astonishing significance, some pressure of rapture, which split its thin skin and gushed and poured with an extraordinary alleviation over the cracks and sores! Then, for that moment, she had seen an illumination; a match burning in a crocus; an inner meaning almost expressed. But the close withdrew; the hard softened. It was over - the moment. [p. 47]What is implied by the phrase "inner meaning" - secret, hidden, private - discoverable only by letting go of the protecting, preserving defenses of the self merged in the most fulfilling involvement with another, through rhythmic participation and withdrawal, is expressed in the superb image of "a match burning in a crocus." The ecstatic, climatic moment bursts into the vision of a flower, even a common flower, a crocus, seen, first as an object of beauty only: for flowers are felt to be useless, as having no use for us other than as objects for aesthetic contemplation, and then, as a match - straight, hard in the center - burning. Thus, the vividness of the visual perception is combined with the thrill of a danger involved, the inherent destructive potential of fire. Thereby, the flower image is experienced as an event, a performance, not a useful means to an end other than itself but of use only as expressive of consummatory pleasure, an end in itself. Expressions of such moments of insight characterize culminating experiences in answer to the question: "What will ever be enough?" to make life worth living.Morris Philipson is the author of Outline of a Jungian Aesthetics, a satirical novel, Bourgeois Anonymous, and a biography of Tolstoy, The Count Who Wished He Were a Peasant, winner of the Clara Ingram Judson award. He has also edited a number of books including Aesthetics Today and Aldous Huxley on Art and Artists. (shrink)

In July 1787, Dr John Elliot, apothecary and scientist, assaulted Miss Mary Boydell in the streets of London. Elliotś defenders sought his acquittal on the grounds of insanity, and cited as proof a paper in which he alleged the existence of intelligent life on the surface of the sun. He has since become a stock character in the history of astronomy, routinely cited as a pathetic example of the ignorance of his age. His reputation is undeserved since his claims (...) were well within the canon of the era, and since his anti-social behaviour may well be explained by considering the hazards of his profession. Rather than serving as an exemplar of science gone awry, Elliot's dilemma can provide an opportunity for fresh analysis of late eighteenth-century thought on solar structure and on the processes that sustain it. (shrink)

We present a criterion for the use of thought experiments as a guide to possibilia that bear on important arguments in philosophy of religion. We propose that the more successful thought experiments are closer to the world in terms of phenomenological realism and the values they are intended to track. This proposal is filled out by comparing thought experiments of life after death by Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman with an idealist thought experiment. In terms of realism and values (...) we contrast an exemplary thought experiment by Iris Murdoch with one we find problematic by William Irwin. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 10, October 2022.

Incarceration served as a primary apparatus by which abolition democracy was defeated after Reconstruction. Carceral institutions—such as the penitentiary, the convict-lease system, and the chain gang—functioned to demarcate the racial limits of citizenship and to impede equal political power. This article turns to W. E. B. Du Bois to argue that incarceration constrains democratic political equality. Turning to Du Bois’s treatment of crime and imprisonment in works including The Philadelphia Negro (1899), “The Spawn of Slavery” (1901), and The Souls of (...) Black Folk (1903), alongside archival material, I situate incarceration in Du Bois’s democratic thought. According to Du Bois, carceral institutions bounded ideas of full citizenship, fueled panic over Black “criminality,” fomented feelings of inferiority, and hampered the possibility for abolition democracy, a multiracial, multiclass movement committed to worker democracy and a future rid of slavery and subjugation. Du Bois shows us how carceral institutions run into tension with democratic ideals. (shrink)

Language has been argued to arise, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically, from specific patterns of brain wiring. We argue that it can further be shown that core features of language processing emerge from particular phasal and cross-frequency coupling properties of neural oscillations; what has been referred to as the language ‘oscillome’. It is expected that basic aspects of the language oscillome result from genetic guidance, what we will here call the language ‘oscillogenome’, for which we will put forward a list of (...) candidate genes. We have considered genes for altered brain rhythmicity in conditions involving language deficits: autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, specific language impairment and dyslexia. These selected genes map on to aspects of brain function, particularly on to neurotransmitter function. We stress that caution should be adopted in the construction of any oscillogenome, given the range of potential roles particular localized frequency bands have in cognition. Our aim is to propose a set of genome-to-language linking hypotheses that, given testing, would grant explanatory power to brain rhythms with respect to language processing and evolution. (shrink)

Efficiency as quantified and promoted by cost-effectiveness analysis sometimes conflicts with equity and other ethical values, such as the “rule of rescue” or rights-based ethical values. We describe the utilitarian foundations of cost-effectiveness analysis and compare it with alternative ethical principles. We find that while fallible, utilitarianism is usually superior to the alternatives. This is primarily because efficiency – the maximization of health benefits under a budget constraint – is itself an important ethical value. Other ethical frames may be irrelevant, (...) incompatible with each other, or have unacceptable implications. When alternatives to efficiency are considered for precedence, we propose that it is critical to quantify the trade-offs, in particular, the lost health benefits associated with divergence from strict efficiency criteria. Using an example from HIV prevention in a high-prevalence African country, we show that favoring a rights-based decision could result in 92–118 added HIV infections per $100,000 of spending, compared to one based on cost-effectiveness. (shrink)

When proponents of Intelligent Design theory deny that their theory is religious, the minimalistic theory they have in mind is the claim that the irreducibly complex adaptations found in nature were made by one or more intelligent designers. The denial that this theory is religious rests on the fact that it does not specify the identity of the designer—a supernatural God or a team of extra-terrestrials could have done the work. The present paper attempts to show that this reply underestimates (...) the commitments of the mini-ID Theory. The mini-ID theory, when supplemented with four independently plausible further assumptions, entails the existence of a supernatural intelligent designer. It is further argued that scientific theories, such as the Darwinian theory of evolution, are neutral on the question of whether supernatural designers exist. (shrink)

It has been argued by some that the present non-existence of future persons entails that whatever obligations we have towards them are not based on rights which they have or might come to have. This view is refuted. It is argued that the present non-existence of future persons is no impediment to the attribution of rights to them. It is also argued that, even if the present non-existence of future persons were an impediment to the attribution of rights to them, (...) the rights they will have when they come into existence constitute a constraint on present actions. Both arguments build on a suggestion of Joel Feinberg's. Next, three arguments are considered which, while they do not highlight the non-existence issue, are related to it. The view that the causal dependence, of (some) future people on present policies, erodes or weakens the claim that rights considerations should constrain our present actions concerning them, is considered and rejected. The view that future people can only have rights to what is available at the time at which these people come into existence is considered and rejected. So too is the view that the attribution of rights to future people involves, in virtue of resource scarcity, an unacceptable arbitrariness. (shrink)

Perceptual experience is present-directed in the sense that what we perceptually experience seems to be temporally present, while what we remember or imagine does not. One way of explaining this contrast is to claim that perceptual experience uniquely involves awareness of the property of presence (either conceived as an observer-independent property of the present time or as a relation of simultaneity between an event and one’s experience of it). I argue against this explanation and in favour of one on which (...) perception’s feeling of present-orientation is explained in terms of the feeling of aptness for action guidance that characterizes perceptual experience. I argue that an advantage of this view is that, unlike its rivals, it can make perception’s present-directedness straightforwardly compatible with the specious present theory as an account of experiences of motion and change. (shrink)

Through an extensive examination of the conceptions of social justice that may be ascribed validly to Karl Marx's political thougtht, Elliot R. Pruzan analyzes the apparent conflict between Marx as value-neutral social scientist and as revolutionary. He suggests a resolution to this conflict through a carefully constructed presentation of Marx's theory of human nature and the ethical presuppositions of that theory. In so doing, Pruzan identifies those elements of Marx's political thought that warrant our continued serious consideration of it (...) as a genuine theory of politics, especially when compared with other more traditionally conceived forms of political thought. (shrink)

Abstract:Bipolar or related disorders (BoRD) present unique practical and existential problems for people who live with them. All agents experience changes in the things they care about over time. However people living with BoRD face drastic shifts in what seems valuable to them, which upset their longitudinal values (if, indeed, any stable longitudinal values are available in the first place). Navigating these evaluative high seas presents agents living with BoRD with a distinctive existential question, not shared by those on calmer (...) waters. I draw out two contrasting ways in which someone living with BoRD might seek to support their self-determination in these circumstances, by crafting appropriate self care and support regimes. The first strategy involves managing one’s affective episodes so that they do not interrupt one’s plans and long-term agency over time. The second involves a regimen that allows one the greatest degree of freedom in adapting to changes in one’s experiences of value. What distinguishes these sorts of self-determination is the scope at which they are predicated. Although both sorts of self-determination allow an individual to rule themselves, they alter the overall shape of one’s autonomy in quite different ways. (shrink)

RESUMO Este artigo circunscreve a noção de nada absoluto cunhada pela Escola de Kyoto, na intenção de analisar tanto a possibilidade de que exista uma relação intrínseca entre a experiência da linguagem japonesa e essa tentativa contemporânea e historicamente única de realizar um pensamento que conjunte as tradições ocidentais e orientais da filosofia, quanto as diferenças de abordagens filosóficas internas à própria Escola. ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to circumscribe the notion of absolute nothingness created by Kyoto School. (...) The intention is to analyze not only if there is an intrinsic relation between the experience of the Japanese language and the contemporary and historically unique attempt of performing a thought that links the philosophical tradition of both West and East, but also if there are different philosophical approaches in the inner of the Kyoto School itself. (shrink)

according to some interpreters of John Locke’s moral philosophy, there is an inconsistency between Locke’s adoption of hedonism and his commitment to a natural law view of ethics. Indeed, Locke is not fully explicit about the relationship between pleasure and pain and the natural law in the Essay concerning Human Understanding. But the thesis I defend in this paper is that the idea of convenientia, according to which God harmonizes the natural law with human nature, can be used to understand (...) how Locke synthesizes the hedonism he adopts in the 1670s, and ultimately expresses in Book II, chapter 20 of the Essay, with the natural law doctrine he maintains over the course of his lifetime. As I argue, God’s providential.. (shrink)

This piece raises a new challenge for Christian materialist accounts of human persons. Revisiting one of the perennial challenges for Christian materialism, explaining the metaphysical compatibility of resurrection and the life everlasting with materialist metaphysics, I argue that resuscitation phenomena reported in scripture undermine van Inwagen’s and Zimmerman’s attempts to reconcile resurrection and materialism. Although this challenge to Christian materialism is not insurmountable, it provides good reason to reject several of the most serious Christian materialist projects and offers a reason (...) for Christians to consider alternatives to materialism. (shrink)

How can we use our knowledge of how the mind works to help people act in ways that can prevent disaster, prepare for it, or at the very least, help them respond to a disaster in ways that will reduce its impact? This paper suggests that the most effective method for helping the public deal with disaster, and preventing denial, is to provide them with a concrete, doable, and effective strategy. A number of examples are discussed, including government warnings about (...) increased threat levels, the handling of the 9/11 cleanup by the EPA, the disaster relief problems during Hurricane Katrina and several social psychology experiments which used a "hypocrisy paradigm" to address condom use and water conservation among college students. The paper suggests that the best policy approach for dealing with disaster is one which not only convinces people to prepare for disasters by changing their behaviors through puncturing their rationalizations but also one where communication which produces high fear can lead to sensible action. (shrink)

Elliot R. Wolfson intervenes in the debate over Martin Heidegger and Nazism from a unique perspective, as a scholar of Jewish mysticism and philosophy who has been profoundly influenced by Heidegger's work. He reveals crucial aspects of Heidegger's thinking that betray an affinity with dimensions of Jewish thought.