Comparative Education examines the common problems facing education systems around the world as the result of global economic, social, and cultural forces. Issues related to the governance, financing, provision, processes, and outcomes of education systems for differently situated social groups are described and analyzed in specific regional, national, and local contexts.

The Discourses are a key source for ancient Stoicism, one of the richest and most influential schools of thought in Western philosophy. They not only represent the Stoicism of Epictetus' own time, but also reflect the teachings of such early Stoics as Zeno and Chrysippus, whose writings are largely lost. The first of the four books of the Discourses is philosophically the richest: it focuses primarily on ethics and moral psychology, but also touches on issues of logic, epistemology, science, and (...) rhetoric. Other notable schools of ancient thought, including Epicureanism, the Sceptics, and the Cynics, are discussed. Robert Dobbin presents a new translation into clear modern English of this important work, together with the first commentary on the work since the eighteenth century. Each of the thirty discourses that make up Book 1 is introduced and summarized; then the arguments are examined in detail. The general introduction gives background information about Epictetus' life, the intellectual context of the work, the style of the discourses, and the history of the text. A bibliography surveys the literature. The volume serves as a guide to Epictetus' thought as a whole. Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers General Editors: Jonathan Barnes and A. A. LongThis series is designed to encourage philosophers and students of philosophy to explore the fertile terrain of later ancient philosophy. The texts will range in date from the first century BC to the fifth century AD, and they will cover all the parts and all the schools of philosophy. Each volume contains a substantial introduction, an English translation, and a critical commentary on the philosophical claims and arguments of the text. The translations aim primarily at accuracy and fidelity, but also at readability; they are accompanied by notes on textual problems that affect the philosophical interpretation. No knowledge of Greek or Latin is assumed. (shrink)

Why We Argue : A Guide to Political Disagreement in an Age of Unreason presents an accessible and engaging introduction to the theory of argument, with special emphasis on the way argument works in public political debate. The authors develop a view according to which proper argument is necessary for one's individual cognitive health; this insight is then expanded to the collective health of one's society. Proper argumentation, then, is seen to play a central role in a well-functioning democracy. Written (...) in a lively style and filled with examples drawn from the real world of contemporary politics, and questions following each chapter to encourage discussion, Why We Argue reads like a guide for the participation in, and maintenance of, modern democracy. An excellent student resource for courses in critical thinking, political philosophy, and related fields, Why We Argue is an important contribution to reasoned debate. What's New in the Second Edition: Updated examples throughout the book, including examples from the 2016 U.S. election and first years of the Trump presidency; Expanded coverage of dialectical fallacies, including coverage of new types of fallacies and of sites where such fallacies thrive ; Revised For Further Thought questions and definitions of Key Terms, included at the end of each chapter; The addition of five new chapters: Deep Disagreement Argument by Analogy Argument between the Ads The Owl of Minerva Argumentative Responsibility and Repair. (shrink)

The Routledge Companion to Pragmatism offers 44 cutting-edge chapters--written specifically for this volume by an international team of distinguished researchers--that assess the past, present, and future of pragmatism. Going beyond the exposition of canonical texts and figures, the collection presents pragmatism as a living philosophical idiom that continues to devise promising theses in contemporary debates. The chapters are organized into four major parts: Pragmatism's History and Figures Pragmatism and Plural Traditions Pragmatism's Reach Pragmatism's Relevance Each chapter provides up-to-date research tools (...) for philosophers, students, and others who wish to locate pragmatist options in their contemporary research fields. As a whole, the volume demonstrates that the vitality of pragmatism lies in its ability to build upon, and transcend, the ideas and arguments of its founders. When seen in its full diversity, pragmatism emerges as one of the most successful and influential philosophical movements in Western philosophy. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 4, April 2022.

Although some attention has been devoted to assessing the attitudes and concerns of businesspeople toward ethics, relatively little attention has focused on the attitudes and concerns of tomorrow's business leaders, today's college students. In this investigation a national sample was utilized to study college students' attitudes toward business ethics, with the results being analyzed by academic classification, academic major, and sex. Results of the investigation indicate that college students are currently somewhat concerned about business ethics in general, and that female (...) students in particular are more concerned about ethical issues than are their male counterparts. (shrink)

We are pleased to find that our 2005 paper “Why Pragmatists Cannot Be Pluralists” continues to draw critical attention. It seems to us that despite the many responses to our paper, its central challenge has not been met. That challenge is for pragmatists to articulate a genuine pluralism that is consistent with their broader commitments. Unfortunately, much of the wrangling over our paper has aimed to capture the word “pluralism” for pragmatist deployment; little has been done to clarify what that (...) term means when pragmatists use it. This is pragmatically unacceptable. Hence there is work to be done, and we are happy to revisit the issues.We accept the central conclusion of Joshua Anderson’s.. (shrink)

This essay summarizes the research program developed in our new book, Why We Argue (And How We Should): A Guide to Political Disagreement (Routledge, 2014). Humans naturally want to know and to take themselves as having reason on their side. Additionally, many people take democracy to be a uniquely proper mode of political arrangement. There is an old tension between reason and democracy, however, and it was first articulated by Plato. Plato’s concern about democracy was that it detached political decision (...) from reason. Epistemic democrats attempt to show how the two can be re-attached. What is necessary is to couple the core democratic liberties with norms of rational exchange. Thus epistemology and argument provides a basis for democratic politics. Why We Argue (And How We Should) makes a case for the connection and develops a toolkit for maintaining it. (shrink)

Many studies have shown that marijuana can negatively affect the cognitive development of adolescents. For some individuals, marijuana use may also initiate opioid use, dose escalation, and opioid use disorder. States that legalize marijuana should help adolescents through regulation of advertising and availability of marijuana-infused edibles. Such policies may assist in protecting neurodevelopment of the adolescent and young adult brain. The federal government should also remove its prohibition of marijuana sales and use, leaving their regulation to state law-makers.

The traditional view of symbol grounding seeks to connect an a priori internal representation or ‘form’ to its external referent. But such a ‘form’ is usually itself systematically composed out of more primitive parts, so this view ignores its grounding in the physics of the world. Some previous work simulating multiple talking/listening agents has effectively taken this stance, and shown how a shared discrete speech code can emerge. Taking the earlier work of Oudeyer, we have extended his model to include (...) a dispersive force intended to account broadly for a speaker’s motivation to increase auditory distinctiveness. New simulations show that vowel systems result that are more representative of the range seen in human languages. These simulations make many profound abstractions and assumptions. Relaxing these by including more physically and physiologically realistic mechanisms for talking and listening is seen as the key to replicating more complex and dynamic aspects of speech, such as consonant-vowel patterning. (shrink)

Originally published in 1967 Medieval Minds looks at the Middle Ages as a period with changing attitudes towards mental health and its treatment. The book argues that it was a period that that bridged the ancient with the modern, ignorance with knowledge and superstition with science. The Middle Ages spanned almost a millennium in the history of the humanities and provided the people of this period with the benefit of this knowledge. The book looks at the promise and progress which (...) was reflected by thinkers such as Augustin and Aurelianus, Alexander of Tralles and Paul of Aegina. The book also looks at martyrs like Valentine and Dympna, and the patrons of those afflicted with illnesses such as epilepsy and insanity. Written by the psychologist Thomas Francis Graham, this book provides a distinct and unique insight into the mind of those living in the medieval period and will be of interest to academics of history and literature alike. (shrink)

In this reply to J. Edward Hackett’s “Why James Can Be an Existential Pluralist,” we show that Hackett’s argument against our 2005 thesis that pragmatism and pluralism are inconsistent fails. First, his rejection of our distinction between epistemic and metaphysical forms of pluralism does not affect our original argument’s soundness. Second, his proposed existential pluralism is a form of monism, and so fails as an example of pragmatist pluralism. Though we no longer hold the inconsistency thesis that we defended in (...) 2005, Hackett’s criticism of it nevertheless fails. (shrink)

Why We Argue : A Guide to Political Disagreement presents an accessible and engaging introduction to the theory of argument, with special emphasis on the way argument works in public political debate. The authors develop a view according to which proper argument is necessary for one’s individual cognitive health; this insight is then expanded to the collective health of one’s society. Proper argumentation, then, is seen to play a central role in a well-functioning democracy. Written in a lively style and (...) filled with examples drawn from the real world of contemporary politics, and questions following each chapter to encourage discussion, Why We Argue : A Guide to Political Disagreement reads like a guide for the participation in, and maintenance of, modern democracy. An excellent student resource for courses in critical thinking, political philosophy, and related fields, Why We Argue : A Guide to Political Disagreement is an important contribution to reasoned debate. (shrink)

For the greater part of the last 50 years, it has been common for philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists to invoke the notion of realization in discussing the relationship between the mind and the brain. In traditional philosophy of mind, mental states are said to be realized, instantiated, or implemented in brain states. Artificial intelligence is sometimes described as the attempt either to model or to actually construct systems that realize some of the same psychological abilities that we and (...) other living creatures possess. The claim that specific psychological. (shrink)

In the United States, people may donate organs and tissues to a family member, friend, or anyone whose specific need becomes known to them. For example, in late 2003 dozens of people came forward to donate a kidney to a professional basketball player known to them only through his sports performances. People may also donate a kidney to no one in particular through a process known as nondirected donation. In nondirected donation, people donate a kidney to the organ allocation system (...) rather than to anyone known to them personally. There are limits, though, to generosity. People are usually not allowed to donate to groups of people, no matter the contours of the group, whether white, black, Catholic or Presbyterian, third-time liver recipient, and so on. As the agency that oversees national transplantation policy, the United Network for Organs Sharing does not allow this sort of restricted donation, though it appears that some regional Organ Procurement Organizations occasionally bend the rules when donors insist that their organs go to children or to first-time recipients. Those ad hoc arrangements are, however, the exception to the rule. (shrink)

Sleep researchers in different disciplines disagree about how fully dreaming can be explained in terms of brain physiology. Debate has focused on whether REM sleep dreaming is qualitatively different from nonREM (NREM) sleep and waking. A review of psychophysiological studies shows clear quantitative differences between REM and NREM mentation and between REM and waking mentation. Recent neuroimaging and neurophysiological studies also differentiate REM, NREM, and waking in features with phenomenological implications. Both evidence and theory suggest that there are isomorphisms between (...) the phenomenology and the physiology of dreams. We present a three-dimensional model with specific examples from normally and abnormally changing conscious states. Key Words: consciousness; dreaming; neuroimaging; neuromodulation; NREM; phenomenology; qualia; REM; sleep. (shrink)